Visual selective attention was examined in a sample of non-referred adolescents with high and low depressive symptomatology. Two standardized depression inventories (CDI, DEQ) were used to classify the adolescents. The two groups were matched on age, sex and intelligence. The adolescents performed a forced-choice reaction time task designed to isolate several sources of interference in visual selective attention. Interference conditions varied with regard to number and type of distractors surrounding the target stimulus. Reaction times of the two groups were compared to identify differences in capacities and strategies utilized in filtering distracting information. Findings were examined with regard to the ability to select relevant information and ignore distracting information from the environment. Data analyses indicated that the reaction times of the adolescents who scored high on the depression scales were slower and more variable. In addition, facilitation occurred only with adolescents with low scores when the number of distractors exceeded visual capacities. The implications for understanding attentional capacities and strategies of adolescents with depressive symptoms are discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.61290 |
| Date | January 1992 |
| Creators | Djokovic-Ducic, Slobodanka |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001313874, proquestno: AAIMM80289, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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