EMOTIONAL PRIMING OF AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY IN POSTTRAUMATIC-STRESS-DISORDER

Vietnam combat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), wi th other psychiatric disorders, or with no disorder participated in an autobiographical memory experiment. Half of the subjects in each grou p viewed a combat-relevant videotape, whereas the others viewed a neut ral videotape. Immediately after this emotional priming manipulation, subjects were asked to retrieve specific autobiographical memories in response to a series of neutral, positive, and negative cue words. The results revealed that PTSD patients experienced difficulty retrieving specific autobiographical memories, especially after having viewed th e combat videotape. Overgeneral memory appears to characterise PTSD as much as it does depression, and a relative inability to retrieve spec ific autobiographical memories, especially of positive valence, may co ntribute to the maintenance of PTSD.