Anxious, but not depressive, symptoms are associated with poorer prospective memory performance in healthy college students: Preliminary evidence using the tripartite model of anxiety and depression

Abstract

Prospective memory (PM) - or memory for tasks to be completed in the future - is essential for daily functioning. Although depression and anxiety have been shown to impair PM performance, few studies have explored the relative contributions of different symptom domains. Here, we examined the relation between anxiety, depression, negative mood, and PM performance using the tripartite model. The tripartite model attributes the substantial overlap between anxiety and depression to general distress/negative affect. Twenty-seven non-diagnosed undergraduate participants first completed self-report measures of depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II), anxiety (Beck Anxiety Inventory [BAI], State Trait Anxiety Inventory [STAI]), and affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule). They were then given an event-based PM instruction to be completed during three ongoing cognitive tasks. Depressive symptoms and positive affect were unrelated to PM performance. Higher anxiety symptoms (BAI, r = -0.62; STAI, r = -0.41) and negative affect (r = -0.45) were associated with poorer PM performance, with anxiety doubling the variance explained over-and-above negative affect ( $\Delta$ R² = 0.20). These preliminary results suggest that anxiety symptoms may be uniquely related to impairments in PM function, and highlight the need for future studies to consider the individual contributions of symptoms to understand changes in cognition and behavior.

Keywords: Prospective memory; anxiety; depression; tripartite model.