Memory deficit in clinical depression: processing resources and the structure of materials

Resource theory predicts that the relative memory deficit shown by depressed patients should be greater with unstructured than structured material. Previous data using semantic categories word lists supports this, but lists approximating to text have produced the opposite result. Both types of structure were studied in this experiment. The prediction from resource theory was found to hold only when comparing medium and high levels of structure, and to hold more clearly for word lists approximating to text than for semantic categories lists. When word lists of low and medium levels of structure were compared, depressed patients showed relatively greater deficit with the more structured material. Ways in which this could be accommodated in a revised version of resource theory are discussed.