TY - JOUR
T1 - Memory for emotional faces in major depression following judgement of physical facial characteristics at encoding
AU - Ridout, Nathan
AU - Dritschel, Barbara
AU - Matthews, Keith
AU - McVicar, Maureen
AU - Reid, Ian C.
AU - O'Carroll, Ronan E.
N1 - This is an electronic version of an article published in Ridout, N, Dritschel, B, Matthews, K, McVicar, M, Reid, IC & O'Carroll, RE 2009, 'Memory for emotional faces in major depression following judgement of physical facial characteristics at encoding', Cognition and emotion, vol 23, no. 4, pp. 739-752. Cognition and Emotion is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=0269-9931&volume=23&issue=4&spage=739
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - The aim of the present study was to establish if patients with major depression (MD) exhibit a memory bias for sad faces, relative to happy
and neutral, when the affective element of the faces is not explicitly
processed at encoding. To this end, 16 psychiatric out-patients with MD
and 18 healthy, never-depressed controls (HC) were presented with a
series of emotional faces and were required to identify the gender of
the individuals featured in the photographs. Participants were
subsequently given a recognition memory test for these faces. At
encoding, patients with MD exhibited a non-significant tendency towards
slower gender identification (GI) times, relative to HC, for happy
faces. However, the GI times of the two groups did not differ for sad
or neutral faces. At memory testing, patients with MD did not exhibit
the expected memory bias for sad faces. Similarly, HC did not
demonstrate enhanced memory for happy faces. Overall, patients with MD
were impaired in their memory for the faces relative to the HC. The
current findings are consistent with the proposal that mood-congruent
memory biases are contingent upon explicit processing of the emotional
element of the to-be-remembered material at encoding.
AB - The aim of the present study was to establish if patients with major depression (MD) exhibit a memory bias for sad faces, relative to happy
and neutral, when the affective element of the faces is not explicitly
processed at encoding. To this end, 16 psychiatric out-patients with MD
and 18 healthy, never-depressed controls (HC) were presented with a
series of emotional faces and were required to identify the gender of
the individuals featured in the photographs. Participants were
subsequently given a recognition memory test for these faces. At
encoding, patients with MD exhibited a non-significant tendency towards
slower gender identification (GI) times, relative to HC, for happy
faces. However, the GI times of the two groups did not differ for sad
or neutral faces. At memory testing, patients with MD did not exhibit
the expected memory bias for sad faces. Similarly, HC did not
demonstrate enhanced memory for happy faces. Overall, patients with MD
were impaired in their memory for the faces relative to the HC. The
current findings are consistent with the proposal that mood-congruent
memory biases are contingent upon explicit processing of the emotional
element of the to-be-remembered material at encoding.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=68049127528&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/02699930802121137
DO - 10.1080/02699930802121137
M3 - Article
SN - 0269-9931
VL - 23
SP - 739
EP - 752
JO - Cognition and Emotion
JF - Cognition and Emotion
IS - 4
ER -