Residual depressive symptoms, as well as cognitive deficiency, were considered as the main predictors of relapse, social maladaptation, and disability. The separation of remission into a complete and incomplete one occurred relatively recently, which explained the lack of data on cognitive functioning and residual symptoms in incomplete remission. Objective of the work was to find a relationship between residual symptoms and cognitive function in incomplete remission of recurrent depression. Results. We examined 37 patients who met the criteria for remission according to the ICD-10 and incomplete remission on the Montgomery-Asberg scale (MADRS) to assess depression (<20 points). Cognitive functioning was studied using the Brief Assessment of Cognition in Affective Disorders (BAC-A) scale for brief assessment of cognitive function in patients with affective disorders. It was established that incomplete remission was polysymptomatic (18.0 [13.0; 20.0] points on the MADRS scale). The number of residual symptoms varied from 4 (5.4% of cases) to 10 (5.4%) cases). A decrease in attention function (according to the Stroop test) was detected, which significantly worsened when working with emotional and neutral information. The remaining cognitive functions in patients did not go beyond the normative range. A relationship was established between hypothymia, apathetic symptoms and increased ability to recognize emotionally significant information. Complaints of distracted attention (a cognitive cluster of depressive symptoms) are associated with impaired functioning of memory, auditory-speech learning, recognition of emotionally neutral information. The improvement of emotional recognition and simultaneous worsening of other cognitive functions against the background of residual symptoms indicates an existence of an affective shift in incomplete remission. The phenomenon was necessary to consider during both during diagnosis of the condition and provision of medical care.