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Evidence for attention to threatening stimuli in depression
A Mathews1, V Ridgeway, D A Williamson
1Applied Psychology Unit, Medical Research Council, Cambridge, U.K.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
|September 1, 1996
Summary
Depressed individuals show attentional bias towards socially threatening words, challenging previous theories. This study reveals emotional disturbance influences attention to relevant stimuli.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Background:
- Attentional bias is a cognitive mechanism implicated in emotional disorders.
- Previous research primarily linked attentional bias to anxiety disorders.
- The role of attentional bias in depression requires further investigation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate attentional bias in depressed versus anxious subjects.
- To determine if attentional effects occur for unidentified threatening stimuli.
- To examine the specificity of attentional bias for social versus physical threat.
Main Methods:
- A modified attentional deployment task (MacLeod, Mathews, & Tata, 1986) was employed.
- Subjects detected a dot to assess attentional allocation towards threatening vs. neutral words.
- Stimuli included socially and physically threatening words, some of which were unidentifiable.
Main Results:
- Depressed subjects exhibited attentional bias towards socially threatening words.
- Anxious subjects showed attentional bias towards physically threatening words.
- Panic disorder patients demonstrated attentional bias towards unidentified physically threatening stimuli.
Conclusions:
- Emotional disturbance, including depression, is associated with attentional bias towards personally relevant emotional stimuli.
- The hypothesis that attentional bias is exclusive to anxiety was not supported.
- Attentional bias may occur even for stimuli that cannot be fully identified.