Self-judgment dissected: A computational modeling analysis of self-referential processing and its relationship to trait mindfulness facets and depression symptoms

• Published in: Cognitive, affective, & behavioral neuroscience Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 171 - 189
• Main Authors: Hitchcock, Peter F., Britton, Willoughby B., Mehta, Kahini P., Frank, Michael J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.02.2023; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Behavior; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cognition; Cognitive Psychology; Computer applications; Computer Simulation; Depression; Drift; Humans; Intervention; Judgment; Mental depression; Mental health; Mindfulness; Neurosciences; Psychology; Research Article; Drift diffusion model; Depression; Self-referent encoding task; Computational modeling; Mindfulness
• ISSN: 1530-7026; 1531-135X; 1531-135X
• DOI: 10.3758/s13415-022-01033-9

Cognitive theories of depression, and mindfulness theories of well-being, converge on the notion that self-judgment plays a critical role in mental health. However, these theories have rarely been tested via tasks and computational modeling analyses that can disentangle the information processes operative in self-judgments. We applied a drift-diffusion computational model to the self-referential encoding task (SRET) collected before and after an 8-week mindfulness intervention ( n = 96). A drift-rate regression parameter representing positive—relative to negative—self-referential judgment strength positively related to mindful awareness and inversely related to depression, both at baseline and over time; however, this parameter did not significantly relate to the interaction between mindful awareness and nonjudgmentalness. At the level of individual depression symptoms, at baseline, a spectrum of symptoms (inversely) correlated with the drift-rate regression parameter, suggesting that many distinct depression symptoms relate to valenced self-judgment between subjects. By contrast, over the intervention, changes in only a smaller subset of anhedonia-related depression symptoms showed substantial relationships with this parameter. Both behavioral and model-derived measures showed modest split-half and test-retest correlations. Results support cognitive theories that implicate self-judgment in depression and mindfulness theories, which imply that mindful awareness should lead to more positive self-views.