MOOD CONGRUENCE EFFECT IN EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT MEMORY TASKS - A COMPARISON BETWEEN DEPRESSED-PATIENTS, SCHIZOPHRENIC-PATIENTS AND CONTROLS

This study investigates mood congruence effect in explicit and implici t memory tasks in 23 inpatients fulfilling DSM-LII-R criteria for majo r depressive disorder. Performances were compared to those of 15 in- o r outpatients fulfilling DSM-III-R criteria for schizophrenia and 37 n ormal subjects serving as euthymics controls. All subjects were submit ted to a standard cued recall test and to a word stem completion test devised to assess the effect of the initial presentation without the e xplicit retrieval of the words being necessary. The material used far these two tasks consisted of emotionally negative and positive words. The results show a mood congruence effect in the implicit memory task (and not in the explicit memory task) only in patients who had recover ed from their major depressive episode (and not in depressed patients, schizophrenic patients, or controls). These results suggest that impl icit and explicit emotional information processing differ from one ano ther in certain respects.