Georgina Cox

Supervisor: Dr Peter Chapman

I am interested in the processing of positive and negative stimuli in people with depression and how this affects their subsequent memory for such emotional material. It has recently been suggested that people with depression show a diminished response to positive materials in terms of self reported measures of valence and arousal, rather than an enhanced response to negative material (Sloat et al 2001). However, the implication of this effect on memory for emotional material has not been directly assessed in the clinical population. I am using physiological recording methods including facial EMG and galvanic skin response to investigate initial reactions to non-autobiographical emotional stimuli from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in a depressed and non depressed sample. The memory component of the research looks at differences in recall, recognition and the remember/know paradigm across groups.