IMPLICIT MEMORY BIAS, EXPLICIT MEMORY BIAS, AND ANXIETY

Normals high, medium, and low in trait anxiety performed two encoding tasks (one predominantly data-driven and the other conceptually driven ) on threat-related and neutral words, followed by tests of word compl etion, cued recall, and free recall. Memory performance indicated the existence of negative memory biases in the high trait-anxious group, b ut it was generally not possible to decide whether the biases were ass ociated with trait anxiety rather than with depression. The biases wer e obtained mainly when there was a match between the processes at enco ding and those at the time of test, whether the matching processes wer e predominantly data-driven or conceptually driven. Implications of th ese findings for implicit and explicit memory biases associated with h igh trait anxiety are discussed.