Lecture 2 - advances in research on memory and depression Flashcards
summary of early work on implicit vs explicit retrieval in emorional disorders
explicit memory bias found for depression (teasdale and fogarty, 1979)
no evidence for implicit memory bias (Denny and hunt, 1992)
two factors that matter: activation of valence material and access of valenced material
explain the rational for predicting NO differences between implicit and explicit recall
Beck’s cognitive schema theory
predicts that effects of anxiety and depression will influence a wide range of cognitive biases in the same manner
PROBLEM - evidence that effects of cognitive biases in these disorders can be selective (eg explicit vs implicit memory effects in depression)
explanation for implicit and explicit memory differences (williams, watts, macleod and mathews, 1997)
anxiety and depression serve different functions
difference functions have important implication for information processing
cognitive processing resulting from anxiety - importance of priming
cognitive fucntion driven by anxiety - anticipating danger or future threat
primes the processing of threatening stimuli
favours perceptual as opposed to conecptual encoding (thinking about the meaning of material)
cognitive processinf resulting from depression
cognitive functioning focuses on conceptual processing of internally generated material realted to failure and loss and generally self-focused
conclusions from wiliams et al 1997
two key distinct cognitive processed - integration and elaboration
these processes may be activated differently in anxiety vs depression
integration explained
initial integration or priming stage that occurs automatically
involves mutual activation of components of a stimulus
mutual activation leads to integration
as integration increases the stimulus becomes more accessible
explain elaboration
refers to activation of a representation
new representation are formed between associated representation and old relationships are activated
elaboration leads to retrieval
elaboration provides complete rputes to the access of a representation
williams et al 1997 model distinctions
key distinction is between perceptual (involves integration) and conceptual (involves elaboration) processes
perceptual processes - fast, automatic, bottom up and data driven
concpetual processes - top down, slower and more controlled than perceptual processes (most often involved in explicit memory but also for attentional processes and implicit memory)
how to manipulate conceptual and perceptual processing
conceptual - attend to the the meaning of a stimulus
perceptual - processing physical features of a stimulus like color
key predictions from williams et al 1997 theory
depressed vs anxious particiaptns should have a robust explicit memory bias
anxious individuals should demonstrate a greater implicit than explicit memory bias
depressed individuals will not show a very consistent implicit bias when perceptual processing is involved in implicit memory task
confound exists in implicit memory research
implicit memory - perceptual processing is generaly manipulated and therefore Mood Congruent Memory (MCM) does not occur as MCM is a conceptual process
do implicit tasks have to be percetual
watkins 2002 showed that implicit tasks can be coneptual both for encoding and retrieval
transfer approriate processing: implications for implicit memory effect in depression
retrieval is maximised when cognitive processes involved at study are also involved at retrieval
why
- when similar cognitive activity at test and study are activated, transder between processes is appropriate and facilitates memory (morris et al 1977)
implications of transfer appropriate processing
congruence between type of processing involved at encoding and retrieval is more impoartnat than depth of processing
