A meta-analysis of the association between autobiographical memory specificity and depression, and the moderating role of rumination

Abstract

Extensive research on the relation between depression and difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories has been generated over the last three decades. Rumination, and its sub-factors of brooding and reflection, have been suggested to explain this association. It has been almost a decade since the last meta-analysis of the link between depression and autobiographical memory specificity (AMS). Moreover, there has yet to be an analysis of important moderators, such as rumination, within this link. In our study, the databases Embase, PsycARTICLES and PsycINFO were searched for articles comparing the AMS of groups of people with clinical depression with groups of healthy controls. 34 such articles were located, and the following data was extracted for the clinical and control groups respectively: participants’ demographics, mean scores for AMS, severity of depressive symptoms, trait rumination and its sub-factors. The pooled effect size for differences in the number of specific memories retrieved between clinical cases and controls was moderate and statistically significant (g = -0.60, p < .0001). Meta-regression showed that differences between cases and controls in their ruminative tendencies did not explain a significant amount of variance in the differences between these groups in their memory specificity. The findings suggest that, contrary to theoretical models of autobiographical memory specificity, rumination is unlikely to contribute to the problems that people with depression experience with autobiographical memory. Further research is needed into the role of other factors that might explain why people with depression have difficulty retrieving specific memories.