ABSTRACT
So much of social and behavioral science research on health and mental health depends on self-reports of current states, as when we collect information from patients about their presenting symptoms and complaints, or on self-reports of the past, as when we collect historical information about past episodes of illness and life experiences that may be risk factors for illness. The first is a problem of perception; the second is a problem of memory. Both perception and memory, especially as we encounter them in clinical research, are constructive and reconstructive activities in which judgment and inference play large roles. The study of perception, memory, and judgment is what cognitive psychology is all about, and indeed cognitive psychology has been quite successful in explaining how these basic mental functions operate. Over the past few years, however, psychologists have increasingly come to realize that cognitive processes are not isolated from the rest of mental life and in particular that our emotional and motivational states may affect what we perceive and remember as well as the judgments we make about the
present and the past (for general reviews, see Blaney, 1986; Bower, 1981; Christianson, 1992b; Clark & Fiske, 1982; Eich, 1995a; Ekman & Davidson, 1994; Ellis & Moore, in press; Fiedler & Forgas, 1988; Forgas, 1991; Johnson & Magaro, 1987; Kuiken, 1991; Niedenthal & Kitayama, 1994). Much of this literature has focused on memory.
