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01-08-2014 | Original Contribution

Neutral face distractors differentiate performance between depressed and healthy adolescents during an emotional working memory task

Authors: Lucy R. Tavitian, Cecile D. Ladouceur, Ziad Nahas, Beatrice Khater, David A. Brent, Fadi T. Maalouf

Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry | Issue 8/2014

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to examine the effect of neutral and emotional facial expressions on voluntary attentional control using a working memory (WM) task in adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD). We administered the Emotional Face n-back (EFNBACK) task, a visual WM task with neutral, happy and angry faces as distractors to 22 adolescents with MDD (mean age 15.7 years) and 21 healthy controls (HC) (mean age 14.7 years). There was a significant group by distractor type interaction (p = 0.045) for mean percent accuracy rates. Group comparisons showed that MDD youth were less accurate on neutral trials than HC (p = 0.027). The two groups did not differ on angry, happy and blank trials (p > 0.05). Reaction time did not differ across groups. In addition, when comparing the differences between accuracies on neutral trials and each of the happy and angry trials, respectively [(HAP-NEUT) and (ANG-NEUT)], there was a group effect on (HAP-NEUT) where the difference was larger in MDD than HC (p = 0.009) but not on ANG-NEUT (p > 0.05). Findings were independent of memory load. Findings indicate that attentional control to neutral faces is impaired and negatively affected performance on a WM task in adolescents with MDD. Such an impact of neutral faces on attentional control in MDD may be at the core of the social-cognitive impairment observed in this population.

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Title: Neutral face distractors differentiate performance between depressed and healthy adolescents during an emotional working memory task
Authors: Lucy R. Tavitian
Cecile D. Ladouceur
Ziad Nahas
Beatrice Khater
David A. Brent
Fadi T. Maalouf
Publication date: 01-08-2014
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Published in: European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry / Issue 8/2014
Print ISSN: 1018-8827
Electronic ISSN: 1435-165X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-013-0492-9

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Neutral face distractors differentiate performance between depressed and healthy adolescents during an emotional working memory task

Abstract

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

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