A study of the paradigm for assessing overgeneral autobiographical memory in Chinese depressive mood populations

Abstract

Objective To discuss the sensitivity of the sentence completion for events from the past test (SCEPT)and autobiographical memory test(AMT)for assessing overgeneral autobiographical memory in depressive mood populations.Methods 63 students with depressive mood and 67 students with normal ones took part in the experiment of SCEPT and AMT without explicit instruction,and SCEPT-SI and standard AMT with explicit instruetiono Results ①For the mean proportion of overgeneral memory on SCEPT without explicit instructions,there was no significant difference between the students' with depressive mood and normal ones'(respoetively,(0.69±0.17),(0.70±0.15),P＞0.05),and which was not associated to depression scores(r=0.96,P＞0.05]；whereas for the mean proportion of overgeneral memory on AMT without explicit instructions,the students'with depressive mood is markablely higher than normal ones'(respectively,(0.50±0.22),(0.65±0.22),P＜0.01),and of which was markly associated to depression scores(r=0.40,P＜0.01).②When the instruction was explicit,for the mean proportion of overgeneral memory on SCEPT-SI and the standard AMT,there were no significant difference between the students' with depressive mood and normal ones'(respectively,(0.47±0.25),(0.38±0.20),(0.42±0.22),(0.45±0.22),P＞0.05),and both of which were not associated to depression scores(respectively,r=-0.04,r=0.09),P＞0.05).Conclusion The sensitivity of AMT without explicit instruction is high,it may be more suitable for assessing overgeneral autobiographical memory in depressive mood populations. Key words: Overgeneral autobiographical memory; Depressive mood populations; AMT; SCEPT