Attentional biases were assessed with a probe detection task in anxious (N = 17), depressed (N = 17) and normal control (N = 15) subjects. Word pairs were presented visually, with a dot probe following one word of each pair. Allocation of attention to the spatial position of the words was determined from response latencies to the probes. Half the word pairs were presented supraliminally, half subliminally. The anxious and depressed groups showed an attentional bias towards supraliminal negative words, in comparison with normal controls. The depressed group unexpectedly showed greater vigilance for supraliminal anxiety-relevant words than the anxious group. The anxious group shifted their attention towards the spatial location of negative words presented subliminally. The results support the hypothesis of an anxiety-related bias in preconscious processes.

The study investigated selective processing of emotional information in anxiety and depression using a modified Stroop color naming task. Anxious (n = 19), depressed (n = 18), and normal control (n = 18) subjects were required to name the background colors of anxiety-related, depression-related, positive, categorized, and uncategorized neutral words. Half of the words were presented supraliminally, half subliminally. Anxious subjects, compared with depressed and normal subjects, showed relatively slower color naming for both supraliminal and subliminal negative words. The results suggest a preattentive processing bias for negative information in anxiety. According to Beck's schema model, anxiety and depression are each characterized by mood-congruent biases that operate throughout all aspects of processing, such as attention, reasoning, and memory (Beck, 1976; Beck, Emery, & Greenberg, 1986; Beck, Rush, Shaw, & Emery, 1979). Anxiety and depression are presumed to differ in terms of the content of the processing bias. According to this content-specificity hypothesis, anxious individuals selectively process anxiety-relevant information, whereas depressed individuals selectively process depression-relevant information. The evidence for Beck's theory has been mixed. For example, several studies have suggested that anxiety is primarily associated with a bias in early aspects of processing such as attention (see Mathews, 1990, for a review), whereas depression is primarily associated with a bias in later stages of processing such as memory (for reviews, see Dalgleish & Watts, 1990; MacLeod, 1990; Williams, Watts, MacLeod, & Mathews, 1988). This apparent discrepancy in the cognitive characteristics of anxiety and depression led to the development of the model put forward by Williams et al. (1988). They proposed that biases operate at different stages of processing in anxiety and depression. In anxiety, the bias is presumed to operate at an automatic, preattentive stage. That is, in anxious individuals, processing resources are automatically drawn toward negative or threatening information even before that information has entered conscious awareness (e.g., Mathews & MacLeod, 1986). On the other hand, in depression, the bias favoring negative information is presumed to occur at later, controlled stages of process

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Injections of rabbit antiserum to rat lymphocytes reversed hyperglycemia in 36 percent of spontaneously diabetic rats (Bio Breeding/Worcester) and prevented diabetes in susceptible nondiabetic controls. These findings strengthen the hypothesis that cell-mediated autoimmunity plays a role in the pathogenesis of diabetes in this animal model that mimics many morpholigic and physiologic characteristics of human insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus.