A review of cognitive biases in youth depression: attention, interpretation and memory

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common mental health problems in childhood and adolescence. Although data consistently show it is associated with self-reported negative cognitive styles, less is known about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Cognitive biases in attention, interpretation and memory represent plausible mechanisms and are known to characterise adult depression. We provide the first structured review of studies investigating the nature and causal role of cognitive biases in youth depression. Key questions are (i) do cognitive biases characterise youth depression? (ii) are cognitive biases a vulnerability factor for youth depression? and (iii) do cognitive biases play a causal role in youth depression? We find consistent evidence for positive associations between attention and interpretation biases and youth depression. Stronger biases in youth with an elevated risk of depression support cognitive-vulnerability models. Preliminary evidence from cognitive bias modification paradigms supports a causal role of attention and interpretation biases in youth depression but these paradigms require testing in clinical samples before they can be considered treatment tools. Studies of memory biases in youth samples have produced mixed findings and none have investigated the causal role of memory bias. We identify numerous areas for future research in this emerging field.

Mediating role of cognitive biases, resilience and depressive symptoms in the relationship between childhood trauma and psychotic‐like experiences in young adults

“…In our model, the route from early trauma to PLEs can be characterized by selected information-processing biases, namely, attention to threat and safety behaviours that contribute to negative beliefs on self-efficacy and coping abilities, which in turn are associated with affective symptoms such as irritability, sadness and fatigue. Association of cognitive biases with depression (eg, Beevers, 2005;Platt, Waters, Schulte-Koerne, Engelmann, & Salemink, 2017) and psychosis spectrum disorders (Moritz et al, 2010;Ramos & Torres, 2016) has already been widely discussed. In our study, we focused in particular on two types of biases: attention to threat and safety behaviours that are important for the development of psychosis (van der Gaag et al, 2013).…”

Imagine the bright side of life: A randomized controlled trial of two types of interpretation bias modification procedure targeting adolescent anxiety and depression

“…Both anxiety and depression are associated with negative interpretation biases, which have been demonstrated in adults (for a review, see [2]), and also in adolescents specifically (e.g., [3], [4], [5]). Cognitive Bias Modification of Interpretations (CBM-I) is an experimental paradigm that has potential to be developed into a low-barrier early intervention for anxiety and depression.…”

Relationships between depressive symptoms and brain responses during emotional movie viewing emerge in adolescence

“…Developmental studies have reported information processing biases in depression, including increased engagement with negative information and excessively negative interpretations of emotional events (45,46). Our analyses suggest that intersubject synchronization is related to the emotional content of the stimulus.…”