Autobiographical memory specificity and depression

Abstract

Reduced autobiographical memory specificity is considered to be a vulnerability

factor for depression and is a significant predictor of the course of depression.

Previous studies have shown that different natures of rumination (abstract versus

concrete) have different effects on autobiographical memory specificity. Knowing

more about the relationship among depression, rumination, and autobiographical

memory specificity is important for understanding the cognitive biases in depression.

This study explored whether rumination of different valences had different effects on

autobiographical memory specificity in participants with major depressive disorder.

A 2 (group: MDD, control) x 2 (rumination: positive, negative) x 2 (time: pre, post)

mixed design was used. Fifty-two currently depressed people and 52 nonpsychiatric

controls completed this experiment. They did the Autobiographical Memory Test

and the mood ratings before and after either the positive or the negative rumination

task. In the rumination task, they were requested to focus their attention on some

specific thoughts about themselves. Results showed a significant group (depressed,

control) x time (pre, post) interaction effect for the number of specific memories.

This was a result of a significant decrease in specific memories retrieved after

negative rumination in the depressed group, but not after positive rumination. No

significant result was found among the nonpsychiatric controls. These findings seem

to be related to the inhibitory deficit of depressed people in keeping task-irrelevant

negative materials from the working memory. Therefore, the working memory

capacity is lowered and fewer specific memories are retrieved.