Distorted Cognitive Processes in Major Depression: A Predictive Processing Perspective

Attentional control in subclinical anxiety and depression: depression symptoms are associated with deficits in target facilitation, not distractor inhibition

“…While the flexible task relies on working-memory based top-down control, performance in the blocked task may be supported by a combination of top-down control and more implicit mechanisms, such as predictive coding (Friston, 2010). While our task cannot fully orthogonalise effects of top-down and implicit mechanisms of target facilitation, the finding that individuals with high depressive symptomatology are less able to benefit from an increasingly predictable target location in the blocked task is consistent with past literature, linking depression to deficits in predictive coding (Badcock et al, 2017;Barrett et al, 2016;Chekroud, 2015;Kube et al, 2019;Schutter, 2016). For example, a deficit in updating an internal model in depressed individuals (Barrett et al, 2016;Schutter, 2016) may underlie the poorer use of predictable implicit target information as seen in the present task.…”

Attentional Control in Subclinical Anxiety and Depression: Depression Symptoms Are Associated With Deficits in Target Facilitation, Not Distractor Inhibition

“…While the flexible task relies on working-memory based top-down control, performance in the blocked task may be supported by a combination of top-down control and more implicit mechanisms, such as predictive coding ( Friston, 2010 ). While our task cannot fully orthogonalize effects of top-down and implicit mechanisms of target facilitation, the finding that individuals with high depressive symptomatology are less able to benefit from an increasingly predictable target location in the blocked task is consistent with past literature, linking depression to deficits in predictive coding ( Chekroud, 2015 ; Barrett et al, 2016 ; Schutter, 2016 ; Badcock et al, 2017 ; Kube et al, 2020 ). For example, a deficit in updating an internal model in depressed individuals ( Barrett et al, 2016 ; Schutter, 2016 ) may underlie the poorer use of predictable implicit target information as seen in the present task.…”

Motivation and cognitive control in depression

“…For example, it has been proposed that the cognitive theories of depression should focus more on the role of negative expectations and the reasons why such expectations are not being efficiently updated in light of disconfirming evidence (Rief & Joormann, 2019). A recent account of cognitive process in depression has proposed that depression is related to increased prior beliefs that negative events will happen which are not optimally updated thus creating a negative feedback loop (Kube, Schwarting, Rozenkrantz, Glombiewski, & Rief, 2019). Another account of depression proposes that negative prior beliefs and impairments in model-based reasoning sustain depressive symptoms .…”