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Implicit memory bias in clinical and non-clinical depression
B P Bradley1, K Mogg, N Millar
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, U.K.
Behaviour Research and Therapy
|November 1, 1996
Summary
Individuals with depression exhibit heightened implicit memory for negative information. This study found that both dysphoric and clinically depressed individuals showed increased, unconscious recall of depression-related words compared to neutral ones.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Clinical Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Depression is associated with cognitive biases, particularly in information processing.
- Implicit memory, which operates unconsciously, may play a role in maintaining negative thought patterns in depression.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate implicit memory for depression-relevant information in individuals with varying levels of dysphoria and clinical depression.
- To examine how different priming conditions (suprathreshold and subthreshold) affect the recall of negative information.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted: Experiment 1 with non-clinical subjects (high vs. low dysphoria) and Experiment 2 with clinically depressed subjects vs. normal controls.
- A primed lexical decision task was used, presenting depression-relevant and neutral words under suprathreshold and subthreshold priming conditions.
Main Results:
- In Experiment 1, dysphoric subjects demonstrated greater subthreshold priming of depression words.
- In Experiment 2, clinically depressed individuals showed enhanced subthreshold and suprathreshold priming of depression words compared to controls.
Conclusions:
- The findings indicate an implicit memory bias for depression-related information in both subclinical and clinical depression.
- These results support cognitive models of depression that emphasize the role of automatic processing of negative information.