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Related Experiment Videos

Directed forgetting in acute stress disorder.

Michelle L Moulds1, Richard A Bryant

  • 1School of Psychology, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.

Journal of Abnormal Psychology
|February 28, 2002
PubMed
Summary

Individuals with acute stress disorder (ASD) struggle to forget negative experiences, showing impaired recall of trauma-related words they were instructed to forget. This suggests a cognitive difficulty in suppressing aversive memories in ASD.

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Acute stress disorder (ASD) is theorized to involve cognitive mechanisms leading to avoidant processing of traumatic experiences.
  • Understanding these cognitive mechanisms is crucial for diagnosing and treating ASD.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate cognitive differences in memory processing between individuals with and without acute stress disorder (ASD) following trauma.
  • To examine the role of 'remember' and 'forget' instructions on recall of different word types (positive, neutral, trauma-related) in participants with and without ASD.

Main Methods:

  • A study involving three groups: acutely traumatized participants with ASD (n=15), acutely traumatized participants without ASD (n=14), and non-traumatized controls (n=16).
  • Participants were presented with positive, neutral, and trauma-related words, followed by "remember" or "forget" cues.

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  • Recall performance for each word type under different instructions was assessed.

    • Main Results:

    • Participants with ASD showed significantly poorer recall of trauma-related words designated to be forgotten compared to non-ASD participants.
    • A negative correlation was observed between the severity of psychopathology and the recall of to-be-remembered positive words.

    Conclusions:

    • Findings support the hypothesis that individuals developing ASD may have a cognitive tendency towards superior forgetting of aversive material.
    • This impaired ability to forget negative stimuli may be a key cognitive mechanism in the development and maintenance of acute stress disorder.