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Stuck In The Past? Rumination-Related Memory Integration, Paula T. Hertel, C. Wahlheim, William A. Price, Emily M. Crusius, Christina L. Patino

Psychology Faculty Research

Memories connected to ruminative concerns repetitively capture attention, even in situations designed to alter them. However, recent research on memory updating suggests that memory for benign substitutes (e.g., reinterpretations) might be facilitated by integration with the ruminative memories. As a first approach, two experiments (Ns = 72) mimicked rumination-related memories with rumination-themed stimuli and an imagery task. College undergraduates screened for ruminative status first studied and imaged ruminative cue-target word pairs, and then in a second phase they studied the same cues re-paired with benign targets (along with new and repeated pairs). On the test of cued recall of …

Inferences Training Affects Memory, Rumination, And Mood, B. Perlman, N. Mor, Y. Wisney Jacobinski, A. Doron Zakon, N. Avirbach, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

Making negative inferences for negative events, ruminating about them, and retrieving negative aspects of memories have all been associated with depression. However, the causal mechanisms that link negative inferences to negative mood and the interplay between inferences, rumination, and memory have not been explored. In the current study, we used a cognitive-bias modification (CBM) procedure to train causal inferences and assessed training effects on ruminative thinking, memory, and negative mood among people with varying levels of depression. Training had immediate effects on negative mood and rumination but not after recall of a negative autobiographical memory. Note that training affected memory: …

Rumination: Practicing Retrieval Of Autobiographical Memories, Paula T. Hertel, Paola Herrera, Pallavi Shamapant

Psychology Faculty Research

Background

People who ruminate about negative personal experiences seem to be engaged in practicing retrieval, with the expected consequences of perpetuating those very memories (see Roediger and Butler in Trends Cogn Sci 15:20–27, 2011).

Method

To provide an experimental model of the effect of retrieval practice on subsequent recall of autobiographical memories, we recruited students with low and high scores on the Ruminative Response Scale (Treynor et al. in Cogn Ther Res 27:247–259, 2003), gave them positive and ruminative cues to generate memories, and cued three rounds of practice of half of the memories from each valence.

Results

A week …

Training To Inhibit Negative Content Affects Memory And Rumination, Shimrit Daches, Nilly Mor, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

Depressive rumination, the tendency to engage in repetitive self-focus in response to distress, seems to be affected by a variety of cognitive biases that in turn maintain negative emotional states. The current study examined whether the difficulty in inhibiting attention to negative information contributes to rumination and to rumination-related biases in memory. Seventy-nine ruminators underwent a 3-week computer-based training, designed to increase either inhibition of negative words or attention to them. On immediate post-training trials, as well as on 2-week follow-up tests, we found evidence for transfer of inhibition training. Training effects also occurred on session-by-session and post-training measures of …

Effect Of Cognitive Bias Modification-Memory On Depressive Symptoms And Autobiographical Memory Bias: Two Independent Studies In High-Ruminating And Dysphoric Samples, Janna N. Vrijsen, J. Dainer-Best, S. M. Witcraft, S. S. Papini, Paula T. Hertel, C. G. Beevers, Eni Sabine Becker, J. A. J. Smits

Psychology Faculty Research

Memory bias is a risk factor for depression. In two independent studies, the efficacy of one CBM-Memory session on negative memory bias and depressive symptoms was tested in vulnerable samples. We compared positive to neutral (control) CBM-Memory trainings in highly-ruminating individuals (N = 101) and individuals with elevated depressive symptoms (N = 100). In both studies, participants studied positive, neutral, and negative Swahili words paired with their translations. In five study–test blocks, they were then prompted to retrieve either only the positive or neutral translations. Immediately following the training and one week later, we tested cued recall of all translations …

Ruminators (Unlike Others) Fail To Show Suppression-Induced Forgetting On Indirect Measures Of Memory, Paula T. Hertel, Amaris Maydon, Ashley Ogilvie, Nilly Mor

Psychology Faculty Research

Suppression is a useful everyday skill leading to the clinically important outcome of forgetting. Suppression-induced forgetting, investigated with the think/no-think (TNT) paradigm, is typically demonstrated on direct tests of memory, even though indirect tests are often more ecologically valid. We report results from two TNT experiments terminating in indirect tests—tests that seem not to measure memory. For a subset of the participants in Experiment 1, latencies to rate word valence were delayed by flankers previously learned but not by flankers previously learned and then suppressed on 16 occasions. For a similar subset in Experiment 2, cue meaning denoted by free …

Cognitive Bias Modification: Retrieval Practice To Simulate And Oppose Ruminative Memory Biases, Paula T. Hertel, Amaris Maydon, Julia Cottle, Janna N. Vrijsen

Psychology Faculty Research

Ruminative tendencies to think repetitively about negative events, like retrieval practice in laboratory experiments, should enhance long-term recall. To evaluate this claim, ruminators and non-ruminators learned positive, negative, and neutral adjective-noun pairs. Following each of four study phases, “practice” participants attempted cued recall of nouns from positive or negative pairs; study-only participants performed a filler task. Half the pairs of each valence were tested after the learning cycles, and all pairs were tested a week later. Large practice effects were found on both tests, even though ruminators showed a trait-congruent bias in recalling unpracticed negative pairs on the immediate test. …

Practicing Emotionally Biased Retrieval Affects Mood And Establishes Biased Recall A Week Later, Janna N. Vrijsen, Paula T. Hertel, Eni Sabine Becker

Psychology Faculty Research

Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) can yield clinically relevant results. Only few studies have directly manipulated memory bias, which is prominent in depression. In a new approach to CBM, we sought to simulate or oppose ruminative processes by training the retrieval of negative or positive words. Participants studied positive and negative word pairs (Swahili cues with Dutch translations). In the positive and negative conditions, each of the three study trials was followed by a cued-recall test of training-congruent translations; a no-practice condition merely studied the pairs. Recall of the translations was tested after the training and after 1 week. Both recall …

The Effects Of Rumination Induction On Attentional Breadth For Self-Related Information, M. Grol, Paula T. Hertel, E. H.W. Koster, Rudi De Raedt

Psychology Faculty Research

The attentional scope model of rumination describes the links between rumination and attentional breadth. The model postulates that a more narrow attentional scope, caused by negative mood, increases the likelihood that thoughts become repetitive on the same topic, which in turn could exacerbate negative mood and lead to more attentional narrowing. We experimentally tested this model by examining the attentional effects of rumination using a newly developed rumination- versus problem-solving induction. In the first experiment we found that only at high levels of trait rumination, induction of rumination compared to a problem-solving approach was associated with more attentional narrowing for …

Cognition In Emotional Disorders: An Abundance Of Habit And A Dearth Of Control, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

Emotional and other psychological disorders are categories of experience identified at least in part by the goal of having treatment plans for people in distress. Because the categories exist for such purposes, research efforts are organized to discover distinctions among the categories and between disordered and nondisordered individuals. Many of these distinctions are cognitive. When clinical scientists began experimental studies, the term “cognitive” had been used to refer primarily to conscious thoughts that characterize disorders (see Beck, 1976), but in more recent decades the term signifies an experimental approach framed according to the theories and paradigms of cognitive psychology. In …

Rumination: Cognitive Consequences Of Training To Inhibit The Negative, Shimrit Daches, Nilly Mor, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

Background and Objectives: To explore cognitive factors in ruminative thinking, we assessed the effect of a single-session of inhibition training on subsequent biases in attention and interpretation.

Methods: We randomly assigned participants to either inhibit or attend to negative stimuli. Inhibition was assessed by using assessment trials embedded throughout the training, and interpretation bias was assessed following the training.

Results: Trait rumination moderated training effects on both measures. Low ruminators in the inhibition-training condition maintained their level of inhibition of negative stimuli, but those in the attention-training condition showed a non-significant trend for decreased inhibition. Participants also …

Looking On The Dark Side: Rumination And Cognitive Bias Modification, Paula T. Hertel, Nilly Mor, Chiara Ferrari, Olivia Hunt, Nupur Agrawal

Psychology Faculty Research

To understand cognitive bases of self-reported ruminative tendencies, we examined interpretations and subsequent memories of ambiguous situations depicting opportunities for rumination. In Experiment 1, we recruited students, randomly assigned them to a distracting or ruminative concentration task, and then measured their latencies to complete fragments that resolved situational ambiguity in either a ruminative or a benign direction. Students in the ruminative task condition who previously self-identified as brooders were quicker to complete ruminative fragments. In Experiment 2, we simulated this bias to investigate its possible contribution to rumination; nonbrooding students were trained to make ruminative or benign resolutions of ambiguous …

Interpretation Bias Characterizes Trait Rumination, Nilly Mor, Paula T. Hertel, Thuy Anh Ngo, T. Shachar, S. Redak

Psychology Faculty Research

Background and Objectives: Rumination, a maladaptive cognitive style of responding to negative mood, is thought to be maintained by a variety of cognitive biases. However, it is unknown whether rumination is characterized by interpretation biases.

Methods: Two experiments examined the link between rumination and interpretation biases, revealed in lexical-decision tasks (LDT). A homograph with both benign and ruminative or otherwise negative meaning was presented on each trial and followed by a letter string, to which participants responded by judging whether it was a word or a non-word. Letter strings were nonwords or words related or unrelated to one meaning of …

Brooding Deficits In Memory: Focusing Attention Improves Subsequent Recall, Paula T. Hertel, Amanda A. Benbow, E. Geraerts

Psychology Faculty Research

Ruminative habits of thought about one’s problems and the resulting consequences are correlated with symptoms of depression and cognitive biases (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008). In our orienting task, brooders and nonbrooders concentrated on self-focusing phrases while they were also exposed to neutral target words. On each trial in the unfocused condition, participants saw and then reported the target before concentrating on the phrase; in the focused condition, the target was reported after phrase concentration. A brooding-related deficit on a subsequent unexpected test of free and forced recall was obtained in the unfocused condition only. Brooders recalled more successfully in …

Am I Blue? Depressed Mood And The Consequences Of Self Focus For The Interpretation And Recall Of Ambiguous Words, Paula T. Hertel, L. El-Messidi

Psychology Faculty Research

In two experiments, dysphoric and nondysphoric students first concentrated on either self-focused or other-focused phrases and then performed an ostensibly unrelated task involving the interpretation of homographs with both personal and impersonal meanings. In Experiment 1, they constructed sentences for the homographs; dysphoric students' sentences were more emotionally negative (although not more personal) in the self-focused condition than in the other-focused condition. In Experiment 2, they freely associated to the homographs, and the percentage of personal meanings reflected by the associations revealed an effect of self versus other focus that depended on mood group. Following free associations, they attempted to …

Remembering The Good, Forgetting The Bad: Intentional Forgetting Of Emotional Material In Depression, Jutta Joormann, Paula T. Hertel, F. Brozovich, Ian Henry Gotlib

Psychology Faculty Research

The authors examined intentional forgetting of negative material in depression. Participants were instructed to not think about emotional nouns that they had learned to associate with a neutral cue word. The authors provided participants with multiple occasions to suppress the unwanted words. Overall, depressed participants successfully forgot negative words. Moreover, the authors obtained a clear practice effect. However, forgetting came at a cost: Compared with the nondepressed participants and with the depressed participants who were instructed to forget positive words, depressed participants who were instructed to forget negative words showed significantly worse recall of the baseline words. These results indicate …

Memory For Emotional And Nonemotional Events In Depression: A Question Of Habit?, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

The truest claim that cognitive science can make might also be the least sophisticated: the mind tends to do what it has done before. In previous centuries philosophers and psychologists invented constructs such as associations, habit strength, and connectivity to formalize the truism, but others have known about it, too. In small towns in the Ozarks, for example, grandmothers have been overheard doling out warnings such as, "Don't think those ugly thoughts; your mind will freeze that way." Depressed persons, like most of us, usually don't heed this advice. The thoughts frozen in their minds might not be "ugly," but …

Relation Between Rumination And Impaired Memory In Dysphoric Moods, Paula T. Hertel

Psychology Faculty Research

College students in dysphoric or nondysphoric moods studied pairs of words and later took a fragment-completion test of memory for targets from the pairs (under process-dissociation procedures for obtaining estimates of controlled and automatic retrieval; L. L. Jacoby, 1996). Between the study and test phases, some participants waited quietly for 7 min; others rated self-focused materials designed to invoke ruminations in the dysphoric group; and still others rated self-irrelevant and task-irrelevant materials. A dysphoria-related impairment in controlled retrieval occurred in the first 2 conditions but not in the 3rd condition. These results show that the nature of task-irrelevant thoughts contributes …