Deployment of attention in clinical depression during symptom remission.

The purpose of the current study was to investigate deployment of attention in clinically depressed patients during the process of symptom remission. Previous research indicates a non-depressed protective bias in attention whereas depressed individuals evidence no bias. A deployment-of-attention task based on negative, positive, and neutral adjectives was administered twice to 15 inpatients with major depression and 15 normal controls, at about 6 weeks apart.

Disengagement of attention from facial emotion in unipolar depression.

Abnormal processing of facial expressions is assumed to be an important factor mediating the course of depression. The aim of the present study was to investigate the ability to disengage attention from facial emotion in depressed patients in the course of an inpatient treatment program. It was hypothesized that in depression disengagement of visual attention from negative facial expression is delayed, while disengagement from positive facial expression is facilitated.