Abstract
Implicit memory bias concerning emotional information in subclinical depression. This study investigated the possibility that in implicit memory tasks there is bias in the processing of emotional information by non-clinically depressed subjects. Two experiments were carried out, both involving manipulation of words with emotional content. In the first, no bias was detected in either dysphoric subjects or controls in a word-stem completion task following conscious priming. In the second experiment, involving a lexical decision task following masked repetition priming, there was greater priming of depression words relative to neutral words among the dysphoric subjects but not in the control group. In no case was any implicit memory deficit detected. These results suggest that application of lexical decision tasks with unconscious priming to non-clinically depressed subjects may prove useful for detecting implicit memory bias indicative of possible cognitive vulnerability to de pression.
