Selective factors in memory. Part 2: affective disorder

Abstract

Synopsis: The relationship between the affective connotations of material and the ease of its recall two weeks later has been examined in a group of psychiatric inpatients suffering from affective disorder. The tendency to recall more pleasant than unpleasant material has been less marked in patients showing overt depression than in patients who were hypomanic or recovered from depression at the time of the experiment. This has been chiefly because of the higher negative tone of recalled material in the depressed patients. Other attributes of the material, relative to its impact on the subject, have also appeared to be less influential in recall in the presence of depression.