THE PERFORMANCE OF CLINICALLY DEPRESSED CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS ON THE MODIFIED STROOP PARADIGM

The study investigated selective processing of emotional information i n childhood depression using a computerised Version of the modified St roop colour naming task. Three groups of children and adolescents-clin ically depressed (n = 19), patients with mixed depression and anxiety (n = 19), and normal controls (n = 26)-were required to name the colou rs of depression-related, threat-related, trauma-related, happy, and c ategorised neutral words. Normal subjects, compared with the patient g roups, exhibited faster colour naming overall. There were no significa nt differences on the colour naming of different categories of words a nd the performance across the three groups was not significantly diffe rent for different categories of words. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.