Attention bias for negative semantic stimuli in late life depression and clinical research portfolio

BF Psychology

McIlwraith, Sarah ; McMillan, Tom

University:University of Glasgow

Department:Institute of Health and Wellbeing

关键词: Attention Bias, Late Life Depression, Disengagement;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1251/1/2009mcilwraithdclinpsy.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

Background: Recent studies indicate that depressed individuals may have difficultiesdisengaging visual-spatial attention from negative information. Preliminary studies indepressed older adults provide evidence for the existence of biased attention to negativestimuli. However, the specific components of attention driving the detected bias effects in thispopulation are not known. Aims: This study examined the mechanisms underlying attentionbiases in Late Life Depression (LLD). It was predicted that depressed older adults, like theiryounger counterparts, would demonstrate an impaired ability to disengage attention fromnegative stimuli relative to neutral and positive stimuli, as compared to non-depressed olderadult controls. Methods: 16 clinically depressed older adults and 22 older adult controlsmatched for age, gender and pre-morbid verbal IQ performed an emotional spatial cueing taskthat required classifying a target stimulus. The location of the target was correctly orincorrectly cued by a neutral, positive or negative word. Results: Planned comparisons didnot support the primary hypotheses. However, participants in the depressed group, in general,were slower to respond than participants in the control group. Conclusions: Results suggestthat the ability to disengage attention from negative words is not impaired in LLD; howevermethodological limitations prevent firm conclusions being drawn. Possible explanations forthe results are discussed along with directions for future research.