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Examining the Characteristics of Episodic Memory using Event-related Potentials in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
Published on: August 30, 2011
Are habitual overgeneral recollection and prospection maladaptive?
Donald J Robinaugh1, Rebecca E Lubin, Luka Babic
1Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. robinaug@fas.harvard.edu
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
|December 15, 2012
Summary
This study found that the tendency to recall overgeneral autobiographical memories or imagine future events was not associated with psychological distress in individuals. The sentence completion tasks used showed poor internal consistency.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Individuals with depression often retrieve overgeneral memories instead of specific ones.
- Overgeneral autobiographical memory is linked to depression and rumination.
Purpose of the Study:
- To replicate findings on the association between overgeneral autobiographical memory and depression.
- To investigate the tendency to imagine overgeneral future events in relation to psychological distress.
Main Methods:
- 170 subjects completed past and future-oriented sentence completion tasks (SCEPT and SCEFT).
- Measures included depression severity, PTSD severity, hopelessness, and repetitive negative thought (RNT).
Main Results:
- Specificity of past and future events were correlated.
- Neither SCEPT nor SCEFT specificity was associated with depression, PTSD, RNT, or hopelessness.
Conclusions:
- Findings do not support the hypothesis that overgeneral memory and prospection are linked to psychological distress.
- Poor internal consistency was observed for both SCEPT and SCEFT.
- Cross-sectional data limit causal inferences.
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