Janna N. Vrijsen

Approach and Avoidance of Emotional Faces in Happy and Sad Mood

Since the introduction of the associative network theory, mood-congruent biases in emotional information processing have been established in individuals in a sad and happy mood. Research has concentrated on memory and attentional biases. According to the network theory, mood-congruent behavioral tendencies would also be predicted. Alternatively, a general avoidance pattern would also be in line with the theory. Since cognitive biases have been assumed to operate strongly in case of social stimuli, mood-induced biases in approach and avoidance behavior towards emotional facial expressions were studied. 306 females were subjected to a highly emotional fragment of a sad or a happy movie, to induce either a sad mood or a happy mood. An Approach-Avoidance Task was implemented, in which single pictures of faces (with angry, sad, happy, or neutral expression) and non-social control pictures were presented. In contrast to our expectations, mood states did not produce differential behavioral biases. Mood-congruent and mood-incongruent behavioral tendencies were, however, present in a subgroup of participants with highest depressive symptomatology scores. This suggests that behavioral approach-avoidance biases are not sensitive to mood state, but more related to depressive characteristics.

Socially anxious individuals lack unintentional mimicry.

So far, evidence for unskilled social behavior in high socially anxious individuals (HAs) is equivocal. One reason may be that shortcomings are often not directly observable. An important shortcoming would be a lack of unintentional mimicry because it communicates sympathy and rapport with the interaction partner. Therefore, we tested whether HAs show less unintentional mimicry of others. Twenty-nine HAs and 43 low socially anxious individuals (LAs)--all female--watched a virtual man (avatar) who displayed a fixed set of head movements while giving an opinionated speech. Four raters scored whether the participants mimicked the avatars movements within 4 s. The results indicate that HAs did indeed mimic significantly less than LAs. Lacking such pro-social behavior, HAs may indeed be evaluated as less sympathetic by others, confirming their fears of being disliked.

Attentional bias to moving spiders in spider fearful individuals.

We investigated if an attentional bias for spiders in spider fearful individuals (SFs) can also be found for moving spiders, rather than static images. In Study 1, 28 SFs and 33 non-anxious controls (NACs) participated in a modified version of the dot probe paradigm: they had to react to a probe that appeared either in the next, previous, or side position of a spiders or a wheels path. 24 SFs and 29 NACs participated in Study 2, in which a fourth, highly predictable, probe position was added. We expected that moving spiders would capture the attention of SFs. In addition, we tested whether SFs try to predict the movement of the spider to make it less threatening. As expected, SFs showed an attentional bias towards moving spiders. However, both groups reacted fastest to unpredictable movements, indicating that SFs and NACs alike anticipate unpredictable spider movements.

Verbal and facial-emotional Stroop tasks reveal specific attentional interferences in sad mood

Mood congruence refers to the tendency of individuals to attend to information more readily when it has the same emotional content as their current mood state. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether attentional interference occurred for participants in sad mood states for emotionally relevant stimuli (mood‐congruence), and to determine whether this interference occurred for both valenced words and valenced faces. A mood induction procedure was administered to 116 undergraduate females divided into two equal groups for the sad and happy mood condition. This study employed three versions of the Stroop task: color, verbal‐emotional, and a facial‐emotional Stroop. The two mood groups did not differ on the color Stroop. Significant group differences were found on the verbal‐emotional Stroop for sad words with longer latencies for sad‐induced participants. Main findings for the facial‐emotional Stroop were that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for angry‐threatening faces as well as longer latencies for neutral faces. Group differences were not found for positive stimuli. These findings confirm that sad mood is associated with attentional interference for mood‐congruent stimuli in the verbal domain (sad words), but this mood‐congruent effect does not necessarily apply to the visual domain (sad faces). Attentional interference for neutral faces suggests sad mood participants did not necessarily see valence‐free faces. Attentional interference for threatening stimuli is often associated with anxiety; however, the current results show that threat is not an attentional interference observed exclusively in states of anxiety but also in sad mood.

What is the contribution of different cognitive biases and stressful childhood events to the presence and number of previous depressive episodes

Negative cognitive biases as well as stressful childhood events are well-known risk factors for depression. Few studies have compared the association of different types of biases and events with depression. The current study examined whether different cognitive biases and stressful childhood events variables were associated with depression and recurrence. Three types of childhood events were assessed in 83 never-depressed and 337 formerly depressed individuals: trauma within the family, trauma outside the family, and adverse events. Furthermore, after a sad mood induction procedure, participants executed a Dot Probe task (selective attentional bias), an Emotional Stroop task (attentional interference bias) and an incidental learning task (memory bias). The association of these measures with case status and recurrence status (one or multiple past episodes) was examined. Negative memory bias and traumatic childhood events within the family were associated with case status, whereas none of the bias measures or childhood events variables were associated with recurrence status. The results indicate that memory bias as well as the experience of aggression and/or abuse within the family during childhood are independently associated with depression. Biases and stressful childhood events did not offer differentiation between individuals with one or multiple past episodes.

Depressed patients in remission show an interaction between variance in the mineralocorticoid receptor NR3C2 gene and childhood trauma on negative memory bias

Background Genetic, environmental, and cognitive factors play a role in the development and recurrence of depression. More specifically, cognitive biases have been associated with depression risk genes and life events. Recently, the mineralocorticoid receptor NR3C2 gene, and in particular the rs5534 polymorphism, has been associated with negative memory bias, at least in healthy individuals who experienced severe life adversity. The current study examined the interaction between the rs5534 genotype and different types of adverse life events in a sample of depressed patients in remission. Materials and methods A total of 298 depressed patients in remission performed an incidental emotional memory task (negative and positive words). Life adversity, childhood trauma, and recent adversity were measured using a self-report questionnaire. NR3C2 rs5534 by life adversity, as well as childhood trauma and recent adversity interactions were analyzed for negative and positive memory bias using analyses of covariance. Results The significant interaction between rs5534 and childhood trauma on negative memory bias (P=0.046) indicated that risk ‘A’ allele carriers with childhood trauma tended to show more negative memory bias compared to individuals homozygous for the G allele who had experienced childhood trauma and A allele carriers without childhood trauma. No interaction effects with life adversity or recent adversity were found. Also, no main effect of rs5534 on memory bias was found, although we had insufficient power for this analysis. Conclusion An association of the NR3C2 gene and childhood trauma with negative memory bias was found in depressed patients in remission, which extends previous findings in a healthy population.

Coherence Between Attentional and Memory Biases in Sad and Formerly Depressed Individuals

Cognitive theories assume a uniform processing bias across different samples, but the empirical support for this claim is rather weak and inconsistent. Therefore, coherence between biases across different cognitive domains in a sample of 133 non-depressed (Study 1) and a sample of 266 formerly depressed individuals (Study 2) was examined. In both studies, individuals were selected after a successful sad mood induction procedure. A Dot Probe task, an Emotional Stroop task and a self-referential Incidental Learning and Free Recall task were administered to all participants. Principle component analyses indicated coherence between attentional and memory bias in non-depressed, while in formerly depressed individuals distinct components for attentional biases and for memory bias were uncovered. The data suggest that in formerly depressed individuals, self-referent processing during encoding may be related to memory bias, whereas in non-depressed individuals memory bias may be related to both attentional bias and self-referent processing.

Shorter gaze duration for happy faces in current but not remitted depression: Evidence from eye movements

Cognitive theories of depression propose that depressed individuals preferentially attend to negative information and that such cognitive biases constitute important vulnerability and maintenance factors for the disorder. Most studies examined this bias by registration of response latencies. The present study employed a direct and continuous measurement of attentional processing for emotional stimuli by recording eye movements. Currently depressed (CD), remitted depressed (RD) and healthy control (HC) participants viewed slides presenting sad, angry, happy and neutral facial expressions. For each expression, four components of visual attention were analyzed: first fixation, maintained fixation, relative fixation frequency and glance duration. Results showed that healthy controls were characterized by longer gaze duration for happy faces compared to currently depressed individuals but not compared to remitted depressed individuals. Both patient groups (CD, RD) demonstrated longer maintained fixation (dwelling time) on all emotional faces compared to healthy controls. The present findings are in line with the presumption that depression is associated with a loss of elaborative processing of positive stimuli that characterizes healthy controls. Importantly, successful remission of depression (RD group) may result in positive attentional processing as no group differences were found between healthy controls and remitted patients on glance duration for happy faces.

Can Memory Bias be Modified? The Effects of an Explicit Cued-Recall Training in Two Independent Samples

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) has been found to be effective in modifying information-processing biases and in reducing emotional reactivity to stress. Although modification of attention and interpretation biases has frequently been studied, it is not clear whether memory bias can be manipulated through direct training of emotional recall. In two studies (in undergraduate students and in a community sample), memory bias for emotional verbal stimuli was trained with cued recall of either positive or negative words. We did not find evidence for malleability of memory bias for trained stimuli or induction of emotional reactivity to stress in either study. The training did, however, stimulate training-congruent incorrect recall in the community sample. Although we found no evidence for the direct modification of memory bias, the more global effect obtained with respect to retrieval of emotional information from memory holds promise for CBM-memory studies in clinical samples.

A randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) versus treatment-as-usual (TAU) for chronic, treatment-resistant depression: study protocol

BackgroundMajor depression is a common psychiatric disorder, frequently taking a chronic course. Despite provision of evidence-based treatments, including antidepressant medication and psychological treatments like cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy, a substantial amount of patients do not recover. Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has been found to be effective in reducing relapse in recurrent depression, as well as lowering symptom levels in acute depression. The effectiveness of MBCT for chronic, treatment-resistant depression has only be studied in a few pilot trials. A large randomized controlled trial is necessary to examine the effectiveness of MBCT in reducing depressive symptoms in chronic, treatment-resistant depression.Methods/DesignA randomized-controlled trial is conducted to compare MBCT with treatment-as-usual (TAU). Patients with chronic, treatment-resistant depression who have received antidepressant medication and cognitive behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy are included. Assessments take place at baseline and post intervention/TAU-period. The primary outcome are depressive symptoms. Secondary outcomes are: remission rates, quality of life, rumination, mindfulness skills and self-compassion. Patients in the TAU condition are offered to participate in the MBCT after the post TAU-period assessment. From all completers of the MBCT (MBCT condition and patients participating after the TAU-period), follow-up assessments are taken at three and six months after the completion of the MBCT.DiscussionThis trial will result in valuable information about the effectiveness of MBCT in chronic, treatment-resistant depressed patients who previously received antidepressant medication and psychological treatment.Trial registrationtrialregister.nl NTR4843, registered 14th October 2014.