Memorial performance in anxiety and depression, an investigation using the process dissociation procedure

grantor: University of TorontoBoth depression and anxiety appear to affect aspects of cognitive processing. The process dissociation procedure (PDP; Jacoby, 1991) was used to assess automatic and consciously-controlled memory biases in anxiety and depression. Memory for six word categories was examined: high positive affect, high negative affect, physical threat, negative self-referent, categorized neutral, and uncategorized neutral words. Study 1 examined differences in memorial performance of students with high and low anxiety sensitivity. The only memory difference between the groups was an unexpected higher conscious recollection for categorized neutral words in the high anxiety sensitive group. Study 2 compared the performance of students with high versus low scores on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Students who scored high on the BDI showed a higher conscious recollection of high positive affect words in addition to a higher conscious recollection of all word categories overall when compared to those with low BDI scores. Study 3 examined memorial performance of patients with major depressive disorder with (SAD) and without (MDD) a seasonal pattern. When compared to a group of healthy controls, the depressed patients demonstrated a significantly lower conscious recollection of words overall. In addition, the MDD patients demonstrated significantly lower automatic memory overall when compared to SAD patients. Study 4 compared the performance of a subgroup of MDD patients who had been treated with an antidepressant for six weeks to healthy controls who were tested again after the same time period. The patients who responded to treatment did not differ from the controls in their conscious or automatic memory for the words, nor on any of the questionnaire measures. Finally, differences in memorial performance between the male and female participants were examined. The female students with high BDI scores consciously remembered more negative and fewer positive words than the high BDI male students. In contrast, female SAD patients showed a trend for higher automatic memory of positive words compared to male SAD patients. Implications of these results are discussed in relation to several theories of anxiety and depression as well as more general issues related to the study of cognitive processes in mood disorders.Ph.D