Authors: Autumn J Kujawa Dana Torpey Jiyon Kim Greg Hajcak Suzanne Rose Ian H Gotlib Daniel N Klein
Publish Date: 2010/07/20
Volume: 39, Issue: 1, Pages: 125-135
Abstract
Attentional biases for negative stimuli have been observed in schoolage and adolescent children of depressed mothers and may reflect a vulnerability to depression The direction of these biases and whether they can be identified in early childhood remains unclear The current study examined attentional biases in 5–7yearold children of depressed and nondepressed mothers Following a mood induction children participated in a dotprobe task assessing biases for sad and happy faces There was a significant interaction of group and sex daughters of depressed mothers attended selectively to sad faces while children of controls and sons of depressed mothers did not exhibit biases No effects were found for happy stimuli These findings suggest that attentional biases are discernible in early childhood and may be vulnerability markers for depression The results also raise the possibility that sex differences in cognitive biases are evident before the emergence of sex differences in the prevalence of depression
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