NEGATIVE INTERPRETATION BIAS

The manner in which individuals selectively attend to various emotional stimuli

demonstrates how attention is allocated in different ways depending on an individual’s mood state. However, it does not provide information about the way different stimuli are interpreted. At this point, a distinction is necessary between making interpretations at the time information is presented, as opposed to making judgements about events from the past or future (Mathews & MacLeod, 2005).

The theories used to explain mood-congruent effects in attention also apply to other aspects of information processing, including memory, learning, interpretations, and judgements. For example, A. Beck’s (1967) cognitive theory suggests that through the development of negative schemata, mood-congruent effects can operate on interpretation and other areas of information processing. Other theories that consider the mood-congruent nature of

information processing include Bower’s (1981) network theory, which incorporates the notion of thought congruity. Thought congruity refers to the mood-congruent judgements,

thoughts, interpretations, and free associations that an individual experiences (Eysenck & Keane, 2010). Similarly, the Affect Infusion Model (AIM), through the complementary dual mechanisms of affective-priming and heuristic processing, holds that affective information exerts an influence on processing and becomes incorporated into judgements and

prejudicing them (Forgas, 1995, 1999). In the case of depression, priming towards negative information and negative heuristic processing leads to judgements that are also negative.

Common across all these theories is the mood-congruent nature with which information is processed, something that is supported by the research literature. For instance, in a mood induction experiment, Forgas and Locke (2005) found, that when presented with workplace situation vignettes, current mood state influenced judgements such that participants in a negative mood provided more critical judgements while those in a positive mood were more optimistic.

Inducing positive and negative mood states in experimental groups does not necessarily reveal information about clinical populations, as the mood state is transient and may not reflect similar patterns of interpretative processing in those with depression of a more pervasive nature. In assessing interpretation biases with depressed samples, Hindash and Amir (2012) used a word sentence association task which required participants to read an ambiguous statement (e.g., “You get a new job”) displayed on computer screen. Such a statement is followed by either a negative (e.g., “Unqualified”) or benign (“Qualified”) unambiguous word associated with the statement. Participants are required to indicate if the statement and the word are related. The dependent measures are both endorsement rate and response latency. For the negative words, it was found that depressed participants endorsed these more than non-depressed participants, and were faster in their response times,

providing evidence for a negative interpretation bias. Conversely, non-depressed

participants endorsed more benign words, although no group differences were found for response latencies. Additional evidence for a negative interpretation bias has been

supported by other studies (e.g., Beevers, Wells, Ellis, & Fisher, 2009; Lawson, MacLeod, & Hammond, 2002; Safford, Alloy, Abramson, & Crossfield, 2007).

Some studies, however, have failed to find evidence of an interpretation bias. Using a similar (auditory rather than visual) semantic priming task to Hindash and Amir (2012), Bisson and Sears (2007) presented ambiguous auditory statements, followed by negative, positive, or neutral words. It was expected that depressed participants would produce

larger response latencies for negative words, but findings failed to yield support for this hypothesis. Likewise, Lawson and MacLeod (1999) found no evidence of a negative interpretation bias, also using a semantic priming task. Instead, they found the non- depressed group demonstrated greater priming effects for negative words, something that was expected from the depressed group.

While research findings have been equivocal, clarification may come in the form of

additional research that has found mixed evidence for negative interpretation biases within the same study (e.g., Mogg et al., 2006; Sedikides, 1994; Wenzlaff and Bates, 1998). For instance, in a study that asked participants to describe themselves after a mood-induction task, it was found that sad mood resulted in mood-congruent (negative) self-descriptions initially, but over the course of time, self-descriptions became more positive (Sedikides, 1994). Subsequently, it has been suggested that negative interpretation biases may be produced when information processing involves more extensive processing but not when simple interpretations can be made (Eysenck & Keane, 2010; Forgas & Locke, 2005). Indeed, the AIM identifies four processing strategies, noting that some involve affect infusion while others do not (Forgas, 1995). Briefly, the direct access strategy refers to the retrieval of crystallised, pre-existing cognitive content. The motivated processing strategy occurs in relation to a pre-existing goal. Affect infusion does not influence either of these strategies, which require little constructive processing. Conversely, heuristic processing is employed when simple, relatively effortless processing is needed. This relies on limited information being available, with no motivational goal or pre-existing knowledge, and is therefore guided by current emotion (Eysenck & Keane, 2010). Finally, substantive processing involves relating existing knowledge to the selection, learning, and interpretation of information, using the most constructive processing strategy (Eysenck & Keane, 2010; Forgas, 1999).

Because the substantive processing strategy requires the most constructive processing it is believed to be heavily governed by current mood state. These latter two strategies are thought to involve affect infusion, either indirectly (through priming effects) or directly (Forgas & Bower, 1988). Therefore, negative interpretation biases are theorised to occur more readily under these constructive processing conditions. For instance, Mogg et al. (2006) found no evidence for a negative interpretation bias when depressed participants were presented with a semantic priming task. However, support was found when the same participants were presented with a homophone task. This involved listening to a word with two possible spellings (either negative or positive, e.g., dye/die or pane/pain) and the

participants were asked to write the word down. As hypothesised, depressed participants wrote more negative words than the non-depressed participants. Further, the Mogg et al. study included a rating and recall task whereby participants listened to a list of positive and negative words in which they were asked to indicate (yes/no) if the word described them. This was immediately followed with a not previously revealed recall task in which

participants were asked to recall as many words as possible within a 2-minute time frame. Results showed that depressed participants endorsed more negative words as self-

descriptive, and recalled more negative words than the non-depressed participants.

The idea that negative interpretation biases are more likely to occur when the presented stimuli are self-referent has been further supported by Hertel and El-Messidi (2006). They used a homograph task to compare depressed and non-depressed individuals. In this task, participants are provided with a word that has one spelling but can have a negative or neutral meaning (e.g., tear meaning either to rip or to cry). Participants were requested to compose a sentence using the word, with the prediction that depressed participants would construct sentences using the word’s negative connotation, while non-depressed participants would construct sentences using positive connotations. However, in each mood group, participants underwent a thought induction task resulting in half the participants completing a self-focused thought induction, while the other half completed an other- focused thought induction. While depressed participants constructed more negatively connoted sentences, this was only the case for those given the self-focused thought induction.

While there appears to be reasonable evidence of a negative interpretation bias in depressed individuals, it is not known if similar biases would be found in older adults. A search of the literature did not reveal (published) research on interpretation biases pertaining to older adults. However, a myriad of research exists in relation to memory and attentional biases in older adults, revealing a positivity effect in this cohort (Carstensen & Mikels, 2005).

Accordingly, older adults generally focus more on positive stimuli than their younger counterparts. As outlined previously, there is a distinct lack of research investigating cognitive biases in olderadults with depression or low mood. Nevertheless, it appears that positive and negative biases are relatively robust across the different types of cognitive biases. Based on the aforementioned findings from attentional biases in older depressed adults, it is likely that they would also exhibit a negative interpretation bias.