Depressed and nondepressed adults rated positive, negative, and neutral nouns for their emotional value or their physical curvature. Next, they tried to identify previously rated and unrated words that were presented quite briefly and masked. Depressed subjects' identification showed a reduced effect of prior exposure in the curvature task but no deficit when words had been rated for emotion. On a subsequent test of free recall, both a depressive deficit and a rating effect obtained. These results suggest that depressed people are less likely to process beyond the requirements of the task.