A Comparison of Affective Working Memory in Depressed and Non-Depressed Women

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of the present study was to investigate and compare the affective working memory in depressed and non-depressed women. Methods: Using purposive sampling method, twenty seven depressed women were selected and matched by age & education with 27 non- depressed women. Data was collected by the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the n-back task and were analyzed using paired sample t-test. Results: Results indicated a weaker function in working memory task for depressed subjects compared to the non-depressed group (p0.05). Discussion: Limited working memory resources, lack of initiative, inability to prevent irrelevant information and rumination were discussed as causes of deficits on working memory task performance in depressed people.

Keywords

• affective working memory
• depression
• facial expression