Professor Ernst Koster, Ghent University

Cognitive risk for depression: The role of information-processing

Abstract: Depression is one of the most common and pervasive psychological disorders. The past decades there has been an abundance of research examining the influence of information-processing factors on the onset and maintenance of depression. In this talk I will provide an overview of current research on attentional processes and cognitive control. This research shows that information processing contributes in various ways to depression. Based on novel ideas on the conceptualization of these processing biases in depression, novel ways to remediate these biases have been developed and I will discuss the findings with regard to training procedures to modify these biases.