Emotional mood states and retrieval in episodic memory

The effect of an experimentally induced depressed mood state on recall of target words embedded in sentences was examined. The objective was to determine if the induction of a depressed mood can affect output or retrieval from episodic memory. The experimental sequence was as follows: All subjects studied a list of either elaborated or base sentences, rating them for complexity, in an incidental retention paradigm; this was followed by the induction of a depressed or neutral (control) mood, using a standard and a short form of the Velten mood induction procedure; finally, subjects were given an unanticipated cued recall test of the target adjectives. In all tests, subjects showed a reduction in recall owing to the depressed mood, which provided evidence for retrieval effects of the mood state. Elaboration led to superior recall of target items, and there was no effect of delayed recall. The results are briefly discussed within the framework of a resource allocation theory.     

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.     

外显与内隐记忆的情绪一致性效应

基于Yonelinas等双加工信号检测模型对再认记忆测验中外显记忆与内隐记忆分离的方法,以96名大学生为被试,考察了诱发抑郁与非临床抑郁状态下外显和内隐记忆的情绪一致性效应。结果表明诱发抑郁组和非临床抑郁组对抑郁词的外显记忆成绩显著高于对中性词和愉快词;对抑郁词的内隐记忆成绩亦显著高于对中性词和愉快词,且显著高于控制组对抑郁词的内隐记忆成绩。情绪一致性记忆效应在非临床抑郁个体和诱发抑郁个体的外显和内隐记忆中均存在。     

Levels of processing, encoding strategies, and memory development.

In three experiments, memory for intentionally encoded words was compared with memory for encodings induced by asking semantic, phonemic, or surface questions. Subjects were second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade, and junior and senior high school students. Semantic encodings were more often recalled and recognized than were phonemic and surface (which did not differ). Intentional encodings were as likely to be recalled as semantic but were no more likely than phonemic and surface to be recognized, and this was true whether intentional learning was in anticipation of a recall test or a recognition test. Age trends occurred for recall, for intentional learning, and for induced processing which required subjects to generate word attributes. Age trends were attenuated for recognition and for induced processing which required subjects to verify whether a give attribute applied to the target word.     

Spatial location judgments as a function of intention to learn, and mood state: an evaluation of an alleged automatic encoding operation

An assessment of the Hasher and Zacks (1979) conceptualization of the automatic nature of the acquisition of spatial location information was made in the context of manipulations of subjects' intention to learn and mood state. The Velten (1968) mood induction procedure was used to establish depressed and nondepressed subjects. Half of each group was then presented with a matrix of geometric forms under instructions to learn the location of the forms (intentional) or to evaluate the pleasantness of the array (incidental). Subsequent tests of spatial location performance found no differences as a function of subjects' mood state, but did find a strong effect for instructional condition. The superior performance of the intentional subjects raises questions about the automatic nature of the encoding of spatial location.     

Remembering the past and imagining the future: A role for nonvisual imagery in the everyday cognition of blind and sighted people

Past research has associated depression with memory biases pertaining to the frequency, duration, and specificity of past events. Associations have been proposed between both negative and positive memory biases and depression symptoms. However, research has not examined the occurrence of actual events over time in the study of memory bias. To address these limitations and investigate whether a negative or positive memory bias is associated with symptoms of depression, we collected weekly data on specific types of life events over a 4-year period from a sample of college students, and asked students to recall event frequency at the end of that period. Exaggerated recall of frequency for positive events but not other types of events was associated with depression symptoms, using both continuous and categorical measures. Moderator analyses indicated that these effects were evidenced primarily for memories involving the self and among individuals low in trait self-enhancement. The current study indicates that positive memory-frequency bias is an important type of memory bias associated with symptoms of depression. Results support the idea that the link between memory bias for positive event frequency and depressed mood arises out of a current-self vs past-self comparison.     

Effects of induced mood on self-reported life events and perceived and received social support

This study tested the relation between mood (depressed [D], elated [E], or neutral [N]), induced by the Velten (1968) procedure, and college students' responses on a subjectively scored life events questionnaire and measures of perceived and received social support. A manipulation check showed that the mood manipulation was successful. There was a significant mood effect on the number of self-reported negative life events, with E subjects reporting the fewest. However, mood had no significant effect on the number of self-reported positive life events or the rated intensity of negative and positive events. Mood had a significant effect on perceived social support, with D subjects scoring the lowest. Self-report of received social support, however, was not affected by the mood manipulation. The findings challenge the widespread use of life event and perceived social support questionnaires whose independence from a mood-related response bias has not been adequately demonstrated. The findings also challenge causal interpretation of significant effects for self-reported life stress and perceived social support obtained in cross-sectional prediction studies of concurrent psychological distress.     

Self-schemas,depression, and the processing of personal information in children

Recent research in information processing has yielded evidence supporting the self-as-schema model with adults. Further self-schema research with depressed and nondepressed persons has suggested the existence of negative self-schemas in depression, lending support to a content-specificity self-schema model. The present studies were designed to investigate the applicability of the self-as-schema model to children and to examine the extent of negative self-schemas in relatively depressed children. A depth-of-processing incidental recall memory paradigm was employed with two groups of normal third- to sixth-grade children. Results supported the self-as-schema model as applied to children, even the youngest group, by indicating superior recall for words encoded under self-reference instructions, compared to semantic or structural orienting instructions. The content-specificity hypotheses were tested with relatively depressed and nondepressed children, and were supported only for the nondepressed children, who recalled mostly positive content words. The relatively depressed children did not demonstrate content specificity in their recall, showing a more “confused” pattern, and the results were discussed in terms of a developmental model of acquisition of depression vulnerability requiring repeated depressive experiences over time. Although the results were consistent with a self-schema approach, current controversies over the implications of depth-of-processing methods require further research to clarify mechanisms of enhanced self-reference recall.     

Effects of Level of Processing on Implicit and Explicit Memory in Depressed Mood

Recently, several studies have addressed the question of whether depression affects priming in implicit memory tasks. The main aim of this experiment was to assess the presence of a bias for negative information in explicit memory (free recall) and implicit memory (word-stem completion) tasks among subclinically depressed subjects compared to nondepressed subjects, using the typical levels of processing manipulation. The results of this study show the existence of a mood-congruent memory bias for both implicit and explicit memory in depressed subjects. The theoretical implications of these findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with depressed mood are discussed.     

Adaptive memory: The influence of sleep and wake delay on the survival-processing effect

Processing items in terms of their survival value leads to superior memory relative to many deep (semantic) processing tasks. To date, such survival processing has been investigated with short delay intervals only, ignoring possible effects of longer wake and sleep delay. In this study, subjects performed orienting tasks that induced survival or deep (semantic) processing of single items. A surprise memory test was administered after a short delay or a delay of 12 hours that included either sleep or wake; a cued-recall test was conducted in Experiment 1, and an item-recognition test in Experiment 2. Survival-processing effects were present regardless of delay, and their size was not influenced by delay interval. While wake delay reduced memory for both item types, sleep compared to wake enhanced their memory. These results suggest that the survival-processing effect is fully maintained across longer delay, regardless of whether the interval is filled with wake or sleep.     

Individual differences in depression,induced mood,and perception of emotionally toned words

The associative network theory of emotion and memory, outlined by Bower (1981), predicts that depressed mood leads to biases which favour the perception of mood-congruent information. In this study, a lexical decision task was used to assess the effects of degree of depression and induced elation and depression on lexical decision times for positive and negative words. Subsequently, subjects were given a recall test for the words presented during the lexical decision task. The results partially offered support for perceptual bias. The data showed that in non-depressed and elation-induced subjects, decision times were differentially affected by hedonic tone. Words of positive nature were responded to significantly faster than were negative words. In mildly depressed and depression-induced, decision times were similar for both types of words (positive and negative). These findings are discussed in relation to the associative network model and a growing amount of empirical research on human emotion and cognition.     

The effectiveness of individual versus group induction of depressed mood.

This study is an investigation of the effectiveness of an individually administered mood induction procedure compared with an equivalent procedure administered to a group. Seventy-nine nondepressed individuals (25 men, 54 women) were randomly assigned to either a depressive or a neutral mood induction in an individual or a group setting. In each procedure, the mood induction involved the Velten self-statement procedure (E. Velten, 1968) enhanced by related mood music. Overall, both the individual and group induction procedures were effective in producing a depressed mood state, and their effectiveness was unrelated to social desirability or the sex of the participant. However, the group procedure was more vulnerable to individual differences in response, and its use in research on depression requires stringent criteria for mood change.     

Recall of anomalous sentences in dementia and amnesia

Alzheimer-type dementing patients were compared with amnesic (Korsakoff) patients, depressed patients, and healthy controls in the immediate recall of semantically anomalous sentences. It was found that the dementing (Alzheimer) patients were severely impaired in their recall of these sentences, but that the amnesic (Korsakoff) patients were not. Alzheimer patients have a severe impairment of short-term memory, and it is argued that this deficit may make Alzheimer patients especially dependent upon the presence of semantic cues in immediate verbal recall--hence, the removal or reversibility of these cues results in a collapse of their performance. Other research has indicated that Alzheimer patients also show impaired semantic processing, and the possible interaction of their short-term memory and semantic processing deficits is briefly discussed.     

Emotional mood states and memory: elaborative encoding, semantic processing, and cognitive effort

The effects of experimentally induced mood states on recall of target words embedded in sentences or alone were examined in three experiments. All experiments focused on the role of a depressed-mood induction on recall and looked at the effects of elaborative encoding, semantic processing, or cognitive effort. The overall effect of the depressed-mood state was to reduce recall in all three situations; however, the opportunity to process information semantically still led to superior recall in the depressed condition. In contrast, the superiority of recall of high-effort items disappeared in the depressed condition, suggesting that subjects may differentially allocate resources when under a depressed-mood state. The results are briefly discussed within the framework of a resource allocation theory.     

Recalling positive self-defining memories in depression: The impact of processing mode

Recalling positive memories is a powerful and effective way to improve mood. However, unlike never-depressed individuals, those with current or past depression do not benefit emotionally from positive memory recall. To examine whether rumination is involved in this difficulty, 80 participants (26 currently depressed, 29 recovered depressed, and 25 never depressed) were instructed to recall a positive self-defining memory while in a sad mood. They were then instructed to think about their memory, adopting either an abstract or concrete processing mode. Never-depressed and recovered depressed participants experienced improved mood after memory recall, regardless of processing mode. However, for depressed individuals neither an abstract nor a concrete processing mode produced emotional benefit. These findings suggest that a complex relationship exists among processing mode, memory type, and depressive status, and indicate that the way in which individuals process positive emotional material may have important consequences for treatment.     

Depression,restraint and eating behavior

Contrary to the belief that weight loss is a principal symptom of depression, several recent studies have suggested that certain people gain rather than lose weight when depressed. The present experiment concerned the effects of experimentally induced mood states on the eating behavior of high- and low-restraint persons. Sixty-eight female undergraduates were randomly assigned to one of three groups each designed to induce a different mood state (depressed, neutral or elated), and were classified as high or low restraint based on their responses to a questionnaire. During the mood induction procedure subjects were provided with the opportunity to eat. High-restraint persons induced into a depressed mood ate significantly more than high-restraint persons induced into neutral or elated moods, and more than low-restraint persons induced into a depressed mood. This effect was most prominent among subjects who scored high on the weight-fluctuation factor of the restraint scale. There was no evidence that this effect occurred among subjects who scored high on the concern for dieting factor. The role of emotional arousal on the self-control over eating behavior of high weight-fluctuation persons, and the implications of these findings for the evaluation of depression were discussed.     

Children's use of imagery in accessing different types of semantic information

Semantic retrieval was examined in second graders under an induced imagery and a control condition. Two types of animal properties, perceptual and functional, were presented to children for verification. Properties were high and low in rated association strength; the size of the property (i.e., large vs small) was also manipulated in the case of perceptual meaning. Results suggest that young children rely on imagery in semantic retrieval; however, second graders are also adept at processing functional as well as perceptual meaning, and at using an abstract memory accessing system. Thus, considerable flexibility is evidenced by subjects in semantic retrieval.