Psychology Commons^™

Depression-Related Impairments In Prospective Memory, S. S. Rude, Paula T. Hertel, W. Jarrold, J. Covich, S. Hedlund

Psychology Faculty Research

Time-based prospective memory, the ability to carry out a future intention at a specified time, was found to be impaired in a community sample of clinically depressed adults, relative to a nondepressed sample. Nondepressed participants monitored the time more frequently and, in the final block of the task, accelerated time-monitoring as the target time for the prospective memory response approached. These results are consistent with previous findings of depression-related impairments in retrospective memory tasks that require controlled, self-initiated processing.