Abstract
Individuals who experience difficulty constructing coherent narratives about significant personal experiences generally report less psychological well-being and more depressive symptoms. It remains, however, unclear whether a negative emotional state, one of the core symptoms of depression, causes this impairment in autobiographical memory coherence. The current study aimed to examine the causal relation between mood and memory coherence by means of a mood induction paradigm. A group of 165 students were randomly allocated to one of three mood groups: negative, positive, and neutral. We hypothesized that memory coherence would decrease following a negative mood induction. In addition, working memory capacity was expected to mediate the association between mood and memory coherence. Contrary to predictions, memory coherence increased following a negative mood induction. This increase was likewise observed in the positive mood group, though memory coherence remained consistent in the neutral mood group. This effect of mood on memory coherence was solely observed in female participants and not in the small male subsample. Results provided no support for the hypothesis that working memory capacity functioned as an underlying mechanism. Different theoretical explanations are discussed.
Highlights
With an estimated 300 million people suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) worldwide [1], research focusing on increasing insight into core processes of depression that can be targeted to prevent relapse, is of great importance [2,3]
To this date, it remains unclear whether there is a causal relation between depressive symptoms and this cognitive skill referred to as autobiographical memory coherence
The present study aimed to investigate the causal relation between negative mood and autobiographical memory coherence by means of a mood induction procedure, while taking into account current depressive symptoms and lifetime depression history
Summary
With an estimated 300 million people suffering from major depressive disorder (MDD) worldwide [1], research focusing on increasing insight into core processes of depression that can be targeted to prevent relapse, is of great importance [2,3]. Various features of autobiographical memory have been shown to be compromised in individuals suffering from MDD. Recent studies seem to suggest that the ability to narrate autobiographical memories in a coherent manner is impaired in individuals experiencing depressive symptoms [4,5,6]. To this date, it remains unclear whether there is a causal relation between depressive symptoms and this cognitive skill referred to as autobiographical memory coherence.
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