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Attentional bias to negative information has been proposed to be a cognitive vulnerability factor for the development of depression. In 2 experiments, the authors examined mood-congruent attentional bias in dysphoria. In both experiments, dysphoric and nondysphoric participants performed an attentional task with negative, positive, and neutral word cues preceding a target. Targets appeared either at the same or at the opposite location of the cue. Overall, results indicate that dysphoric participants show maintained attention for negative words at longer stimulus presentations, which is probably caused by impaired attentional disengagement from negative words. Furthermore, nondysphoric participants maintain their attention more strongly to positive words. These results are discussed in relation to recent developments in the pathogenesis and treatment of depression.

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Affective interference and inhibition in older adults 1The positivity effect in older adults: The role of affective interference and inhibition Aging and Mental Health AbstractObjectives: Research shows that aging often involves a decrease in the experience of negative affect and might even be associated with a stabilization or an increase of experience concerning positive affect. Because it has been suggested that these changes could be related to the processing of emotional information, the aim of this study was to investigate interference and inhibition towards sad and happy faces in healthy elderly people compared to a younger population. Method:We used an affective modification of the negative priming task. If interference is related to enhanced inhibition, reduced interference from negative stimuli and a related weakened inhibition towards negative stimuli in the elderly group would be in line with the positivity hypothesis.Results: As expected, the results indicated that interference from negative stimuli was significantly lower in older adults as compared to younger adults, whereas this was not the case for positive stimuli. Moreover, at inhibitory level a significantly reduced processing of negative stimuli was observed only in the older adult group, whereas there was no such effect in the case of positive material. Conclusion:These observations are indicative for a decreased negative bias in older adults at information processing level. This provides new insights with regard to age-related differences in emotion processing.Key words: older adults, interference, inhibition, positivity effect, emotion, negative priming Affective interference and inhibition in older adults 2The positivity effect in older adults: The role of affective interference and inhibition IntroductionAlthough from an information processing perspective a large body of research has demonstrated age-related declines in processing speed, memory function, attentional processes, reasoning, and problem solving (see Cabeza, Nyberg, & Park, 2004), which can be associated with structural deterioration and brain activity alterations (e.g. Cabeza, McIntosh, Tulving, Nyberg, & Grady, 1997), research shows that emotion regulation skills improve with aging (Birditt & Fingerman, 2005). Moreover, aging often involves a decrease in the experience of negative affect and is associated with a stabilization or even a slight increase in the experience of positive affect (Mroczek & Kolarz, 1998). Some authors have suggested that these changes might be related to the processing of emotional material (Mather & Carstensen, 2005).An interesting theoretical framework to explain why emotion regulation would be relatively spared whereas cognitive control declines with age is the socio-emotional selectivity theory (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999). According to this theory, aging is characterized by a lifetime perspective motivational change. As people get older and their time perspective is reduced, current emotional goals associated with well-being becom...