Unconscious Memory Bias in Depression

Perceptual and Conceptual Processes

Watkins, Philip C.
Martin, Corby K.
Stern, Leonard D.

¹Department of Psychology, Eastern Washington University.

²Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Philip C. Watkins, Department of Psychology, MS-94, Eastern Washington University, 526 5th St., Cheney, Washington 99004-2431. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

Corby K. Martin is now at the Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University.

This research was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant 1 R15 MH52448-01.

We express our appreciation to Christopher Miller, Stephanie Muller, and Dean Grimm for their help in gathering and tabulating some of the data. We also thank Colin MacLeod and Gerald Metalsky for their very helpful comments on earlier manuscripts.

Received Date: October 27, 1997; Revised Date: August 15, 1999; Accepted Date: August 15, 1999

Journal of Abnormal Psychology 109(2):p 282-289, May 2000.

Mood-congruent memory (MCM) bias in depression was investigated using 4 different implicit memory tests. Two of the implicit tests were perceptually driven, and 2 were conceptually driven. Depressed participants and nondepressed controls were assigned to 1 of 4 implicit memory tests after studying positive and negative adjectives. Results showed no MCM bias in the perceptually driven tests. MCM was demonstrated in 1 of the conceptually driven tests, but only for adjectives that were conceptually encoded. Results support the theory that mood-congruent processes in depression are limited to conceptual processing. However, activation of conceptual processes may not be sufficient for demonstrating mood congruency.