Poor performance on cognitive tasks in depression: Doing too much or not enough?
Depressed people perform poorly on cognitive tasks. It is unclear whether these deficits are due to decreased devotion of task-related resources or to increased attention to non-task-related information. In the present study, we examined the degree to which depressed and healthy adults displayed pupillary motility that varied at the frequency of presented stimuli on a cognitive task, which we interpreted as task-related processing, and at other frequencies, which we interpreted as reflecting intrinsic processing. Depressed participants made more consecutive errors than did controls. More pupillary motility at other frequencies was associated with poorer performance, whereas more pupillary motility at the frequency of presented stimuli was associated with better performance. Depressed participants had more pupillary motility at other frequencies, which partially mediated observed deficits in cognitive performance. These findings support the hypothesis that allocating cognitive resources to intrinsic processing contributes to observed cognitive deficits in depression.
Jones
Neil P
NP
Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. jonesnp@upmc.edu
Siegle
Greg J
GJ
Muelly
Emilie R
ER
Haggerty
Agnes
A
Ghinassi
Frank
F
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D018680:Cholinergic Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011680:Pupil / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D013057:Spectrum Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D018680:Cholinergic Antagonists