{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T16:42:54Z","timestamp":1792428174408,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":34,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792368000000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1792368000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100018260","name":"Tiny Blue Dot Foundation","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100018260","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100020950","name":"National Science and Technology Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["NSTC 113-2410-H-008-074-MY3"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["NSTC 113-2410-H-008-074-MY3"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100020950","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100020950","name":"National Science and Technology Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["NSTC 114-2410-H-008-067-"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["NSTC 114-2410-H-008-067-"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100020950","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci"],"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Individuals with depressive tendencies may categorize ambiguous facial expressions toward negative rather than happy endpoints, but the associated decision-process components remained unclear. The study examined whether the categorization shift was associated with differences in perceptual criterion, discrimination sensitivity, response dynamics, or diffusion-model parameters. Fifty-nine participants, comprising a depressive tendency group and a comparison group, categorized morphed Sad\u2013Happy and Angry\u2013Happy expressions presented in a 750-ms face\/mask sequence or a 1500-ms face\/no-mask sequence. Psychometric functions, area-under-the-curve\u00a0(AUC) analyses, quadratic mixed-effects models of response time, and a hierarchical drift\u2013diffusion model were applied. Across conditions, the depressive tendency group showed lower points of subjective equality than the comparison group, indicating a relative shift in the categorization boundary toward the negative versus happy endpoint, without a corresponding group difference in discrimination sensitivity. AUC analyses similarly indicated higher negative-response probabilities in the depressive tendency group, particularly within the  low-negativity portion of the continuum. Condition-specific patterns were observed, but direct tests did not support a larger Sad\u2013Happy group difference in the 1500-ms than in the 750-ms presentation sequence. In the focal Sad\u2013Happy 1500-ms face\/no-mask sequence, the selected drift\u2013diffusion model indicated a group-related drift-criterion shift toward the Sad boundary and modestly longer non-decision time in the depressive tendency group, whereas starting-point bias and boundary separation did not differ between groups. These findings are consistent with a relative categorization shift toward negative versus Happy facial-expression endpoints among participants with depressive tendencies. The diffusion-model results provided a model-dependent account of the focal choice\u2013response-time pattern under the present presentation-sequence structure.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T16:29:03Z","timestamp":1792427343000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Decision dynamics of negative bias in subclinical depression during ambiguous facial emotion perception"],"prefix":"10.3758","author":[{"given":"Chia-Chu","family":"Yang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yi-Chun","family":"Tsai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shi-Syuan","family":"Chiu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Tzu-Ling","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Chi-Hung","family":"Juan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"1505_CR1","unstructured":"Anthropic. (2025). Claude 3 Opus [Computer software]. https:\/\/claude.ai\/"},{"key":"1505_CR2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1093\/scan\/nsx060","volume":"12","author":"LF Barrett","year":"2017","unstructured":"Barrett, L. F. (2017). The theory of constructed emotion: An active inference account of interoception and categorization. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 12, 1\u201323.","journal-title":"Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience"},{"issue":"1708","key":"1505_CR3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"20160011","DOI":"10.1098\/rstb.2016.0011","volume":"371","author":"LF Barrett","year":"2016","unstructured":"Barrett, L. F., Quigley, K. S., & Hamilton, P. (2016). An active inference theory of allostasis and interoception in depression. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371, 20160011.","journal-title":"Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences"},{"key":"1505_CR4","volume-title":"Cognitive therapy of depression","author":"AT Beck","year":"1979","unstructured":"Beck, A. T., Rush, A. J., Shaw, B. F., Emery, G., Derubeis, R. J., & Hollon, S. D. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. Guilford Publications."},{"key":"1505_CR5","volume-title":"Beck depression inventory\u2013II","author":"AT Beck","year":"1996","unstructured":"Beck, A. T., Steer, R. A., & Brown, G. K. (1996). Beck depression inventory\u2013II. The Psychological Corporation."},{"key":"1505_CR6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1155\/2013\/158746","author":"D Bennabi","year":"2013","unstructured":"Bennabi, D., Vandel, P., Papaxanthis, C., Pozzo, T., & Haffen, E. (2013). Psychomotor retardation in depression: A systematic review of diagnostic, pathophysiologic, and therapeutic implications. BioMed Research International. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1155\/2013\/158746","journal-title":"BioMed Research International"},{"key":"1505_CR7","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"681","DOI":"10.3109\/00048674.2010.496359","volume":"44","author":"C Bourke","year":"2010","unstructured":"Bourke, C., Douglas, K., & Porter, R. (2010). Processing of facial emotion expression in major depression: A review. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 44, 681\u2013696.","journal-title":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry"},{"key":"1505_CR8","unstructured":"Chen, L. F. & Yen, Y. S. (2007). Taiwanese facial expression image database. Technical Report. Taipei: Brain Mapping Laboratory, Institute of Brain Science, National Yang-Ming Chiao-Tung University."},{"issue":"6","key":"1505_CR9","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1135","DOI":"10.1017\/S0033291714002591","volume":"45","author":"MN Dalili","year":"2015","unstructured":"Dalili, M. N., Penton-Voak, I. S., Harmer, C. J., & Munaf\u00f2, M. R. (2015). Meta-analysis of emotion recognition deficits in major depressive disorder. Psychological Medicine, 45(6), 1135\u20131144.","journal-title":"Psychological Medicine"},{"key":"1505_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"467","DOI":"10.1038\/nrn3027","volume":"12","author":"SG Disner","year":"2011","unstructured":"Disner, S. G., Beevers, C. G., Haigh, E. A., & Beck, A. T. (2011). Neural mechanisms of the cognitive model of depression. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 12, 467\u2013477.","journal-title":"Nature Reviews Neuroscience"},{"issue":"5","key":"1505_CR11","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1265","DOI":"10.1007\/s00213-019-05448-0","volume":"238","author":"BR Godlewska","year":"2021","unstructured":"Godlewska, B. R., & Harmer, C. J. (2021). Cognitive neuropsychological theory of antidepressant action: A modern-day approach to depression and its treatment. Psychoparmacology, 238(5), 1265\u20131278.","journal-title":"Psychoparmacology"},{"key":"1505_CR12","unstructured":"Google. (2025). Gemini Flash [Computer software]. https:\/\/gemini.google.com\/"},{"key":"1505_CR13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"285","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131305","volume":"6","author":"IH Gotlib","year":"2010","unstructured":"Gotlib, I. H., & Joormann, J. (2010). Cognition and depression: Current status and future directions. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 6, 285\u2013312.","journal-title":"Annual Review of Clinical Psychology"},{"key":"1505_CR14","first-page":"65","volume":"6","author":"S Holm","year":"1979","unstructured":"Holm, S. (1979). A simple sequentially rejective multiple test procedure. Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 6, 65\u201370.","journal-title":"Scandinavian Journal of Statistics"},{"issue":"4","key":"1505_CR15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"559","DOI":"10.1080\/15374416.2014.891226","volume":"44","author":"JL Jenness","year":"2015","unstructured":"Jenness, J. L., Hankin, B. L., Young, J. F., & Gibb, B. E. (2015). Misclassification and identification of emotional facial expressions in depressed youth: A preliminary study. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology, 44(4), 559\u2013565.","journal-title":"Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology"},{"issue":"4","key":"1505_CR16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"705","DOI":"10.1037\/0021-843X.115.4.705","volume":"115","author":"J Joormann","year":"2006","unstructured":"Joormann, J., & Gotlib, I. H. (2006). Is this happiness I see? Biases in the identification of emotional facial expressions in depression and social phobia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 115(4), 705\u2013714.","journal-title":"Journal of Abnormal Psychology"},{"issue":"3","key":"1505_CR17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"341","DOI":"10.4088\/JCP.10m06176blu","volume":"72","author":"F Lamers","year":"2011","unstructured":"Lamers, F., Van Oppen, P., Comijs, H. C., Smit, J. H., Spinhoven, P., Van Balkom, A. J., Nolen, W. A., Zitman, F. G., Beekman, A. T., & Penninx, B. W. (2011). Comorbidity patterns of anxiety and depressive disorders in a large cohort study: The Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety (NESDA). Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 72(3), 341\u2013348.","journal-title":"Journal of Clinical Psychiatry"},{"issue":"3","key":"1505_CR18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"217","DOI":"10.1016\/j.psychres.2011.09.021","volume":"197","author":"WH Liu","year":"2012","unstructured":"Liu, W. H., Huang, J., Wang, L. Z., Gong, Q. Y., & Chan, R. C. (2012). Facial perception bias in patients with major depression. Psychiatry Research, 197(3), 217\u2013220.","journal-title":"Psychiatry Research"},{"key":"1505_CR19","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0129863","volume":"10","author":"P M\u00fcnkler","year":"2015","unstructured":"M\u00fcnkler, P., Rothkirch, M., Dalati, Y., Schmack, K., & Sterzer, P. (2015). Biased recognition of facial affect in patients with major depressive disorder reflects clinical state. PLoS ONE, 10, Article e0129863.","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"key":"1505_CR20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"146","DOI":"10.3109\/00048679209072021","volume":"26","author":"G Parker","year":"1992","unstructured":"Parker, G., & Brotchie, H. (1992). Psychomotor change as a feature of depressive disorders: An historical overview. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 146\u2013155.","journal-title":"Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry"},{"key":"1505_CR21","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"71","DOI":"10.1192\/bjp.bp.111.107086","volume":"201","author":"IS Penton-Voak","year":"2012","unstructured":"Penton-Voak, I. S., Bate, H., Lewis, G., & Munaf\u00f2, M. R. (2012). Effects of emotion perception training on mood in undergraduate students: Randomised controlled trial. British Journal of Psychiatry, 201, 71\u201372.","journal-title":"British Journal of Psychiatry"},{"key":"1505_CR22","unstructured":"Perplexity AI. (2025). Perplexity [Computer software]. https:\/\/www.perplexity.ai\/"},{"key":"1505_CR23","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"59","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-295X.85.2.59","volume":"85","author":"R Ratcliff","year":"1978","unstructured":"Ratcliff, R. (1978). A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review, 85, 59\u2013108.","journal-title":"Psychological Review"},{"key":"1505_CR24","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"873","DOI":"10.1162\/neco.2008.12-06-420","volume":"20","author":"R Ratcliff","year":"2008","unstructured":"Ratcliff, R., & Mckoon, G. (2008). The diffusion decision model: Theory and data for two-choice decision tasks. Neural Computation, 20, 873\u2013922.","journal-title":"Neural Computation"},{"issue":"2","key":"1505_CR25","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"333","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-295X.111.2.333","volume":"111","author":"R Ratcliff","year":"2004","unstructured":"Ratcliff, R., & Smith, P. L. (2004). A comparison of sequential sampling models for two-choice reaction time. Psychological Review, 111(2), 333\u2013367.","journal-title":"Psychological Review"},{"key":"1505_CR26","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1192\/S0007125000298395","volume":"30","author":"N Sartorius","year":"1996","unstructured":"Sartorius, N., \u00dcst\u00fcn, T. B., Lecrubier, Y., & Wittchen, H. U. (1996). Depression comorbid with anxiety: Results from the WHO study on psychological disorders in primary health care. The British Journal of Psychiatry. Supplement, 30, 38\u201343.","journal-title":"The British Journal of Psychiatry. Supplement"},{"key":"1505_CR27","volume-title":"Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory","author":"CD Spielberger","year":"1983","unstructured":"Spielberger, C. D., Gorsuch, R., Lushene, R., Vagg, P., & Jacobs, G. (1983). Manual for the state-trait anxiety inventory. Consulting Psychologists Press."},{"key":"1505_CR28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1413","DOI":"10.1007\/s11222-016-9696-4","volume":"27","author":"A Vehtari","year":"2017","unstructured":"Vehtari, A., Gelman, A., & Gabry, J. (2017). Practical Bayesian model evaluation using leave-one-out cross-validation and WAIC. Statistics and Computing, 27, 1413\u20131432.","journal-title":"Statistics and Computing"},{"key":"1505_CR29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2051","DOI":"10.3758\/s13414-022-02532-0","volume":"84","author":"A Vikhanova","year":"2022","unstructured":"Vikhanova, A., Mareschal, I., & Tibber, M. (2022). Emotion recognition bias depends on stimulus morphing strategy. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 84, 2051\u20132059.","journal-title":"Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics"},{"issue":"6","key":"1505_CR30","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"385","DOI":"10.1027\/1618-3169\/a000218","volume":"60","author":"A Voss","year":"2013","unstructured":"Voss, A., Nagler, M., & Lerche, V. (2013). Diffusion models in experimental psychology. Experimental Psychology, 60(6), 385\u2013402.","journal-title":"Experimental Psychology"},{"issue":"1","key":"1505_CR31","first-page":"49","volume":"6","author":"D Wabersich","year":"2014","unstructured":"Wabersich, D., & Vandekerckhove, J. (2014). The RWiener package: An R package providing distribution functions for the Wiener diffusion model. R Journal, 6(1), 49\u201356.","journal-title":"R Journal"},{"issue":"6","key":"1505_CR32","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1063","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.54.6.1063","volume":"54","author":"D Watson","year":"1988","unstructured":"Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(6), 1063\u20131070.","journal-title":"Journal of Personality and Social Psychology"},{"key":"1505_CR33","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1293","DOI":"10.3758\/BF03194544","volume":"63","author":"FA Wichmann","year":"2001","unstructured":"Wichmann, F. A., & Hill, N. J. (2001). The psychometric function: I. Fitting, sampling, and goodness of fit. Perception & Psychophysics, 63, 1293\u20131313.","journal-title":"Perception & Psychophysics"},{"issue":"2","key":"1505_CR34","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"206","DOI":"10.1177\/2167702615581580","volume":"4","author":"ML Woody","year":"2016","unstructured":"Woody, M. L., Owens, M., Burkhouse, K. L., & Gibb, B. E. (2016). Selective attention toward angry faces and risk for major depressive disorder in women: Converging evidence from retrospective and prospective analyses. Clinical Psychological Science, 4(2), 206\u2013215.","journal-title":"Clinical Psychological Science"}],"container-title":["Cognitive, Affective, &amp; Behavioral Neuroscience"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]],"date-time":"2026-10-19T16:29:06Z","timestamp":1792427346000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"references-count":34,"alternative-id":["1505"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3758\/s13415-026-01505-2","relation":{},"ISSN":["1530-7026","1531-135X"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1530-7026","type":"print"},{"value":"1531-135X","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,19]]},"assertion":[{"value":"1 July 2026","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"29 September 2026","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"19 October 2026","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"During the preparation of this work, the authors used Gemini, Perplexity and Claude to refine and improve the readability of the paper (Google,\n                      \n                      ; Perplexity AI,\n                      \n                      ; Anthropic,\n                      \n                      ). After utilizing this tool, the authors thoroughly reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the final published article.","order":1,"name":"Ethics","label":"Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"We report how we determined our sample size, all data exclusions, all manipulations, and all measures in the study, and we follow APA\u2019s Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS) for quantitative research. The data that support the findings of this study, as well as the analysis code and task scripts, are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Behavioral data were processed and analyzed using MATLAB (version R2025a; The MathWorks Inc.) and R (version 4.3.3; R Core Team, 2024), including the lme4 package for mixed-effects modeling and the brms package for drift\u2013diffusion modeling. This study\u2019s design and analysis plan were not preregistered.","order":2,"name":"Ethics","label":"Open practices statement","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}},{"value":"The authors declare no biomedical financial interests or any competing interests.","order":3,"name":"Ethics","label":"Competing interests","group":{"name":"EthicsHeading","label":"Declarations"}}]}}