Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Goal neglect refers to a dissociation between intended and actual action. Although commonly associated with frontal brain damage, this phenomenon is also characteristic of clinical depression. To date, tests of goal neglect typically require individuals to switch between subtasks populated with neutral stimuli. This study examined the impact of affective and personally salient stimulus contexts on goal neglect in clinical depression.

Methods

Participants were randomly allocated to either positively or negatively-valenced versions of the Affective Six Elements Test (A-SET). We hypothesised that depressed individuals (n = 30) would exhibit an overall impairment in A-SET performance by neglecting entire subtasks and allocating suboptimal time to each task, relative t

SUBMITTER: Werner-Seidler A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7168650 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature