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. 2025 Apr 3;13(1):331.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02662-8.

Computational cognitive mechanisms of visual working memory in major depressive disorder and sex differences

Qingzu Kong  1   2   3   4 , Qian Liu  1   2   3   4 , Feng Gao  1   2   3   4 , Xiang Wang  1   2   3   4 , Zhiyan Wang  1   2   3   4 , Chuman Xiao  1   2   3   4 , Xinyue Zhang  1   2   3   4 , Qianmei Yu  1   2   3   4 , Jie Fan  5   6   7   8 , Xiongzhao Zhu  9   10   11   12
Affiliations

Computational cognitive mechanisms of visual working memory in major depressive disorder and sex differences

Qingzu Kong et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

This study examined the computational cognitive mechanisms of visual working memory (VWM) in MDD, focusing on memory precision while exploring potential sex differences. 159 Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) patients and 67 healthy controls (HC) completed the color delay estimation task to measure their VWM. The mainstream models of VWM were compared, and the variable-precision (VP) model was the best fit for our data. The Bayesian ANCOVA was used to compare the differences between groups (MDD & HC) and sexes (male & female). Results revealed that MDD had worse memory precision than HC (BF10 = 103.872, decisive evidence for H1). Specifically, they had larger resource allocation variability (BF10 = 19.421, strong evidence for H1), indicating that they distributed memory resources more unevenly across different items than HC. In addition, females had better memory precision than males (BF10 = 10.548, strong evidence for H1). More specifically, they had more initial resources during the color delay estimation task (BF10 = 6.003, substantial evidence for H1) than males. These findings highlight the critical role of diminished precision, specifically, larger resource allocation variability, in impaired VWM in MDD. Meanwhile, these findings highlight sex differences in memory precision and initial resources of VWM.

Keywords: Cognitive mechanism; Computational modeling; MDD; Sex differences; Visual working memory.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, and was carried out in accordance with the provisions of the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The color delay estimation task process. Participants were asked to remember the colors of all squares on the screen (i.e., set size = 2 in this example trial), and select the color of the probe square (the bold one in the lower visual field in this example) on the color wheel after a delay of 1000 milliseconds
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The color perception task process. Participants were asked to select the corresponding color on a color wheel
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Group and sex differences on the circular standard deviation (CSD) in several set sizes and on the VP model parameters. The CSD represents the visual memory precision of the subjects, and the larger the CSD, the worse the memory precision. Males showed higher CSD than females at all levels of set size, and MDD showed higher CSD than HC at set size 2, 4, and 6 but not at set size 1 (A). Females have more initial resources than males (B). MDD has larger resource allocation variability than HC (D). No significant group differences or sex differences in decaying exponent and choice variability(C & E). Note: ∗ represents significant differences between the groups or sexes, and the error bars represent the error deviations
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
A significant positive relationship between resource allocation variability and BDI scores in MDD
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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