Graduate Program

Clinical Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

2009

Thesis Director

John Best

Thesis Committee Member

Ronan Bernas

Thesis Committee Member

Anu Sharma

Abstract

Most of the studies on reasoning have suggested that individuals with depression show poor performance on reasoning tasks (Channon & Baker, 1994). Previous researches and major theories attempt to explain the association between errors in reasoning process and working memory limitations (Braine, 1994; Gilhooly et. al., 1993; Johnson-Laird, 1983). Research also shows that working memory is impaired in individuals with depression (Channon, Baker & Robertson, 1993; Christopher & MacDonald, 2005). Hence, as per this view, depressed individuals perfonn poorly on reasoning tasks because of working memory limitation or preload rather than their ability to manipulate relevant infonnation (Channon & Baker, 1994). However, no study has directly examined the question of whether working memory storage limitations itself explains poor performance on reasoning tasks in depression or whether there is an actual deficit in logical processing. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of depressed mood on an individual's ability to reason, after factoring out the working memory deficits that are associated with depression. The study compared depressed and non-depressed undergraduates identified by the Center of Epidemiological Studies - Depression scale (CES-D) on sixteen conditional reasoning problems. Participants read two initial statements that contained the problems' premises, followed by a line of text representing the problem's conclusion. Their task was to identify an alternative that best expressed the conclusion's likelihood of being true. Digit span task was used to measure the working memory capacity of the subjects. An analysis of covariance did not reveal significant differences in the reasoning scores between the groups. Future research in this field using a sample of clinically depressed individuals is recommended.

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