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Lack of positive emotion is considered an important aspect of depression. Previous studies have reported decreased attention to positive information for individuals with depressive symptoms; however, such studies have not investigated whether decreased attentional allocation occurs even when participants are required to fixate centrally on items presented in the visual field. In the present study, the attentional window (i.e., the spatial distribution of attentional resources) was measured with a modified version of the digit-parity task. In this task, the participants had to fixate on the centrally presented emotional face stimuli, and they were required to respond to the peripherally presented targets. The results indicated that individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms were slower to respond when a target appeared near happy faces, which suggested decreased allocation of attention. Moreover, decreased allocation of attention to positive faces was found only in depressive individuals, not in individuals with social anxiety. The present findings suggest that individuals with higher levels of depressive symptoms allocate less attentional resources to positive stimuli, even when they are required to attend to them.

The relationship between trait rumination and working memory has not been well established. Previous studies have shown that high ruminators have poor working memory in general, while others have shown that they have superior working memory ability. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that high ruminators have an imbalanced working memory ability, with inferior updating and superior attentional control abilities. A total of 178 graduate and undergraduate students completed three updating tasks: spatial 2-back, running memory, and memory updating; three attentional control tasks: Stroop, Eriksen flanker, and antisaccade; and two short-term memory tasks: dot matrix and digit span. Results of the latent variable analysis did not show any significant relationships between working memory factors, maladaptive brooding, and adaptive reflection. However, we observed imbalanced working memory at the individual task level, and increased reflection associated with superior antisaccade task performance and poor Stroop task performance. These findings suggest that high ruminators have an imbalanced working memory ability across task-specific components inherent in each task, such as oculomotor inhibition. Researchers should investigate the relationships between trait rumination and working memory, especially the aspects of superior ability, in more detail in further studies.

Self-insight or clarity of understanding of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors is suggested to play a key role in psychological treatments of depression. Mindfulness is considered as a promising factor to enhance self-insight since it is a prerequisite to gaining clearer self-understanding. Regardless of the theoretical/hypothetical links between self-insight, mindfulness, and depressive symptoms, their temporal or causal associations have not been examined thoroughly. Furthermore, as mindfulness is a five-factor construct, it is important to clarify which factor(s) of mindfulness is/are especially associated with increased self-insight. In the present study, we conducted a three-wave longitudinal survey on Japanese undergraduate students (n = 148, men = 106, women = 42, mean age = 19.24 years, SD = 1.67 years) to examine the prospective effect of mindfulness on self-insight and that of self-insight on depressive symptoms. The results of structural equation modeling revealed a significant indirect effect of mindfulness, leading to decreased depressive symptoms via increased self-insight. A follow-up multiple regression analysis identified two of the five factors of mindfulness (i.e., describe and act with awareness) as significant predictors of future increase in self-insight. The findings of the present study indicated that self-insight could be improved through mindfulness, leading to a reduction in depressive symptoms.

Past research has suggested that self-insight functions as a genuine factor to enhance psychological adjustment. However, because most of the previous studies had used a cross-sectional design, a prospective study was warranted to establish the temporal and causal relationship between self-insight and depressive symptoms. Another important issue was that there seems to be a moderator that influences the adaptive function of self-insight. Stein and Grant (2014) suggested that positive self-evaluation mediates the association between self-insight and well-being. This result could imply that self-insight does not lead to well-being with negative self-evaluation. In this study, therefore, we conducted a longitudinal questionnaire survey to examine the prospective effect of self-insight on future depressive symptoms with self-complexity as a putative moderator. A complete dataset of 93 Japanese undergraduates was analyzed. The prospective analysis showed a significant moderating role of negative self-complexity in the associations among self-insight, depressive symptoms, and stress; people with high self-insight and low negative self-complexity were less likely to be influenced by stressors, whereas those with high self-insight and high negative self-complexity showed significant increases in depressive symptoms after stressful experiences. These findings implicate that the adaptive effect of self-insight can be conditional depending on the extent of negative self-complexity.

The attentional control theory (ACT) proposes that trait anxiety disrupts functional efficiency of executive control of attention relating to working memory system such as shifting. ACT also emphasizes the modulatory role of motivation in anxiety on cognitive task performance. The present study investigated the association of trait anxiety-related inefficiencies in attentional shift and working memory performance in conjunction with the level of motivation. A variation of complex span paradigm is designed to systematically manipulate the time constraint on shifting attentional focus back and forth between working memory contents and processing task was used in this study. In the experiment, participants high and low in trait anxiety were allocated either high or low motivation induction conditions, and performed a series of complex span tasks. They also completed a state anxiety measure before and after the experimental task. Motivational states were assessed by the pupil dilation, which is known to reflect the amount of cognitive effort invested on the task at hand. Results showed that, only in low motivation condition, high trait-anxious individuals exhibited greater difficulty, relative to those low in trait anxiety, in maintaining working memory contents as the task demand increased. State anxiety showed no relation to working memory performance regardless of the level of motivation and task demands. Pupillary responses revealed that, in high motivational state, high trait-anxious individuals invested more effort than those low in trait anxiety when the task demand was low, F(1, 132) = 6.65, p = 0.0110, to moderate, F(1, 132) = 8.441, p = 0.00043. In accordance with ACT, these findings suggest that motivation can modulate the association between trait anxiety and cognitive performance along with the levels of task demand. Clinical implication is briefly discussed.

Space-valence metaphors (e.g., bad is down) are embedded within cognitive and emotional processing (e.g., negative stimuli at a lower space capture visual attention more than those at an upper space). Previous studies have revealed that motor action to vertical direction affects the emotional valence rating of stimuli in a metaphor-congruent manner only when the action was introduced after the stimuli presentation. In the present study, we hypothesized that motor action before the stimuli presentation does not affect valence rating while it may affect visual selective attention. In Experiment 1 (participants: 28 university students; mean age = 19.50 years), we partially replicated the previous result with repeated ANOVA and t-tests; manual action introduced before the stimuli presentation does not affect the valence rating. Then, in Experiment 2 (participants: 28 university students; mean age = 19.57 years), we employed a modified version of the dot-probe task as a measure of visual selective attention to emotional stimuli, where participants’ vertical or horizontal manual action was introduced before the presentation of a pair of emotional words. The results of the t-tests revealed that an upward manual action promoting selective attention to negative words, which was incongruent with the space-valence metaphorical correspondence. These results suggest that even though manual action does not affect the evaluative process of emotional stimuli prospectively, upward manual action introduced before stimuli presentation can promote visual attention to the subsequent negative stimuli in a way that is incongruent with the space-valence metaphor., Attention; emotion; Embodied Cognition; motor action; Metaphor

Previous studies have shown a negative correlation between effortful control (EC) and depressive symptoms. EC is defined as the efficiency of executive attention, which may be reduced by the attentional impairment associated with depression. However, the mechanism underlying this correlation is still unclear. We investigated the relationship between EC and depressive symptoms with the hypothesis that cognitive motivation, or need for cognition (NfC), is a possible mediator of this relationship. Participants were 178 Japanese university students. Each completed the Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale, Effortful Control Scale, and Need for Cognition Scale at baseline and follow-up assessments. Supporting our hypothesis, mediation analyses revealed a significant indirect effect of depressive symptoms on EC that was mediated by NfC. In addition, our data demonstrated a direct effect of depressive symptoms on EC. Longitudinal analysis indicated that an increase in depression and a decrease in NfC occurred synchronously, while NfC predicted an increase in EC over time. Depressive symptoms may decrease executive functioning and effortful control both directly and indirectly, the latter effect being mediated by motivation. These findings imply that a motivational deficit may partially explain the decreased EC found in people suffering from depression. ispartof: Psychiatry Research vol:241 pages:8-13 ispartof: location:Ireland status: published

Metaphorical association between vertical space and emotional valence is activated by bodily movement toward the corresponding space. Upward or downward manual movement “following” observation of emotional images is reported to alter the perceived valence as more positive or negative. This study aimed to clarify this retrospective emotional modulation. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of temporal order of emotional stimuli and manual movements. Participants performed upward, downward, or horizontal manual movements immediately before or after observation of emotional images; they then rated the valence of the image. The images were rated as more negative in downward- than in horizontal-movement conditions only when the movements followed the image observation. Upward movement showed no effect. Experiment 2 examined the effects of temporal proximity between images, movements, and ratings. The results showed that a two-second interval either between image and movement or movement and rating nullified the retrospective effect. Bodily movement that corresponds to space–valence metaphor retrospectively, but not prospectively, alters the perceived valence of emotional stimuli. This effect requires temporal proximity between emotional stimulus, the subsequent movement, and rating of the stimulus. With respect to the lack of effect of upward–positive correspondence, anisotropy in effects of movement direction is discussed.

Sense of agency, a feeling of generating actions and events by oneself, stems from action–outcome congruence. An implicit marker of sense of agency is intentional binding, which is compression of subjective temporal interval between action and outcome. We investigated relationships between intentional binding and explicit sense of agency. Participants pressed a key triggering auditory (Experiment 1) or visual outcome (Experiment 2) that occurred after variable delays. In each trial, participants rated their agency over the outcome and estimated the keypress–outcome temporal interval. Results showed that delays decreased agency ratings and intentional binding. There was inter-individual correlation between sensitivities to outcome delay (i.e., regression slope) of agency rating and intentional binding in the auditory but not visual domain. Importantly, we found intra-individual correlations between agency rating and intentional binding on a trial-by-trial basis in both outcome modalities. These results suggest that intentional binding coincides with explicit sense of agency.

The self-positivity bias, which is inherent to healthy people, is known to be blunted in depression. The lack of positive or excessive negative self-reference is considered to be a potential mechanism underlying depressive rumination. However, the motivational factors that drive people to approach and avoid emotional self-related materials are still unclear. Therefore, we measured intrinsic motivation that is associated with emotional self-references by using a reward-based decision-making task (pay-per-view paradigm). Forty-nine undergraduates completed two tasks in which they were asked to choose between negative vs. positive references (Task 1) and self vs. other references (Task 2) for variable monetary rewards. Participants with lower levels of depressive symptoms showed a self-positivity bias, sacrificing rewards for the opportunity to engage in positive self-reference, whereas those with higher levels of depressive symptoms had no specific preference for either negative or positive self-reference (Task 1). However, all participants sacrificed monetary rewards for the opportunity for self-reference versus other reference, regardless of the symptom level or the primed valence (Task 2). Together, these findings suggest that depressive cognition could be characterised by the lack of intrinsic motivation for positive self-reference, which is attributable to the biased valence selection, but not to self-other preferences. peerreview_statement: The publishing and review policy for this title is described in its Aims & Scope. aims_and_scope_url: http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=aimsScope&journalCode=pcem20 ispartof: Cognition & Emotion vol:30 issue:8 pages:1402-1414 ispartof: location:England status: published

We investigated the effects of adaptive and maladaptive forms of self-focus—specifically, self-reflection and self-rumination—on the relationship between depressed mood and everyday problem-solving behavior. Although previous research has consistently suggested that self-rumination disturbs problem solving and self-regulatory processes, thereby aggravating depressive symptoms, the association between self-reflection, problem solving, and its emotional consequences has not been demonstrated. Therefore, we assessed whether self-reflection can facilitate the emotion regulation function of problem solving through a daily diary method. Thirty-nine Japanese undergraduate and graduate students recorded daily depressed mood, the most stressful problem encountered each day, and whether they utilized problem-solving behaviors for seven consecutive days. Multilevel model analyses showed that individuals with higher levels of self-reflection reported lower depressed moods after enacting problem-solving behaviors, even if the problem that they had on that day was highly stressful. These results suggest that self-reflection enhances the mood regulation function of everyday problem-solving behavior, and may contribute to mental well-being and resilience to stress.

Theorists have suggested that self-focused attention has adaptive and maladaptive aspects and have proposed self-rumination and self-reflection. Previous research on self-focus and mindfulness have shown that self-rumination increases depression and counteracts decentering which is the capacity to take a detached view of one’s thoughts and emotions. On the contrary, although self-reflection was defined as an adaptive type of self-focus, its contents or mode have not been examined, and the mechanism of its contribution to psychological adjustment is still not well understood. Hence, we explored the function of self-reflection in relation to decentering to elucidate its adaptivity. Two-hundred and forty-nine Japanese undergraduate students participated in our cross-sectional questionnaire study. Mediation analysis indicated that individuals with higher levels of self-reflection showed more decentering and less depressive symptoms while self-ruminative participants showed less decentering and more depressive symptoms. This result suggests that self-reflection involves decentered self-focused attention, and its adaptive function appears when self-reflection leads to increased decentering.

The relationship between depressive rumination and dimensions of social problem solving were investigated in a Japanese, nonclinical population. University students (N = 227) completed the Beck Depression Inventory—Second Edition, Ruminative Responses Scale, Means-Ends Problem-Solving (MEPS) test, and Social Problem-Solving Inventory—Revised Short Version (SPSI-R:S). Results indicated that after controlling for depression, trait rumination, especially its brooding subcomponent, was positively correlated with negative problem orientation and avoidance style. Unexpectedly, trait rumination was weakly but positively associated with an effective problem-solving style, as assessed by the SPSI-R:S and MEPS. These findings suggest that one pathway through which rumination leads to depression in nonclinical populations could be through increasing negative problem orientation and avoidance problem-solving style. Results also suggested that reflection, compared to brooding, was positively associated with positive problem orientation and more strongly associated with rationale problem-solving style. These findings suggest that reflection leads to active problem solving.

Learning theories of depression have proposed that depressive cognitions, such as negative thoughts with reference to oneself, can develop through a reinforcement learning mechanism. This negative self-reference is considered to be positively reinforced by rewarding experiences such as genuine support from others after negative self-disclosure, and negatively reinforced by avoidance of potential aversive situations. The learning account additionally predicts that negative self-reference would be maintained by an inability to adjust one’s behavior when negative self-reference no longer leads to such reward. To test this prediction, we designed an adapted version of the reversal-learning task. In this task, participants were reinforced to choose and engage in either negative or positive self-reference by probabilistic economic reward and punishment. Although participants were initially trained to choose negative self-reference, the stimulus-reward contingencies were reversed to prompt a shift toward positive self-reference (Study 1) and a further shift toward negative self-reference (Study 2). Model-based computational analyses showed that depressive symptoms were associated with a low learning rate of negative self-reference, indicating a high level of reward expectancy for negative self-reference even after the contingency reversal. Furthermore, the difficulty in updating outcome predictions of negative self-reference was significantly associated with the extent to which one possesses negative self-images. These results suggest that difficulty in adjusting action-outcome estimates for negative self-reference increases the chance to be faced with negative aspects of self, which may result in depressive symptoms.

Attentional bias toward threatening stimuli is recognized as 1 of the most important cognitive vulnerability factors for anxiety. However, the association between anxious attention and negative moods has not been fully elucidated, particularly in terms of the effect of such bias on mood fluctuations in daily life. We examined the associations between attentional bias and emotional dynamics under a daily life setting. Participants (46 university students) completed the dot-probe task in the laboratory, after which they entered a 6-day experience sampling measurement to assess temporal fluctuations of momentary levels of anxious mood and occurrence of stressful events. The results showed that attentional bias was significantly correlated with increased temporal instability of anxious mood. Furthermore, attentional bias was also associated with enhanced emotional reactivity immediately after occurrence of the stressful event, but not with either the sensitivity to detect stressors or to the recovery process aimed at calming the stress-induced anxious mood on a longer time scale. These findings suggest that attentional bias is associated with the acute impact of a stressor on moods, as evidenced by the increased temporal instability and stress-reactivity of anxious mood. (PsycINFO Database Record

The present study investigated whether the control of reflective attention in working memory (WM) is impaired in high trait anxiety individuals. We focused on the consequences of refreshing-a simple reflective process of thinking briefly about a just-activated representation in mind-on the subsequent processing of verbal stimuli. Participants performed a selective refreshing task, in which they initially refreshed or read one word from a three-word set, and then refreshed a non-selected item from the initial phrase or read aloud a new word. High trait anxiety individuals exhibited greater latencies when refreshing a word after experiencing the refreshing of a word from the same list of semantic associates. The same pattern was observed for reading a new word after prior refreshing. These findings suggest that high trait anxiety individuals have difficulty resolving interference from active distractors when directing reflective attention towards contents in WM or processing a visually presented word.

Retrieval of a memory can induce forgetting of other related memories, which is known as retrieval-induced forgetting. Although most studies have investigated retrieval-induced forgetting by remembering episodic memories, this also can occur by remembering semantic memories. The present study shows that retrieval of semantic memories can lead to forgetting of negative words. In two experiments, participants learned words and then engaged in retrieval practice where they were asked to recall words related to the learned words from semantic memory. Finally, participants completed a stem-cued recall test for the learned words. The results showed forgetting of neutral and negative words, which was characteristic of semantic retrieval-induced forgetting. A certain degree of overlapping features, except same learning episode, is sufficient to cause retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words. Given the present results, we conclude that retrieval-induced forgetting of negative words does not require recollection of episodic memories.

Excessive focus on the internal self has maladaptive consequences for mental and physical health. Although the emotional functions of self-focus have been well established, no study has examined physiological arousal during the daily experience of self-focused thinking. The present study investigates the association between self-focus and autonomic activity using the experience sampling method with ambulatory monitoring of heart rate variability (HRV). Forty-five students reported the content of their thoughts during their daily activities while their heart rate (HR) was being recorded. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that HRV was lower (and HR was higher) over the sampling day if participants engaged in more self-focus, while HRV increased (and HR decreased) from midday to nighttime if participants did not engage in self-focused thinking. These results suggest that self-focus at night is associated with increased physiological arousal, and leads to inhibition of de-arousal associated with normal sleep processes. Implications for insomnia are discussed.

Perceived temporal interval between voluntary action and its outcome is shorter than that between involuntary action and its outcome (i.e., intentional binding). Although the effect is robust and extensively employed as a marker of sense of agency, the nature of intentional binding in multiple actions and outcomes remains unclear. We examined intentional binding in alternated action-outcome dyads. Participants actively or passively pressed a key, followed by a tone, and they again pressed the same key immediately after the preceding tone; resulting in four keypress-tone dyads in a trial. Participants reproduced the duration of alternated keypress-tone dyads or the temporal interval between a dyad embedded in the alternations. The reproduced duration was shorter in the active than in the passive condition, suggesting the intentional binding in action-outcome alternations. In contrast, the reproduced interval between a dyad was longer in the active condition and did not correlate with the reproduced duration of the alternations. These results suggest that subjective time during actions may rely not only on a general internal clock; rather, it may also be modulated by postdictive biases that are flexibly switched based on what we recall.

Some theorists suggest that worry is elevated by positive beliefs when stressful events occur. Although several cross-sectional studies have revealed an association between positive beliefs and worry, few longitudinal studies have been conducted on this topic. Moreover, the effect of positive beliefs as a moderator on worry when stressful events occur has not been investigated. Against this background, the present study conducted a two-wave longitudinal survey to examine the moderating role of positive beliefs. One hundred and ninety-four college students voluntarily completed questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analysis showed a prospective relationship between the experience of stressful events and the subjective report of worry. Moreover, this relationship was moderated by an interaction with positive beliefs; stressful events were a stronger predictor of the extent of worry for individuals with a high level of positive beliefs than for those with a low level of positive beliefs. The moderating role of positive beliefs suggests that the level of positive beliefs amplifies the threat of worry caused by stressful events.