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Training Forgetting Of Negative Material In Depression, Jutta Joormann, Paula T. Hertel, J. Lemoult, Ian Henry Gotlib

Psychology Faculty Research

In this study, the authors investigated whether training participants to use cognitive strategies can aid forgetting in depression. Participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) and never-depressed participants learned to associate neutral cue words with a positive or negative target word and were then instructed not to think about the negative targets when shown their cues. The authors compared 3 different conditions: an unaided condition, a positive-substitute condition, and a negative-substitute condition. In the substitute conditions, participants were instructed to use new targets to keep from thinking about the original targets. After the training phase, participants were instructed to recall …