title: Reduced specificity of autobiographical memories following a negative mood induction.
abstract: Reduced autobiographical memory specificity (AMS) to emotional and neutral cue words appears to be a stable cognitive marker of clinical depression. For example, reduced AMS is present in remitted/recovered depressed patients and shows no reliable relationship with current levels of depressed mood in correlational studies. The present study examined whether reduced AMS could be induced in healthy volunteers with no history of depression, using a negative mood manipulation and whether levels of AMS and induced mood were positively correlated. Results showed a reduction in AMS following negative mood induction, compared to a neutral induction, whereas positive mood induction had no effects on AMS. Furthermore, lower happiness following the induction phase correlated positively with reduced AMS, and the extent of happiness reduction from pre- to post-induction correlated positively with reduction in AMS. These results suggest that AMS is, at least in part, a function of current emotion state. The implications for the literature on AMS as a stable marker of clinical depression are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Emotion Research Group, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, UK.
authors.forename: Cecilia Au
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Yeung
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Dalgleish
authors.forename: Ann-Marie
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Golden
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Schartau
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003463:Cues; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D011594:Psychometrics