Automatic interpretation biases (AIB) are theorized to be a risk factor for depression. However, documenting AIB in depressed persons has been challenging and the source (affective vs cognitive) of AIB remains unclear. We conducted a psychophysiological investigation of AIB in a sample of 25 clinical interview assessed individuals experiencing a current major depressive episode and 28 never-depressed control individuals. Participants completed the Word Sentence Association Paradigm for Depression while their pupil size was recorded. Repeated measures ANOVAs were used to examine behavioral response data and multilevel modeling was used to examine pupillary reactivity (change from trial baseline). Compared to controls, the depressed group was both more likely to endorse negative AIB (p = .001, d = 1.01) and less likely to endorse benign AIB (p = .011, d = 0.72). Further, the depressed group exhibited significantly increased pupil size while processing negative words when they endorsed a negative interpretation compared with controls (ps = .010–.037, ds = 0.69–0.87), but did not differ during other AIB trial types. Within group comparisons revealed greater differentiation between interpretations in the healthy control group in both reaction time and pupillary reactivity AIB measures. This depression-related pupillary reactivity pattern fits with an emotional salience-based explanation better than a cognitive effort-based hypothesis of negative AIB, while pupillary reactivity pattern within the control group is consistent with a benign bias. People with depression lack benign AIB and may be more emotionally engaged during negative AIB than healthy controls.

理论上，自动解释偏差 (AIB) 是抑郁症的危险因素。然而，记录抑郁症患者的 AIB 一直具有挑战性，并且 AIB 的来源（情感与认知）仍不清楚。我们在 25 名临床访谈评估的经历当前重性抑郁发作的个体和 28 名从未抑郁的对照个体的样本中对 AIB 进行了心理生理学调查。参与者完成了 Word Sentence Association Paradigm for Depression，同时记录了他们的瞳孔大小。重复测量方差分析用于检查行为反应数据，多级建模用于检查瞳孔反应性（与试验基线的变化）。与对照组相比，抑郁组更可能支持负 AIB（p = .001, d = 1.01) 并且不太可能认可良性 AIB ( p = .011，d = 0.72）。此外，与对照组相比，抑郁组在处理负面词语时表现出显着增加的瞳孔大小（ps = .010–.037，ds = 0.69–0.87），但在其他 AIB 试验类型中没有差异。组内比较显示健康对照组在反应时间和瞳孔反应性 AIB 测量方面的解释之间存在更大差异。这种与抑郁相关的瞳孔反应模式比基于认知努力的负 AIB 假设更符合基于情绪显着性的解释，而对照组内的瞳孔反应模式与良性偏差一致。抑郁症患者缺乏良性 AIB，与健康对照组相比，在消极 AIB 期间可能更情绪化。