Research in human memory indicates that negative emotions fade faster in memory than positive emotions (the Fading Affect Bias), that this bias is substantially weakened by mild depression (dysphoria), and that these effects are related to event rehearsal (thinking or talking about memories). These findings indicate that healthy coping processes related to rehearsal operate in human memory, but that these processes can be disrupted by dysphoria. Cognitive models that have attempted to understand such effects have typically ignored important social factors related to memory. The current proposal calls for studies that will investigate both cognitive and social mechanisms responsible for memory deficits and emotional biases in human memory. By exploring these mechanisms and how they operate in dysphorics and in non-dysphorics, it is hoped that a framework can be constructed to explain some of the memory deficits and emotional biases observed in dysphoria. This proposal will focus on autobiographical memory, the memory for events in a person's life, because these memories are the most prone to such effects. While the methods for the various experiments differ, most of these studies are conceptually similar and have similar theoretical aims. In general, most studies will ask participants to recall personal events from their lives and make a variety of memory judgments about each event. In some cases, participants will be given specific constraints on the kinds of memories they are to recall and how they are to be recalled. The main purposes of the first set of experiments are to examine whether positive memories are remembered better than negative memories, if this effect is altered by dysphoria, and whether these memory differences might be related to the affective intensity of events and the frequency of event rehearsals. Of particular interest will be whether specific types of rehearsal are associated with the disruption of the Fading Affect Bias in dysphorics. The main purposes of the studies in the second set of experiments are to examine whether the manipulation of rehearsal wiIl produce changes in affect or memory ratings and if the public disclosure of autobiographical memories has any measurable effects on memory content. If social factors help to bias human memory, then the manipulation of these factors should substantially alter such biases.
| Aileru, A A; De Albuquerque, A; Hamlyn, J M et al. (2001) Synaptic plasticity in sympathetic ganglia from acquired and inherited forms of ouabain-dependent hypertension. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 281:R635-44 |
