Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression: A Longitudinal Study using Eye-gaze Tracking to Study Attentional Biases in Never Depressed, Non-Relapsed, and Relapsed Individuals
Abstract
Cognitive models of depression propose that attentional biases are an important cognitive vulnerability in those with a history of depression (e.g., Gotlib & Joormann, 2010; Yiend, 2010; Beck & Haigh, 2014). This study prospectively examined attentional biases in never and previously depressed individuals, who were separated into relapsed and non-relapsed groups. Analyses examined total fixation times, temporal profiles of attention, and prediction of relapse. The evidence from all analyses suggested that attention to positive information is a key vulnerability or resiliency factor related to depression relapse. Specifically, relapsed participants attended to positive images less overall, decreased attention to positive images over the study period, and exhibited significant differences in their temporal profiles of attention for positive images relative to those non-relapsed and never depressed. Less time attending to positive images at the initial visit was predictive of depression relapse, although limited by a small sample size. The attentional biases of the non-relapsed participants reflected both resiliency against and vulnerability to relapse, as they exhibited attentional biases to positive information similar to never depressed participants, but attended to depression-related information more than never depressed participants. Attention to depression-related information was not predictive of depression relapse. Overall, findings indicated that attentional biases to positive information may be most relevant to relapse vulnerability, whereas attentional biases to depression-related information may be more relevant to the maintenance of depressive episodes. The differences observed between relapsed and non-relapsed participants indicate that groups of previously depressed individuals are heterogeneous, which should be taken into account in future research that examines vulnerability to depression. The implications of the study findings are discussed as related to cognitive models of depression and the limitations that may contribute to inconsistent findings in the literature on attentional biases and cognitive vulnerability to depression.
Description
Keywords
Psychology--Clinical
Citation
Newman, K. (2016). Cognitive Vulnerability to Depression: A Longitudinal Study using Eye-gaze Tracking to Study Attentional Biases in Never Depressed, Non-Relapsed, and Relapsed Individuals (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25347