Strand Mari, Oram Mike W, Hammar Åsa
Department of Biological and Medical Psychology, University of Bergen, and Division of Psychiatry, Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway.
Appl Neuropsychol Adult. 2013;20(2):110-9. doi: 10.1080/09084282.2012.670159. Epub 2012 Dec 14.
Although there is considerable knowledge of the cognitive and perceptual deficits associated with the acute phases of major depressive disorder (MDD), the processes involved in remission and relapse are still being evaluated. In the present study emotional information processing in remission was investigated. A Stroop paradigm was used to compare responses from a group of remitted or partially remitted MDD patients with a matched control group. The stimuli consisted of lexical and visual facial stimuli, with one word (positive/negative) superimposed on a face (happy/sad), presented in the same trial, and being congruent or incongruent. The task was to identify the emotional content of either the face (ignoring the word), or vice versa. The results showed that both patients and controls had the same interference patterns when the target was defined by the word, and that when the target was defined by the facial expression, reaction times were faster for both groups. However, patients showed a reduced positive bias, possibly indicating dissociation between patients and control groups in terms of attention to complex emotional information. Future studies testing the sensitivity of the Emotional Stroop test in the investigation of attention to complex emotional information is needed. Clinical implications are discussed.
尽管对于与重度抑郁症（MDD）急性期相关的认知和感知缺陷已有相当多的了解，但缓解期和复发期所涉及的过程仍在评估之中。在本研究中，对缓解期的情绪信息处理进行了调查。采用了一种斯特鲁普范式，将一组缓解或部分缓解的MDD患者的反应与一个匹配的对照组进行比较。刺激物包括词汇和视觉面部刺激，在同一次试验中，一个单词（积极/消极）叠加在一张脸（高兴/悲伤）上，二者一致或不一致。任务是识别脸的情绪内容（忽略单词），或者反之。结果表明，当目标由单词定义时，患者和对照组具有相同的干扰模式，而当目标由面部表情定义时，两组的反应时间都更快。然而，患者表现出积极偏向性降低，这可能表明在对复杂情绪信息的关注方面，患者组和对照组之间存在分离。未来需要进行研究，测试情绪斯特鲁普测试在调查对复杂情绪信息的关注方面的敏感性。文中讨论了临床意义。
