Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:29:20.592Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Attentional Biases and Vulnerability to Depression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2014

Myriam Gallardo Pérez ,
Rosa Mª Baños Rivera ,
Amparo Belloch Fuster  and
Mª Ángeles Ruipérez Rodríguez
Myriam Gallardo Pérez
Affiliation:
University of Jaume I
Rosa Mª Baños Rivera*
Affiliation:
University of Valencia
Amparo Belloch Fuster
Affiliation:
University of Valencia
Mª Ángeles Ruipérez Rodríguez
Affiliation:
University of Jaume I
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Dr. Rosa María Baños, Departamento de Personalidad. Facultad de Psicología. Avda. Blasco Ibáñez, 21. 46010 Valencia (Spain). E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study was designed to examine selective processing of emotional information in depression. It focuses on possible attentional biases in depression, and whether such biases constitute a cognitive vulnerability factor to suffer from the disorder or, on the contrary, they reflect a feature associated exclusively with the clinical level of depression. 81 participants were included in the study: 15 with a diagnosis of Major Depression; 17 were diagnosed as Dysthymia; 11 participants scored over 18 in the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979); 15 participants, in whom a sad mood state was induced by an experimental mood induction (Velten technique + music, or biographical recall + music); and 23 participants as a normal-control group. All participants were presented with the emotional Stroop task. The data indicated that attentional bias was only present in the group of patients with Major Depression, so it does not seem to be a cognitive vulnerability factor for this disorder.

En este trabajo se examina el procesamiento selectivo de la información emocional en depresión. Los objetivos se centran en comprobar, en primer lugar, si existen o no sesgos atencionales en la depresión y, en segundo lugar, si estos sesgos constituyen un factor de vulnerabilidad cognitiva a padecer el trastorno o si, por el contrario, reflejan una característica asociada exclusivamente al nivel clínico de depresión. Los participantes fueron 15 pacientes con diagnóstico de Depresión Mayor, 17 pacientes con diagnóstico de Distimia, 11 personas con una puntuación superior a 18 en el Inventario de Depresión de Beck (Beck, Rush, Shaw y Emery, 1979), 15 personas a las que se indujo un estado de ánimo triste (técnica Velten con música, o recuerdo autobiográfico con música) y 23 personas “controles”. Todos los sujetos cumplimentaron la tarea Stroop emocional. Los datos indicaron que el sesgo atencional sólo se manifestaba en el subgrupo de Depresión Mayor, por lo que no parece constituir un factor de vulnerabilidad cognitiva para la depresión.

Keywords

depressionvulnerabilityattentional biasesStroop taskdepresiónvulnerabilidadsesgos atencionalestarea Stroop
Type
Articles
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 2 , May 1999 , pp. 11 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (1979). Judgement of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 481–485.Google ScholarPubMed
Alloy, L.B., & Abramson, L.Y. (1988). Depressive realism: Four theoretical perspectives. In Alloy, L.B. (Ed.), Cognitive processes in depression (pp. 223–265). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1987). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (3rd ed. revised). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.Google Scholar
Beck, A.T. (1967). Depression: Clinical experimental and theoretical aspects. New York: Hoeber.Google Scholar
Beck, A.T. (1976). Cognitive therapy and the emotional disorders. New York: International University Press.Google Scholar
Beck, A.T. (1987). Cognitive models of depression. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 1, 5–37.Google Scholar
Beck, A.T., Rush, A.J., Shaw, B.F., & Emery, G. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: Guilford Press. (Spanish translation: Terapia cognitiva de la depresión. Bilbao: Desclée de Brouwer, 1983).Google Scholar
Carter, C.S., Maddock, R.J., & Magliozzi, J. (1992). Patterns of abnormal processing of emotional information in panic disorder and major depression. Psychopathology, 25, 65–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cassiday, K.L., McNally R.J., & Zeitlin, S.B. (1992). Cognitive processing of trauma cues in rape victims with post-traumatic stress disorder. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 16, 283–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dalgleish, T., & Watts, F.N. (1990). Biases of attention and memory in disorders of anxiety and depression. Clinical Psychological Review, 10, 589–604.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foa, E.B., & McNally, R.J. (1986). Sensitivity to feared stimuli in obsessive-compulsives: A dichotic listening analysis. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 10, 477–486.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García-Palacios, A. (1995). Inducción experimental del estado de ánimo: variables moduladoras y cuestiones metodológicas. Unpublished 1st degree dissertation. Universitat Jaume I, Castellón, Spain.Google Scholar
Gotlib, I.H., & Cane, O.B. (1987). Construct accessibility and clinical depression: A longitudinal investigation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 96, 199–204.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gotlib, I.H., & McCann, C.D. (1984). Construct accessibility and depression: An examination of cognitive and affective factors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 427–439.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenberg, M.S., & Beck, A.T. (1989). Depression versus anxiety: A test of the content specificity hypothesis. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 9–13.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hill, A.B., & Dutton, F. (1989). Notes and shorter communications: Depression and selective attention to self-esteem threatening words. Personality and Individual Differences, 10, 915–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hill, A.B., & Knowles, T.H. (1991). Depression and the “emotional” Stroop effect. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 481–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, D.A., Rapee, R.M., Heimberg, R.G., & Dombeck, M.J. (1990). Representations of the self in social phobia: Vulnerability to social threat. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 477–485.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaspi, S.P., McNally, R.J., & Amir, N. (1995). Cognitive processing of emotional information in posttraumatic stress disorder. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 19, 319–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kenealy, P.M. (1986). The Velten mood induction procedure: A methodological review. Motivation and Emotion, 10, 315–335.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klieger, D.M., & Cordner, M.D. (1990). The Stroop task as a measure of construct accessibility in depression. Personality and Individual Differences, 11, 19–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larsen, R.J., & Sinnet, L.M. (1991). Meta-Analysis of experimental manipulations: Some factors affecting the Velten mood induction procedure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 323–334.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lavy, E., van den Hout, M., & Arntz, A. (1993). Attentional bias and spider phobia: Conceptual and clinical issues. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 17–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lavy, E., van Oppen, P, & van den Hout, M. (1994). Selective processing of emotional information in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 32, 243–246.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
MacLeod, C., Mathews, A., & Tata, P. (1986). Attentional bias in emotional disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 95, 15–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Martin, M. (1990b). Cognitive biases in anxiety. In Drenth, P.J.D., Sergent, J.A., & Takens, R.J. (Eds.), European perspectives in psychology. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Martin, M., Argyle, M., & Crossland, J. (1990). A trouble shared is a trouble halved: Social and solitary, positive and negative mood induction. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Martin, M., Williams, R.M., & Clark, D.M. (1991). Does anxiety lead to selective processing of threat-related information? Behaviour Research and Therapy, 29, 147–160.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathews, A.Mogg, K., Kentish, J., & Eysenck, M. (1995). Effect of psychological treatment on cognitive biases in generalized anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33, 293–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mathews, A.M., & Sebastian, S. (1993). Supression of emotional Stroop effects by fear arousal. Cognition and Emotion, 7, 517–530.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mattia, J.I., Heimberg, R.G., & Hope, D.A. (1993). The revised Stroop colour-naming task in social phobics. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31, 305–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCabe, S.B., & Gotlib, I.H. (1993) Attentional processing in clinically depressed subjects: A longitudinal investigation. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 17, 359–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNally, R.J., Amir, R., Louro, C.E., Lukach, B.M., Rienmann, B.C., & Calamari, J.E. (1994). Cognitive processing of idiographic emotional information in panic disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 32, 119–122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McNally, R.J., English, G.E., & Lipke, H.J. (1993). Assessment of intrusive cognition in PTSD: Use of the modified Stroop paradigm. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 6, 33–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNally, R.J., Rienmann, B.C., & Kim, E. (1990). Selective processing of threat cues in post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 398–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mogg, K., Bradley, B.P., Williams, R., & Mathews, A. (1993). Subliminal processing of emotional information in anxiety and depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 304–311.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mogg, K., Mathews, A., May, J., Grove, M., Eysenck, M., & Weinman, J. (1991). Assessment of cognitive bias in anxiety and depression using a colour perception task. Cognition and Emotion, 5, 221–238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ruipérez, M.A. & Belloch, A. (1997). Depresión y autoesquemas depresivos en pacientes deprimidos y ansiosos. Revista de Psicopatología y Psicología Clínica, 2, 65–80.Google Scholar
Segal, Z.V., & Vella, D.D. (1990). Self-Schema in major depression: Replication and extension of a priming methodology. Cognitive Therapy and Research, 14, 161–176.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spielberger, C.D. (1983). Manual for the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Rev.ed.). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, R.L., Endicott, J., & Robins, E. (1978). Research diagnostic criteria for a selected group of functional disorders. New York: New York Psychiatric Institute.Google Scholar
Stroop, J.R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18, 643–662.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velten, E. (1968). A laboratory task for induction of mood states. Behavior Research and Therapy, 6, 473–482.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Watts, F.N., McKenna, F.P., Sharrock, R., & Trezise, L. (1986). Colour naming of phobia-related words. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 97–108.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, J.M.G., Watts, F.N., MacLeod, C., & Mathews, A.M. (1988). Cognitive psychology and emotional disorders. Chicester, UK: Wiley.Google Scholar
Williams, J.M.G., Watts, F.N., MacLeod, C., & Mathews, A.M. (1997). Cognitive psychology and emotional disorders (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Zimmerman, M., Coryell, W., & Wilson, S. (1986). A self-report scale to diagnose major depressive disorder. Archives of General Psychiatry, 43, 1076–1081.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed