Information processing and PTSD: A review of the empirical literature

This article reviews a series of studies that have utilized information-pro cessing paradigms with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) populations. Th e review suggests that pretrauma measures of intelligence (IQ) are predicti ve of the development of PTSD symptoms following trauma. There is also evid ence of impaired performance on standardized texts of memory (independent o f IQ) in PTSD populations. PTSD populations are found to exhibit deficits i n memory function that may be due to hippocampus damage secondary to excess ive neuroendocrine responses to conditioned stimuli. In addition, individua ls with PTSD evince an attentional bias towards trauma-related stimuli at p ostrecognition stages of information processing. The review also includes t hat there is insufficient evidence to either support, or reject, the theore tical proposition that PTSD patients are sensitive to global valence effect s at the earliest stages of information processing relative to traumatized non-PTSD populations. Finally, there is some evidence to suggest that the p rocess associated with autobiographical memory in PTSD populations are simi lar to those seen in depression. The implications of these findings for the behavioral and cognitive treatment of PTSD are discussed. Directions for f uture research with such paradigms are also discussed in light of contempor ary information processing theories of PTSD. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.