Disner Seth G, Shumake Jason D, Beevers Christopher G
a Department of Psychology and Institute for Mental Health Research , The University of Texas at Austin , Austin , TX , USA.
Cogn Emot. 2017 Jun;31(4):632-644. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2016.1146123. Epub 2016 Feb 22.
Attentional bias and self-referential schemas have been observed in numerous cross-sectional studies of depressed adults and are theorised to maintain negative mood. However, few longitudinal studies have examined whether maladaptive cognition predicts the course of depressive symptoms. Fifty-seven adults with elevated depression symptoms were assessed for negative attentional bias using a dot-probe task with eye-tracking and self-referential schemas using a self-referent encoding task. Participants subsequently completed five weekly depression symptom assessments. Participants with more negative self-referential schemas had higher baseline depression symptoms (r = .55). However, participants who spent more time attending to negative words showed greater symptom worsening over time (r = .42). The findings for negative self-referential schemas replicate past research, while the findings for negative attention bias represent the first evidence showing that attentional biases predict naturalistic symptom course. This work suggests that negative attention biases maintain depression symptoms and represent an important treatment target for neurocognitive therapeutics.
在对成年抑郁症患者的大量横断面研究中均观察到了注意偏向和自我参照模式，并且从理论上来说，这些因素会维持消极情绪。然而，很少有纵向研究考察过适应不良的认知是否能预测抑郁症状的发展过程。研究人员使用一项带有眼动追踪的点探测任务评估了57名抑郁症状较为严重的成年人的消极注意偏向，并使用一项自我参照编码任务评估了他们的自我参照模式。随后，参与者们每周完成一次抑郁症状评估，共进行五次。具有更多消极自我参照模式的参与者基线抑郁症状更严重（r = 0.55）。然而，花更多时间关注消极词汇的参与者随着时间的推移症状恶化得更明显（r = 0.42）。消极自我参照模式的研究结果重复了过去的研究，而消极注意偏向的研究结果则首次证明了注意偏向能够预测自然状态下的症状发展过程。这项研究表明，消极注意偏向会维持抑郁症状，是神经认知疗法的一个重要治疗靶点。
