Mood and prospective memory

This study considered the relationship between mood states, prospective mem ory, and retrospective memory among a non-clinical sample of undergraduate students. Multiple regression analyses with simultaneous entry of variables were undertaken to examine the unique contributions of the alternate memor y test and the emotional states to memory test performance. As expected, re trospective free recall performance and anxiety made unique and significant contributions to performance on the prospective memory task. However, only prospective memory performance emerged as a significant predictor of retro spective free recall. It is suggested that none of the mood measures emerge d as a significant predictor of retrospective memory performance because th ey do not account for unique variance. In contrast, the relationship betwee n anxiety and prospective memory appears to be due to factors uniquely asso ciated with anxiety, and unrelated to depression.