Lecture 4 - memory and depression, a new perspective

Question 1

what is an autobiographical memory

Answer 1

memory for a personally experience event or events

Question 2

emotional disturbancec relationship to autobio memories

Answer 2

associated with qualitative changes in the way autobio memories are encoded and retrived
key focus: how is a memory described in terms of level of detail (eg specificity of recall?)

Question 3

3 types of autobio memory

Answer 3

specific
categoric
extended

Question 4

explain specific autobio memory

Answer 4

memory for an event that occured at a particular time and place (eg visiting a friend last friday)

Question 5

explain categoric autobio memory

Answer 5

memory for a collection of events (eg playing tennis every saturday)

Question 6

explain extended autobio memory

Answer 6

memory for an event that lasts more than one day (eg visiting america last summer)

Question 7

how was specificity of memory retrieval first investigated

Answer 7

Williams and broadbent 1986

motivated by a desire to examine auobio memory retrieval in individuals attemoting suicide

Question 8

explain suicidal behaviour and memory

Answer 8

it is assumed that immediately prior to the suicide attempt the individual is no amenable to peruasion or able to use effective coping strategies
role of memory - unable to remeber anything but a string of failure, disapointments, arguments etc
memory bias - may still be present in many patients immediately following the attempt and therefore could be a vulnerability factor for further attempts

Question 9

does the specificity effect apply to depression and is it robust

Answer 9

high co-morbidity vetween suicide ideation and depression but they have distinct features too
many studies used the same method with depressed populations and found very consistent effect of OGM retrieval bias (williams et al 2007 review)
valence effects associated with specificity bias are less consistent

Question 10

cue self-relevance impact on OGM

Answer 10

overgeneral recall in depression increases as the cue becomes more self-relevant (crane et al 2007)

Question 11

temporal aspect of cue impact on OGM

Answer 11

age of memory matters with more remote memories mediating the impact of overgeneral recall in dysphoria (Falco et al 2014)

Question 12

overgeneral (cateogoric) memory predicts what in depressed patients

Answer 12

1. poor prognosis
2. poor interpersonal problem solving
3. hopelessness

Question 13

which type of overgeneral memory is found in greater proportion of depressed patients as a % of autobio recall

Answer 13

categoric

Question 14

OGM and all emotional disorders

Answer 14

it is disorder specific to depression and PTSD (co-morbid with depression)
it is not ofund in anxiety disorder, OCD or social phobia
there fore potential to distinguish between these disorders according to overgeneral memory’s underlying cognitive processes

Question 15

how to decreased and increase overgeneral memory

Answer 15

reduced by distraction induction (watkins et al 2000)

is suggested to be increased by rumination (williams, 1996)

Question 16

2 components of rumination (Roberts et al 1998)

Answer 16

self-focus (on symptoms)

an analytical / evaluative cognitive style

Question 17

2 reasons why depressed individuals have meotion regulation difficulties

Answer 17

1. depressed employ more dysfunctional emorion regulation strategies like rumination
2. unable to use strategies that are normally effective like positive autobio recall (Joorman et al 2007)

Question 18

does the specificty effect apply to depression and is it robust?

Answer 18

high co-morbidity between suicidal ideation and depression but they have distinct features as well
many studies used the same emthod with depressed populations and found very consistent effect of OGM retrieval bias
valences effects associated with specificity bias are less consistent