Attention to related or unrelated neutral stimuli in induced depressed mood, decentralized attention in hypothesis testing

Subject Areas : Thoughts and Behavior in Clinical Psychology

Vahideh Fazilatpour ¹ (دپارتمان روان شناسی، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحداهواز، اهواز، ایران)
Masood Fazilatpour ² (دپارتمان روان شناسی، دانشگاه شهید باهنر کرمان، کرمان، ایران،)
parvin Ehteshamzadeh ³ (دپارتمان روان شناسی، دانشگاه آزاد اسلامی واحداهواز، اهواز، ایران)

Received: 2015-02-26 Accepted : 2015-02-26 Published : 2014-03-21

Keywords: depressed mood induction, decentralized attention, focused attention,

Abstract :

Depressed mood, effects cognitive processes such as complex thinking, problem solving, memory, creativity and especially attention and information encodingin different ways. The purpose of this study was to compare how to allocate attention to relevant and irrelevant neutral stimuli in induced depressed mood and non-depressed mood. For this purpose, in a comparative study of experimental interventions, 89 cases of non-depressed students of Ahvaz Islamic Azad University, and undergraduate students of Kerman Shahid Bahonar University of psychology were selected through screening and were assigned in to two groups, randomly. One of the group underwent induced depression and the focused attention of individuals was measured on the use of the task of cube pattern recognition and decentralized attention. Analysis of variance of scores indicated that in allocating attention to relevant stimuli, there was no significant difference between groups. However, attention to irrelevant stimuli on individuals of induced depression was more than non-depressed subjects. Results indicate that the decentralized mode of attention in addition to depressed mood exists in induced depressed mood as well.