Visual scanning behavior during processing of emotional faces in older adults with major depression

Objectives: Although several reported studies have suggested that younger adults with depression display depression-related biases during the processing of emotional faces, there remains a lack of data concerning these biases in older adults. The aim of our study was to assess scanning behavior during the processing of emotional faces in depressed older adults.

Method: Older adults with and without depression viewed happy, neutral or sad portraits during an eye movement recording.

Results: Depressed older adults spent less time with fewer fixations on emotional features than healthy older adults, but only for sad and neutral portraits, with no significant difference for happy portraits.

Conclusion: These results suggest disengagement from sad and neutral faces in depressed older adults, which is not consistent with standard theoretical proposals on congruence biases in depression. Also, aging and associated emotional regulation change may explain the expression of depression-related biases. Our preliminary results suggest that information processing in depression consists of a more complex phenomenon than merely a general searching for mood-congruent stimuli or general disengagement from all kinds of stimuli. These findings underline that care must be used when evaluating potential variables, such as aging, which interact with depression and selectively influence the choice of relevant stimulus dimensions.