PERSECUTORY DELUSIONS AND RECALL OF THREAT-RELATED, DEPRESSION-RELATED, AND NEUTRAL WORDS

An experiment was conducted to examine recall bias in patients sufferi ng from persecutory delusions, depressed controls, and normal subjects . Subjects were given a mixed list of threat-related, depression-relat ed, and emotionally neutral words which they were asked to recall imme diately afterwards. Deluded patients recalled fewer words overall than the normal subjects, and showed a recall bias toward both threat-rela ted and depression-related words. The deluded subjects also showed a s ignificant tendency to repeat threat-related words during recall. Thes e biases were not significantly related to levels of depressive sympto matology or magical ideation in the deluded patients. Depressed patien ts showed a recall bias toward depression-related words only, and show ed no significant tendency to repeat either depression-related or thre at-related words. The findings are interpreted in the light of cogniti ve accounts of persecutory delusions.