title: Evidence against mood-congruent attentional bias in Major Depressive Disorder.
abstract: Depression is consistently associated with biased retrieval and interpretation of affective stimuli, but evidence for depressive bias in earlier cognitive processing, such as attention, is mixed. In five separate experiments, individuals with depression (three experiments with clinically diagnosed major depression, two experiments with dysphoria measured via the Beck Depression Inventory) completed three tasks designed to elicit depressive biases in attention, including selective attention, attentional switching, and attentional inhibition. Selective attention was measured using a modified emotional Stroop task, while attentional switching and inhibition was examined via an emotional task-switching paradigm and an emotional counter task. Results across five different experiments indicate that individuals with depression perform comparably with healthy controls, providing corroboration that depression is not characterized by biases in attentional processes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. Electronic address: chungfuc@umich.edu.
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Stephanie D
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Preston
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jonides
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Alicia Hofelich
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Kirti
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Thummala
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Melynda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Casement
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Courtney
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hsing
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, 530 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
authors.forename: Patricia J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Deldin
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001288:Attention; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D056344:Executive Function; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D012016:Reference Values; D012660:Semantics; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Attention; Cognitive science; Depression; Executive Function