Autobiographical Memory Specificity and Emotional Disorder

By J. M. G. Williams, T. Barnhofer, C. Crane, Dirk Hermans, F. Raes, E. Watkins, Tim Dalgleish. Psychological bulletin, 2007

1,632 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The authors review research showing that when recalling autobiographical events, many emotionally disturbed patients summarize categories of events rather than retrieving a single episode. The mechanisms underlying such overgeneral memory are examined, with a focus on M. A. Conway and C. W. Pleydell-Pearce's (2000) hierarchical search model of personal event retrieval. An elaboration of this model is proposed to account for overgeneral memory, focusing on how memory search can be affected by (a) capture and rumination processes, when mnemonic information used in retrieval activates ruminative thinking; (b) functional avoidance, when episodic material threatens to cause affective disturbance; and (c) impairment in executive capacity and control that limits an individual's ability to remain focused on retrieval in the face of distraction.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e0b29a8ec9dad5f06a1ced21555f0b59ca14fbd2

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Citations in the corpus

Emotion Regulation in Depression (2014, background): “Depression has been associated with not only enhanced recall of negative events but also the recall of rather generic memories despite instructions to recall specific events (i.e., overgeneral memory; see J. M. G. Williams et al., 2007, for a review).”
The role of oxytocin in social bonding, stress regulation and mental health: an update on the moderating effects of context and interindividual differences. (2013, methodology): “, 2013) and impaired recall of specific memories for past events (Williams et al., 2007), we examined whether the relation between oxytocin and autobiographical memory would be moderated by self-reported depressive symptoms.”
Brooding and Reflection as Subtypes of Rumination: Evidence from Confirmatory Factor Analysis in Nonclinical Samples using the Dutch Ruminative Response Scale (2010, methodology): “Both the original WBSI and the Dutch version which we used in the present study (Muris et al. 1996) show good internal and temporal reliability as well as concurrent validity (Muris and Merckelbach 1997; Muris et al. 1996; Van den Hout et al. 1996; Wegner and Zanakos 1994 ).”
Enhancing Autobiographical Memory Specificity Through Cognitive Training (2013, background): “At baseline, both groups completed Persian versions of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) and the Mood and Feelings Questionnaire (MFQ).”
Emotion regulation in depression: Examining the role of cognitive processes (2010, background): “Depression is not only associated with enhanced recall of negative events, but also with the recall of rather generic memories despite instructions to recall specific events (i.e., overgeneral memory; see Williams et al., 2007, for a review).”
Source monitoring 15 years later: What have we learned from fMRI about the neural mechanisms of source memory? (2009, background): “detection models: Comment on Wixted (2007). Psychological Review,”
Mindfulness, Assessment, and Transdiagnostic Processes (2007, background): “Overgeneral autobiographical memory is conceptualized as an avoidant retrieval style, which functions to reduce recall of specific memories that are likely to elicit negative affect (Williams, 1996; Williams et al., 2007).”
Mnemic neglect: Selective amnesia of one’s faults (2016, background): “For example, a positive memory bias is associated with decreased dysphoria (Walker, Skowronski, Gibbons, Vogl, & Thompson, 2003) or depression (Williams et al., 2007), and is also associated with harmonious”
Just tell us what happened to you: autobiographical memory and seeking asylum (2012, background): “The ‘affect regulation hypothesis’ (Williams et al., 2007) suggests that individuals most disturbed by intrusive memories make use of overgeneral memory as a cognitive strategy in order to avoid accessing specific disturbing experienced events.”
Bonsai Trees in Your Head: How the Pavlovian System Sculpts Goal-Directed Choices by Pruning Decision Trees (2012, background): “effectively (possibly also captured by more general, superficial autobiographical recollections; [51]).”
Developing interpretation bias modification as a "cognitive vaccine" for depressed mood: imagining positive events makes you feel better than thinking about them verbally. (2009, background): “The autobiographical memory literature (as reviewed by Williams et al., 2007) suggests that overgenerality (i.e., reduced specificity) is associated with depression.”