ABSTRACT
The retrieval of information acquired in one mood state, under some conditions, is greatest if the same mood state is present when events are retrieved from memory (Bower, 1981; this volume). This has been demonstrated in a number of different types of studies, including manipulation of mood in normal volunteers, drug-induced changes in mood, and assessment of dissociative effects on retrieval in psychiatric populations (e.g., bipolar depressives and patients with multiple personality disorder). A typical finding of such experiments was reported by Teasdale and Fogarty (1979), who noted that unhappy or sad experiences were remembered more readily by subjects in a sad or depressed mood than in an elated mood. Such results have been interpreted as reflecting state-dependent learning (SDL) or state-dependent retrieval (SDR) (Overton, 1984), wherein the differential states underlying the dissociative effects observed on remembering are characterized by changes in mood.
