A slow wave investigation of working memory biases in mood disorders.

Mood-congruent working memory biases were examined in a delayed matching to sample paradigm using the slow wave (SW) event-related brain potential (ERP) component. Mood-congruent working memory biases, indexed by SW amplitudes, were demonstrated among individuals experiencing a major depressive episode (MDE) and nondepressed controls but not individuals with dysthymia. However, analyses of symptom severity demonstrated that those with dysthymia exhibited significantly less negative SW amplitudes with increasing depressive mood severity, whereas individuals with major depression demonstrated more negative SW amplitudes with increasing depressive mood severity. These results are discussed in the context of diagnostic specificity for cognitive biases associated with working memory of mood-disordered individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Autobiographical memory and mood: Effects of electroconvulsive therapy.

An Autobiographical Memory Interview (AMI) was administered to 75 depressed inpatients and 16 nondepressed controls. Patients were randomized to 1 of 4 forms of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) that varied in electrode placement and stimulus intensity. Short-term retrograde amnesia was assessed during the week following the randomized phase. Bilateral ECT produced more marked deficits than right unilateral ECT. At a 2-mo follow-up, persistent amnesic deficits were related to having received a second ECT course and, to a lesser extent, bilateral ECT during the randomized phase. The magnitude of clinical improvement was not associated with amnesia scores at either time point. There were no differential amnesic effects as a function of the affective valence of memories. It appears that retrograde amnesia for autobiographical information after ECT and mood congruence effects on recall are independent phenomena. The magnitude and persistence of retrograde amnesia is related to how ECT is performed and not to changes in clinical state or the affective valence of memories. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mood-congruent memory in depression: Emotional priming or elaboration?

Investigated whether mood-congruent memory (MCM) bias in depression is a function of implicit or explicit memory. Implicit memory is taken as a measure of ease of activation, whereas explicit memory also taps elaboration. As expected, MCM bias was found in the explicit memory task but not in the implicit memory task. The authors believe this finding supports the involvement of elaborative mechanisms in MCM. In addition, memory bias was found with words related to depression but not with words denoting physical threat. Thus, the MCM bias in explicit memory was found to be specific to information that was congruent with depression rather than to all negative information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Induction of mood states and their effect on cognitive and social behaviors.

Three groups of 20 female undergraduates read E. A. Velten's elation, depression, and neutral self-referent mood statements and were then given the Stroop Color-Word Test, a digit symbol task, a time estimation task, a depression adjective checklist, a measure of writing speed, the Comfortable Interpersonal Distance Scale, and a measure of graphic constriction-expansion. Findings suggest that affective states can be manipulated in the laboratory and that they have a significant impact on certain kinds of cognitive and performance behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of induced mood on diagnostic interviewing: Evidence for a mood and memory effect.

Examined the extent to which experimentally induced mood influenced the report of lifetime symptoms of major depression and dysthymia as assessed by a computerized version of the National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule. 83 female undergraduates received a "happy" or "sad" mood induction. Ss in the sad condition reported significantly more lifetime symptoms of major depression and dysthymia than did Ss in the happy condition. Although more Ss in the sad condition received diagnoses of major depression, dysthymic disorder, or depression not otherwise specified than did Ss in the happy condition, this difference was not significant. In addition, no difference was found in the report of lifetime symptoms of a manic episode, providing evidence for the specificity of the mood induction. Implications of these results for structured diagnostic interviews and suggestions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Velten Mood Induction Procedure: Effects on mood and memory.

R. O. Frost et al (see record 1980-01011-001) claim that self-devaluative aspects of the Velton Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP) do not lower mood or otherwise mimic depression but that the elements of the VMIP that suggest depression-related somatic states do. An experiment involving 52 undergraduates indicated that both aspects of the VMIP have a powerful impact on mood and that the self-devaluation statements have a priming effect on the accessibility of positive and negative memories different from that of the VMIP elation statements. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Selective encoding and retrieval of affectively valent information: Two cognitive consequences of children's mood states.

Two experiments investigated the selective influences of experimentally induced mood states on 156 5th graders' encoding and retrieval of affectively valent information. Exp I revealed that a happy, compared to a neutral, mood during encoding facilitated recall of positive information; a sad encoding mood disrupted recall of positive material. A happy mood during retrieval also facilitated recall of positive information, but no other selective effects of retrieval mood occurred. Exp II indicated that the negative mood of anger, like that of sadness, disrupted the encoding of positive information; unlike sadness, however, anger facilitated the encoding of negative material. Again, no selective effects of retrieval mood occurred. Findings indicate that selective encoding and retrieval may contribute to children's cognitive ability to regulate mood states as well as other aspects of social learning and development. (48 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Immediate priming and cognitive aftereffects.

Three forced-choice perceptual word identification experiments tested the claim that transitions from positive to negative priming as a function of increasing prime duration are due to cognitive aftereffects. These aftereffects are similar in nature to perceptual aftereffects that produce a negative image due to overexposure and habituation to a stimulus. Each experiment tested critical predictions that come from including habituation in a dynamic neural network with multiple levels of processing. The success of this account in explaining the dynamics of repetition priming, associative-semantic priming, and forward masking effects suggests that habituation is a useful mechanism for reducing source confusion between successively presented stimuli. Implications are considered for visible persistence, repetition blindness, attention-based negative priming, attentional blink, inhibition of return, the negative compatibility effect, affect priming, and flanker preview effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of mood states, costs, and benefits on helping.

263 college students participated in a factorial experiment designed to test the hypotheses that mood states interact with costs and with benefits in determining helping. Positive and negative mood states were induced by varying the difficulty of a bogus aptitude test; neutral-mood (control) Ss did not take the test. Benefits for helping were manipulated by asking Ss to collect donations for a worthwhile charity (the American Cancer Society) or to a less worthwhile charity (Little League baseball). In the high-costs-for-helping condition, Ss were asked to collect donations by going door to door, whereas in the low-cost condition, Ss were asked to sit at donations desks. Pretests indicated that the manipulations effectively induced the intended mood states, costs, and benefits. The results generally support the hypotheses. Positive-mood Ss volunteered more than neutral-mood Ss, and whether negative-mood Ss volunteered more or less than neutral-mood Ss depended on the costs and benefits. It is suggested that the seemingly conflicting results of previous investigations of negative mood and helping can be explained by interactions of mood states with costs and with benefits. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metacognition, states of mind, cognitive biases, and interpersonal cycles: Proposal for an integrated narcissism model.

A narcissistic personality can be seen as arising from a number of separate dimensions of mental life: (a) a characteristic set of states of mind; (b) alterations in metacognitive skills--in particular a difficulty in accessing one's own inner states, desires, and emotions--and a difficulty in understanding another's mind from a decentrated perspective; (c) the sensation that experiences are not being shared with a relevant other and that one does not belong to real-life groups; (d) characteristic methods of regulating one's self-image and self-esteem through cognitive biases; (e) the use, in most cases, of values, rather than emotional experience and interpersonal regulation, for regulating behavior; and (f) characteristic dysfunctional interpersonal cycles. In this work the authors propose an integrated model that describes how the disorder perpetuates itself and suggest some hierarchies of importance between the elements portrayed above. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic priming: A cognitive neuroscience approach.

Posner and Snyder have proposed that semantic priming involves two processes: Automatic spreading activation and consciously directed attention. According to this view, activation will spread from the node in memory for the prime to nodes for related words. This facilitates response to related words, but does not produce inhibitory effects. Attention, however, is viewed as a slow serial process that produces both facilitation and inhibition effects, but only at a long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA). An alternative model has been developed based on a paper by Walley and Weiden. According to our model, facilitation effects are attributed to spreading activation in a network of neurons. Our model differs from Posner and Snyder's model in that we assume that automatic spreading activation, if strong enough to cause neurons to discharge, will produce inhibitory effects through a mechanism of recurrent lateral inhibition. Consequently, this model predicts that if spreading activation is strong enough, responding to unrelated target words will be inhibited even though attention is not directed to the related target. It is possible that even with strongly related prime-target pairs, spreading activation may not be sufficient to cause neurons to discharge and generate lateral inhibition without some additional facilitation resulting from effort-induced arousal. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of melody and lyrics on mood and memory

Alpha-amylase inhibitor (alpha-AI) from kidney bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv Tendergreen) seeds has been purified to homogeneity by heat treatment in acidic medium, ammonium sulphate fractionation, chromatofocusing and gel filtration. Two isoforms, alpha-AI1 and alpha-AI1', of 43 kDa have been isolated which differ from each other by their isoelectric points and neutral sugar contents. The major isoform alpha-AI1 inhibited human and porcine pancreatic alpha-amylases (PPA) but was devoid of activity on alpha-amylases of bacterial or fungal origins. As shown on the Lineweaver-Burk plots, the nature of the inhibition is explained by a mixed non-competitive inhibition mechanism. Alpha-AI1 formed a 1:2 stoichiometric complex with PPA which showed an optimum pH of 4.5 at 30 degrees C. Owing to the low optimum pH found for alpha-AI activity, inhibitor-containing diets such as beans or transgenic plants expressing alpha-AI should be devoid of any harmful effect on human health.     

Emotional states and physical health.

Positive emotional states may promote healthy perceptions, beliefs, and physical well-being itself. To explore potential mechanisms linking pleasant feelings and good health, the authors consider several lines of research including (a) direct effects of positive affect on physiology, especially the immune system, (b) the information value of emotional experiences, (c) the psychological resources engendered by positive feeling states, (d) the ways in which mood can motivate health-relevant behaviors, and (e) the elicitation of social support. As anticipated by the Greek physician Hippocrates, positive emotions and healthy outcomes may be linked through multiple pathways. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The epistemic benefits of trait-consistent mood states: An analysis of extraversion and mood.

One must consider both trait and state affect to predict individual differences in emotional processing. The present results document a novel trait-state interaction that is consistent with proposals concerning the epistemic functions of affect (A. R. Damasio, 1994). Four studies tested the effects of extraversion and mood on motivation-relevant processing. Study 1 measured naturally occurring mood, whereas Studies 2-4 manipulated mood. Extraverts were faster to link events to their personal motivations when in a positive mood state, whereas introverts were fast to do so in a neutral or negative mood state. Further findings indicate that this interaction affects attitude accessibility rather than event elaboration. Overall, the authors suggest that there are pragmatic benefits to trait-consistent moods, particularly for processing motivation-relevant stimuli. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of repetition priming on recognition memory: Testing a perceptual fluency-disfluency model.

Five experiments explored the effects of immediate repetition priming on episodic recognition (the "Jacoby-Whitehouse effect") as measured with forced-choice testing. These experiments confirmed key predictions of a model adapted from D. E. Huber and R. C. O'Reilly's (2003) dynamic neural network of perception. In this model, short prime durations pre-activate primed items, enhancing perceptual fluency and familiarity, whereas long prime durations result in habituation, causing perceptual disfluency and less familiarity. Short duration primes produced a recognition preference for primed words (Experiments 1, 2, and 5), whereas long duration primes produced a preference against primed words (Experiments 3, 4, and 5). Experiment 2 found prime duration effects even when participants accurately identified short duration primes. A cued-recall task included in Experiments 3, 4, and 5 found priming effects only for recognition trials that were followed by cued-recall failure. These results suggest that priming can enhance as well as lower familiarity, without affecting recollection. Experiment 4 provided a manipulation check on this procedure through a delay manipulation that preferentially affected recognition followed by cued-recall success. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of mood and severity on memory processes in depression and mania.

This article examines the relation between mood state, severity of psychopathology, and memory in the affective disorders by reviewing the literature concerned with memory processes in depression and mania. On the basis of this review, a model is presented that tries to reconcile the varied findings encountered in the literature. Specifically, this model proposes that memory processes in these disorders result from the operation of two diagnostically nonspecific mechanisms, mood state and severity of psychopathology. Mood state is thought to affect memory in two related ways: (a) by activating a negative self-schema that is responsible for the selective encoding and retrieval of information congruent with the current state, and (b) by providing contextual cues that result in the activation of mood-state-congruent memory associations. The effect of severity of pathology is also proposed to occur via one or both of two possible routes: (a) by disrupting trace processing and storage by its disorganizational nature, and/or (b) by producing low levels of effort in encoding and storage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Emotional priming of pop-out in visual search.

When searching for a discrepant target along a simple dimension such as color or shape, repetition of the target feature substantially speeds search, an effect known as feature priming of pop-out (V. Maljkovic and K. Nakayama, 1994). The authors present the first report of emotional priming of pop-out. Participants had to detect the face displaying a discrepant expression of emotion in an array of four face photographs. On each trial, the target when present was either a neutral face among emotional faces (angry in Experiment 1 or happy in Experiment 2), or an emotional face among neutral faces. Target detection was faster when the target displayed the same emotion on successive trials. This effect occurred for angry and for happy faces, not for neutral faces. It was completely abolished when faces were inverted instead of upright, suggesting that emotional categories rather than physical feature properties drive emotional priming of pop-out. The implications of the present findings for theoretical accounts of intertrial priming and for the face-in-the-crowd phenomenon are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Covariation information and cognitive processing: Effects of causal implications on memory.

Investigated the impact of attributional implications of covariation information on memory for the implied causal agent. 118 undergraduates read summary paragraphs of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency (CDC) information and were then timed as they verified from memory whether certain probe words, including the name of the implied causal agent, had appeared in the paragraph. In Exps I and II, Ss were not instructed to attend to attributional implications but merely to study the information for the subsequent memory test. In Exp III, Ss made attributions to each paragraph just prior to the probe task. Results indicate that (a) the names of implied causal agents were verified more slowly than names of noncausal entities if the order of CDC components facilitated attributional processing and (b) this effect was obtained regardless of Ss' immediate need to make an attributional judgment. Data are consistent with the interpretation that the implied causal agent was automatically integrated more thoroughly into the memory representation of the information, which had to be "decomposed" to allow verification of the agent's identity. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of daily events on mood states in major depressive disorder.

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by high negative affect (NA) and low positive affect (PA), but little is known about emotional reactivity in daily life. The authors used experience sampling methodology to investigate changes in NA and PA following minor daily events in MDD compared with healthy participants. Contrary to expectation, MDD participants did not report more frequent negative events, although they did report fewer positive events. Multilevel regression showed that both NA and PA responses to negative events were blunted in the MDD group, whereas responses to positive events were enhanced. NA responses to negative events persisted longer in MDD participants. Depressed participants with a positive family history or longer current episodes showed relatively greater NA responses to negative events. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)