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Updated: Jul 18, 2026

Design and Implementation of an fMRI Study Examining Thought Suppression in Young Women with, and At-risk, for Depression
Published on: May 19, 2015
Reduced autobiographical memory specificity and rumination in predicting the course of depression
Filip Raes1, Dirk Hermans, J Mark G Williams
1Department of Psychology, University of Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. filip.raes@psy.kuleuven.be
Abstract:
Reduced autobiographical memory (AM) specificity is a known vulnerability factor for depression. AM specificity was investigated as a predictor of depression with the Autobiographical Memory Test (J. M. G. Williams & K. Broadbent, 1986). When baseline depression scores were partialed, reduced AM specificity to negative cue words predicted higher levels of depression at 7-month follow-up. Once rumination was taken into account by means of the Rumination on Sadness Scale (M. Conway, P. A. R. Csank, S. L. Holm, & C. K. Blake, 2000), AM specificity no longer predicted depression, suggesting that the predictive value of AM specificity observed in previous studies might be--at least partly--explained as an effect of rumination. Further mediation analyses indeed revealed support for rumination as a mediator of the relation between reduced AM specificity and poor outcome of depression.
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