Negative interpretation bias as a clinical marker and a scar of depression: New insights from a large-scale study of the scrambled sentence task in formerly, subclinically and clinically depressed individuals

Not just emotion regulation, but cognition: An experience sampling study testing the relations of ecological interpretation biases and use of emotion regulation strategies with momentary affective states during daily life functioning

BACKGROUND

Current research is moving from studying cognitive biases and maladaptive emotion regulation (ER) as relatively stable phenomena contributing to affective disturbances, adopting ecological methodologies, such as Experience Sampling Methods (ESM). However, there is still limited ESM evidence on the interactions between stress and ER strategies' use, and negative interpretation biases, regarding their relations with momentary affective states. In this study, we used a new ESM design to disentangle the contextual, regulatory and cognitive processes implicated in daily affective experiences.

METHOD

A sample of 103 participants completed an ESM study (3 times a day for 10 days) that included self-reports of momentary affect, stress intensity, ER strategies' use and a cognitive task measuring momentary negative interpretation biases.

RESULTS

Multilevel analyses supported significant interactions of both rumination and worry with stress intensity, to account for momentary higher negative and lower positive affect levels. Furthermore, higher state negative interpretation bias levels uniquely predicted both higher negative and lower positive momentary affect levels.

CONCLUSION

This study implemented a novel online cognitive task within an ESM procedure, which helped to disentangle how contextual ER strategies' use and momentary cognitive biases uniquely relate to affective experiences in daily life.

Dissociation of Implicit and Explicit Interpretation Bias: The Role of Depressive Symptoms and Negative Cognitive Schemata

A negative interpretation bias appears to depend on several depression-related state and trait characteristics, most notably depressive symptoms, negative mood, and negative cognitive schemas. While empirical findings for explicitly assessed interpretation bias are rather consistent, implicit measures have revealed heterogeneous results. In this context, we present two studies investigating the relationship between implicit and explicit interpretation bias and depression- and anxiety-related state and trait variables. In the first study, we conducted an implicit ambiguous cue-conditioning task (ACCT) with 113 young, healthy individuals. In the second study, we utilized an explicit ambiguous social situations task (DUCTUS) with 113 young, healthy individuals. Additionally, a subsample of 46 participants completed both the ACCT and DUCTUS tasks to directly relate the two bias scores obtained from the implicit and explicit assessment methods, respectively. In the first study, regression analysis revealed no significant predictors for the implicit interpretation bias. However, in the second study, the explicit negative interpretation bias was significantly predicted by female gender, depressive symptoms, and dysfunctional cognitive schemas. For the subsample that completed both tasks, we observed no significant correlation between the two bias scores obtained from the ACCT and DUCTUS. These results suggest that implicit and explicit interpretation biases are differently associated with depression-related trait and state characteristics, indicating that they represent different aspects of biased information processing.

Online Contingent Attention Training (OCAT): transfer effects to cognitive biases, rumination, and anxiety symptoms from two proof-of-principle studies

The aim of the present research was to develop and test the efficacy of a novel online contingent attention training (i.e., OCAT) to modify attention and interpretation biases, improve emotion regulation, and reduce emotional symptom levels in the face of major stressors. Two proof-of-principle studies were carried out. In study 1, 64 undergraduates who were about to start a major stressful period (i.e., final exams) were randomized to undergo 10 days of active OCAT or a sham-control training. Emotion regulation (habitual use of rumination and reappraisal) and symptom levels (depression and anxiety) were assessed before and after the intervention. In study 2, the same 2 × 2 mixed design was used with 58 individuals from the general population undergoing a major stressful situation (the lockdown period at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020). In both studies, the OCAT group showed significant improvements on attention towards negative information and interpretation biases in comparison to the sham-control group. Additionally, changes in cognitive biases transferred to reductions of participants' use of rumination and anxiety symptom levels. These results show preliminary evidence regarding the efficacy of the OCAT to target attention and interpretation biases as well as to improve emotion regulation processes and to buffer against the effects of major stressors.