Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion University of Western Australia, Australia.
Centre for the Advancement of Research on Emotion University of Western Australia, Australia.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2024 Mar;82:101912. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2023.101912. Epub 2023 Sep 23.
Cognitive theories propose that individuals with heightened depression are characterized by biases in memory and interpretation, favoring the processing of negative information. Individuals with heightened depression exhibit a negative memory bias, and this bias is disproportionately evident when emotional information is processed in a self-referential manner. In studies investigating whether individuals with heightened depression exhibit a negative interpretative bias, the measures employed have often been compromised by serious methodological limitations. When interpretation has been measured using an eye-blink modulation approach, which overcomes these limitations, evidence of depression-linked negative interpretive bias has emerged. However, the important issue of whether this bias depends upon self-referential processing has gone unresolved.
In the present study, we assessed interpretation using the eye blink modulation approach, in participants scoring high or low on the Beck Depression Inventory-II. A simple manipulation ensured that ambiguous information either was, or was not, processed in a self-referential manner.
The results showed that, when ambiguous information was processed in a self-referential manner, participants scoring high on the BDI-II displayed blink magnitudes indicating greater negative interpretative bias compared to participants scoring low on the BDI-II. This was not the case when ambiguous information was processed in an other-referential manner.
The present findings do not permit the inference that this negative interpretive bias causally contributes to depressive symptomatology.
The results support the hypothesis that people with high levels of depression display greater negative interpretive bias than people with low levels of depression, but only when ambiguous information is processed in a self-referential manner.
认知理论提出，抑郁程度较高的个体表现出记忆和解释的偏差，偏向于处理负面信息。抑郁程度较高的个体表现出负性记忆偏差，而当以自我参照的方式处理情绪信息时，这种偏差尤为明显。在研究抑郁程度较高的个体是否表现出负性解释偏差的研究中，所采用的测量方法往往存在严重的方法学限制。当使用眨眼调制方法测量解释时，这些方法学限制得到了克服，出现了与抑郁相关的负性解释偏差的证据。然而，这种偏差是否依赖于自我参照加工这一重要问题尚未得到解决。
在本研究中，我们使用眨眼调制方法评估了贝克抑郁量表第二版（Beck Depression Inventory-II）得分较高或较低的参与者的解释。一个简单的操作确保了模糊信息以自我参照的方式或以他人参照的方式进行处理。
结果表明，当模糊信息以自我参照的方式处理时，BDI-II 得分较高的参与者的眨眼幅度表明，他们的负性解释偏差大于 BDI-II 得分较低的参与者。当模糊信息以他人参照的方式处理时，情况并非如此。
本研究的结果不允许推断这种负性解释偏差是导致抑郁症状的原因。
结果支持这样的假设，即抑郁程度较高的人比抑郁程度较低的人表现出更大的负性解释偏差，但只有当模糊信息以自我参照的方式处理时才会如此。
