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Characteristics of Traumatic Memories in Normal Subjects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 June 2009

Ineke Wessel  and
Harald Merckelbach
Ineke Wessel
Affiliation:
Limburg University, The Netherlands
Harald Merckelbach
Affiliation:
Limburg University, The Netherlands
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Abstract

In recent years, there has been considerable debate about how accurately people remember emotionally significant information. Early studies concerned with “flashbulb memories” claimed that emotional memories are accurate and persistent. However, recent studies indicate that flashbulb memories are subject to deterioration over time. This finding fits with the idea that individuals who have experienced a traumatic event do not retain all the details of the trauma equally well. Instead, they have relatively good memory for central detail information and relatively poor memory for peripheral details of the traumatic situation. Using self-report data of a normal, healthy sample, Christianson and Loftus (1990) found evidence for this idea. The current study is an attempt to replicate Christianson and Loftus' finding in a normal student population (N = 106). Subjects were asked to describe their most traumatic situation. They rated the vividness of the memory, the intensity of emotion at the time of the trauma and at the time of recall, the amount of reliving, and the amount of central and peripheral detail information remembered. Results indicate that subjects who reported strong emotion at the time of the trauma remembered significantly more central detail information than subjects with relatively low past emotionality ratings. However, no differences in the amount of peripheral detail information remembered were found.

Type
Research Article
Information
Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 315 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies 1994

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