Cognitive vulnerability for depression: Deployment of attention as a function of history of depression and current mood state

This study examines the performance of 40 previously depressed and 40 never depressed women on a computerized deployment-of-attention task. Half of the subjects completed the task in a neutral mood condition, while the others completed the task after undergoing a sad mood induction procedure. Results indicated that, for trait-like word stimuli, the previously depressed subjects who were in the sad mood condition performed the task in an rlnbiased fashion, attending equally to positive-, negative-, and neutral-content stimuli. In contrast, previously depressed subjects in the neutral condition and never depressed subjects in both mood conditions, with one exception, directed their attention away from negative stimuli. This pattern of results suggests that nonvulnerable individuals and vulnerable individuals in a neutral mood exhibit a "protective" bias in their attentional functioning, which may contribute to their ability to maintain their nondepressed status. In contrast, vulnerable individuals in a sad mood appear to lose this protective bias, and this may be one pathway that contributes to their vulnerability to developing depression. These results are discussed in the context of cognitive theory and mood activation hypotheses of vulnerability for depression.