Depression Is Associated with the Alteration of a Recall Ability - Term Paper Example

? Depression Details: al Affiliation: Depression is associated with the alteration of an individual’s recall ability. The individuals with depression have more tendencies of having altered recall capabilities. Depression makes the individuals encounter difficulties n recalling some of the memory tasks. The individuals with depression will thus have more false memory than the true memory. This means that the individuals with depression will have more negative lures than the positive lures. This shift in their recall abilities can be attributed to them being more prone in generating more negative information than the positive information. Clinical depression is associated with the increased incidences of false recall of both the neutral and emotional material. This is proved right in an experiment he carried out on depressed participants. From the experiment, it was evident that clinical depression participants recorded the highest proportion of the individuals with false positive recall of negative lures (Joormann, Teachman and Gotlib, 2009). The depressed participants provided less accurate recall when compared to the non depressed patients when a list of positive lures was presented to them. The false recall exhibited in clinical depression can be attributed to the processing of a specific negative material and not the general deficit as many would think. This makes the depressed patients to exhibit the false recall on the negative lures than the positive lures. Clinical depression is responsible for the increase in negative lures at encoding due to the repeated or chronic accessibility of negative material. In addition, the increased negative lures can also be associated with the reduction in the monitoring levels at the retrieval. Clinical depression brings about memory biasness. However, the biasness experienced in clinical depression is associated with more negative information than the positive ones. The continued exposure by the patients with depression to materials that induce negative lures triggers the occurrence of the cognitive deficits. The treatment models of clinical depression should thus focus on altering increased presence of negative material (Joormann, Teachman and Gotlib, 2009). Depression is responsible for alteration of one’s recognition. The depressed individuals tend to record more discrepancies in terms of recognition other than recall. The depressed individuals tend to exhibit more recognition of depression relevant words when compared to the individuals without depression. Howe and Malone (2011) on the other hand is of the opinion that mood congruency has its effects on ones true and false memory. However, Howe and Malone’s approach is different since their experiment uses the depression relevant words to rule out the participant’s perception of having a true or false memory. Howe and Malone, (2011) carries out an experiment to investigate this by having the participants being assessed on the positive, neural as well as negative and depression relevant list. The experiment was conducted on individuals with and without the major depressive disorder. From the experiment, Howe and Malone wanted to find out the presence of congruence that existed in the patients with the clinical depression. The results of the experiment showed the participants with clinical depression recorded more on false recognition than the positive or neutral. This further proves that the depression tends to create the negative information to be generated more by the depressed persons. The negative information goes ahead to alter the cognitive capabilities of individuals with clinical depression. The continued generation of the negative information makes the depressed individuals to be more predisposed to false recognition. At the same time, the continued generation of negative information blunts the true memory of individuals with depression. The blunting of the positive memory can be attributed to the memory biasness experienced by the depressed individuals who tend to perceive more of the negative memory rather than the positive memory. The presence of the negative memory makes the individuals with depression to have higher recordings on depression relevant words (Howe and Malone, 2011). The second reading further went ahead to elaborate o the effects that depression has on an individual. The first reading suggested that individuals with depression have deficits in terms of having negative recalls. The second reading only adds to the list of discrepancies which are associated with depression by pointing out that depression is responsible for the false recognition (Howe and Malone, 2011). Critical thinking is relevant in psychological research. It is only through critical thinking that biasness is avoided while making an analysis in psychological research. Critical thinking facilitates the making of evaluations based on the existing evidence. Critical thinking thus helps weeds out biasness and prevents the distortion that can b made based on assumptions. The evaluation of the findings in the two articles requires the use of critical thinking. Critical thinking is to be used to identify the co relationships that exist between depression and its effects on recall as well as recognition. The use of critical thinking in the first article enables one to understand why the individuals with depression are more prone to deficits in recall of certain memory tasks. In the first article “sadder and less accurate”, Joormann, Teachman and Gotlib clearly show the effect of depression on an individual’s recall capabilities. The notion put forward by the Joormann, Teachman and Gotlib clearly demonstrates the effect of depression on recall. From the results, we get to see that indeed depressed individuals recorded higher scores in having false negative recall when compared to those without depression. The application of critical thinking also provides a basis of evaluating the information on the second article. The second article on mood-congruent true and false memory, depression has been linked to the occurrence of deficits in recognition. The notion put forward by Howe and Malone on the effect of depression on recognition is well justified. This is because the depressed individuals in the study are reported to have had higher incidences of false recognition when compared to the individuals without depression (Bailin, 2002). In conclusion, based on the application of critical thinking on the two readings, it is justifiable to accept that in deed depression has various effects on individuals. From the two readings, it is important to note that individuals with depression have discrepancies in terms of recall and recognition. This can be attributed to the fact that the depressed individuals recorded higher incidences of having negative lures and false recognition of depressive relevant wards respectively when compared to the non depressed controls. References Bailin, S. (2002). Critical thinking and science education. Science & Education, 11(4), 361–375. Howe, M. L., & Malone, C. (2011). Mood-congruent true and false memory: Effects of depression. Memory, 19(2), 192-201. Joormann, J., Teachman, B. A., & Gotlib, I. H. (2009). Sadder and less accurate? False memory for negative material in depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 118(2), 412-417. Read More