Memory biases: A cognitive marker for depression

This chapter presents a selective overview of empirical studies of memory biases in depression. Four main issues will be highlighted. First, I review evidence documenting that memory biases are concomitant to depressive states, and discuss the implications of those findings for the three main theories of cognitive functioning in depression. Second, I examine the causal status of memory biases in depression. Based on this evidence it appears that certain memory biases may serve as psychological markers for depression. Third, I discuss the importance of priming methodologies for the study of cognitive markers of depression. Specifically, memory biases may best function as cognitive markers under conditions of emotional priming. Fourth, I highlight several additional issues that have received significantly less empirical attention, among them: the role of cognitive functioning in the recovery from a depressive episode; the emergence of cognitive biases; and the integration of studies of depression and memory within the more general framework of the study of emotion and cognition.