Cognitive processing of emotional information in depression, panic, and somatoform disorder

Emotional Stroop tasks (subliminal/supraliminal exposures), implicit memory tasks (tachistoscopic word identification), and explicit memory tasks (free recall after incidental learning) with 4 word types (physical threat, positive, negative, and neutral words) were administered to patients with major depressive disorder (n=30), panic disorder (n=33), somatoform disorder (n=25), and healthy control participants (n=33). On the Stroop task, panic patients showed subliminal interferences for physical threat and negative words, depressive patients showed supraliminal interferences for negative words, and somatoform patients showed supraliminal interferences for physical threat words. No patient groups demonstrated implicit memory biases. On the explicit memory task, depressive and panic patients showed memory biases for negative words; somatoform patients showed biases for physical threat words.