The effect of practice on recall of negative material in dysphoria.

BACKGROUND

Little is known of the impact of repeated retrieval of negative material on the content of what depressed individuals remember. On the premise that high dysphoric individuals possess: (i) a tendency to ruminate, and (ii) deficient inhibition of negative material, we hypothesized that they would demonstrate less inhibition of unpracticed and non-practiced negative material.

METHODS

High and low dysphoric participants' memory for practiced, unpracticed and non-practiced negative and neutral words was tested with the retrieval-induced forgetting (RIF) paradigm.

RESULTS

Across participants, RIF was observed for neutral words. In both groups, there was no difference between the recall of unpracticed and non-practiced negative words.

LIMITATIONS: Use of a non-clinical sample.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings are discussed in the context of methodological suggestions about how future studies could enhance the applicability of the RIF procedure to investigate the impact of ruminative rehearsal.