Dja. Dozois et Ks. Dobson, Information processing and cognitive organization in unipolar depression: Specificity and comorbidity issues, J ABN PSYCH, 110(2), 2001, pp. 236-246
This study investigated information processing and cognitive organization i
n clinical depression. The specificity of various cognitive mechanisms to d
epression was also examined. Twenty-six depressed/ anxious individuals, 24
pure depressives, 25 never-depressed anxious controls, and 25 nonpsychiatri
c controls completed a modified Stroop task, the Self-Referent Encoding Tas
k, and two tasks designed to assess cognitive structure. Comorbid depressed
/anxious, depressed, and anxious groups per-formed similarly to one another
but differed significantly from nonpsychiatric controls, on the processing
and organization of negative content. Specificity to depression was also o
btained, as both depressed groups endorsed and recalled less positive infor
mation and organized positive self-relevant information with less interconn
ectedness than anxious individuals and nonpsychiatric controls. These resul
ts suggest that depressed individuals have an interconnected negative self-
representational system and lack a well-organized positive template of self
. These findings are discussed in terms of cognitive models of depression a
nd the tripartite model of depression and anxiety.