Abstract
This study assessed the instructions for the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT) for an analog study. AMT is a representative task that measures autobiographical memory specificity. Many studies have suggested reduced autobiographical memory specificity in clinical depression patients with traditional instructions for AMT (Williams & Broadbent, 1986), which request that a patient precisely recall a particular event and place, but by this instruction, fewer studies have reported the reduced specificity for non-clinical dysphoria. Therefore, this study specified that a “specific episode is better, but in case of difficulty in recall, an ambiguous memory is permissible” (optional instructions) to assess overgeneral memory retrieval in a non-clinical sample. The results indicated that the dysphoric group displayed more reduced autobiographical memory specificity than the control group. Furthermore, rumination significantly negatively correlated with specific memory, but when depression partial out, the correlation was not significant. These findings suggest the effectiveness of optional instructions for AMT in detecting an overgeneral retrieval style, which is due to depressive mood rather than trait rumination, in a non-clinical sample.
