Most interestingly, patients with depression showed increased frontal responses to negative words in the gamma band compared to healthy controls [42]. Despite converging results on frequency bands and brain regions involved in emotional processing and depression, there is considerable inconsistency across published studies on time ranges for valence effects following presentation of emotional stimuli [44]. For instance, the greatest effects of emotional valence were reported in occipital-temporal regions at 200-350 ms post-stimulus in event-related potential [45], whereas other re searchers reported the greatest effect of valence at 105 ms post-stimulus in the occipital region [46]. It was, therefore, suggested that the effects of valence are mainly detectable in the time range of 100-300 ms post-stimulus [44]. While this processing bias for negative stimuli is well researched in depression, little is known about whether such a bias also exists in depression triggered by specific environmental conditions, specifically, SAD. It is possible that processing and memory of negative stimuli might be altered in SAD. However, emotional memory has been studied in relation to seasonality mainly with respect to behavioral effects. It was shown that patients with SAD demonstrate a memory bias for negative stimuli during winter [47]. Furthermore, they experience a greater reduction in performance when recalling positive pictures from summer to winter than controls [48]. Improvement in mood during summer was predicted by a greater emotional Stroop effect for negative words in the winter [49]. According to recent research on this topic [50], even though patients with winter-type SAD experience impaired memory performance and a negative emotional memory bias during the symptomatic period in winter, all-year-round research is missing on the topic of memory and SAD. It could be relevant to study emotional processing in summer for individuals at risk of SAD, as deviations from the normal pattern could indicate how they are vulnerable to experiencing depression in winter. In a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, it was found that individuals with SAD showed no differential reactivity to emotional faces as compared to healthy controls in either season but had overall lower activity in their amygdala [51]. Possibly, this difference represents an all-year vulnerability of patients with SAD. However, so far, no research has examined electrophysiological correlates of emotional memory in relation to seasonal symptoms, especially not in a remission phase, i.e., in the season when individuals who experience seasonal fluctuations of mood feel relatively good. The rationale for investigating emotional memory bias as well as physiological correlates of emotional processing of stimuli during remission is that an all-year vulnerability could direct therapy approaches towards early intervention that might help to prevent depressive episodes during winter. For example, variation in emotional processing during remission could suggest that preventive interventions should aim at modification of emotional bias. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the following research questions:  
Is there an emotional memory bias in summer towards negative pictures in people who report a high rate of seasonal symptoms? Does brain activity measured by the EEG during learning of emotional pictures in summer differ according to emotional valence and the degree of seasonality?