Attentional Bias Deficits in Adolescent Suicide Attempters During an Emotional Stroop Task: An ERP Study

Lower- versus higher-order suicide-related attentional processing measures as predictors of adolescent suicide ideation and attempt

Cognitive theories suggest that biased suicide-related attentional processing confers risk for suicide ideation (SI) and attempts (SAs), but studies to date, which have been mixed, have not compared lower- and higher-order measures of attentional processes. The present study examined attention fixation, attention disengagement, and semantic interference as predictors of future SI and SA among adolescents, a high-risk age group for onset of SI and SAs. Adolescents (N = 135) (75 % female), ages 12-19 (M = 15.4, SD = 1.9), who presented to emergency or outpatient departments with SI (n = 84) or a SA (n = 51) completed an attention disengagement task (ADT), Suicide Stroop task, and the Attentional Fixation on Suicide Experiences Questionnaire (AFSEQ). A subsample of adolescents completed 3-month (n = 98) and 12-month follow-up assessments (n = 96) of SI severity and SA (n = 118) (based on adolescent or caregiver report). AFSEQ score predicted SI severity at 3- and 12-months, respectively, b = 0.47, p < .05; b = 0.44, p < .01, adjusting for ADT and relevant covariates, and also predicted SA at follow up, OR = 1.06, 95 % CI = 1.00-1.12, p < .05, adjusting for SA history, but not after adjusting for SI. Greater suicide-related attention disengagement difficulty predicted greater SI severity at 12 months, b = 0.03, p < .05, but not at 3 months. Self-reported, higher-order, attentional fixation may better predict future suicide-related risk among diverse adolescents than lower-order cognitive tasks assessing suicide-related attention disengagement or semantic interference.

The enhanced emotional negativity bias in parents of atypically developing children: Evidence from an event-related potentials study

Parents of atypically developing children such as parents of children with ASD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and intellectual disability experience higher levels of parenting stress than parents of typically developing children. However, whether they possess enhanced emotional negativity bias was unclear. In the present study, 28 parents of typically developing children and 29 parents of atypically developing children were recruited. The emotional Stroop task and event-related potentials were adopted to measure their emotional negativity bias, in which participants were required to respond to the borders' color of face pictures. Behaviorally, the impact of parenting stress on emotional negativity bias was not found. At the electrophysiological level, the P2 differential amplitude (negative minus positive) was greater in parents of atypically developing children than in parents of typically developing children, reflecting an enhanced early attentional bias toward negative faces. N2 amplitude for the emotionally negative face was smaller than the positive face in parents of atypically developing children, indicating a too weak attentional control to inhibit distractors. Furthermore, sustained attention to negative faces was observed in parents of atypically developing children, that is, the emotionally negative face elicited greater frontal P3 (300 ~ 500 ms) than the positive faces. These findings revealed that compared to parents of typically developing children, parents of atypically developing children owned an enhanced emotional negativity bias at the early and late stages of information processing.

Abnormal attentional bias in individuals with suicidal ideation during an emotional Stroop task: an event-related potential study

Introduction

There is increasing evidence that suicidal individuals exhibit an attentional bias toward negative or suicide-related stimuli, but the underlying neural mechanism remains unclear. This study aimed to investigate the neural mechanism of attentional bias toward emotional stimuli using a modified emotional Stroop task (EST) and to further explore the influencing factor of abnormal attention processing by identifying whether mental disorders or suicidal ideation contributes to attention processing disruptions.

Methods

Fourteen students with suicidal ideation and mental disorders (SIMDs), sixteen students with suicidal ideation but no mental disorders (SINMDs), and fourteen sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HCs) were recruited. Moreover, 64-channel electroencephalography (EEG) data and behavioral responses were recorded simultaneously during the EST. Participants were instructed to respond to the ink color for various types of words (positive, neutral, negative, and suicide) while ignoring their meanings. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were analyzed to evaluate attention to the stimuli. Spearman correlations between clinical psychological assessment scales and ERP signatures were analyzed to determine the risk factors for suicide.

Results

The results showed that the SIMD group exhibited longer early posterior negativity (EPN) latency compared to the SINMD and HC groups, indicating that early attention processing was affected during the EST, and the automatic and rapid processing of emotional information decreased. Furthermore, P300 latency for positive words was positively correlated with current suicidal ideation in the SINMD group, suggesting that delayed responses or additional processing to positive information may lead individuals with suicidal ideation to an incorrect interpretation of external events.

Conclusions

Generally, our findings suggest that the neural characteristics of the SIMD group differed from those of the SINMD and HC groups. EPN latency and P300 latency during the EST may be suicide-related neurophysiological indicators. These results provide neurophysiological signatures of suicidal behavior.

Negative bias in early and late cognitive processing of coronary heart disease patients with depressive symptoms: an EPR study

BACKGROUND

The purpose of this research was to explore the underlying mechanisms of cognitive impairments in patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) who exhibit depressive symptoms. This was accomplished by recording Event-related potentials (ERPs) during the emotional Stroop task, with a specific focus on the temporal dynamics of attentional bias towards various emotional words.

METHODS

We selected 17 CHD patients with depressive symptoms and 23 CHD patients without depression using a convenience sampling method from the Affiliated Hospital of Weifang Medical University. Each participant completed an emotional Stroop color-word task, and ERPs were recorded during the task to examine cognitive processing.

RESULTS

CHD patients with depressive symptoms exhibited generally smaller amplitudes of N1, N2, P3 and longer latency of P3 compared to CHD patients without depression. Specifically, the N1 amplitude of negative words was smaller and the P3 amplitude of negative words was larger in the CHD with depressive group compared to the CHD group. Furthermore, within the group of CHD patients with depressive symptoms, negative words elicited a smaller N1 amplitude and larger P3 amplitude compared to positive and neutral words.

CONCLUSIONS

CHD patients with depressive symptoms demonstrate decreased attentional resources, leading to cognitive impairments. Notably, significant attentional bias occurs during both early and later stages of cognitive processing. This bias is primarily characterized by an enhanced automatic processing of negative information at the early stage and difficulty disengaging from such information at the later stage. These findings contribute to the existing literature on the cognitive neural mechanisms underlying depression in CHD patients.

Adaptation of an Emotional Stroop Test for Screening of Suicidal Ideation in Portugal

Cognitive instruments, especially those with emotional components, may be useful to address the limitations of self-report scales commonly used to assess suicidal ideation. The aim of this study was to develop an emotional Stroop test for screening suicidal ideation in Portugal. The project was developed in five phases using different samples for each phase. The first two phases were focused on the formulation of the potential words that would compose the slides. For this purpose, five biology teachers (neutral slide) and five mental health professionals (positive and negative slides) were invited to help choose the words that were most representative for each slide. The third phase validated the words defined in the previous phase. In this phase, 300 university students participated (M_age = 21.66; SD = 3.67; 68% female). They rated the words on a Likert scale in terms of their frequency of use, familiarity, level of understanding, and degree of image evocation. In the fourth phase, the researchers developed the complete version of the test, which consists of three slides with neutral, positive, and negative emotional stimuli, consecutively. Finally, in the fifth phase, we validated the final version of the test through a comparative study between a clinical group and a non-clinical group, each one composed by 50 participants (M_age = 32; SD = 9.70; 55% female). Results indicated that the clinical group demonstrated significantly higher scores for depression and suicidal ideation and lower scores for the three Stroop tasks. Words related to negative emotions were strongly correlated with suicidal ideation. Finally, the three Stroop slides explained 74.1% of the variance in suicidal ideation. These findings suggest that this test can be a viable complementary measure in the psychological assessment of suicide ideation, and intervention in the field of suicide prevention in Portugal.