title: Facilitated attentional disengagement from negative information in relation to self-reported depressive symptoms of Dutch female undergraduate students.
abstract: Prior research has shown that depressive symptoms are associated with an enhanced attention toward negative stimuli and difficulty of disengaging attention from negative stimuli. The current study was an extension of a 2005 study by Koster and colleagues. A different stimulus presentation time and word set were used. The whole range of depressive symptoms was included in this sample instead of creating dichotomized groups. The Exogenous Cueing Task with negative, positive, and neutral cues was administered to 85 female undergraduate university students. Participants completed the Beck's Depression Inventory-II-NL questionnaire to measure self-reported depression. Contrary to previous findings, depressive symptoms were related to a facilitated rather than impaired attentional disengagement from negative stimuli. An explanation for the discrepancy with findings from Koster, et al. may be the different stimulus presentation time (1000 msec. instead of 500 or 1500 msec.).
authors.affiliation: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behavior, Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, Karakter Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University Centre Nijmegen, The Netherlands. P.vanDeurzen@psy.umcn.nl
authors.forename: Patricia A M
authors.initials: PA
authors.lastname: Van Deurzen
authors.forename: Jeffrey
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Roelofs
authors.forename: Dorine I E
authors.initials: DI
authors.lastname: Slaats-Willemse
authors.forename: Mike
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rinck
authors.forename: Jan K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Buitelaar
authors.forename: Anne E M
authors.initials: AE
authors.lastname: Speckens
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009949:Orientation; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011930:Reaction Time; D012660:Semantics; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult