Personality and Individual Differences (01918869)23(5)pp. 753-759
The study investigated selective processing of emotional information in childhood depression using a computerised version of the modified Stroop colour naming task. Three groups of children and adolescents - clinically depressed (n-19), patients with mixed depression and anxiety (n= 19), and normal controls (n = 26) - were required to name the colours of depression-related, threat-related, trauma-related, happy, and categorised neutral words. Normal subjects, compared with the patient groups, exhibited faster colour naming overall. There were no significant differences on the colour naming of different categories of words and the performance across the three groups was not significantly different for different categories of words. © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.
Dalgleish, T.,
Neshat doost, H.T.,
Taghavi, R.,
Moradi, A.,
Yule, W.,
Canterbury, R.,
Vostanis p., P. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines (00219630)39(7)pp. 1031-1035
Previous research into subjective probability estimates for negative events revealed that depressed children estimated events as equally likely to happen to themselves as to other children. In contrast, both controls and anxious children estimated that negative events were more likely to happen to others than to themselves. The present study followed up this finding by investigating the subjective probability judgements concerning future negative events generated by children and adolescents who have recovered from depression. Subjects generated probability estimates either for themselves or for other children for a range of negative events on a visual analogue scale. The results revealed that both recovered depressed and matched control groups estimated negative events as significantly more likely to happen to others than to themselves. It was also found that the recovered depressed subjects estimated that negative events were less likely overall, compared to the controls. These results are discussed in the context of the adult literature.
Journal of Abnormal Psychology (0021843X)107(4)pp. 642-650
An experiment was conducted to examine memory for emotional trait adjectives in depressed children and adolescents. Two groups of children and adolescents, clinically depressed participants and non-clinical controls, were compared on computerized versions of recall and recognition memory tasks. Three groups of words (positive trait adjectives, negative trait adjectives, and categorized neutral words) were used in the experiment. Results showed that the depressed group recalled significantly more negative adjectives than positive adjectives, whereas the control group recalled the same number of positive and negative adjectives. This effect was predicted by the association between age and level of depression, with the depression- related bias becoming stronger with age. Signal detection analysis revealed that the depressed group did not show any bias in the recognition task. The findings are discussed with respect to cognitive theories of depression with consideration of the developmental implications.
Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology (15732835)27(3)pp. 215-223
Recent research has indicated that anxious adult and child patients and high trait-anxious adults selectively shift attention toward threatening stimuli. The present study extends this research and investigates the content-specificity of the effects in clinically anxious and mixed anxious- depressed children and adolescents. Twenty four generally anxious patients, aged 9 to 18, 19 mixed anxious-depressed patients, and 24 normal controls were comparable with respect to age, sex, verbal IQ, and vocabulary level. The participants carried out an attentional deployment task in which probe detection latency data were used to determine the distribution of visual attention for threat-related and depression-related material. The results showed that clinically anxious children, relative to controls, selectively allocated processing resources toward threat stimuli. However, mixed anxious- depressed children, relative to controls, did not show any attentional bias towards either threat- or depression-related stimuli. Preliminary data on age and gender differences are also presented. The results of this study are discussed in the light of previous research.
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines (00219630)40(3)pp. 357-361
Adult post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients often report a wide range of cognitive problems in memory, concentration, attention, planning, and judgement. Evaluation of these cognitive aspects of PTSD in adults has helped to define the nature of the disorder. However, there is a paucity of such work in younger subjects. This study has employed the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) to examine cognitive factors in children and adolescents with PTSD. Eighteen child and adolescent patients with PTSD and 22 control subjects completed the test. PTSD subjects showed poorer overall memory performance compared with controls. Specifically, they were worse on the prospective and orientation items of the RBMT. The results are discussed in the light of research on everyday memory in adults with PTSD.
Psychological Medicine (14698978)29(2)pp. 415-419
Background. Investigators have used various experimental paradigms such as the Stroop colour naming test to study how adults with different emotional disorders process emotional information. However, to date, little research has been carried out on younger subjects. Method. In the current experiment, children and adolescents with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and control subjects aged 9-17 years, participated in a modified Stroop colour naming task. Results. The results indicated that the children and adolescents with PTSD showed increased Stroop interference for trauma-related material relative to neutral words and to the performance of the controls. Conclusions. These findings indicate that attentional bias to trauma-congruent information is a function of PTSD in young age groups. The results are discussed with respect to the literature on information processing in PTSD.
Journal of Traumatic Stress (15736598)12(4)pp. 663-671
Investigators have used various experimental paradigms to study how individuals with different emotional disorders process emotional information. However, little research has been done on relatives of individuals with emotional disorders, despite developments in the area of emotional contagion. In the current experiment, children of adults with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (n = 18) and control participants (n = 21), ages 9-17 years, participated in a modified Stroop color-naming task. The results indicated that the children of adults with PTSD showed increased Stroop interference for threat-related relative to neutral words and to the performance of the controls. These findings are discussed with respect to the literature on information processing in PTSD and emotional contagion in families.
