IMPAIRED ATTENTION IN DEPRESSIVE STATES - A NONSPECIFIC DEFICIT

Although cognitive research on attention has advanced significantly in recent years, these advances have produced few specific hypotheses re garding the attentional impairment seen in depression, and few experim ents designed to test them. We review the limited neuropsychological l iterature on impaired attention in depressive states, with emphasis on areas where the findings of modern cognitive research might be applie d in the future to design more sophisticated tests of attentional impa irment. At present, it is not possible to determine whether the attent ional deficits seen in depression are specific to this disorder, or wh ether they represent a final common pathway of impaired cognition seen in many different mental and organic deficit states, such as schizoph renia and dementias.