The researchers of this study were trying to make connection between women who have posttraumatic stress disorder from intimate partner violence and their autobiographical memory. The hypothesis was tricky to find, but it suggested that PTSD may have an influence on the autobiographical memory of the IPV victims.
The participants were intimate partner violence victims that were a total of thirty-three, they were all recruited. The women were given a questionnaire regarding the symptoms they have experienced; they were also give another questionnaire that measures their emotional distress; a last questionnaire was given to the participants to see if they were at risk of having PTSD. To measure the participants’ autobiographical assessment, the researchers a memory retrieval paradigm.
The hypothesis was supported because the researchers have found in that participants in this study who are very traumatized from their experience have shown to have a lower autobiographical memory. Brewin, C. R. (2016). Coherence, disorganization, and fragmentation in traumatic memory reconsidered: A response to Rubin et al (2016). Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125(7), 1011–1017. This article is commentary to another journal article regarding post traumatic memories to be inaccurate. The article points out that Rubin et al (2016) has missed some important information in their study that can contribute to understanding people with PTSD. Additionally, the article includes other studies that contrast Rubin et al (2016) article.
Bryant, R. A., Sutherland, K., & Guthrie, R. M. (2007). Impaired specific autobiographical memory as a risk factor for posttraumatic stress after trauma. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 116(4), 837–841. In this study, the researchers are trying to find a correlation between memory retrieval and posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. They hypothesize when participants cannot get back memories they experience before any trauma, there is possibility of having depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. The participants were sixty firefighters.
First, the participants were given an interview to see if they had any mental disorders; then, they were given a memory retrieval test that consisted of white cards with either one of the five positive or negative words. The results suggested that the hypothesis was supported. The researchers have found in their study there is an association between having trouble recovering memories before a traumatic event and PTSD levels from after experiencing trauma.
Emdad, R., Sondergaard, H. P., & Theorell, T. (2005). Short communication: Impairments in short-term memory, and figure logic, in PTSD patients compared to healthy controls with the same ethnic background. Stress and Health: Journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress, 21(1), 33–44. The researchers of this study were trying to find out if their main subjects, who have posttraumatic stress disorder, have weakened their short-term memory functions by comparing them with other subjects that do not have PTSD.
Additionally, the researchers included in their study that the subjects with and without PTSD are of the same ethnic group. The subjects were not equal in numbers since the subjects with PTSD were thirty and subjects without PTSD were twenty. The researchers’ hypothesis was supported due to the fact that the subjects with PTSD scored lower compared to subjects without PTSD in the TPMT test, which is used for testing memory recognition. Emdad, R., & Söndergaard, H. P. (2006). General intelligence and short-term memory impairments in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder patients. Journal of Mental Health, 15(2), 205–216.
In this study, the researchers were not just looking at memory deficits but also intelligence in the people with posttraumatic stress disorder, so their hypothesis was split into two different parts: first, they are trying to look if the short-term memory levels scored on the Benton Visual Retention Test was equal and if there was equal intelligence shown in the Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices; secondly, researchers are trying to find an association between failing memory in people with PTSD and the intelligence shown on the RSPM with regard to the control group with no PTSD.
Just like the previous 2005 Emdad et al study, the subjects with PTSD totalled thirty while the subjects with no PTSD totalled in twenty. The hypothesis was not supported because there was no equal levels of intelligence or short-term memory scored the BVRT – the subjects with PTSD scored lower; however, when it came to finding an association with the intelligence shown on the RSPM, there was an association in subjects with PTSD in the BVRT and the intelligence scores in the RSPM; the subjects with no PTSD did not shown an association in this part of the hypothesis.
Guez, J., Naveh-Benjamin, M., Yankovsky, Y., Cohen, J., Shiber, A., & Shalev, H. (2011). Traumatic stress is linked to a deficit in associative episodic memory. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 24(3), 260–267. This study is about finding an association between associative memory, which is when you are able to remember and learn about items, and traumatic stress. The hypothesis of the study is. For participants, there was a total of forty, who were then divided in half – twenty of them were healthy while the other twenty were treated for a traumatic event that was experienced. The participants went through four experiments that tested out their episodic memory with learning phases and memory tasks. The study found that the difficulty of the tasks presented in the experiment was not the problem but remembering the images could have been challenging meaning PTSD can have an influence on the associative memory.
Larson, E., Zollman, F., Kondiles, B., & Starr, C. (2013). Memory deficits, postconcussive complaints, and posttraumatic stress disorder in a volunteer sample of veterans. Rehabilitation Psychology, 58(3), 245–252. The author’s of this study were trying to find a correlation between memory, PTSD, and concussions; also, they were to find out if any variables came into place when trying to find this correlation. The subjects in this group volunteered to join in the study and had some kind of military experience. The subjects were then interviewed to see if they met the researcher’s criteria, then the researchers received self-reporting data regarding how often their subjects feels certain PTSD symptoms and how severe the symptoms they experienced are.
The study suggested that the memory problems presented were mainly linked to subjects with PTSD not people with concussions. A limitation in the study mentioned that people with PTSD could have the same symptoms as people with post concussion disorder. Another limitation is that the variables they are looking for in their hypothesis could be the type of injuries the subject experienced, but the study relied on self-reported data so they did not have a specific variable.
Rubin, D. C., Berntsen, D., & Bohni, M. K. (2008). A memory-based model of posttraumatic stress disorder: Evaluating basic assumptions underlying the PTSD diagnosis. Psychological Review, 115(4), 985–1011. In the introduction, the researchers of this study stated that their focus for this article was about posttraumatic stress disorder and what might be the causes of PTSD be. Instead of conducting an experiment, this article was proposing to use two different models – the mnemonic and DSM-IV-TR model. The mnemonic model proposes that depending on the intensensity of the traumatic event the person who experienced it will have a better memory of the event.
Apparently the article suggested to have a total eleven hypothesis – four being from the DSM-IV-TR model and seven from the mnemonic model. Because of the two models, the data pertaining to PTSD may vary, yet the researchers have mentioned that the mnemonic model may have better information regarding PTSD then the DSM-IV-TR model.
Strange, D., & Takarangi, M. K. T. (2015). Investigating the variability of memory distortion for an analogue trauma. Memory, 23(7), 991–1000. The researchers in this study were focusing on traumatic situations could have impacted memory retrieval. Their participants came from two different colleges where some of the students were paid while the other students participated because it was a part of their grade. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the four conditions. The participants were told by researchers that they will be helping out on a driving campaign, so the participants were set to watch a short driving film.
The participants were asked to come the next day so the researchers can study their memory retrieval of the film. The researchers’ hypothesis was not supported because their data suggested that they did not find any differences or substantial data for each of the four conditions; however, the researchers stated that bias could be involved because each participants expected what they were being differently and their reaction of memory retrieval could have affected their response.
Sutker, P. B., Vasterling, J. J., Brailey, K., & Allain, A. N., Jr. (1995). Memory, attention, and executive deficits in POW survivors: Contributing biological and psychological factors. Neuropsychology, 9(1), 118–125. In this study, there were two hypotheses presented. The first being trauma in the body may have an effect of deficits in learning and memory while the second hypothesis is that instead of memory performance and learning, executive functions in the brain may have a connection with posttraumatic stress disorder.
The subjects were a total of one-hundred and eight survivors from war like events in this case they are survivors from the second world war and may be also from the Korean Conflict. These survivors were measured with the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory PTSD scale in case the survivors had any PTSD like symptoms. They were tested for their mental and attention tracking, learning and memory, and their executive functions. The results of this suggest that the survivors with PTSD may have failing cognition due to psychological trauma whereas the physical troubles experienced due to traumatic events may have impacted the performance of the survivors cognition.
