| Background Depression is one of the most common mental disorders.It usually has a series of changes in behavior,emotion and cognitive function.Cognitive impairment is an important factor leading to the decline of social function.Cognitive symptoms of depression often involve one or more cognitive domains,including implicit cognition and metacognition.Through literature review,it is found that implicit cognition is an important psychological mechanism for depressed individuals to maintain depression.Metacognitive state is related to depression.If these cognitive areas cannot be corrected by treatment,it will seriously hinder the prevention and treatment of depression.Studies have shown that the clinical manifestations of depression are closely related to the impairment of brain function involved in semantic and emotional information processing.However,the characteristics and mechanism of implicit cognitive and metacognitive processing of semantic and emotional information in patients with depression are still unclear.Objective In this study,behavioral experiments and eye movement tracking techniques were used to systematically reveal the changes of implicit and metacognitive processing of semantic and emotional information in patients with depression.This study will clarify the eye movement mechanism of attention allocation in the processing of semantic and emotional information in patients with depression,and provide an important theoretical basis for the neuropsychological mechanism of cognitive processing of semantic and emotional information in patients with depression.Methods 1.Behavioral Experiment:In this study,patients with depression and normal individuals were tested with emotion Stroop task,memory recognition test,lexical completion test and metacognitive monitoring test.Then analyze the implicit cognitive processing characteristics of semantic and emotional information,and the metacognitive characteristics in the process of implicit cognitive processing.2.Eye tracking technique:This study used eye tracking techniques to investigate depression patients and healthy subjects,to observe whether they also have an attention bias in the free viewing task of semantic and emotional information,and the attention distribution mechanism in the processing of semantic and emotional information.Results 1.Behavioral experiment:（1）In the emotional Stroop task,the response time of emotional words in the depression group was significantly longer than that in the control group[F（1,70）=7.03,P=0.008],and the response time to negative words was longer than that of neutral[（579.55±141.62）ms vs.（565.66±132.60）ms,P=0.003]and positive words[（579.55±141.62）ms vs.（563.09±138.88）ms,P=0.000].（2）In the memory recognition test,the response accuracy of emotional words in the depression group was higher than that in the control group[F（1,70）=23.15,P=0.000],and the response accuracy to negative words was higher than that of positive words[（0.50±0.32）vs.（0.32±0.21）,P=0.006]and neutral words[（0.50±0.32）vs.（0.33±0.23）,P=0.007].In addition,the depression group had a conservative response bias to negative words[F（1,70）=67.82,P=0.000],and was more cautious than neutral words[（1.46±0.40）vs.（0.63±0.24）,P=0.000]and positive words[（1.46±0.40）vs.（0.57±0.27）,P=0.000].（3）In the lexical completion test,the implicit memory of negative words in depression group is higher than that of neutral words[（13.06±2.56）vs.（9.14±2.22）,P=0.000]and positive words[（13.06±2.56）vs.（10.17±2.86）,P=0.000].The accuracy rate of negative words is the highest,indicating that the priming effect of negative words is more significant.（4）In the meta-cognition monitoring,the difference score between the monitoring performance and the actual performance of the depression group is smaller than that of the control group[（19.17±8.79）vs.（22.53±8.36）,P=0.000].This shows that patients with depression can more accurately monitor recognition scores.This suggests that they usually evaluate their behavior or achievements more objectively.2.Eye tracking technology:（1）First fixation duration:The first fixation duration of emotional words in the depression group was significantly longer than that in the control group[F（1,58）=24.26,P=0.000],and the first fixation duration of negative words in the depression group was longer than that of positive words[（1.43±0.49）s vs.（1.04±0.35）s,P=0.001].（2）Total fixation duration:The total fixation duration of emotional words in the depression group was significantly longer than that in the control group[F（1,58）=37.80,P=0.000],and the total fixation duration of negative words in the depression group was longer than that of positive words[（2.46±0.58）s vs.（1.57±0.35）s,P=0.000].（3）Total retention time:The total retention time of emotional words was considerably longer in the depression group than in the control group[F（1,58）=35.35,P=0.000],and the total retention time of negative words was significantly longer in the depression group than in the control group[（2.94±0.55）s vs.（2.08±0.40）s,P=0.000].Conclusion（1）In the emotion Stroop task and memory recognition test,compared with normal individuals,patients with depression pay more attention to and remember the semantic information of negative stimuli,and show an attention bias to negative information and implicit mood congruent memory bias.This suggests that patients with depression have negative cognitive processing bias in attention and implicit memory in the implicit cognitive processing of semantic and emotional information.Its characteristic is that they tend to pay attention to and remember the negative information consistent with their negative emotional state,and do not pay attention to and remember the positive information.（2）In the lexical completion test,the implicit memory of negative words in the depression group was higher than that of neutral words and positive words,and the correct rate of negative words was the highest.This shows that patients with depression have an priming effect on implicit memory to negative words during the experiment,and they are easier to remember negative words.This suggests that negative stimuli can automatically activate unconscious processing in patients with depression and make them more sensitive to negative stimuli.（3）In the metacognitive monitoring task,compared with normal individuals,the monitoring performance of patients with depression was more consistent with the actual performance,and the recognition performance was more accurately monitored.This suggests that patients with depression tend to evaluate their behavior or performance more objectively,while normal individuals may be more inclined to exaggerate their performance.（4）The eye movement experiment under the natural viewing task shows that whether in the initial orientation of early attention or in the maintenance of late attention,patients with depression are more likely to pay attention to negative stimuli and consume more attentional resources for the processing of negative information.This provides an objective basis for the negative attentional bias in the implicit cognitive processing of semantic emotional information in patients with depression in behavioral experiments. |
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