Discipline: Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
Subcategory: Social Sciences/Psychology/Economics
Session: 3
Room: Exhibit Hall A
Ana Herrera - Seward County Community College
Co-Author(s): Heather Bailey, Kansas State University, Manhattan Kansas; Barbara Pitts, Kansas State University, Manhattan Kansas
PTSD affects roughly 8% of the US population and common symptoms of PTSD include recurrent traumatic memories, anxiety about potential dangers, and negative thoughts about oneself or the world. Individuals with PTSD also have difficulties with aspects of everyday memory and attention; however, most prior research has focused on re-experiencing the traumatic memory and not on how the disorder influences day-to-day memory. This study will measure differences in memory for everyday activities between individuals clinically diagnosed with PTSD (n = 68) and healthy control subjects (n = 68). During the first session, participants were clinically assessed and positive and traumatic memories were documented. During the 2nd and 3rd sessions, participants were primed with either their positive or traumatic memory and shown a series of short videos depicting everyday activities, such as decorating for a party or planting flowers. After each viewing, participants were asked to recall as much information as possible from the video. Recall was scored in terms of smaller actions(i.e. turning on the water) and larger actions (i.e. washing hands). We found that participants with PTSD recalled significantly less than did healthy controls, but only for smaller actions. Priming with the traumatic memory reduced recall for both groups and did not affect those with PTSD more so than the healthy controls. We also found that the type of trauma (e.g., accidents vs. assaults) did not affect recall. These results indicate that PTSD impairs memory for the details associated with everyday memories, but not memory for larger events. Thus, in addition to reliving traumatic memories, PTSD also affects memory for everyday, mundane activities. Such impairments may be due to changes in how individuals with PTSD pay attention to their environment.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): KS-LSAMP supported by National Science Foundation (or NSF) under grant number 1305059, and DARPA: ?Everyday event perception and memory in PTSD?, 2013-2015.
Faculty Advisor: Heather Bailey, hbailey@ksu.edu
Role: This research was part of a larger study that began before I began working on it. For this research, I helped score and analyze the data. Scoring the data consisted of reviewing the recall statements of the participants and comparing them to a list of all actions possible during the videos they watched.