The Relationship Between Autobiographical Memory and Motivation

Is There a Relationship Between Memory for Past Events and Motivation for Future Activities?

People with a diagnosis of psychosis often experience low motivation and pleasure when thinking about doing future activities. This leads, quite understandably, to doing fewer activities they used to enjoy and not taking up opportunities to do new activities. One model suggests that this may be partly due to difficulties using memories of previous events to help boost motivation and anticipation before a future activity. Research shows that people with psychosis may recall previous events in less detail. These memories therefore may not be as helpful as they could be for motivation. This study will investigate this by asking people with experience of psychosis and low motivation who are seen by a care team in South London and Maudsley NHS Trust to attend two research sessions. In the first session the participants will be asked to recall memories of events from their lives and the researcher will assess how detailed the memories are and how much the participant refers to the past and future. Alongside this task the participants will also be asked to complete measures of symptoms such as low pleasure and motivation as well as a measure of depression. These will be used to find out if the detail and specificity of the memories are related to these symptoms in people with psychosis. The second half of the study will then investigate whether additional prompts to support positive memory retrieval can increase the specificity of this and subsequently improve mood, motivation and self-belief. Participants will be randomised to one of two groups. The clinical group will be guided through their memory recall using prompts and a control group will be asked to recall positive memories without prompts. If the investigators show that supporting memory recall is beneficial then memories for past events may be an important target for future therapies.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Psychosis
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Guided Autobiographical Memory Recall

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 31
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United Kingdom
  • London, United Kingdom, BR3 3BX
    • South London and Maudsley NHS Trust
  • London, United Kingdom, SE5 8AF
    • Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, KCL

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 65 years (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• A diagnosis of non-affective psychosis (as determined by medical records).
• Above 18yrs old.
• A score of at least 18 on the Clinical Assessment Interview for Negative Symptoms.
• A sufficient command of the English language to engage with the research materials

Exclusion Criteria:

• Lack of capacity to provide informed consent.
• Primary diagnosis of intellectual disability, head injury, substance misuse or known organic cause of psychosis

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Intervention; Guided autobiographical memory recall to enhance specificity and links to the future.	Behavioral: Guided Autobiographical Memory Recall; Participants are asked to recall positive autobiographical memories with the assistance of prompts to promote specificity, generalisability and links to the future. The participants will also view a 5min psychoeducation video on the subject of memory specificity and motivation.
No Intervention: Control; Recall without prompts or psychoeducation video.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Post-Intervention Motivation Score	A rating on a visual analogue scale assessing motivation to repeat the same activity recalled in the future. The scale is rated from 0-100 and a higher score indicated better outcome.	Immediately after completing the intervention

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Post-Intervention Anticipatory Pleasure	A rating on a visual analogue scale assessing how pleasant that activity is anticipated to be if repeated. The scale is rated from 0-100 and a higher score indicated better outcome.	Immediately after completing the intervention

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: King's College London

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): May 18, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): March 31, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): February 19, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: February 10, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 17, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): September 19, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 18, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 30, 2025
• Last Verified: February 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Negative Symptoms; Autobiographical Memory
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Schizophrenia Spectrum and Other Psychotic Disorders; Mental Disorders; Psychotic Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: 214063

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No