Visual false memories in posttraumatic stress disorder

This study investigated visual false memories in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The Scenic False Memory paradigm (SFM, Hauschildt, Peters, Jelinek, & Moritz, 2012) was administered to male Iranian military personnel who had participated in the Iran-Iraq war and were diagnosed with (n = 21) or without (n = 21) PTSD and a sample of healthy male non-trauma-exposed controls (n = 21). Trauma-exposed participants recalled and recognized a significantly lower percentage of hits and a significantly greater percentage of false memories for both trauma-related and non-trauma-related video scenes, than non-trauma-exposed controls. Among the trauma-exposed participants, those with and without PTSD did not differ significantly in terms of percentage of hits and false memories recalled on the SFM. Those with PTSD were found to recognize significantly fewer hits for both the trauma-related and non-trauma-related videos than those without PTSD. Those with PTSD also recognized significantly more false memories for the trauma video scene than the non-PTSD group. The findings suggest that those with trauma exposure, and in particular those with PTSD, may have a greater susceptibility to visual false memory.