Processing preferences for self-related emotional words as markers of cognitive vulnerability and well-being – cerebral and behavioral correlates and mechanisms

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Cornelia Herbert
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2018 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 415209420

Depression is among the most frequent mental and affective disorders. Due to its increasing prevalence and its many negative consequences on mental and physical health, the prevention of depressive symptoms has received outstanding priority in clinical and mental health programs aimed at protecting individual well-being. Cognitive vulnerability models propose two major cognitive risk factors that favor the onset and severity of depressive symptoms in healthy individuals. These include a pronounced self-focus as well as a negative emotional processing bias. According to two-process models of cognitive vulnerability these two risk factors are not independent but affect each other. Nevertheless, how and in which experimental processing conditions both factors influence each other is still unclear. This project proposal aims to close this gap by investigating the interaction between both risk-factors and the mechanisms underlying this interaction under controlled experimental laboratory conditions. In line with two-process models of cognitive vulnerability the following core questions will be investigated: First, at which levels of stimulus- and information processing (stimulus-driven, associative vs. cognitive controlled, reflective) do self-related and emotional processing interact in healthy individuals with and without depressive symptoms? Second, how do self-referential attentive processing, self-referential reflective emotional processing and negative vs. positive mood influence this interaction? Experimentally, stimuli (words) will be used that vary in their emotional meaning (positive, negative, neutral) and in their degree of self-reference ("self" vs. "no self-reference" vs. "other 3rd-person reference"). Methodologically, the time course of stimulus processing will be precisely investigated in all experiments across the different processing conditions by means of electroencephalography (EEG) and the analysis of event-related brain potentials (ERPs). Individual differences in stimulus recall and stimulus appraisal will be assessed by behavioral measures. In addition, EEG-ERP correlates will be explored as indicators of cognitive vulnerability and subjective well-being at 6 and 12 months follow-up after the experimental assessment. Taken together, this project will provide answers to the specificity of depression-related emotional processing preferences, the underlying mechanisms and their importance as clinically relevant markers of depression and subjective well-being. After successful validation of the hypotheses tested in this project proposal, EEG-ERP-based experimental tests can be developed on the basis of which depression-related processing biases can be detected and monitored during the prevention, intervention and treatment of depressive disorders.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants