Patterns of Processing Bias for Emotional Information Across Clinical Disorders: A Comparison of Attention, Memory, and Prospective Cognition in Children and Adolescents With Depression, Generalized Anxiety, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Abstract

This study investigated theoretical claims that different emotional disorders are associated with different patterns of cognitive bias, both in terms of the cognitive processes involved and the stimulus content that is preferentially processed. These claims were tested by comparing clinically anxious (generalized anxiety disorder [GAD], posttraumatic stress disorder [PTSD]) and clinically depressed children and adolescents on a range of cognitive tasks measuring attention, memory, and prospective cognition, with both threat-related and depressogenic stimulus materials. The results did reveal some relative specificity of processing in that the anxious participants exhibited a greater selective attentional bias for threat relative to depressogenic material with no such difference being apparent in the depressed sample. However, this bias was only clear-cut on a dot-probe measure of attentional processing and not on a modified Stroop measure, and indeed threat-related bias on the 2 tasks was uncorrelated. On the prospective cognition task, anxious participants exhibited an other-referent bias in their risk estimations regarding future negative events that was absent in the depressed sample. No specificity effects were evident on the memory task. The results are discussed in terms of the strengths and weaknesses of carrying out direct comparisons across groups and tasks versus drawing conclusions from overall patterns across multiple studies.

Relationship between trait anxiety, prefrontal cortex, and attention bias to angry faces in children and adolescents

“…Other studies of attention bias in clinically anxious youth have found an enhanced attention bias towards threat (e.g. Taghavi et al, 1999Taghavi et al, , 2003Dalgleish et al, 2003;Vasey et al, 1995;Waters, et al, 2008). However, there are notable methodological differences between the clinical studies, which may account for much of the variation in their findings (e.g.…”

“…However, there are notable methodological differences between the clinical studies, which may account for much of the variation in their findings (e.g. type of attentional task, type of anxiety disorder, presence of clinical depression, severity of anxiety symptoms, experimental conditions; see Dalgleish et al, 2003, Pine, 2007, and Waters et al, 2008, for further discussion). For example, many previous studies have used single words (rather than angry faces) as threat stimuli (e.g., Taghavi et al, 1999Taghavi et al, , 2003Vasey et al, 1995) and have used the modified Stroop task to assess attention bias (e.g., Dalgleish et al, 2003;Taghavi et al, 1999Taghavi et al, , 2003.…”

“…type of attentional task, type of anxiety disorder, presence of clinical depression, severity of anxiety symptoms, experimental conditions; see Dalgleish et al, 2003, Pine, 2007, and Waters et al, 2008, for further discussion). For example, many previous studies have used single words (rather than angry faces) as threat stimuli (e.g., Taghavi et al, 1999Taghavi et al, , 2003Vasey et al, 1995) and have used the modified Stroop task to assess attention bias (e.g., Dalgleish et al, 2003;Taghavi et al, 1999Taghavi et al, , 2003. However, interpretation of results from the latter task is complicated, as evidence of an attention bias on this task might reflect either enhanced or suppressed processing of threat (de Ruiter & Brosschot, 1994); thus, the direction of the attention bias is not entirely clear from studies which have used this paradigm.…”

Empirical evidence of cognitive vulnerability for depression among children and adolescents: A cognitive science and developmental perspective

“…Table 2 presents studies of information processing biases and depression among children and adolescents. Level of depression is associated with greater recall of negative information relative to positive information in youth (Bishop, Dalgleish, & Yule, 2004;Cole & Jordan, 1995;Drummond, Dritschel, Astell, O'Carroll, & Dalgleish, 2006;Rudolph, Hammen, & Burge, 1997;Taylor & Ingram, 1999;Zupan, Hammen, & Jaenicke, 1987; for null results see Dalgleish et al, 2003;and Hammen & Zupan, 1984). This association is also found among children and adolescents with a diagnosis of MDD (Neshat-Doost, Moradi, Taghavi, Yule, & Dalgleish, 2000).…”

Avaliação da ansiedade e do viés de atenção no canal visual para estímulos emocionais em uma amostra não clínica

“…Uma questão importante é o quanto um estímulo com valência emocional negativa e alto nível de ativação pode eliciar o viés de atenção em uma amostra sem nenhuma psicopatologia específica (Bar-Haim, Lamy, Pergamin, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2007). Alguns estudos nessa área utilizam a Visual Probe Detection Task, para medir o viés de atenção para imagens emocionalmente valentes (Asmundson & Stein, 1994;Dalgleish et al, 2003;Mogg & Bradley, 1998;Taghavi, Neshat-Doost, Moradi, Yule, & Dalgleish, 1999;Vasey, Daleiden, Williams, & Brown, 1995). A tarefa consiste em uma sequência na qual duas imagens são apresentadas em uma tela de computador por curtos intervalos de tempo.…”