Mood and memory under natural conditions: Evidence for mood incongruent recall.

The effect of mood on memory was studied under natural conditions in 2 field quasi-experiments. In both, Ss in happy moods recalled autobiographical memories that were more negative than were memories recalled by subjects in bad moods, a phenomenon termed mood incongruent recall. Three subsequent laboratory experiments are reported that suggest that mood incongruent recall is a reliable phenomenon, occurring when subjects are unaware that their moods are relevant to the experiment. Mood incongruent recall is hypothesized to be related to mood regulation. The implications of these findings for the relation between mood and memory, for mood congruent recall, for laboratory mood inductions, and for self-regulation of mood and depression are discussed. (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)     

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)     

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 memory biases: Effects of cognitive priming and mood.

Recent studies have shown that naturally occurring and experimentally induced affect states enhance the accessibility to retrieval of memories of life experiences that are congruent in valence with the affect state. Previous studies have suggested that this memory bias results from the influence of affective processes on memory retrieval. Ss read statements expressing positive or negative self-evaluative ideas or describing somatic states that often accompany positive or negative mood states. The somatic and self-evaluative statements had, in general, equally strong effects on mood state. However, the self-evaluative statements had a stronger impact on recall latencies for life experiences than did the somatic statements. Moreover, the impact of the self-evaluative, but not the somatic, statements on recall was found to be independent of the statements' effect on mood state. This suggest that the cognitions accompanying a mood-altering experience may have a substantial effect on the capacity of the mood state to influence memory retrieval. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of sad mood on memory in older adults: A test of the mood congruence effect.

Mood congruence effects have long been studied in younger adults. but not in older adults. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) suggests that mood congruence could operate differently in older adults. One hundred and nineteen younger and 78 older adults were randomly assigned to sad or neutral mood inductions, using combined Velten and music induction procedures. Results indicated that during sad mood induction both older and younger adults showed enhanced recall of sad words on delayed word list recall task and in autobiographical memory. However, only older adults displayed mood congruence effects on lexical ambiguity and lower recall of positive words in the word list task. Results provided partial support for developmental effects on mood congruence derived from SST. (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)     

Affect and stereotyping: The effect of induced mood on distinctiveness-based illusory correlations.

In 2 studies, the effects of mood on the formation of distinctiveness-based illusory correlations were examined. After exposure to stimuli inducing positive, neutral, or negative mood, Ss read information about behaviors performed by members of 2 groups in an illusory correlation paradigm. In both experiments, only Ss in a neutral mood formed illusory correlations. In addition, Exp 2 assessed Ss' processing latencies as a means of investigating differential attention to distinctive behaviors. Only Ss in a neutral mood differentially attended to the minority group's infrequent behaviors. Induced mood apparently interfered with the processing necessary to differentially encode distinctive stimuli, undermining the illusory correlation effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of leading questions on prior memory: Evidence for the coexistence of inconsistent memory traces.

Previous studies have found that memory can be altered by leading questions that presuppose information inconsistent with originally presented memory materials. This phenomenon was examined to determine if memory disruption was due to the alteration of original memory by new inconsistent information. Also examined was the variation in this effect with the centrality of target materials. 48 undergraduates read high- and low-importance sentence targets embedded in texts, recalled the texts, were questioned about the materials, and later participated in a recognition task. Presented questions contained presuppositions that were consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with regard to targets. Recognition items were original targets, and foils were congruent with inconsistent question presuppositions. Inconsistent presuppositions did not produce significantly lower target hits than neutral presuppositions, but they did increase foil false alarms relative to neutrals, suggesting that both original and inconsistent new material coexisted in memory at recognition. Recognition results did not vary with the importance of the target material. False alarm rates following inconsistent presuppositions were higher among Ss who had previously failed to recall target information than for Ss recalling targets. This suggested that Ss may tag inconsistent information as false if original traces are retrievable at question time. (French abstract) (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distorted memory for examplars of a social structure: Evidence for schematic memory processes.

Exp I with 21 undergraduates demonstrated distorted memory for exemplars of a social structure. Slides, each depicting 1 of 6 athletes finishing in an athletic event, were arranged into episodes consisting of from 2 ("{twos}") to 5 ("{fives}") slides, the 1st slide in an episode representing 1st place, the 2nd slide, 2nd place, and so on. During acquisition, {twos, threes, fours}, and {fives} consistent with a linear ordering of skill were presented. During recognition, {olds} (episodes previously seen), {news} (novel episodes consistent with the ordering), and {noncases} (episodes violating the ordering) were shown as {twos, threes, fours}, and {fives}. {olds} and {news} were equally confidently recognized; {noncases} were rejected. Recognition confidence for {olds} and {news} was a positive, linear function of episode length. Two forms of memory distortion occurred: {new fives} were falsely recognized, and they were recognized more confidently than {old twos}. Ss apparently constructed an all-encompassing linear-ordering schema that determined recognition performance, since recognition confidence was invariantly a positive function of similarity to the schema. Exp II (15 undergraduates) disconfirmed 2 alternative explanations and confirmed that schema construction occurred. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential effects of induced mood on retrieval of pleasant and unpleasant events from episodic memory.

Examined the effect of depressed mood on the accessibility of memories of past real-life experiences of a pleasant or unpleasant nature. By means of a mood induction procedure, 30 students (mean age 19.2 yrs) were made happy on one occasion and depressed on another. The 2 mood states differed significantly on self-report, speech-rate, and recall-latency measures. Stimulus words to which Ss had to associate past pleasant or unpleasant experiences were presented in each mood condition, and latency of retrieval was measured. Time to retrieve pleasant memories, relative to time to retrieve unpleasant memories, was significantly longer when Ss were depressed than when they were happy, suggesting a differential effect of mood on the accessibility of these 2 types of memory. Results are considered in relation to state-dependent learning and activation of memories, and their implications for models and treatment of depression are discussed. It is suggested that cognitive models of depression need to be extended to include a reciprocal relation between thought content and depressed mood. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Informational mood impact on effort-related cardiovascular reponse: The diagnostic value of mood counts.

Drawing on the mood-behavior model (G. H. E. Gendolla, 2000), 2 experiments examined moods' informational impact on effort-related cardiovascular response. After being induced into positive versus negative moods, participants performed a memory task (Experiment 1) or a letter-cancellation task (Experiment 2). Half the participants received a cue that their mood could have been manipulated. As expected, both studies found stronger reactivity of systolic blood pressure in a negative mood than in a positive mood when no cue was provided. This effect diminished in the cue conditions. Additionally, achievement corresponded to systolic blood pressure reactivity (Experiment 1), the cue manipulation had no effect on mood, and mood had a congruency effect on subjective task difficulty in the no-cue conditions (Experiment 2). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constraints on the effects of mood on memory.

In Study 1, pleasant and unpleasant personality trait words and abstract nouns were encoded in neutral mood and recalled in either induced depressed or induced happy mood, using 32 female and 32 male undergraduates assigned in equal numbers to 1 of the 4 conditions. Females recalled more pleasant than unpleasant words when in a happy mood and more unpleasant than pleasant words when in a depressed mood. Males failed to show this effect. Both sexes responded equally well to the induction procedures. There were no sex differences in pleasantness ratings of the words to be recalled. A prediction that differential effects of mood on recall would be greater for trait words than abstract nouns was not confirmed. In Study 2, everyday usage ratings by 36 Ss from Study 1 were obtained for the trait words from Study 1. Females gave higher usage ratings than males and, within the females, usage predicted the extent to which a word was preferentially recalled in a congruent mood state. Findings are discussed in relation to the associative network model of mood and memory, sex differences in depression, and cognitive vulnerability to depression. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for involvement of orbitofrontal cortex in memory functions: An interference effect.

Although it is frequently stated that the frontal lobes play a significant role in memory function, research proof has been ambiguous at best. The present study investigated this problem by administering a variety of memory tests (e.g., Wechsler Memory Scale, WAIS) to 16 schizophrenic patients who had undergone prefrontal leukotomy approximately 25 yrs earlier. Ss were divided into 3 groups on the basis of recovery after surgery. Two comparison groups (5 psychiatric and 5 normal controls) were established to control for psychiatric symptomatology, years of institutionalization, age, and years of education. Results indicate that large bilateral orbitofrontal lesions may not result in amnesia; in fact, the nonoperated schizophrenic control group performed the most poorly. Proactive interference was demonstrated, however, resulting in significant impairment for all Ss with prefrontal lobe damage despite normal scores on commonly used memory tests. Ability to maintain consistent and directed attention and to overcome interference is proposed as a role of the frontal lobes in memory function. (55 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spacing effects in memory: Evidence for a two-process account.

Memory for repeated items on a list improves as a function of the spacing between repetitions. It is shown that spacing effects are eliminated in relative frequency discrimination, absolute frequency estimation, and recognition when items are learned incidentally. Spacing effects in free recall are unaffected by intentionality of learning. The results suggest that spacing effects in tasks in which experimenter-supplied retrieval cues are available are due to a rehearsal strategy that allots fewer rehearsals to items repeated in massed fashion. Spacing effects in free recall are due to a separate process resulting from study-phase retrieval of repeated items. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity and inhibition in long-term memory: Evidence for a two-factor theory.

Recalling a past experience often requires the suppression of related memories that compete with the retrieval target, causing memory impairment known as retrieval-induced forgetting. Two experiments examined how retrieval-induced forgetting varies with the similarity of the competitor and the target item (target- competitor similarity) and with the similarity between the competitors themselves (competitor-competitor similarity). According to the pattern-suppression model (M. C. Anderson & B. A. Spellman, 1995), high target-competitor similarity should reduce impairment, whereas high competitor-competitor similarity should increase it. Both predictions were supported: Encoding target-competitor similarities not only eliminated retrieval-induced forgetting but also reversed it, whereas encoding competitor-competitor similarities increased impairment. The differing effects of target-competitor and competitor-competitor similarity may resolve conflicting results concerning the effects of similarity on inhibition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of induced mood on self-reported life events and perceived and received social support.

Tested the relation between mood (depressed [D], elated [E], or neutral [N]), induced by the Velten (1968) procedure, and college students' responses on a subjectively scored life events questionnaire and measures of perceived and received social support. A manipulation check showed that the mood manipulation was successful. There was a significant mood effect on the number of self-reported negative life events, with E Ss reporting the fewest. However, mood had no significant effect on the number of self-reported positive life events or the rated intensity of negative and positive events. Mood had a significant effect on perceived social support, with D Ss scoring the lowest. Self-report of received social support, however, was not affected by the mood manipulation. The findings challenge the widespread use of life event and perceived social support questionnaires whose independence from a mood-related response bias has not been adequately demonstrated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Structural convergence of mood and personality: Evidence for old and new directions.

Using factor analytic techniques, extensively researched 2-dimensional models of mood structure (D. Watson and A. Tellegen; see record 1986-00110-001) and personality structure (H. J. and M. W. Eysenck, 1985) were examined for their degree of convergence. As hypothesized, it was shown that extraversion and positive affect share a common dimension in combined mood–personality space and that neuroticism and negative affect together define the 2nd dimension of this space. Significantly, this finding held whether mood was assessed as a state or a trait. The circumplex structure of trait and state mood was also assessed, providing strong support for most octants of the Watson and Tellegen model. Finally, scales of state mood, trait mood, and personality were assessed and differentiated according to theoretical expectations. Implications for research based on a unified map of the 2-dimensional personality–mood space were elucidated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of mood on learning.

Explored the influence of elated and depressed moods on (a) the affective evaluation of sentences and (b) efficiency in learning these sentences. 105 college students were given sentences from Time magazine that were modified to insure structural equivalence and selected to elicit pleasant and unpleasant reactions. Ss were asked to rate the sentences on affect, memorize them, and recall them. Results indicate that elated moods facilitate the clear differentiation between pleasant and unpleasant sentences as well as the remembrance of them. Depressed moods lead to indifferent evaluations, less recall of propositions, and more total zero recall. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Receiver-operating characteristics in recognition memory: Evidence for a dual-process model.

Evidence is presented that recognition judgments are based on an assessment of familiarity, as is described by signal detection theory, but that a separate recollection process also contributes to performance. In 3 receiver-operating characteristics (ROC) experiments, the process dissociation procedure was used to examine the contribution of these processes to recognition memory. In Exps 1 and 2, reducing the length of the study list increased the intercept (d') but decreased the slope of the ROC and increased the probability of recollection but left familiarity relatively unaffected. In Exp 3, increasing study time increased the intercept but left the slope of the ROC unaffected and increased both recollection and familiarity. In all 3 experiments, judgments based on familiarity produced a symmetrical ROC (slope?=?1), but recollection introduced a skew such that the slope of the ROC decreased. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)