EFFECT OF DEPRESSION ON PSYCHOMOTOR-SKILLS, EYE-MOVEMENTS AND RECOGNITION-MEMORY

In this study 12 depressed outpatients were compared to 12 healthy con trols with respect to their performance on a number of cognitive tasks , including a recognition-memory task, and their eye movements and pup il size were recorded while watching a traffic film. The recognition-m emory task consisted of words with intermediate hedonic tone (neutral words), words with high hedonic tone ('good' words) and words with low hedonic tone ('bad' words). Patients performed slower on perceptual-m otor tasks which could be characterized as effort-demanding, while no difference between groups was found on effortless tasks. In addition, the range of horizontal eye movements, an indication of visual span, w as found to be less in patients. Signal-detection analysis on the reco gnition-memory data showed an impairment of 'pure' memory in depressiv es. Analyses on response bias indicated that patients had more false a larms, but only with respect to good words. It is concluded that patie nts exhibit cognitive deficits, including memory impairment, a narrowe r visual span and a risky response strategy on good words, which may b e an indication of the trouble patients have in processing emotionally toned words.