Selective memory and memory deficits in depressed inpatients (original) (raw)
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Explicit and Implicit Memory in Depressive Patients. Review of the Literature
Psychology, 2013
The cognitive approach to depressive disorders has generally focused on memory problems. In recent years, research conducted in this field has been based on new cognitive theories of memory that distinguish between implicit memory, i.e. an unconscious memory that promotes the use of automatic processes, and explicit memory, i.e. a conscious memory based on the use of controlled processes. Here, we propose a review of the literature concerning the studies of depressive pathology. The initial results suggested a specific impairment of the explicit memory and thus brought depressive pathology into the realm of the pathologies of consciousness. More recent results and/or a consideration of divergent findings have led researchers to revise this interpretation. After looking at the various studies, we shall point out certain divergent results that will allow us to propose some new explanations and, finally, some new avenues of research based on the consideration of clinical and methodological elements. This approach is based on a cognitive and clinical examination of depressive disease. We examine the role of the processes-data-or conceptually driven processes, the role of the paradigm used, and clinical profile with a special interest for the presence of anxious or psychotic symptoms, and for the emotional profile.
A meta-analytic review of mood-congruent implicit memory in depressed mood
• This study evaluates theories related to implicit mood-congruent memory in depression. • Self-relevant encoding enhanced implicit memory in clinical depression. • Matched encoding and recall tasks facilitated implicit mood-congruent recall. • Depth of processing did not impact the relationship between mood and implicit memory. • Age and depression measure scores moderated implicit memory effect sizes. a b s t r a c t In studies of explicit memory, researchers have reliably demonstrated that mood-congruent, depressive information is especially likely to be recalled by individuals exhibiting depressed mood. Results from studies of implicit mood-congruent memory in depressed mood, however, have been largely discrepant. The current research reviews 20 studies of implicit mood-congruent memory for emotionally valenced words in the context of dysphoria and clinical depression. Meta-analytic techniques were used to summarize this research. Results indicated that depres-sive groups exhibited preferential implicit recall of negative information and nondepressed groups exhibited preferential implicit recall of positive information. Also, depressive implicit mood-congruent memory for negative information was associated with recall and encoding tasks that matched with regard to the perceptual versus conceptual processes required. Furthermore, self-relevance emerged as an important moderator for implicit recall in analyses that compared clinically depressed groups to nondepressed groups. These results provide partial support both for the transfer appropriate processing framework of memory and cognitive theories of depression that emphasize self-relevant information. Finally, certain participant characteristics, particularly age and severity of depres-sive symptoms, emerged as important moderators of the effect of group status on depressive implicit recall biases. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Automatic and effortful memory processes in depressed persons
Journal of gerontology, 1993
Clinical lore has held that depression results in memory dysfunction, particularly in older adults. Some believe that memory loss due to depression is indistinguishable from an organic dementia and label such dysfunction pseudodementia. Previous literature has inconclusively supported the relation between depression and memory deficits. This research assessed three groups of subjects: (a) 30 depressed patients, (b) 20 psychiatric controls, and (c) 30 normal controls. Dependent memory tasks were designed to vary along the automatic and effortful memory encoding continuum defined by Hasher and Zacks (1979). Two tasks were designed to be effortful (free recall and paired associates) and two tasks were designed to be automatic (memory for frequency and location). Contrary to predictions, depression was not related to memory deficits. However, post-hoc analyses indicated that psychiatric hospitalization and psychotropic medication had a greater negative impact on memory than did depressi...
Directed forgetting in depression
2008
Subjects with depression exhibit deficits in prefrontal function. We posited that as a result, in a supraspan memory test, they would be impaired in their ability to inhibit recall of irrelevant words, and because of consequent overload of working and episodic memory capacity, would be impaired in their ability to recall relevant words. We tested this hypothesis in 30 inpatients and outpatients with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and 30 controls subjects using a form of the Directed Forgetting Paradigm using exclusively neutral words. The depressed subjects did exhibit deficits in prefrontal function. All subjects were given four lists of 24 items each, in which half the words were followed by the instruction "remember" and half by the instruction "forget." Our hypothesis found support in a significant group by item type interaction effect exhibited when subjects were instructed to recall only those items followed by the "remember" instruction: depressed subjects recalled relatively more words to be forgotten and relatively fewer words to be remembered. A control experiment suggested that these results could not be accounted for by a differential effect of depression on memory encoding.
Recall and recognition memory deficits in depression
Journal of affective disorders, 1992
The aim of the present study was to establish the nature of memory deficits of depressive subjects in word learning tests. A word learning test consisting of 1, 3 or 5 learning trials was used. We found that patients were characterized by inferior memory recall compared to controls when 5 learning trials were given. Patients performed significantly slower than controls on a recognition test but both patients anri controls recognized the same number of words. This suggests that the memory deficits that are present in many depressive subjects may br restricted to impaired active retrieval from memory. A second experiment revealed that recognition memory and delayed recall as well as immediate recall were impaired in depressive patients after I learning trial. These short-comings vanished after 3 trials, except for immediate recall. These data suggest that not only retrieval but also encoding of information into memory may be impaired in depression, especially in the beginning of a task when demands on cognitive effort are high. The results are discussed in terms of resource allocation and demands on effort that may change in the course of a task.
Implicit Mood Congruent Memory Bias in Subclinical Depression
International Journal of Cognitive Therapy, 2018
The prior literature reports that the activation of conceptual processing is necessary, albeit insufficient, for the detection of implicit mood-congruent memory bias. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effects of self-referential processing on this bias in individuals with subclinical depression. Two groups of participants (subclinical depressed vs. non-depressed) were set a perceptive or conceptual implicit memory task involving adjectives that varied in terms of their emotional valence and the manner in which they had been encoded. Our main finding was that those individuals with subclinical depression recorded a bias in the conceptual task, but only when they had encoded the content in a more self-referential manner. The findings are consistent with the activation of cognitive self-schema during the processing of emotional information of a selfreferential nature in subclinical depression.
Journal of psychiatric …, 2004
Depression is usually associated with episodic memory impairment. The main clinical features of depression associated with that memory impairment are not clearly defined. The main goal of that study was to assess the role of the diagnostic subtypes and the number of depressive episodes on the memory performance of acute unipolar (UP) and bipolar (BP) depressed patients.Twentythree patients with a first major depressive episode (FE), 28 patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for UP recurrent depression (UR) and 18 BP patients with recurrent depression were compared with 88 healthy subjects on a verbal episodic memory task. Patients suffering from a first depressive episode did not show verbal memory impairment as compared to normal controls. Unlike FE patients, UR and BP patients exhibited verbal memory deficits with impaired free recall and normal cued recall and recognition. The memory deficits of the UR and BP patients was present in the first free recall trial. Depressed patients improved their memory performance across the three trials of the task at the same rate than normal controls. Our results suggest that the number of depressive episodes has a negative influence on verbal memory performance of acute depressed patients. The effects of the repetition of the depressive episodes are not modulated by the subtypes of depression and may reflect sensitization to the cognitive impact of depression associated with increasing prefrontal dysfunction.
Affective valence of words, explicit and implicit memory in clinical depression
Journal of Affective Disorders, 1995
Explicit and implicit memory for affectively valenced words (positive, negative or neutral) were investigated in 30 patients suffering from a major depressive episode (DSM-III-R criteria) and 30 normal control subjects. Explicit memory was assessed with a free-recall and a recognition task and implicit memory with a word-stem completion task. Depressed and control subjects recalled more emotional, i.e., positive and negative, words than neutral ones. They recognized less negative than neutral words. In contrast, to recall and recognition performance, word-completion performance was not sensitive to the affective valence of words: depressed and control subjects exhibited equivalent priming of positive, negative and neutral words. These results indicate that, in depressed and normal subjects, the affective valence of words influences memory when conscious, intentional recollection is required but is devoid of effect when such a recollection is not required.
Emotion, 2014
Emotional biases in attention, interpretation, and memory are viewed as important cognitive processes underlying symptoms of depression. To date, there is a limited understanding of the interplay among these processing biases. This study tested the dependence of memory on depression-related biases in attention and interpretation. Subclinically depressed and nondepressed participants completed a computerized version of the scrambled sentences test (measuring interpretation bias) while their eye movements were recorded (measuring attention bias). This task was followed by an incidental free recall test of previously constructed interpretations (measuring memory bias). Path analysis revealed a good fit for the model in which selective orienting of attention was associated with interpretation bias, which in turn was associated with a congruent bias in memory. Also, a good fit was observed for a path model in which biases in the maintenance of attention and interpretation were associated with memory bias. Both path models attained a superior fit compared to path models without the theorized functional relations among processing biases. These findings enhance understanding of how mechanisms of attention and interpretation regulate what is remembered. As such, they offer support for the combined cognitive biases hypothesis or the notion that emotionally biased cognitive processes are not isolated mechanisms but instead influence each other. Implications for theoretical models and emotion regulation across the spectrum of depressive symptoms are discussed.