A multi-method assessment of attentional processes in chronic, treatment-resistant depression.

Attentional deficits as well as attentional biases towards negative material are related to major depression and might maintain chronicity. However, studies investigating attentional deficits and attentional biases in chronic, treatment-resistant depressed are lacking. The aim of the current study was to compare measures of attentional deficits and attentional bias between chronic, treatment-resistant depressed outpatients and never-depressed control participants. Attentional deficits were assessed with the attentional control scale (ACS) and the Stroop Color naming task. Attentional bias was measured with the exogenous cueing task (ECT) and an emotional Stroop task. Chronic, treatment-resistant depressed patients (n = 80) showed significantly more attentional deficits than never-depressed controls (n = 113) on the ACS and Stroop color-naming task. However, in contrast with hypotheses, no differences were found between chronic, treatment-resistant depressed patients and never-depressed individuals on the ECT or emotional Stroop task. The current findings indicate that chronic, treatment-resistant depressed patients present attentional deficits. The results however question whether this patient group shows attentional biases for negative material. Future research should include comparisons of chronic, treatment-resistant and non-chronically depressed patients. If replicated, these current results might indicate that focusing on improving attentional deficits could be a more promising target for treatment than addressing attentional biases.

Can selective attention and inhibition (interactively) predict future obsessive compulsive symptoms? A prospective study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The current study set out to investigate whether obsessive beliefs, selective attention, inhibition, and the interaction between selective attention and inhibition can prospectively predict contamination obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms. METHODS: Obsessive beliefs, inhibition, and selective attention were assessed in a student sample (n = 89) during a baseline session in the beginning of the first semester. Their predictive value was examined by assessing symptoms after an OC symptom induction in the lab and by assessing OC symptoms during a period of increased stress (the examination period) 68-80 days after baseline. RESULTS: Results showed that obsessive beliefs did not consistently predict OC symptoms and there was no predictive effect of attentional bias, attentional bias variability, and inhibition in isolation. However, attentional bias variability and inhibition in the context of contamination-related stimuli interacted, in which only the combination of poor inhibition and large attentional bias variability predicted contamination OC symptoms during the examination period. LIMITATIONS: Future research should investigate whether similar results are found in clinical populations, as the current sample consisted of a convenience sample of undergraduate students. CONCLUSION: These results support the notion that information processing biases interact in predicting contamination OC symptoms.

Obsessions and compulsions in the lab: A meta-analysis of procedures to induce symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Efficacious induction procedures of symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are necessary in order to test central tenets of theories on OCD. However, the efficacy of the current range of induction procedures remains unclear. Therefore, this meta-analysis set out to examine the efficacy of induction procedures in participants with and without OCD symptoms. Moreover, we explored whether the efficacy varied across different moderators (i.e., induction categories, symptom dimensions of OCD, modalities of presentation, and level of individual tailoring). In total we included 4900 participants across 90 studies. The analyses showed that there was no difference in studies using subclinical and clinical participants, confirming the utility of analogue samples. Induction procedures evoked more symptoms in (sub)clinical OCD than in healthy participants, which was most evident in the contamination symptom dimension of OCD. Analysis within (sub)clinical OCD showed a large effect size of induction procedures, especially for the threat and responsibility category and when stimuli were tailored to individuals. Analysis within healthy participants showed a medium effect size of induction procedures. The magnitude of the effect in healthy individuals was stronger for mental contamination, thought-action fusion and threat inductions.

Life is great! Emotional attention during instructed and uninstructed ambiguity resolution in relation to depressive symptoms.

Attention and interpretation biases are closely involved in depression. However, it is unclear whether they reflect processing tendencies (i.e., driven by schemas) and/or ability-related processes (i.e., dependent on attentional control). This study tested depressive symptom severity, attention bias, and interpretation bias associations under both processing conditions. Fifty-two participants completed two versions of the scrambled sentences test (to measure interpretation bias) while eye movements were recorded (to measure attention bias). Participants were instructed to unscramble sentences by reporting the first sentence coming to mind (tendency version) and in a fixed, positive manner (ability version). Depressive symptom severity was correlated with attention bias under both conditions. Attention bias acted as an intervening variable in the relation between depressive symptoms and interpretation bias during ability processes. These findings suggest that attention biases reflect both processing tendencies and ability dysfunctions, with attentional control as a relevant mechanism in the interpretation of emotional material.