Gretchen is clinically depressed.When asked to remember and discuss her childhood,her therapist noticed her memories of her past appeared to be distorted and quite negative relative to what the therapist already knew about Gretchen's family history.Gretchen's memory of her past is influenced by
A)encoding specificity.
B)context-dependent learning.
C)a retrospective bias.
D)state-dependent learning.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The retrospective bias refers to the phenomenon of revising and interpreting past events based on current knowledge, feelings, and perspectives, which can lead to a distorted or biased recollection of the past. This is likely to be the case with Gretchen, whose depression may color her memories of the past and make them appear more negative than they actually were. Encoding specificity and context-dependent learning refer to the idea that memory retrieval is facilitated by matching the environmental and situational cues present during encoding and retrieval, respectively. State-dependent learning suggests that retrieval is facilitated by matching the internal state (e.g., mood, arousal) present during encoding and retrieval. However, these concepts do not explain why Gretchen's memories are distorted.

Gretchen Is Clinically Depressed