Depressed mood and dimensions of selective attention

Selective attention to negative stimuli has been posited as a component of depression, but research results have been mixed. This experiment studied relationships between dysphoric mood, a central component of depression, and selective attention to negative stimuli. Four mood groups were formed by inducing depressed or elated mood (using standard semantic inductions) for comparison to naturally-occurring dysphoric and nondepressed mood groups.; Three aspects of selective attention to negative material (or away from positive material) were examined: initial orienting, gaze time, and disengagement difficulty. After exposure to computer slides associating specific colors with specific moods (yellow = happy; blue = sad; gray = neutral), a slide show of image pairs, in which images were bordered by the associated colors, was viewed and eye movements recorded. On a choice reaction time task examining disengagement, participants viewed sad, happy, and neutral images and pressed either of two buttons, depending upon targets which were shown peripherally after a short delay. Response times were recorded.; On a number of variables, attentional patterns followed mood ratings in the expected direction. Discriminant function analysis required only a single dimension to maximally separate groups. This dimension consisted primarily of the time spent looking at sad images when happy images were available and at neutral images when paired with happy images. Playing a lesser role were the time spent looking at sad images when paired with neutral images and the time to disengage from sad images using response times to neutral images as a baseline. Initial orienting variables did not separate groups. Correlational analysis and a re-analysis of the central data using a purified, combined negative mood group also identified disengagement difficulty from sad images when compared to happy image disengagement times as an important correlate of dysphoric mood.; It is argued that depressed mood can bring about a tendency to spend more time engaging sad material and avoiding happy material, and can also make it more difficult to disengage from sad material when attention is demanded elsewhere. These findings are shown to be relevant to the maintenance of depression and to its treatment.