In the present study, meta-analysis was used to investigate whether or not depressed and anxious people showed implicit memory bias for negative information. Such bias is indicated when performance on an implicit memory task is better for negative rather than positive information. Results were as follows: (1) Depressed people showed better performance on implicit memory tasks for negative information, both when experimental conditions facilitated concurrent explicit memory and when they did not. (2) Anxious people showed better performance on the tasks for negative information, only when conditions did not facilitate explicit memory. These results suggest that depressed people are subject to both implicit and explicit memory bias, while anxious people are subject to only implicit memory bias.

Key words: implicit memory bias, depression, anxiety, meta-analysis