Introduction/Objectives:
Several studies (e.g., Beats, Sahakian, Levy, 1996; Elliott et al., 1997) report a “catastrophic response to perceived failure” as a specific motivational deficit in depressive patients.
Participants, Materials/Methods:
In an attempt to identify potential (dis)similarities between poststroke and primary (“purely psychiatric”) depression, we administered, offering appropriate feedback, three cognitively demanding tasks (Stroop Word-Color Test, Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Tower of London Test) to several groups of intellectually intact subjects: poststroke (n = 32) and primary (n = 32) unipolar depressives (based on DSM-IV criteria) and non-depressive control aged subjects with (n = 31) or without (n= 33) stroke (all groups being equivalent in respect to the main relevant psycho-demographic variables). The data were analysed using the common statistical procedures.
Results:
The results showed in both groups ofdepressives (relative to non-depressives) a similar significantly raised probability of failure to subsequent problems following a failure on a given one. There were not enough subjects in order to obtain statistically significant data to correlate the frontal lobe location of the stroke and such response to negative feedback in poststroke depressives.
Conclusions:
These results suggest a remarkable similarity of poststroke and primary unipolar depression. Moreover, they might offer an explanation for the classical (Goldstein, 1939) “catastrophic reaction” reported in brain lessioned subjects.
