Abstract
Autobiographical memory (AM) performance in individuals with depressive symptoms has repeatedly been shown to be overgeneral (OGM) in nature, and characterized by summaries of repeated events or long periods of time rather than a single event tied to a unique spatial and temporal context. The present body of work was designed to address the metamnemonic aspects of AM performance in dysphoric individuals, with the underlying motivation being that OGM may not be a unique phenomenon specific to depression or AM, and that it may reflect a more general pattern of memory impairment. The studies presented herein examine various aspects of metamemory and other memory processes that may offer a parsimonious account of OGM as poor event memory in general, rather than a specific standalone finding. In Study 1 several metamnemonic processes were investigated using a quantity-accuracy profile approach. Here, the results showed that performance between dysphoric and non-dysphoric participants was nearly indistinguishable on measures of calibration, resolution, grain-size setting, and criterion setting, suggesting that these aspects of metamemory are intact in dysphoria for immediately tested material. Study 2 examined whether it is possible to “create” OGMs by employing a delay manipulation for both autobiographical (3 day delay) and laboratory-based events (7 day delay). Indeed, the results from this study showed that the performance on both tasks declines for both groups, but that this effect was of a greater magnitude in the dysphoric group. Critically, no differences emerged for immediately tested information. Finally, Study 3 examined the role of working memory and memory search strategies in the recollection of autobiographically relevant information. The results from Study 3 showed that dysphoric individuals may engage in a less organized search strategy than non-dysphoric participants as exhibited by a tendency to switch set in the midst of thematically related information. Taken as a whole, these data indicate that OGM may be attributable to deficits in memory search strategies in conjunction with memories that may be more prone to decay and/or forgetting, suggesting that OGM may not be a depression-specific phenomenon, but rather the downstream deficit of degraded memory representation.
Highlights
Background and HypothesesIndividuals with depression perform worse on a variety of memory tasks when compared to non-depressed individuals (McDermott & Ebmeier, 2009)
Memory performance relies on the integration of various processes, including the search, retrieval, and output decisions that are governed by higher-order strategic processes that affect and are affected by the demands of the situation, the format of the questions, and the expectations of the rememberer (Goldsmith & Koriat, 2008)
It is possible that depression-related overgeneral memory (OGM) is not a deficient “type” of memory in depression (e.g., Burnside, Startup, Byatt, Rollinson, & Hill, 2004; Kuyken & Howell, 2000), but rather, an attempt by depressed individuals to perform optimally in the face of their welldocumented poor memory, executive function, and reduced processing speed (e.g., McDermott & Ebmeier, 2009)
Summary
Background and HypothesesIndividuals with depression perform worse on a variety of memory tasks when compared to non-depressed individuals (McDermott & Ebmeier, 2009). With regard to the types of memory deficits depressed people experience, research has shown impaired performance on episodic (McDermott & Ebmeier, 2009) and autobiographical memory (AM) tasks (King et al, 2010; Sumner et al, 2010), for both recall and recognition and across visual and verbal domains. Memory for emotionally laden stimuli has been shown to be impaired in depression (Burt, Zembar, & Niederehe, 1995). At present, it is unclear whether these observed impairments represent a generalized or ubiquitous memory deficit, or whether there may be stages of memory processing (e.g., retrieval, monitoring, control, and performance) or particular memory operations that are differentially impacted by a depressed mood. Metamemory may represent a set of memory operations that are disproportionately affected by depression
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