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Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria

Our aim was to determine if deficits in intentional forgetting that are associated with depression and dysphoria (subclinical depression) could be explained, at least in part, by variations in working memory function. Sixty dysphoric and 61 non-dysphoric participants completed a modified version of...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Noreen, Saima, Cooke, Richard, Ridout, Nathan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7515956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31324973
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01225-y
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author Noreen, Saima
Cooke, Richard
Ridout, Nathan
author_facet Noreen, Saima
Cooke, Richard
Ridout, Nathan
author_sort Noreen, Saima
collection PubMed
description Our aim was to determine if deficits in intentional forgetting that are associated with depression and dysphoria (subclinical depression) could be explained, at least in part, by variations in working memory function. Sixty dysphoric and 61 non-dysphoric participants completed a modified version of the think/no-think (TNT) task and a measure of complex working memory (the operation span task). The TNT task involved participants learning a series of emotional cue–target word pairs, before being presented with a subset of the cues and asked to either recall the associated target (think) or to prevent it from coming to mind (no think) by thinking about a substitute target word. Participants were subsequently asked to recall the targets to all cues (regardless of previous recall instructions). As expected, after controlling for anxiety, we found that dysphoric individuals exhibited impaired forgetting relative to the non-dysphoric participants. Also as expected, we found that superior working memory function was associated with more successful forgetting. Critically, in the dysphoric group, we found that working memory mediated the effect of depression on intentional forgetting. That is, depression influenced forgetting indirectly via its effect on working memory. However, under conditions of repeated suppression, there was also a direct effect of depression on forgetting. These findings represent an important development in the understanding of impaired forgetting in depression and also suggest that working memory training might be a viable intervention for improving the ability of depressed individuals to prevent unwanted memories from coming to mind.
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spelling pubmed-75159562020-10-07 Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria Noreen, Saima Cooke, Richard Ridout, Nathan Psychol Res Original Article Our aim was to determine if deficits in intentional forgetting that are associated with depression and dysphoria (subclinical depression) could be explained, at least in part, by variations in working memory function. Sixty dysphoric and 61 non-dysphoric participants completed a modified version of the think/no-think (TNT) task and a measure of complex working memory (the operation span task). The TNT task involved participants learning a series of emotional cue–target word pairs, before being presented with a subset of the cues and asked to either recall the associated target (think) or to prevent it from coming to mind (no think) by thinking about a substitute target word. Participants were subsequently asked to recall the targets to all cues (regardless of previous recall instructions). As expected, after controlling for anxiety, we found that dysphoric individuals exhibited impaired forgetting relative to the non-dysphoric participants. Also as expected, we found that superior working memory function was associated with more successful forgetting. Critically, in the dysphoric group, we found that working memory mediated the effect of depression on intentional forgetting. That is, depression influenced forgetting indirectly via its effect on working memory. However, under conditions of repeated suppression, there was also a direct effect of depression on forgetting. These findings represent an important development in the understanding of impaired forgetting in depression and also suggest that working memory training might be a viable intervention for improving the ability of depressed individuals to prevent unwanted memories from coming to mind. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2019-07-19 2020 /pmc/articles/PMC7515956/ /pubmed/31324973 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01225-y Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Article
Noreen, Saima
Cooke, Richard
Ridout, Nathan
Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title_full Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title_fullStr Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title_full_unstemmed Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title_short Investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
title_sort investigating the mediating effect of working memory on intentional forgetting in dysphoria
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7515956/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31324973
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01225-y
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