Abstract
Background: Previous research highlights the potential benefits of engaging with depressive internet memes for those experiencing symptoms of depression. This study aimed to determine whether: compared to non- depressed controls, individuals experiencing depressive symptoms were quicker to orient and maintain overall attention for internet memes depicting depressive content relative to neutral memes. Methods: N=21 individuals were grouped based on the severity of reported depression symptoms using the PhQ-9. Specifically, a score of: 4 denoted the control group; and 15 the depressive symptoms group. Participants viewed a series of meme pairs depicting depressive and neutral memes for periods of 4000 milliseconds. Data for the first fixation onset and duration, and total gaze duration of eye-movements were recorded. Results: A significant group x meme-type interaction indicated that participants with depressive symptoms spent significantly more time observing depressive rather than neutral memes. Limitations: The small sample size may have limited our ability to detect interaction effects at the 5% alpha level. Conclusions: These outcomes provide suggestive evidence for the notion that depressive symptoms are associated with and attentional bias towards emotionally salient stimuli.
Highlights
The experience of depression is predominately characterized by disordered affect, paired with significant cognitive, emotional and behavioral deficits (American Psychiatric Association 2013)
This exploratory study aimed to determine whether: compared to non-depressed controls, individuals experiencing depressive symptoms were quicker to orient and maintain initial and overall attention for internet memes depicting depressive content relative to control memes
This study examined whether: compared to non-depressed controls, individuals experiencing depressive symptoms were quicker to orient and maintain initial and overall attention for internet memes depicting depressive content relative to neutral memes
Summary
The experience of depression is predominately characterized by disordered affect, paired with significant cognitive, emotional and behavioral deficits (American Psychiatric Association 2013) These symptoms are highly prevalent in the general population, affecting up to 27% of individuals according to meta-analytic data (Wang et al 2017). Given the nature of these outcomes, it is theorized that relative to control subjects, depressed individuals are not more vigilant for negative stimuli but retain longer attention towards such information once fixated (Gotlib and Joorman 2010). That said, these differences may not extend to studies using sad stimuli (as opposed to generally negative or threatening stimuli). As individuals generally orient their eye-gaze towards stimuli that attract attention (Jonides 1981), exploring where individuals direct and fixate their gaze, using eye-tracking, provides a more direct assessment of visual attention
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