Directed forgetting in major depression

Abstract

Basing ourselves upon the cognitive processing and recall of information, we studied directed forgetting in a sample of individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder. The sample consisted of 30 such subjects and also included 15 subjects diagnosed with panic disorder and 30 subjects without a psychopathological disorder. The depressed subjects were evaluated on two occasions three months apart. We used a series of clinical scales and a Directed Forgetting Task. The results indicated that the instruction to forget was effective for the three groups. Depressed subjects showed a bias towards negative information in the processing and recall of information in depressed subjects. In addition, a self-characterisation task showed a devalued sense of self in the depressed subjects. Overall, our findings suggest that, in depressed subjects, positive characterisations do not resonate in a sufficiently strong self to have an impact on information recall.