Disentangling the interplay among cognitive biases: Evidence of combined effects of attention, interpretation and autobiographical memory in depression

Previous research has found that cognitive biases in attention, interpretation, and memory play an important role in depression. However, there is little knowledge of the interplay between these biases in clinical depression. The present study was aimed to model different pathways of relation among...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Sánchez López, Álvaro, Duque, Almudena, Romero, Nuria, Vázquez Valverde, Carmelo José
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/116295
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/116295
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Depression
Cognitive biases
Selective attention
Interpretation
Autobiographical memory
Combined cognitive bias hypothesis
Psicología (Psicología)
61 Psicología
Descripción
Sumario:Previous research has found that cognitive biases in attention, interpretation, and memory play an important role in depression. However, there is little knowledge of the interplay between these biases in clinical depression. The present study was aimed to model different pathways of relation among attention, interpretation and autobiographical memory biases, and to examine their contribution to account for depression status outcomes. Cognitive biases were evaluated in a sample comprising 22 currently-depressed and 36 never-depressed individuals representing a broad range of depression severity levels. Cognitive biases were assessed by three separate tasks using different types of stimuli. Our main finding was a significant indirect effect model in which attention bias to negative faces was linked to greater negative memory bias via its association with negative interpretation bias. Within this model, the specific pathway between attention bias to negative faces and negative interpretation bias accounted both for significant variance in depression severity as well as for depression diagnostic status. These findings increase our understanding of the complex interplay between cognitive mechanisms involved in clinical depression and highlight hypothetical pathways relevant for future interventions.