Directed Forgetting of Negative Material in Depression: A Comparison of Implicit and Explicit Memory Biases

Abstract

In the present study, depressed and non-depressed participants were tested for memory of negative, positive, and neutral stimuli using different forms of memory testing, in order to see if mood congruent memory took place. The item method of directed forgetting was employed in which participants were instructed to forget some of the positive, negative and neutral words, while they were instructed to remember others. A direct comparison of implicit and explicit forms of directed forgetting was performed to determine which produced stronger mood congruent memory effects. The results indicated that depressed participants had significantly impaired explicit memory as compared to non-depressed participants, but they did not have significantly impaired implicit memory. Unexpectedly, mood congruent memory effects were not found in that all participants remembered significantly more negative forget words than positive forget words, and significantly more positive remember words than negative remember words, regardless of depression level. Results also indicated that depressed and non-depressed individuals remembered significantly more negative forget words for the implicit memory test than for the explicit memory test.