Impaired pitch identification as a potential marker for depression

Twelve depressive in-patients and 12 non-depressive participants, half of the sample women, volunteered. The participants performed pitch identification using a four-choice reaction task, pitch contour perception, and pitch discrimination.During pitch identification but not during pitch contour perception or pitch discrimination, depressive patients responded less accurate than non-depressive participants (F？=？3.3, p？=？0.047). An analysis of covariates revealed that only female but not male depressive patients identified pitches poorly (Z？=？？2.2, p？=？0.025) and inaccurate pitch identification correlated with high scores in the Beck Depression Inventory in women (r？=？？0.8, p？=？0.001) but not in men (r？=？？0.1, p？=？0.745). Patients did not differ from controls in reaction time or responsiveness.Impaired pitch perception in depression is task-specific. Therefore, cognitive deficits in depression are circumscribed and not global. Reduced pitch identification in depression was associated with female sex. We suggest that impaired pitch identification merits attention as a potential marker for depression in women.Cognitive deficits in depression arise among others in the auditory domain [1]. Thus, some authors considered impaired auditory processing as a potential marker for depression [2,3]. There is a controversy, however, whether cognitive dysfunctions in depression are specific [4] or general [5,6]. Variable findings of correlations between depression and pitch perception may indicate the involvement of specific impairments: depressive patients responded less [1], similarly [7], or even more accurately [8] than healthy controls in pitch perception tasks. The variable outcomes suggest that heterogeneous processes may be differentially affected during a depressive episode. The present study aimed to confirm that a specific pitch perception skill - pitch identification - and not pitch perception in general is impaired in depressive patients.Three different skills contribut