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Investigation of mood‐congruent false and true memory recognition in depression
Author(s) -
Moritz Steffen,
Gläscher Jan,
Brassen Stefanie
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
depression and anxiety
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.634
H-Index - 129
eISSN - 1520-6394
pISSN - 1091-4269
DOI - 10.1002/da.20054
Subject(s) - psychology , mood , depression (economics) , false memory , recall , recognition memory , clinical psychology , loneliness , sadness , psychiatry , cognitive psychology , cognition , anger , economics , macroeconomics
Abstract The present study investigated the extent of mood‐congruent false and true memory recognition in depression. A group of 25 patients with depression and 28 healthy controls completed a variant of the Deese‐Roediger McDermott task. Four lists were read to participants in sequence, followed by a recognition task. The words in each list were associated with a central but unmentioned theme word that was either depression‐relevant (i.e., loneliness), delusion‐relevant (betrayal), positive (holidays), or neutral (window). Whereas it was expected to replicate the conventional mood‐congruent effect in depression (better recognition of depression‐relevant items), the available literature did not allow strong predictions to be made on the extent of mood‐congruent false recognition in depression. Results showed that depressed patients learned emotionally charged material equally well as healthy participants but forgot significantly more neutral material. A conventional mood‐congruent memory bias was not found, but relative to healthy controls, patients with depression committed more false recognition errors for emotionally charged words, particularly for depression‐relevant items. The results confirm that depressed patients are biased toward emotional material. Reasons for the absence of the expected mood‐congruent memory bias are discussed. It is suggested that researchers as well as clinicians should pay more attention to mood‐congruent false recollection, because it may undermine the validity of autobiographic reports in depressive patients and may represent a maintenance factor for the disorder. Depression and Anxiety 00:000–000, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.