When the half-full glass is appraised as half empty and memorised as completely empty: Mood-congruent true and false recognition in depression is modulated by salience Steffen Moritz, Katharina Voigt, G. Marina Arzola, and Christian Otte University Hospital Hamburg, Germany Since the 1980s a large body of empirical effort has been devoted to mood-congruent memory (MCM) biases in clinical depression. Whereas there is broad, albeit not unequivocal, evidence that depressive patients retain negative-valenced memory items better than neutral material, few studies have investigated false memories in depression. In a pilot study we gathered support for both enhanced true and false memory for emotional material in depression. The present study aimed to extend these preliminary findings. In view of investigations suggesting that arousing and meaningful stimuli have facilitated access to memory, personal salience was considered a moderator for MCM. In the present study 21 depressed and 22 healthy participants were presented six false memory lists dealing with neutral, negative, and positive themes. At recognition, each item had to be appraised for its degree of valence subsequent to an oldnew judgement. Pre-categorised and subjective valence did not discriminate groups. However, relative to controls, depressed patients showed both more veridical as well as false recognition for items that concurrently elicited higher salience ratings in patients. In contrast, group differences in recognition performance did not significantly affect salience ratings. Results indicate that salience modulates MCM and may account for discrepancies in the literature. Keywords: Depression; Memory; Mood-congruent memory; Salience; False memory. The extent to which we are able to memorise a particular episode in our life depends on a multi- tude of aspects. Apart from memory capacity, external distraction during encoding and/or re- trieval, as well as factors influencing memory consolidation (e.g., alcohol consumption), several psychological conditions impact on the success of long-term memory retention. As a general rule of thumb, items that matter to us are better recollected. For example, memory episodes with fundamental personal and public significance, so- called flashbulb memories (van Giezen, Are- nsman, Spinhoven, & Wolters, 2005), have a retention advantage over minor events and are recollected in greater detail and vividness (Horn- stein, Brown, & Mulligan, 2003; Wolters & Goudsmit, 2005). However, these memories are at the same time particularly prone to intrusive (false) memories. Recently a memory advantage has been asserted for emotional information per se (Ferre ´, 2002, 2003). Factors that foster or impair memory acquisition have long attracted the interest of clinical researchers. Despite some recent setbacks (e.g., Banos, Medina, & Pascual, 2001), it is well accepted that depressed and anxious patients share an exaggerated bias for # 2008 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Address correspondence to: Steffen Moritz, University Medical Center Hamburg Eppendorf, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Martinistrasse 52, 20246 Hamburg, Germany. E-mail: moritz@uke.uni-hamburg.de The authors wish to thank Prof. Tim Perfect for helpful comments. He stimulated important novel analyses. MEMORY, 2008, 16 (8), 810820 http://www.psypress.com/memory DOI:10.1080/09658210802282708 Downloaded By: [Moritz, Steffen] At: 13:28 24 October 2008