Overgeneral autobiographical memory in adolescents at risk for depression

Autobiographical memory functioning is implicated in the course and onset of depression in adults (Williams et al., 2007), and there is preliminary evidence that adolescents with a diagnosis of depression have a bias towards retrieving overgeneral autobiographical memories (Kuyken & Howell, 2006; Kuyken, Howell, & Dalgleish, 2006; Park, Goodyer, & Teasdale, 2002). In two independent studies we asked whether adolescents at risk for depression exhibit autobiographical memory deficits. In the first community study of 179 adolescents, risk was operationalised as higher scores on neuroticism. We found that neuroticism was associated with greater retrieval of categoric memories to negative cue words and that severity of depressive symptoms mediated this relationship. In the second study, groups of formerly depressed (n=15) and never depressed adolescents (n=15) were matched on age, gender, depressive symptoms and verbal fluency, and again compared on their autobiographical memory functioning. Mirroring the findings from Study 1 we found that risk, operationalised here as a history of depression in remission, was associated with greater retrieval of categoric memories to negative cue words. Taken together, these studies show that risk for depression is associated with a greater tendency to retrieve categoric memories to negative cue words and suggest that autobiographical retrieval may be implicated in onset of depression in adolescence.     

The effect of burn injury on adolescents autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memory recall was investigated in two female adolescent groups; one group who had experienced a burn injury and a matched control group. The Burn group was not currently depressed or anxious, but scored significantly higher on the intrusion subscale of the impact of event scale compared to controls. Two autobiographical memory tasks, the autobiographical memory cueing task and the Children's Autobiographical Memory Inventory (CAMI), were used. For the cueing task, the Burn group was significantly slower to recall specific memories. This group also recalled significantly fewer specific memories and significantly more extended overgeneral memories. For the CAMI, the burns group produced significantly lower semantic and episodic recall. The Burn group also produced significant correlations between sub-scales of the impact of event scale and selected measures on the autobiographical memory tasks. Higher intrusion scores were associated with less detailed episodic recall. Higher avoidance scores were associated with longer latencies to recall memories to negative cue words and fewer specific memories to all cue words. These results are discussed from the perspective that the Burn group experienced intrusive thoughts which interfered with normal autobiographical functioning.     

Episodic autobiographical memory in depression: Specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective

Autobiographical memory (AM) and the self are closely linked. AM retrieval in depression is characterized by a lack of specificity, suggesting an impairment of episodic AM. Autonoetic consciousness and self-perspective, which are critical to episodic AM, have never been addressed in depression. Twenty-one depressed inpatients and 21 matched controls were given an episodic AM task designed to assess positive and negative memories regarding specificity, autonoetic consciousness (remember/know procedure), and self-perspective (field/observer procedure). For specificity, "remember", and "field" responses, ANOVAs revealed a main group effect and a group x valence interaction. Between groups, patients showed lower scores than controls for positive memories. Within groups, patients showed greater scores for negative memories, and controls showed greater scores for positive memories. There is a global episodic AM impairment of positive memories in depression regarding specificity, autonoetic consciousness, and self-perspective. Our results suggest new cognitive interventions to improve the self-relevance of positive memories in depression.     

Effects of manipulating valence and arousal components of mood on specificity of autobiographical memory

An important cognitive deficit in clinical depression is the inability to be specific in recalling personal memories, a phenomenon coined "overgeneral memory" by Williams and Broadbent. Although there is general consensus that overgeneral memory is not state-dependent, most of the evidence originates from studies of this effect in clinical populations. The two components of mood, valence and arousal, were manipulated to examine their influence on memory specificity in a nonclinical sample of university undergraduate students. In Exp. 1, a Velten procedure was used to induce elated, depressed, or neutral mood states. No difference was found in autobiographical memory specificity among the three groups. In Exp. 2, high and low arousal states were induced through physical exercise. A low arousal state resulted in an increased proportion of overgeneral memories, suggesting that this memory phenomenon may be influenced by the arousal component of mood.     

Assessing the effectiveness of drawing an autobiographical memory as a mood induction procedure in children

The objective of our study was to examine the effectiveness of a new version of the autobiographical recall procedure (i.e., drawing a happy personal event) in eliciting a positive mood in 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children and to compare the drawing condition to the more classical telling condition. The mood of children was assessed before and after induction using the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) and across the two emotional dimensions of valence and arousal. The results showed that the drawing condition was as effective as the telling condition for inducing a positive mood. Furthermore, in the drawing condition, children reported feeling calmer than in the telling condition, suggesting that drawing was more likely to help children regulate their emotional state. The drawing procedure could be used in future research aiming to induce positive moods in school-aged children, to help further investigate the relationship between cognition and emotion.     

Organization in autobiographical memory

Three experiments investigated timed autobiographical memory retrieval to cue words and phrases. In the first experiment, subjects retrieved memories to cues that named semantic category members and were primed with the superordinate category name or with a neutral word. No prime effects were observed. In the second experiment, subjects retrieved memories to primed and unprimed semantic category cues and to personal primes and personal history cues. Personal primes named lifetime periods (e.g., “school days”) and personal history cues named general events occurring in those lifetime periods for each subject (e.g., “holiday in Italy”). Only personal primes were found to significantly facilitate memory retrieval. A third experiment replicated this finding and also failed to find any prime effects to primes and cues naming activities not directly related to an individual’s personal history. In this experiment, characteristics of recalled events (e.g,, personal importance, frequency of rehearsal, pleasantness, and specificity of the memory) were found to be strongly associated with memories retrieved to personal cues and only mildly associated with memories retrieved to other types of cues. These findings suggest that one way in which autobiographical memories may be organized is in terms of a hierarchically structured abstracted personal history.     

Sampling autobiographical memory

An empirical procedure for probing autobiographical memory was assessed. Words designating common objects, activities, and feelings were used as guides for recall of discrete experiences. Four properties of the recollections were assessed: latency, age of occurrence, temporal specificity of memory report, and type of experience. The three results of most general interest were: (1) consistent differences in properties of reports elicited by affect terms and those elicited by object and activity words; (2) a curvilinear relationship between latency and event age; and (3) reliable sex differences. Several proposals regarding the organization of autobiographical memory, and voluntary recall of personal experiences are discussed.     

Rumination and overgeneral autobiographical memory

Two studies investigated the effects of rumination on the retrieval of autobiographical memories in high-depressed and low-depressed individuals. Experiment 1 administered either a rumination or distraction task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. High-depressed participants recalled more overgeneral memories following rumination relative to distraction, whereas experimental inductions did not influence low-depressed participants. Experiment 2 administered either a positive or negative rumination task prior to a cued autobiographical memory task. Negatively valenced rumination led high-depressed participants to recall more overgeneral memories than positively valenced rumination; this effect was not observed in low-depressed participants. These findings accord with the proposal that rumination is a mediating mechanism in the retrieval of overgeneral memories, and extends this proposal by indicating that negatively valenced ruminative content is particularly instrumental in inducing overgeneral retrieval.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory and chronic interpersonal stress as predictors of the course of depression in adolescents

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of depression in adolescents. As part of a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders, 55 adolescents with a past history of major depressive disorder or minor depressive disorder completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Fewer specific memories predicted the subsequent onset of a major depressive episode (MDE) over a 16-month follow-up period, even when covarying baseline depressive symptoms. This main effect was qualified by an interaction between specific memories and chronic interpersonal stress: Fewer specific memories predicted greater risk of MDE onset over follow-up at high (but not low) levels of chronic interpersonal stress. Thus, our findings suggest that OGM, in interaction with chronic interpersonal stress, predicts the course of depression among adolescents, and highlight the importance of measuring interpersonal stress in OGM research.     

Ruminative self-focus and autobiographical memory

Many studies have shown a positive relationship between elevated dispositional self-focus and emotional disorder. Trapnell and Campbell (1999) proposed that this relationship was only true for ruminative forms of self-focus, reflective self-focus being associated with psychological health. The present study aimed: (1) to examine the replicability of Trapnell and Campbell's (1999) questionnaire-based differentiation of reflective and ruminative dispositional self-focus; (2) to see whether reflection and rumination could also be differentiated using measures of autobiographical memory; (3) to see whether such memory measures could elucidate mechanisms underlying different forms of dispositional self-focus. 130 volunteers retrieved autobiographical memories to neutral cue words and completed questionnaires. Questionnaires differentiated reflection and rumination: reflection correlated with openness to experience, whereas rumination correlated with neuroticism, replicating previous findings that it is specifically ruminative self-focus that is maladaptive. Memory measures also differentiated reflection and rumination: reflection was unrelated to the affective qualities of memories, whereas rumination correlated with measures of the happiness, unhappiness and at-oneness of memories. Dispositional ruminative self-focus, like neuroticism, was specifically related to increased accessibility of memories of events where individuals felt “not at all at-one with things”. This style of memory access could underpin dispositional ruminative self-focus, which is closely linked to neuroticism.     

Regret as autobiographical memory

We apply an autobiographical memory framework to the study of regret. Focusing on the distinction between regrets for specific and general events we argue that the temporal profile of regret, usually explained in terms of the action–inaction distinction, is predicted by models of autobiographical memory. In two studies involving participants in their sixties we demonstrate a reminiscence bump for general, but not for specific regrets. Recent regrets were more likely to be specific than general in nature. Coding regrets as actions/inactions revealed that general regrets were significantly more likely to be due to inaction while specific regrets were as likely to be due to action as to inaction. In Study 2 we also generalised all of these findings to a group of participants in their 40s. We re-interpret existing accounts of the temporal profile of regret within the autobiographical memory framework, and outline the practical and theoretical advantages of our memory-based distinction over traditional decision-making approaches to the study of regret.     

When autobiographical memory begins

The authors review competing theories concerning the emergence and early development of autobiographical memory. It is argued that the differences between these accounts, although important, may be more apparent than real. The crux of these disagreements lies not in what processes are important, but rather, the role these different processes play in the emergence of autobiographical memory and the temporal primacy of these controlling variables. These differences are explored theoretically and then extant as well as new data are brought to bear on these issues. What emerges is a new, more inclusive, multifactorial framework that integrates the controlling variables from diverse perspectives providing a more complete account of the beginnings of autobiographical memory.     

Overgeneral autobiographical memory and chronic interpersonal stress as predictors of the course of depression in adolescents

This study investigated whether overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) predicts the course of depression in adolescents. As part of a larger longitudinal study of risk for emotional disorders, 55 adolescents with a past history of major depressive disorder or minor depressive disorder completed the Autobiographical Memory Test. Fewer specific memories predicted the subsequent onset of a major depressive episode (MDE) over a 16-month follow-up period, even when covarying baseline depressive symptoms. This main effect was qualified by an interaction between specific memories and chronic interpersonal stress: Fewer specific memories predicted greater risk of MDE onset over follow-up at high (but not low) levels of chronic interpersonal stress. Thus, our findings suggest that OGM, in interaction with chronic interpersonal stress, predicts the course of depression among adolescents, and highlight the importance of measuring interpersonal stress in OGM research.     

Regret as autobiographical memory

We apply an autobiographical memory framework to the study of regret. Focusing on the distinction between regrets for specific and general events we argue that the temporal profile of regret, usually explained in terms of the action–inaction distinction, is predicted by models of autobiographical memory. In two studies involving participants in their sixties we demonstrate a reminiscence bump for general, but not for specific regrets. Recent regrets were more likely to be specific than general in nature. Coding regrets as actions/inactions revealed that general regrets were significantly more likely to be due to inaction while specific regrets were as likely to be due to action as to inaction. In Study 2 we also generalised all of these findings to a group of participants in their 40s. We re-interpret existing accounts of the temporal profile of regret within the autobiographical memory framework, and outline the practical and theoretical advantages of our memory-based distinction over traditional decision-making approaches to the study of regret.     

Specificity in autobiographical memory narratives correlates with performance on the Autobiographical Memory Test and prospectively predicts depressive symptoms

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) is an important cognitive marker in depression that is typically measured with the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986). The AMT is widely used, but the over-reliance on a single methodology for assessing AMS is a limitation in the field. The current study investigated memory narratives as an alternative measure of AMS in an undergraduate student sample selected for being high or low on a measure of depressive symptoms (N=55). We employed a multi-method design to compare narrative- and AMT-based measures of AMS. Participants generated personally significant self-defining memory narratives, and also completed two versions of the AMT (with and without instructions to retrieve specific memories). Greater AMS in self-defining memory narratives correlated with greater AMS in performance on both versions of the AMT in the full sample, and the patterns of relationships between the different AMS measures were generally similar in low and high dysphoric participants. Furthermore, AMS in self-defining memory narratives was prospectively associated with depressive symptom levels. Specifically, greater AMS in self-defining memory narratives predicted fewer depressive symptoms at a 10-week follow-up over and above baseline symptom levels. Implications for future research and clinical applications are discussed.     

Functional neuroimaging of autobiographical memory

Functional neuroimaging studies of autobiographical memory have grown dramatically in recent years. These studies are important because they can investigate the neural correlates of processes that are difficult to study using laboratory stimuli, including: (i) complex constructive processes, (ii) recollective qualities of emotion and vividness, and (iii) remote memory retrieval. Constructing autobiographical memories involves search, monitoring and self-referential processes that are associated with activity in separable prefrontal regions. The contributions of emotion and vividness have been linked to the amygdala and visual cortex respectively. Finally, there is evidence that recent and remote autobiographical memories might activate the hippocampus equally, which has implications for memory-consolidation theories. The rapid development of innovative methods for eliciting personal memories in the scanner provides the opportunity to delve into the functional neuroanatomy of our personal past.     

Accuracy and perspective in involuntary autobiographical memory

This study investigated accuracy (veridicality) and perspective (point of view) in everyday involuntary memories (i.e. spontaneous recollections of the past). Using the naturalistic diary method, subjects were asked to give confidence ratings on the accuracy of their involuntary memories as well as contact others who were present in them, having them also give confidence ratings. Memory perspective was assessed by asking subjects to indicate whether their memories had a field (original) or observer (the perspective of another) point of view. The results showed subjects assigning high confidence ratings to involuntary memories, which did not differ from the confidence ratings given by others, or from the confidence ratings that they had assigned to their voluntary memories. The perspective query showed that involuntary memories come with both field and observer perspectives, and that their relative proportions did not differ from those reported for their voluntary memories. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Temporal references in dreams and autobiographical memory

In an attempt to determine whether temporal references identified in dreams follow the same temporal distributions as those documented for autobiographical memories, 28 younger women (18-35 years of age) and 30 older women (60-77 years of age) kept a home dream diary for 1 week and then slept 1 night in the laboratory for rapid eye movement sleep dream collection. The following morning, they identified temporal references in their dreams and produced a sample of autobiographical memories using the semantic cuing method. For both groups, there was a linear decrease in temporal references identified in dreams and autobiographical memories with increased remoteness for the last 30 years. As predicted, for the older group, there were similar cubic trends reflecting a disproportionately higher number of both temporal references identified in dreams and autobiographical memories from adolescence/early adulthood compared with adulthood and childhood. The results support the notion of continuity between waking and dreaming memory processes.     

Olfactory cuing of autobiographical memory

In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with either the odors or the names of 15 common objects. In Experiment 2, subjects were presented with either the odors, photographs, or names of 16 common objects. All subjects were asked to describe an autobiographical memory evoked by each cue, to date each memory, and to rate each memory on vividness, pleasantness, and the number of times that the memory had been thought of and talked about prior to the experiment. Compared with memories evoked by photographs or names, memories evoked by odors were reported to be thought of and talked about less often prior to the experiment and were more likely to be reported as never having been thought of or talked about prior to the experiment. No other effects were consistently found, though there was a suggestion that odors might evoke more pleasant and emotional memories than other types of cues. The relation of these results to the folklore concerning olfactory cuing is discussed.