Implicit mood congruent memory bias in dysphoria: Automatic and strategic activation

The present study investigated the emergence of an implicit memory bias and the asymmetric processing of emotional material in dysphoric and non-dysphoric subjects. The implicit memory test was a primed lexical decision task with positive and negative words and suprathreshold and subthreshold primes. Dysphoric subjects showed greater subthreshold priming of negative words than non-dysphoric subjects. An asymmetric effect appeared only in suprathreshold priming condition. Main results suggested that dysphoria is associated with a mood-congruent memory bias in automatic aspects of implicit memory. Implications for Beck (1976), Bower (1981) and Williams, Watts, MacLeod, and Mathews (1988, 1997) models are discussed.