Depression and priming of positive, neutral and negative words [Depressão e priming de palavras positivas, neutras e negativas]

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 2015

Authors

Poínhos, Rui (Author) FCNAUP; Gaspar, NMS (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Estudos de Psicologia (Campinas)

Vol. 32 No. 3

Pages: 583-593

ISSN: 0103-166X

Publisher: Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas

Indexing

Scopus - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00G-TPY

DOI: 10.1590/0103-166x2015000400002

Abstract (EN): The objective of this study was to investigate the association between the level of depression in a nonclinical sample and the performance on implicit memory (priming) tasks. One-hundred and twenty university students aged between 18 and 27 years were randomly divided into two groups (conditions) based on different learning tasks but including the same word-stem completion task. The independent variable was the level of depression. The independent variable was the level of depression (Inventory of Clinical Assessment of Depression). The stimuli used were positive, neutral, and negative words. The results show a relationship between higher cognitive symptoms of depression and a reduced performance on word completion, and they suggest preferential processing of emotional congruent stimuli with the level of depression and the secondary activation of emotional stimuli by stimuli of opposite valence.

Language: Portuguese

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific