Journal
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
Volume 42, Issue 1, Pages 173-181Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0033291711001048
Keywords
Acute stress disorder; dissociation; intrusive memories; perception; post-traumatic stress disorder; priming
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Funding
- Wellcome Trust [069777, 066015]
- Psychiatry Research Trust
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Background. Intrusive re-experiencing in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) comprises distressing sensory impressions from the trauma that seem to occur 'out of the blue'. A key question is how intrusions are triggered. One possibility is that PTSD is characterized by a processing advantage for stimuli that resemble those that accompanied the trauma, which would lead to increased detection of such cues in the environment. Method. We used a blurred picture identification task in a cross-sectional (n=99) and a prospective study (n=221) of trauma survivors. Results. Participants with acute stress disorder (ASD) or PTSD, but not trauma survivors without these disorders, identified trauma-related pictures, but not general threat pictures, better than neutral pictures. There were no group differences in the rate of trauma-related answers to other picture categories. The relative processing advantage for trauma-related pictures correlated with re-experiencing and dissociation, and predicted PTSD at follow-up. Conclusions. A perceptual processing bias for trauma-related stimuli may contribute to the involuntary triggering of intrusive trauma memories in PTSD.
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