Abstract/Summary

People who have depression have difficulty recalling specific autobiographical information (Sumner, 2011). This is called overgeneral autobiographical memory (OGM) and is associated with the development and persistence of depression. Williams and colleagues (2007) proposed that OGM is maintained by three mechanisms: capture and rumination (CaR), functional avoidance (FA), and impaired executive control (X), and integrated these into the CaR-FA-X model. The aim of this study was to assess OGM and test the CaR-FA-X model in adolescents with low mood. We recruited 29 young people aged 12-17 with elevated symptoms of depression and 29 with minimal symptoms of depression, matched for gender and age. After controlling for IQ, adolescents with elevated depression retrieved fewer specific memories, ruminated more, and had poorer working memory and verbal fluency than adolescents with minimal depression. The groups did not differ on measures of inhibition or functional avoidance. The CaR-FA-X model was therefore partially supported. These results confirm that there is a relationship between low mood and OGM in young people and that OGM may arise as consequence of impaired working memory and verbal fluency and cognitive interference due to rumination.