Abstract
Mood congruent memory refers to the phenomenon where mood facilitates the encoding of mood congruent material. Some investigators have suggested that a self-referent process mediates the presence of mood congruent memory. This study investigates mood congruent memory using a recall task for both autobiographical and non-autobiographical episodes. Sixty-six participants were randomly assigned to one of three induced mood groups (positive, negative or neutral). The positive and negative mood groups listened to music to induce the moods. Each group was presented with 30 pleasant and 30 unpleasant trait words at a rate of one per 4 s. The participants judged whether the stimuli word elicited an autobiographical memory or a memory about an episode experienced by their mother. The results indicated that recall for both autobiographical and non-autobiographical episodes facilitated mood congruent memory in both the positive and negative mood groups. These findings suggest that mood congruent memory is not only mediated by a self-referent process.
