While major depressive disorder has been associated with increased veridical memory for negative information, prior false memory literature has linked high depressive symptoms to increased false memory for negative information. We tested whether these contradictory findings may be due to semantic and emotional cohesion inflating false alarm rates in the most commonly used false memory paradigm – the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM). In Experiment 1, healthy controls and depressive participants completed two emotional false memory tasks: the DRM, using semantically associated words, and an adaptation using orthographically associated words. Participants encoded words associated with neutral or negative critical lures. During subsequent recognition memory testing, errors were greater for negative than neutral semantic critical lures, but the opposite pattern was observed for orthographic critical lures. These findings support that orthographically associated stimuli provide a non-confounded method to test emotional false memory. In Experiment 2, we deployed the orthographic paradigm with simultaneous electroencephalography (EEG) and a state measure of negative mood (Positive and Negative Affective Scale) to better understand neurocognitive components of emotional false memory. Replicating Experiment 1, we found fewer false alarms for negative than neutral novel orthographically associated words. The EEG data showed significant differences in two memory-related event-related potentials: the familiarity-related N400, and the recollection-related late positive component (LPC). N400 amplitudes were larger for true versus false endorsements. For LPC, increasing depressive symptoms predicted greater amplitude differences for true versus false negative items and reduced differences for neutral items. However, increasingly negative mood predicted reduced amplitude differences for negative items, and greater amplitude differences for neutral items. Although depressive symptoms and negative mood state are highly correlated, they may inform differentially influence shifts in memory retrieval strategies, with depressive symptoms predicting reduced false alarms for negative information, and negative mood state predicting increased recollection errors for negative information.

虽然重度抑郁症与消极信息的垂直记忆增加有关，但先前的错误记忆文献已将高度抑郁症状与对消极信息的错误记忆增加联系起来。我们测试了这些矛盾的发现是否可能是由于在最常用的错误记忆范例– Deese-Roediger-McDermott（DRM）中夸大了错误警报率的语义和情感凝聚力所致。在实验1中，健康的控件和抑郁的参与者完成了两项情绪虚假的记忆任务：DRM（使用语义相关的单词）和使用拼字法相关的单词的改编。参与者编码与中立或负面的诱饵相关的单词。在随后的识别记忆测试中，负面的错误要比中立的语义关键引诱更大，但正交拼写引诱却观察到相反的模式。这些发现支持正交关联的刺激提供了一种测试情绪错误记忆的简单方法。在实验2中，我们部署了具有同步脑电图（EEG）的正字范式和负性情绪状态度量（正负情感量表），以更好地理解情绪错误记忆的神经认知成分。重复实验1，我们发现负面的错误警报要比中立的新颖的字面上相关的单词少。EEG数据显示在两个与记忆有关的事件相关电位上有显着差异：与记忆相关的N400和与记忆相关的晚期阳性成分（LPC）。相对于错误的背书，N400幅度要大。对于LPC，抑郁症状的增加预示着正确和错误阴性项目的幅度差异更大，而中性项目的差异幅度减小。但是，越来越多的负面情绪预计负面项目的幅度差异会减少，而中性项目的幅度差异会更大。尽管抑郁症状与消极情绪状态高度相关，但它们可能会在记忆检索策略中产生不同的影响变化，抑郁症状预测负面信息的虚假警报减少，而消极情绪状态预测负面信息的回忆错误增加。中性项目的幅度差异更大。尽管抑郁症状与消极情绪状态高度相关，但它们可能会在记忆检索策略中产生不同的影响变化，抑郁症状预测负面信息的虚假警报减少，而消极情绪状态预测负面信息的回忆错误增加。中性项目的幅度差异更大。尽管抑郁症状与消极情绪状态高度相关，但它们可能会在记忆检索策略中产生不同的影响变化，抑郁症状预测负面信息的虚假警报减少，而消极情绪状态预测负面信息的回忆错误增加。