The Relationship Between Mood and Temporal Patterns of Attention as a Function of Depression Vulnerability
Abstract
Cognitive theories propose that individuals who experience depression may have a latent vulnerability activated during stress that predisposes them to depression (Gotlib & Joormann, 2010). Previous studies found that dysphoric individuals exhibit a negative bias in their attention, attending to negative stimuli more than never depressed individuals and to positive stimuli less (e.g., Arndt et al., 2014). Few studies have examined attention in remitted depressed individuals. The present study examined attentional biases in never depressed, remitted depressed, and dysphoric women using eye-gaze tracking. Participants experienced either a neutral or sad mood induction (MI) and then their attention to images was recorded. There were no group differences in response to the sad MI; never depressed and remitted depressed women who received the sad MI increased their attention to positive images and decreased their attention to threat-related images. The absence of group differences between never depressed and remitted depressed are discussed.
Description
Keywords
Psychology--Clinical
Citation
Fernandez, A. (2016). The Relationship Between Mood and Temporal Patterns of Attention as a Function of Depression Vulnerability (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28298