Autobiographical memory in older adults with and without depressive symptoms

Résumé 0

"The aim of this experiment was to examine the overgenerality ofautobiographical memory in older adults with depressive symptoms in comparison tonondepressed older adults. 95 older adults with clinically significant depressivesymptomatology and 90 nondepressed older adults were asked to generate specificmemories in response to a series of positive, negative and neutral cue-words, using theAutobiographical Memory Test (AMT). Evidence for greater overgenerality amongthose with depressive symptoms was only found for negative cues, while all participantsprovided far more general than specific memories. Latencies were greater for participantswith depressive symptoms than for nondepressed participants, but this finding was notlimited to specific memories. There was a strong positivity bias, with more positivememories than negative memories retrieved, across cues. Latency did not differ byvalence, but negative cues were more likely than positive cues to lead to failure toretrieve any memory. These positivity effects were markedly stronger for nondepressedrespondents than for those with depressive symptomatology. Aged related changes inmemory function are suggested as a possible explanation for the overall pattern offindings."