Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression

BACKGROUND: Goal neglect refers to a dissociation between intended and actual action. Although commonly associated with frontal brain damage, this phenomenon is also characteristic of clinical depression. To date, tests of goal neglect typically require individuals to switch between subtasks populat...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Werner-Seidler, Aliza, Dahm, Theresa, Golden, Ann-Marie, Manly, Tom, Dalgleish, Tim
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cambridge University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7168650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31057139
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719000886
_version_ 1783523687576633344
author Werner-Seidler, Aliza
Dahm, Theresa
Golden, Ann-Marie
Manly, Tom
Dalgleish, Tim
author_facet Werner-Seidler, Aliza
Dahm, Theresa
Golden, Ann-Marie
Manly, Tom
Dalgleish, Tim
author_sort Werner-Seidler, Aliza
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Goal neglect refers to a dissociation between intended and actual action. Although commonly associated with frontal brain damage, this phenomenon is also characteristic of clinical depression. To date, tests of goal neglect typically require individuals to switch between subtasks populated with neutral stimuli. This study examined the impact of affective and personally salient stimulus contexts on goal neglect in clinical depression. METHODS: Participants were randomly allocated to either positively or negatively-valenced versions of the Affective Six Elements Test (A-SET). We hypothesised that depressed individuals (n = 30) would exhibit an overall impairment in A-SET performance by neglecting entire subtasks and allocating suboptimal time to each task, relative to never-depressed peers (n = 30), with effects being strongest for the negatively-valenced version. RESULTS: Findings showed that depressed individuals exhibited specific deficits, relative to controls on these measures in the negative A-SET only, with a magnitude comparable to that found in brain injured patients. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with depression are impaired in their ability to monitor performance and implement strategies that are optimal for the purpose of pursuing an overarching goal when the task context is negatively-valenced. Potential mechanisms are discussed.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7168650
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Cambridge University Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-71686502020-04-27 Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression Werner-Seidler, Aliza Dahm, Theresa Golden, Ann-Marie Manly, Tom Dalgleish, Tim Psychol Med Original Articles BACKGROUND: Goal neglect refers to a dissociation between intended and actual action. Although commonly associated with frontal brain damage, this phenomenon is also characteristic of clinical depression. To date, tests of goal neglect typically require individuals to switch between subtasks populated with neutral stimuli. This study examined the impact of affective and personally salient stimulus contexts on goal neglect in clinical depression. METHODS: Participants were randomly allocated to either positively or negatively-valenced versions of the Affective Six Elements Test (A-SET). We hypothesised that depressed individuals (n = 30) would exhibit an overall impairment in A-SET performance by neglecting entire subtasks and allocating suboptimal time to each task, relative to never-depressed peers (n = 30), with effects being strongest for the negatively-valenced version. RESULTS: Findings showed that depressed individuals exhibited specific deficits, relative to controls on these measures in the negative A-SET only, with a magnitude comparable to that found in brain injured patients. CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with depression are impaired in their ability to monitor performance and implement strategies that are optimal for the purpose of pursuing an overarching goal when the task context is negatively-valenced. Potential mechanisms are discussed. Cambridge University Press 2020-04 2019-05-06 /pmc/articles/PMC7168650/ /pubmed/31057139 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719000886 Text en © Cambridge University Press 2019 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Original Articles
Werner-Seidler, Aliza
Dahm, Theresa
Golden, Ann-Marie
Manly, Tom
Dalgleish, Tim
Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title_full Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title_fullStr Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title_full_unstemmed Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title_short Personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
title_sort personally salient, emotionally negative task contexts provoke goal neglect in depression
topic Original Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7168650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31057139
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719000886
work_keys_str_mv AT wernerseidleraliza personallysalientemotionallynegativetaskcontextsprovokegoalneglectindepression
AT dahmtheresa personallysalientemotionallynegativetaskcontextsprovokegoalneglectindepression
AT goldenannmarie personallysalientemotionallynegativetaskcontextsprovokegoalneglectindepression
AT manlytom personallysalientemotionallynegativetaskcontextsprovokegoalneglectindepression
AT dalgleishtim personallysalientemotionallynegativetaskcontextsprovokegoalneglectindepression