Previous research on the phenomenon known as “False Memory” has shown that there is a direct relationship between false memory formation and emotional response. Conclusions on the whole were derived from results of experiments that evaluated false memory prompted solely by stimuli that represented positive and negative emotions. Research for this thesis sought to further the discussion through the use of experiments that targeted, more specifically, the five basic emotions described by Power & Dalgleish (2008) as: happiness, fear, anger, disgust, and sadness. Additionally, this research tested the effects of, and/or relationships between, false memory and the basic emotions of the members of the study, to include depressed, dysphoric, and control-group individuals. In a departure from earlier studies, these experiments assessed the effects on groups across cultures-- namely Syrian and British--as well as across time. There were 204 participants in three studies, and they were divided into two groups according to their scores on the BDI II: dysphoric and non-dysphoric. There were two samples representing two different societies: Syrian and British. Additionally, in the fourth experiment, there were 41 clinically depressed patients and 20 in the control group. Four studies were conducted in which participants viewed a series of both emotional and non-emotional pictures taken from the IAPS. Participants were asked to answer a series of questions. There were two questions for each picture; one of the questions was based on actual content within the various pictures while the other was designed to elicit a confabulated response by suggesting content that was not actually present. The participants returned to the lab one week later and were asked the same questions again. The findings show that accuracy of memory is diminished, and quality of memory is impaired, in both immediate and delayed recall conditions when leading questions were used to elicit responses--the questions that suggested content not in evidence. Participants produced more false memories to the emotional pictures than they did to the non-emotional pictures, with the exception of disgust-related pictures for which they produced significantly fewer false memories. False memory manifested to a greater degree in the delayed recall condition than it did in the immediate recall condition. Cultural factors proved to have no influence on false memory formation. Correct memories from dysphoric/depressed participants were less than correct memories from their non-dysphoric/depressed counterparts. There was a significant relationship between correct memories and emotional content of the pictures. Correct memories decreased across time. The implications of the research are examined for the relationship between emotion and false memory.

Mental representations can be consciously experienced in mental imagery format, and verbal-linguistic format. Mental imagery representations of emotional information can evoke more powerful emotional responses than verbal-linguistic representations of the same information. Biases in mental imagery-based cognition are postulated to play a role in the maintenance of emotional disturbance in depression. Despite growing research, two questions remain: 1) is dysphoria (mild to moderate depression symptoms) associated with mood-congruent bias in the frequency of mental imagery generation; and 2) are such biases related to state emotional experience and emotional response to emotional information in dysphoria? To examine question one, participants varying in levels of dysphoria reported the occurrence of mental imagery in real time under task contexts that were emotional (negative and positive verbal cues) and unemotional (neutral verbal cues). Mental imagery generation was assessed under two task conditions: a) when participants were instructed to generate mental imagery in response to verbal cues (Study 1 & 2); and b) when participants were not instructed to generate mental imagery (or verbal-linguistic representations) during exposure to similar verbal cues (Study 2, 3, & 4). Results from all studies, across both instruction types, showed that dysphoria was associated with a loss of positive bias in mental representation generation, driven by reduced positive representation generation (Study 1, 2 & 4), but also by elevated negative representation generation (Study 1, 2 & 3). Interestingly, evidence of a loss of positive bias was most consistently observed when given neutral verbal cues, but also when given positive verbal cues. However, such dysphoria-linked effects were not disproportionately evident for mental imagery relative to verbal-linguistic representations, when both were allowed to naturally occur in Study 2, 3, & 4. Unexpectedly, dysphoria was associated with reduced tendency to generate negative imagery relative to negative verbal-linguistic representations in Study 2, though this finding was not replicated in Study 3 or Study 4. To examine question two, participants provided state mood ratings in addition to reporting mental representation occurrence during exposure to auditory emotional information (Study 3: verbal cues; Study 4: news stories). Dysphoria and mental representation generation was found to be unrelated to emotional response on negative trials (Study 3 & 4). However, greater occurrence of mental imagery, but not verbal-linguistic representation generation was related to greater positive emotional response on positive trials for individuals with dysphoria (Study 3), and all participants (Study 4). Study 5 analysed existing clinical trial data and found that the vividness of positive future event imagery is related to optimism in depression, such that those able to envision a brighter future are relatively more optimistic, and regain optimism more quickly, than those less able to do so, even when currently depressed. In summary, dysphoria was associated with loss of positive bias in mental representation generation, though such effects were not unique to imagery. Importantly, greater occurrence of mental imagery-based, but not purely verbal-linguistic, representations were associated with greater positive emotional response to positive information, and may hold value as a target for future translational research.

The project of enhancing traffic safety is a continuous effort that will not cease in its aspirations. In fact, as technology evolves and additional digital artifacts are implemented into our cars, the attention to traffic safety becomes even more important. Driving a car through urban and rural environments is a cognitively challenging task that especially tax attentional resources, and as more artifacts compete for our attention during driving, the adherence to traffic safety is vital. Thus, factors that influence driving ability, such as sleep, nutrition and – perhaps - emotions are of great interest. An earlier study by Bulmash et al. (2006) hypothesized that individuals with Major Depressive Disorder would perform worse than controls in a study using a driving simulator; their hypothesis was confirmed. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether dysphoric individuals show reduced driving performance relative to controls. The notion of dysphoria refers to mild depression in a non-clinical sense. This was investigated using a driving simulator that measured Lateral Positioning (Standard Deviation of Lateral Position - SDLP) on the road, Brake Reaction Time (BRT) and performance on a secondary task (Peripheral Detection Task - PDT). Dysphoric individuals were identified using the Major Depression Inventory (MDI). The hypothesis was partly confirmed, as dysphoric individuals did indeed show more variable positioning on the road. However, performance differences on PDT and BRT were not significant. The results indicate that the negative influence of mood on driving ability is not a discrete phenomenon primarily manifested in individuals with clinical depression, but is rather a continuous phenomenon. The results should be of special interest to clinicians that evaluate individuals with depressive tendencies, as well as the academic community in general since the insights into the impact of emotions on cognitive performance are inconclusive and still not clearly understood. These results might also be of interest in other domains of high complexity, where human performance is of great importance, such as Command and Control, nuclear power plants and control rooms in general.

When romantic partners interact together, they continually respond to each other in ways that yield distinctive across-time patterns of behaviour. To illuminate specific ways in which dysphoria may influence the dynamics of marital communication, the present study investigated how dysphoria in either spouse may affect such across-time patterns of interpersonal behaviour. Using a computer joystick device, observers rated moment-to-moment levels of dominance and affiliation for each partner in videotaped conflict interactions, one preceded by a sad mood induction for the wife, and the other with no mood induction, of 60 romantic couples. As a measure of dysphoria, all participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996). The data for each couple were then submitted to time series analyses, including regression and cross-spectral analysis. Results revealed that husbands’ and wives’ dysphoria had strongly differentiated effects on the marital interaction dynamics. Specifically, wives’ dysphoria affected how dominance was handled between partners. Higher wife’s dysphoria was significantly related to wife’s change in dominance and inversely related to husband’s change in dominance. That is, the higher the wife’s dysphoria, the more dominant she became and the more submissive her husband became over the course of the interaction. In contrast, husbands’ dysphoria affected affiliation patterns during conflict interactions. Higher husband’s dysphoria was inversely related to both wife’s change in affiliation and the couple’s level of entrainment on affiliation. That is, the higher the husband’s dysphoria, the less affiliative the wife became over time and the less entrained the partners were on affiliation. The wife’s mood induction mostly had no effect on the interaction dynamics examined. In summary, wives’ dysphoria tended to affect the dynamics of dominance during conflict interactions, whereas husbands’ dysphoria tended to affect the dynamics of affiliation. The results shed new light on the role each spouse may play in managing marital disagreements and how dysphoria disrupts patterns of interpersonal behaviour in such interactions.

Rumination has been shown to be an influential part of the depressive experience, impacting on various cognitive processes including memory and attention. However, there is a dearth of studies examining the relationship between rumination and emotion recognition, deficits or biases in which have been closely linked to a depressive mood state. In Study 1, participants (N = 89) received either a rumination or distraction induction prior to completing three variants of an emotion recognition task assessing decoding accuracy or biases. Results demonstrated that greater levels of dysphoria were associated with poorer facial emotion recognition accuracy, but only when participants were induced to ruminate (as opposed to being induced to distract). The aim of Study 2 (N = 172) was to examine a possible mechanism, namely cognitive load, by which rumination affects emotion recognition. Results from this study indicated that participants endorsing greater levels of dysphoria were less accurate on an emotion recognition task when they received either a rumination induction or a cognitive load task compared to their counterparts who received a distraction induction. Importantly, the performance of those in the cognitive load and rumination conditions did not differ from each other. In summary, these findings suggest that the confluence of dysphoria and rumination can influence individuals’ accuracy in identifying emotional content portrayed in facial expressions. Furthermore, rumination, by definition an effortful process, might negatively impact emotion recognition via the strain it places on cognitive resources.

Gender dysphoric individuals are a growing number in society and like other minority groups they are at risk of falling victim to discrimination. In an attempt to understand how attitudes affect discriminatory behaviour in a recruitment situation, future recruiters’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward gender dysphoric individuals were measured in relation to a résumé choice task. Implicit attitudes were measured with an Implicit Association Test and explicit attitudes with a transphobia scale. An independent sample t-test was conducted (N = 42), to measure if implicit attitudes differed between participants who chose a résumé of a gender dysphoric individual and participants that chose a résumé of a non-gender dysphoric individual. Although no significant differences in attitudes between the two groups were found, the results indicate other noteworthy differences in that a vast majority of participants had negative implicit attitudes toward gender dysphoric individuals in contrast to their positive explicit attitudes.

When romantic partners interact together, they continually respond to each other in ways that yield distinctive across-time patterns of behaviour. To illuminate specific ways in which dysphoria may influence the dynamics of marital communication, the present study investigated how dysphoria in either spouse may affect such across-time patterns of interpersonal behaviour. Using a computer joystick device, observers rated moment-to-moment levels of dominance and affiliation for each partner in videotaped conflict interactions, one preceded by a sad mood induction for the wife, and the other with no mood induction, of 60 romantic couples. As a measure of dysphoria, all participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996). The data for each couple were then submitted to time series analyses, including regression and cross-spectral analysis. Results revealed that husbands’ and wives’ dysphoria had strongly differentiated effects on the marital interaction dynamics. Specifically, wives’ dysphoria affected how dominance was handled between partners. Higher wife’s dysphoria was significantly related to wife’s change in dominance and inversely related to husband’s change in dominance. That is, the higher the wife’s dysphoria, the more dominant she became and the more submissive her husband became over the course of the interaction. In contrast, husbands’ dysphoria affected affiliation patterns during conflict interactions. Higher husband’s dysphoria was inversely related to both wife’s change in affiliation and the couple’s level of entrainment on affiliation. That is, the higher the husband’s dysphoria, the less affiliative the wife became over time and the less entrained the partners were on affiliation. The wife’s mood induction mostly had no effect on the interaction dynamics examined. In summary, wives’ dysphoria tended to affect the dynamics of dominance during conflict interactions, whereas husbands’ dysphoria tended to affect the dynamics of affiliation. The results shed new light on the role each spouse may play in managing marital disagreements and how dysphoria disrupts patterns of interpersonal behaviour in such interactions.

Rumination has been shown to be an influential part of the depressive experience, impacting on various cognitive processes including memory and attention. However, there is a dearth of studies examining the relationship between rumination and emotion recognition, deficits or biases in which have been closely linked to a depressive mood state. In Study 1, participants (N = 89) received either a rumination or distraction induction prior to completing three variants of an emotion recognition task assessing decoding accuracy or biases. Results demonstrated that greater levels of dysphoria were associated with poorer facial emotion recognition accuracy, but only when participants were induced to ruminate (as opposed to being induced to distract). The aim of Study 2 (N = 172) was to examine a possible mechanism, namely cognitive load, by which rumination affects emotion recognition. Results from this study indicated that participants endorsing greater levels of dysphoria were less accurate on an emotion recognition task when they received either a rumination induction or a cognitive load task compared to their counterparts who received a distraction induction. Importantly, the performance of those in the cognitive load and rumination conditions did not differ from each other. In summary, these findings suggest that the confluence of dysphoria and rumination can influence individuals’ accuracy in identifying emotional content portrayed in facial expressions. Furthermore, rumination, by definition an effortful process, might negatively impact emotion recognition via the strain it places on cognitive resources.

Mental time travel (MTT) refers to an individual’s ability to mentally travel through subjective time, autonoetically re-experiencing past events under the form of autobiographical memories (past MTT), and pre-experiencing events as future autobiographical representations (future MTT). MTT can occur voluntarily, whereby a past/future autobiographical event is subjectively experienced as an intended occurrence, or involuntarily, wherein such an event is subjectively experienced as an unintended outcome of which the individual is aware. Studies investigating MTT’s characteristics in dysphoria and depression show that dysphoric and depressed individuals produce more overgeneral and negative MTT events when compared to control groups. However, existing research has been limited to past and voluntary MTT events, with few studies investigating involuntary MTT and future MTT in dysphoria and depression. The overarching aim of the present research was to compare the phenomenological characteristics of MTT in dysphoric individuals vs. normal mood individuals (Study 1), and in clinically depressed individuals vs. never-depressed individuals (Study 2), with the purpose of furthering existing knowledge on MTT and its relation with dysphoria and Major Depressive Disorder. This aim was addressed by conducting two studies, using a 2 x (2 x 2) mixed-factorial design, with temporality (past vs. future events) and type of retrieval (voluntary vs. involuntary events) as within-subjects independent variables, and participant group as a between-subjects variable. In Study 1, Portuguese university students were categorised into a dysphoric (n=17) or a normal mood group (n=39) depending on their score on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-IA) – cutoff point (≥ 10). In Study 2, clinically diagnosed depressed patients (n=32) were recruited from a Portuguese hospital and matched for age and gender with never-depressed control participants (n=32) recruited from the community. The dependent variables tested were: level of spatiotemporal specificity, self-relevance, mood and physical impact, valence, and visual perspective of the MTT events produced. A diary methodology was used in both studies, with an open-ended time period that lasted for a minimum of two weeks, for participants to record their MTT events and grade them on the above mentioned variables using Likert-type ratings. Between seven and fourteen MTT events were produced for each of the four MTT conditions (past voluntary, past involuntary, future voluntary, future involuntary). Results showed that when compared to their respective control groups, depressed, but not dysphoric participants, exhibited a clear influence of mood on several of the phenomenological characteristics of MTT. In Study 1 there were no statistically significant differences in the specificity, negative valence, and mood/physical impact of the MTT events produced by dysphoric and normal mood participants. On the contrary, in Study 2, results partially supported a lower specificity and fully supported a greater negativity and mood/physical impact of MTT events in depressed individuals compared with never-depressed participants. Both studies supported the greater self-relevance of voluntary MTT events and partially supported the hypothesised effect of type of retrieval in specificity. These were the first studies to directly compare past and future, voluntary and involuntary MTT events in dysphoric and depressed individuals, addressing existing gaps in the literature. The key limitation is the relatively small sample size of both studies, however each participant was comprehensively assessed for at least two weeks, providing a rich set of reliable data. Despite limitations, this thesis provides novel pilot findings that help understand the similarities and differences between involuntary and voluntary, past and future MTT, as well as providing new information regarding the possible role of MTT in dysphoria and depression.

This qualitative study examines the healthcare provision for gender dysphoria patients by the National Health Service (NHS) in England. The thesis takes as its starting point the experiences of those providing and receiving care following the A, D & G vs North West Lancashire Health Authority court decision in 1999. The aims of the research are threefold: To examine what trans narratives tell us about individual understandings of gender, to explore what practitioner narratives tell us about the understandings of gender utilised in NHS treatment, and to determine what issues are important to consider when providing gender services. It undertakes an empirical thematic analysis through a triangulation of data sources - a literature review, qualitative interviews with specialists and focus groups with trans patients. The research is underpinned by three central questions: Do differences exist between the ways in which trans people and their doctors understand gender identity? Can the ways in which trans people formulate and express their gender identity map onto the notions of gender that practitioners employ? What are the wider implications for healthcare policymaking? The research questions were intended to investigate how trans people formulate and express their gender, whether and how those understandings differ from those that practitioners employ, whether trans narratives can map onto medicalised notions, and the implications for healthcare policymaking.