A longitudinal investigation of the reliability of memories for trauma and other emotional experiences

This study examined the relative consistency and characteristics of memories for trauma and other non‐traumatic emotional experiences over time. A community sample of 52 participants who reported a recent traumatic event were asked to recall both the traumatic and a positive emotional experience in two interviews separated by approximately three months (M = 105.39 days). The recollections were elicited with either a free narrative, cognitive interview, guided imagery, or written narrative approach. Results indicated that traumatic experiences were recalled more reliably over time than other emotional experiences. Traumatic memory imagery tended to persist in memory (with no apparent impairment), whereas features of positive memories were subject to considerable distortion, regardless of interview style. The findings contribute to the understanding of the impact of trauma on memory with the passage of time. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The impact of depression and PTSD symptom severity on trauma memory

Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression frequently co-occur following a traumatic event. Differences in the processing of autobiographical memory have been observed in both disorders in the form of overgeneralised memories and negative intrusive memories. The current study examined how symptoms of PTSD and depression influence the phenomenological characteristics of trauma memories. Undergraduate students who had experienced a traumatic event (n?=?696) completed questionnaires online including measures of PTSD and depressive symptom severity. They rated their trauma memory on several phenomenological characteristics using the Memory Experiences Questionnaire [Sutin, A. R., &; Robins, R. W. (2007). Phenomenology of autobiographical memories: The memory experiences questionnaire. Memory.]. Moderated multiple regression was used to examine how PTSD and depressive symptom severity related to each phenomenological characteristic. Symptoms of PTSD and depression were related separately and uniquely to the phenomenological characteristics of the trauma memory. PTSD severity predicted trauma memories that were more negative, contained higher sensory detail, and were more vivid. In contrast, depressive symptom severity predicted trauma memories that were less accessible and less coherent. These findings suggest that depressive and PTSD symptomatology affect traumatic memory differently and support a distinction between these two disorders.     

Trauma and autobiographical memory: contents and determinants of earliest memories among war-affected Palestinian children

The contents of earliest memories (EM), as part of autobiographical memory, continue to fascinate scientists and therapists. However, research is scarce on the determinants of EM, especially among children. This study aims, first, to identify contents of EM of children living in war conditions, and, second, to analyse child gender, traumatic events and mental health as determinants of the contents of EM. The participants were 240 Palestinian schoolchildren from the Gaza Strip (10–12 years, M?=?11.35, SD?=?0.57; 49.4% girls). They responded to an open-ended EM question, and reported their trauma exposures (war trauma, losses and current traumatic events), posttraumatic stress, depressive symptoms and psychosocial well-being, indicating mental health. The EM coding involved nature, social orientation, emotional tone and specificity. Results showed, first, that 43% reported playing or visiting a nice place as EM, and about a third (30%) traumatic events or accidents (30%) or miscellaneous events (27%). The individual and social orientation were almost equally common, the emotional tone mainly neutral (45.5%), and 60% remembered a specific event. Second, boys remembered more EM involving traumatic events or accidents, and girls more social events. Third, war trauma was associated with less positive emotional tone and with more specific memories.     

Intrusive re‐experiencing in post‐traumatic stress disorder: Phenomenology,theory, and therapy

The article describes features of trauma memories in post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including characteristics of unintentional re‐experiencing symptoms and intentional recall of trauma narratives. Re‐experiencing symptoms are usually sensory impressions and emotional responses from the trauma that appear to lack a time perspective and a context. The vast majority of intrusive memories can be interpreted as re‐experiencing of warning signals, i.e., stimuli that signalled the onset of the trauma or of moments when the meaning of the event changed for the worse. Triggers of re‐experiencing symptoms include stimuli that have perceptual similarity to cues accompanying the traumatic event. Intentional recall of the trauma in PTSD may be characterised by confusion about temporal order, and difficulty in accessing important details, both of which contribute to problematic appraisals. Recall tends to be disjointed. When patients with PTSD deliberately recall the worst moments of the trauma, they often do not access other relevant (usually subsequent) information that would correct impressions/predictions made at the time. A theoretical analysis of re‐experiencing symptoms and their triggers is offered, and implications for treatment are discussed. These include the need to actively incorporate updating information ( “I know now …”) into the worst moments of the trauma memory, and to train patients to discriminate between the stimuli that were present during the trauma ( “then”) and the innocuous triggers of re‐experiencing symptoms ( “now”).     

Are memories for sexually traumatic events "special"? A within-subjects investigation of trauma and memory in a clinical sample

According to a long-standing clinical tradition, sexually traumatic experiences are processed and recalled differently from other experiences, often leading to memory impairment. In this study, we compared the characteristics of traumatic memories for sexual violence and two other types of emotional experiences. N=44 women recruited from a local sexual trauma agency were asked to recall and describe three autobiographical events: sexual abuse/assault, a non-sexual trauma, and a positive emotional event. The characteristics of the three memory types were compared on both subjective and objective measures. Further, the potential influences of level of traumatic impact and dissociation were assessed. Results indicated that memories for sexual trauma were not impaired or fragmented relative to other memories. Instead, memories for sexual trauma were associated with a remarkably high level of vividness, detail, and sensory components. Further, high levels of traumatic impact were not associated with memory impairment. Implications for the ongoing traumatic memory debate are discussed.     

‘Comparisons of traumatic and positive memories in people with and without PTSD profile’

According to most post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) theories, memory mechanisms are involved in its development and maintenance. However, the specific memory characteristics responsible for this disorder are still not well known. In the present study, 210 participants having reported at least one traumatic experience were assigned to a PTSD or to a non‐PTSD symptom profile group. Both groups rated their memories for their most traumatic and intense positive life events. We observed that the traumatic memories of PTSD profile participants were more clear, detailed and judged as significant compared with those of the non‐PTSD profile group. However, participants in the first group acknowledged having more difficulties putting their traumatic memories into words and controlling these remembrances. These differences were absent in their positive memories. Additionally, clear relationships emerged between memory ratings and PTSD symptoms measures. Results are discussed according to fragmentation and superiority views of traumatic memories in PTSD. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mental time travel after trauma: The specificity and temporal distribution of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts

The present study investigated the relationship between trauma exposure and specificity and temporal distribution of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts. A group of sexual assault victims were compared with women without previous trauma exposure in relation to specificity of autobiographical memories, as measured by the Autobiographical Memory Task (AMT) and specificity of future-directed thoughts as measured by the Future Cueing Task (FCT). The temporal distribution of future-directed thoughts and autobiographical memories was studied by asking the participants to estimate when each memory reported on the AMT had occurred and when each future event reported on the FCT would occur. The results showed no difference between the trauma group and the controls on specificity of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts. In line with a review of Moore and Zoellner (2007), PTSD symptoms as measured by the Impact of Event Scale (IES) correlated negatively with specificity. Furthermore, we observed no difference in temporal distribution of future-directed thoughts or autobiographical memories between trauma exposed participants and controls.     

A 2‐year‐old child's memory of hospitalization during early infancy

A child who had had surgery at 5 months of age, and who had been treated at the time for post‐traumatic symptoms (reported in a previous paper by the author), was interviewed 2 years later and almost 3 years later to test for possible verbal recall of his hospitalization. He appeared to have some memories of the experience at 29 months of age, and he was able to superimpose verbal labels onto the preverbal memories. At 40 months of age, however, the memories were no longer verbally accessible. The results are discussed in the context of different theories of encoding, storage, retrieval, and loss of early memories. The findings from this study support other findings indicating that there appears to be some form of long‐term memory in place early in life, at least for highly salient, traumatic events. There may be one memory system for traumatic memories, fully functional at birth, and a later developing, different system for neutral memories. It is further hypothesized that there may be a sensitive period around 2–3 years of age for the recall of early traumatic memories, and that verbal recall is more likely to be present in verbally precocious children during that period. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Music evokes vivid autobiographical memories

Music is strongly intertwined with memories—for example, hearing a song from the past can transport you back in time, triggering the sights, sounds, and feelings of a specific event. This association between music and vivid autobiographical memory is intuitively apparent, but the idea that music is intimately tied with memories, seemingly more so than other potent memory cues (e.g., familiar faces), has not been empirically tested. Here, we compared memories evoked by music to those evoked by famous faces, predicting that music-evoked autobiographical memories (MEAMs) would be more vivid. Participants listened to 30 songs, viewed 30 faces, and reported on memories that were evoked. Memories were transcribed and coded for vividness as in Levine, B., Svoboda, E., Hay, J. F., Winocur, G., & Moscovitch, M. [2002. Aging and autobiographical memory: Dissociating episodic from semantic retrieval. Psychology and Aging, 17, 677–689]. In support of our hypothesis, MEAMs were more vivid than autobiographical memories evoked by faces. MEAMs contained a greater proportion of internal details and a greater number of perceptual details, while face-evoked memories contained a greater number of external details. Additionally, we identified sex differences in memory vividness: for both stimulus categories, women retrieved more vivid memories than men. The results show that music not only effectively evokes autobiographical memories, but that these memories are more vivid than those evoked by famous faces.     

Adaptive working memory training can reduce anxiety and depression vulnerability in adolescents

Adolescents can be at heightened risk for anxiety and depression, with accumulating research reporting on associations between anxiety and depression and cognitive impairments, implicating working memory and attentional control deficits. Several studies now point to the promise of adaptive working memory training to increase attentional control in depressed and anxious participants and reduce anxiety and depression symptoms, but this has not been explored in a non‐clinical adolescent population. The current study explored the effects of adaptive dual n‐back working memory training on sub‐clinical anxiety and depression symptomology in adolescents. Participants trained on either an online adaptive working memory task or non‐adaptive control task for up to 20 days. Primary outcome measures were self‐reported anxiety and depression symptomology, before and after intervention, and at 1‐month follow‐up. Self‐reported depression (p = 0.003) and anxiety (p = 0.04) decreased after training in the adaptive n‐back group relative to the non‐adaptive control group in the intention‐to‐treat sample (n = 120). These effects were sustained at follow‐up. Our findings constitute proof of principle evidence that working memory training may help reduce anxiety and depression vulnerability in a non‐clinical adolescent population. We discuss the findings’ implications for reducing risk of internalizing disorders in youth and the need for replication.     

Gender and emotion in everyday event memory

While women often recall more detailed and socially oriented event memories than men, it is not clear at which stage of remembering such gender differences emerge. This study investigated this question in a sample of young adults (N=60). A random sampling method was used where participants received a text message three times a day during a 1-week period and were asked to record as soon as they read the message what was happening during the past 30 minutes. At the end of the week they received a surprise memory test for the events that they had recorded. Compared with men, women recorded a greater number of event details at the encoding phase and provided more detailed and accurate memories at the delayed recall, although there was no gender difference in the forgetting function during retention. Gender difference in the social orientation of memory was not apparent until recall. In addition the effects of emotion intensity and valence were observed on the detailedness, accuracy, and content of memory. The findings shed new light on the mechanisms underlying gender differences in episodic memory.     

The coherence of memories for trauma: Evidence from posttraumatic stress disorder

Participants with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and participants with a trauma but without PTSD wrote narratives of their trauma and, for comparison, of the most-important and the happiest events that occurred within a year of their trauma. They then rated these three events on coherence. Based on participants’ self-ratings and on naïve-observer scorings of the participants’ narratives, memories of traumas were not more incoherent than the comparison memories in participants in general or in participants with PTSD. This study comprehensively assesses narrative coherence using a full two (PTSD or not) by two (traumatic event or not) design. The results are counter to most prevalent theoretical views of memory for trauma.     

Autobiographical memory specificity in response to emotion pictorial cues among non‐clinical participants

The objective of the current study was to investigate whether emotion pictorial cues increase memory specificity among non‐clinical participants. Undergraduate university students were presented with emotion word and pictorial cues on a prompted and non‐prompted version of the Autobiographical Memory Test (AMT). In comparison to pictorial cues, participants retrieved significantly fewer specific autobiographical memories in response to word cues on the prompted AMT; however, there was no significant difference on the non‐prompted AMT. Participants also retrieved significantly fewer specific memories in response to both word and pictorial cues on the non‐prompted AMT compared with the prompted AMT. These results provide support for the hypothesis that among non‐clinical participants, visual cues increase memory specificity over and above emotion. Further research is needed to investigate ways in which memory specificity can be increased and the use of imagery may be a promising avenue.     

Age differences in autobiographical memory across the adult lifespan: older adults report stronger phenomenology

As an individual’s life story evolves across adulthood, the subjective experience (phenomenology) of autobiographical memory likely changes. In addition to age at retrieval, both the recency of the memory and the age when a memory is formed may be particularly important to its phenomenology. The present work examines the effect of three temporal factors on phenomenology ratings: (a) age of the participant, (b) age at the event reported in the memory, and (c) memory age (recency). A large sample of Americans (N?=?1120), stratified by chronological age, recalled and rated two meaningful memories, a Turning Point and an Early Childhood Memory. Ratings of phenomenology (e.g., vividness of turning points) were higher among older adults compared to younger adults. Memories of events from the reminiscence bump were more positive in valence than events from other time periods but did not differ on other phenomenological dimensions; recent memories had stronger phenomenology than remote memories. In contrast to phenomenology, narrative content was generally unrelated to participant age, age at the event, or memory age. Overall, the findings indicate age-related differences in how meaningful memories are re-experienced.     

The role of lifetime periods in the organisation of episodic memories

ABSTRACT

Research on the nature of episodic memory associations has suggested that episodic memories are associated by conceptual knowledge, where memories cluster around the same content (e.g. memories about the same people) or general-event knowledge, where memories cluster around extended events (e.g. a holiday in London), repeated events (e.g. Sunday walks in the park), or causally related events (i.e. where one event leads to another). Research has also suggested that episodic memories are associated by lifetime periods (e.g. when I was in high school), where memories cluster within lifetime periods. However, it is unclear whether episodic memories can be associated solely by lifetime periods, or if such associations are subordinate to conceptual or general-event associations. To answer this question, we reanalysed a large sample of involuntary memory chains (Mace, J. H., Clevinger, A. M., & Bernas, R. S. (2013). Involuntary memory chains: What do they tell us about autobiographical memory organisation? Memory, 21, 324–335). The results of this analysis suggested that lifetime periods associations are subordinate to conceptual and general-event associations, as lifetime periods were found to cluster within the latter two associations. The potential functions of this organisation are discussed.     

Trauma event autobiographies: An exploratory multiple case study

This multiple case study explored trauma event memories of three individuals to characterise underlying meanings important for their recovery. The three participants were women in the age range of 43 to 54 years old, who shared their own memories of a trauma-laden event four to five years post-occurrence. Thematic analysis of the autobiographical narratives indicated underlying memories across cases of silence imposed on trauma victims by their social environments and communities. Differences in trauma autobiographical memories were in meaning making within the context of the participants’ own culture, society, and community. Autobiographical memory studies appear to have value for understanding likely pathways to recovery from trauma     

Vantage point in traumatic memory

Abstract— Persons with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) spontaneously recalled the traumatic event that led to their condition from either a field or an observer vantage point. In the former case, participants recollected the event as if they were seeing it again through their own eyes; in the latter case, the event was recalled from the perspective of a detached spectator. Analysis of the two types of recollections revealed marked differences in their contents. Whereas field memories afforded richer accounts of the affective reactions, somatic sensations, and psychological states that participants experienced during the focal trauma, observer memories contained more information about participants' physical appearance and actions and the spatial layout of the traumatic scene. Observer trauma memories were also experienced as less emotional and anxiety provoking than field trauma memories. The discussion focuses on the clinical implications of these findings and prospects for future research on traumatic memory.     

Emotional impact feedback affects how people remember an analogue trauma event

Do external motivational processes—in the form of social influences—shape people's memories for trauma? In this experiment, we examined the effects of social influence on memory and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomology for an analogue traumatic event. Seventy-two participants watched a distressing film; some received feedback about others' reactions to the film that either emphasised or downplayed the distressing nature of the film; control participants received no feedback. A week later, participants reported their symptoms, rated their memory on a number of characteristics and we tested their memory for the film's content. Participants who received feedback downplaying the film reported fewer PTSD-related analogue symptoms and weaker memory characteristics than their counterparts. The results suggest that people's memory phenomenology and analogue symptoms are influenced by others' feedback, but only when others' reactions downplayed the distressing nature of the film.     

The Mental Regulation of Autobiographical Recollection in the Aftermath of Trauma

ABSTRACT— Survivors of psychological trauma are frequently troubled by intrusive recollection of the traumatic event. We describe research showing that attempts to suppress such trauma memories can be associated with paradoxically enhanced remembering of the trauma, enhanced access to other negative personal material, and a lack of specificity in the recollection of the personal past. This suggests that attempted suppression is generally a counterproductive approach to the regulation of traumatic memories in distressed trauma survivors. Working with trauma memories, rather than suppressing them, is more adaptive.     

Vivid memories of distant trauma: Examining the characteristics of trauma memories and the relationship with the centrality of event and posttraumatic stress 26 years after trauma

In the present study, we investigated the phenomenological characteristics of distant trauma memories and the relationship between the vividness of trauma memories, the centrality of event and symptoms of posttraumatic stress in two groups with different types of trauma exposure, namely survivors and bereaved, from the fire on the passenger ferry, Scandinavian Star, 26 years earlier. More than two decades after the fire, the traumatic event was represented as a vivid, emotional recollection for many of the victims. For both the survivors and the bereaved, a higher degree of vividness of trauma memories and centrality of the event were associated with higher levels of posttraumatic stress. The present findings show that even very distant trauma memories can be represented as vivid recollections. Furthermore, the findings suggest that both vividness of trauma memories and event centrality may contribute to explain how posttraumatic stress reactions can remain present over a very long time.