Is overgeneral autobiographical memory an isolated memory phenomenon in major depression?

Abstract

The present study explored the relation between overgeneral autobiographical memory (AM) and other aspects of memory functioning in depression. A total of 26 patients with major depressive disorder completed a set of memory tasks measuring AM specificity (AMT; Williams & Broadbent, 1986), working memory, semantic memory, verbal learning, delayed verbal recall, recognition memory, and source memory. Reduced specificity of AM was related to poor working memory (central executive functioning) and poor source memory. The former finding conforms to the idea that the voluntary retrieval of specific autobiographical memories (AMs) involves central executive processes (e.g., Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000). The latter finding replicates and extends recent findings suggesting that overgeneral AM is part of a broader memory deficit in retrieving the specific details of the context in which information was acquired (Ramponi, Barnard, & Nimmo-Smith, 2004). Furthermore, in line with Ramponi et al. (2004), rumination was found to be related to both overgeneral AM and poor source memory.

Acknowledgments

We thank Els Brunfaut, Luc Hamelinck, Carmen De Grave, Sieglinde Meganck, Bart Janssen, and Stefaan Vertommen for their assistance in the conduct of this study.

Notes

¹Freely adapted from the song “Once upon a summertime” by J. Mercer (lyrics), and E. Marnay, M. Legrand, and E. Barclay (music).

²Given that in the literature on overgeneral memory overgeneral memories of the extended type are sometimes also included in a general overgeneral memory index, rather than focusing on the single category of overgeneral categoric memories, we repeated our analyses for a general “overgeneral memory” index (i.e., the sum of categoric and extended memories). This did not change the pattern of results. The same was true when a log odds Specific:Categoric ratio was used (cf. Ramponi et al., 2004).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Filip Raes

Filip Raes is Research Assistant of the Fund for Scientific Research – Flanders (Belgium)