Dysfunctional distracter inhibition and facilitation for sad faces in depressed individuals

Depression is a commonly occurring mental disorder, which is characterized by dysfunctional inhibition and facilitation for emotional stimuli. The aim of the present study was to investigate distracter inhibition and facilitation for emotional faces in depressed individuals in a negative affective priming task. Control participants who had never suffered from depression (NC), sub-clinically depressed participants, and participants diagnosed with a current major depressive disorder (MDD), Anxiety Inventory, the Hamilton Depression Rating Score were recruited using the Beck Depression Inventory, the Beck and DSM-IV as tools. Twenty-four participants in each group completed a negative affective priming task. The main finding was that there were no significant differences among the three groups in the positive and negative priming effects of happy faces. However, there were significant differences for positive and negative priming effects of sad faces between each pair of groups, with the effects being lowest for MDD and highest for NC participants. It can be concluded that depressed individuals are characterized by enhanced facilitation and deficient inhibition for negative materials, which is a stable cognitive vulnerability risk, possibly associated with the occurrence of depression. There are differences in the cognitive dysfunction for negative stimuli between clinically depressed and sub-clinically depressed individuals.