Stimulus Preprocessing and Response Selection in Depression: a Reaction Time Study

Depressed subjects are slower than normal controls in reaction time (RT) tasks. However, it is not clear whether depression affects all stages of information-processing or only some of them. In the present study, this question was addressed by using the additive factor method. Ten inpatients and ten control subjects performed a two-choice visual RT task. Stimulus intensity and stimulus-response compatibility were manipulated. The effect of intensity was similar in both groups whereas the effect of compatibility was larger for the patients than for the controls. This suggests that stimulus preprocessing is unaffected by depression whilst response selection is impaired.