Effects of two different emotion-inducing methods on the emotional memory of non-clinically depressed individuals

PLoS One. 2021 May 28;16(5):e0249863. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249863. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

In the study of emotional memory bias in depressed individuals, most previous studies have used emotional materials, but there were significant differences in the effects of different emotion-inducing methods on face memory. In the present study, two experiments were conducted to explore the effects of different emotion-inducing methods on memory between healthy participants and non-clinically depressed participants. The results from experiment 1 showed that when feedback was used as induction, the memory performance of the non-clinical depression group was significantly higher than that of the healthy group under the condition of negative feedback. Under positive and neutral feedback, there were no significant differences between the two groups. In experiment 2, when emotional materials were used as a mode of induction, no significantly difference in each emotional condition between the healthy and depressed groups was found. The results of the present study show that different methods of emotional induction have different effects on depressed participants. Compared with the emotion induced by the emotional material, the non-clinical depressed participants had a better memory effect induced by negative emotional events.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adolescent
  • Adult
  • Depression / pathology
  • Depression / psychology*
  • Emotions*
  • Female
  • Healthy Volunteers
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Memory
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This study was supported by grants from National Social Science Fund of China [19ZDA360] and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [2020M672660].