Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA.
Emotion. 2010 Dec;10(6):894-902. doi: 10.1037/a0020022.
Interpersonal theories suggest that depressed individuals are sensitive to signs of interpersonal rejection, such as angry facial expressions. The present study examined memory bias for happy, sad, angry, and neutral facial expressions in stably dysphoric and stably nondysphoric young adults. Participants' gaze behavior (i.e., fixation duration, number of fixations, and distance between fixations) while viewing these facial expressions was also assessed. Using signal detection analyses, the dysphoric group had better accuracy on a surprise recognition task for angry faces than the nondysphoric group. Further, mediation analyses indicated that greater breadth of attentional focus (i.e., distance between fixations) accounted for enhanced recall of angry faces among the dysphoric group. There were no differences between dysphoria groups in gaze behavior or memory for sad, happy, or neutral facial expressions. Findings from this study identify a specific cognitive mechanism (i.e., breadth of attentional focus) that accounts for biased recall of angry facial expressions in dysphoria. This work also highlights the potential for integrating cognitive and interpersonal theories of depression.
人际理论表明，抑郁个体对人际拒绝的迹象（如愤怒的面部表情）很敏感。本研究考察了稳定的抑郁和稳定的非抑郁年轻成年人对快乐、悲伤、愤怒和中性面部表情的记忆偏差。还评估了参与者观看这些面部表情时的注视行为（即注视持续时间、注视次数和注视之间的距离）。使用信号检测分析，与非抑郁组相比，抑郁组在愤怒面孔的惊喜识别任务中的准确性更高。此外，中介分析表明，在抑郁组中，注意力焦点的宽度（即注视之间的距离）越大，对愤怒面孔的回忆就越好。在注视行为或悲伤、快乐或中性面部表情的记忆方面，抑郁组之间没有差异。这项研究的结果确定了一种特定的认知机制（即注意力焦点的宽度），该机制解释了抑郁中对愤怒面部表情的有偏差的回忆。这项工作还强调了将抑郁的认知和人际理论相结合的潜力。
