Models of memory propose that separate systems underpin the storage and recollection of specific events from our past (e.g., the first day at school), and of the generic structure of our experiences (e.g., how lonely I am), and that interplay between these systems serves to optimize everyday cognition. Specifically, it is proposed that memories of discrete events help define the circumstances (boundary conditions) in which our generalized knowledge applies, thereby enhancing accuracy of memory-dependent cognitive processes. However, in the domain of self-judgment, cognition is systematically biased, with a robust self-enhancement bias characterizing healthy individuals and a negativity bias characterizing the clinically depressed. We hypothesized that self-enhancement effects in the mentally healthy may partly rest on an impaired ability for specific memories to set appropriate boundary conditions on positive self-generalizations, while the opposite may be true for self-referred negative traits in the depressed. To assess this, we asked healthy and depressed individuals to think about the applicability of a trait to themselves, then to recall a specific memory that was inconsistent with that trait which would therefore index a boundary condition for its applicability. Healthy individuals showed faster recall only for specific positive memories following negative trait evaluations, while depressed individuals demonstrated faster recall only of specific negative memories following positive trait evaluations-the pattern expected given the respective self-enhancement and negativity biases. Results suggest that specific memories may serve to delimit self-generalizations in biased ways, and thus support systemic biases in trait judgments characteristic of healthy and depressed individuals. (PsycINFO Database Record

中文翻译：

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细节上的魔鬼：特定个人记忆的可访问性支持心理健康中玫瑰色的自我概括和临床抑郁症中的有毒自我概括。

记忆模型表明，分开的系统支持我们过去（例如，在学校的第一天）的特定事件以及我们的经历的一般结构（例如，我多么孤独）的存储和回忆，以及这些因素之间的相互作用系统用于优化日常认知。具体而言，建议离散事件的记忆有助于定义应用我们的广义知识的环境（边界条件），从而提高记忆相关的认知过程的准确性。然而，在自我判断领域，认知系统地受到偏见，健康个体具有强烈的自我增强偏见，而临床抑郁者则具有消极偏见。我们假设精神健康者的自我增强作用可能部分取决于特定记忆的能力，这些能力削弱了为积极的自我概括设定合适的边界条件的特定记忆，而对于抑郁症中的自我指称的负面特质则相反。为了对此进行评估，我们要求健康和沮丧的个体考虑某个特性对其自身的适用性，然后回忆与该特性不一致的特定记忆，从而将其适用性的边界条件编入索引。健康的人只有在负面特征评估后才对特定的正面记忆表现出更快的回忆，而沮丧的人表现出更快的回忆，只有在积极的性格评估后才回想起特定的负面记忆。结果表明，特定的记忆可能有助于以偏见的方式界定自我概括，从而支持健康和沮丧个体特质判断中的系统偏见。（PsycINFO数据库记录