The effects of state anxiety on analogue peritraumatic encoding and event memory: introducing the stressful event segmentation paradigm

ABSTRACT

Cognitive theories of PTSD argue that poor recall of trauma memories results from a stress-induced shift toward perceptual processing during encoding. The present study assessed the extent to which self-reported state anxiety affects event segmentation and its subsequent impact on memory performance (recall and recognition). Event segmentation is the cognitive process of condensing continuous streams of spatiotemporal information into discrete elements. In this study, undergraduates without PTSD used a computer programme to segment a stressful film and a non-stressful film and then they completed memory tasks for each film. For the stressful film, low memory performance was associated with high segmentation performance. A meditational analysis revealed high segmentation performance mediated a negative relationship between state anxiety and memory performance. Additionally, ad-hoc analyses suggest perceptual processing primarily drives segmentation of the stressful film and conceptual processing primarily drives segmentation of the non-stressful film.

KEYWORDS:

• Posttraumatic stress disorder
• trauma analogue
• event segmentation
• peritraumatic encoding

Acknowledgments

We would like the acknowledge the following research assistants from Northern Illinois University in the development of materials, collection and entry of data, and qualitative coding: Adelaide Alderks, Laura Bauer, Joseph Catalano, Sinai Dominguez, Caitlin Faerevaag, Kaitlyn Fritz, Sam Hight, Raymond Jenkins, Taylor Koegel, Amanda Koltz-Slabaugh, Diana Lopez, Breanna Lorang, and Kendall Smith. We would also like to acknowledge the following faculty members from Northern Illinois University for providing helpful feedback throughout the execution of the study: Holly Orcutt, Alan Rosenbaum, and David Valentiner.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 To explore potential systematic biases in the decision to stop the film, a series of independent samples t-tests were conducted to compare participants who stopped the film to participants who watched the entire film. Specifically, participants were compared using t-tests on age, PTSD symptoms (PCL-5), domain knowledge (sexual assault), post-film state anxiety (STAI-S6), and level of attentiveness. No tests were statistically significant (all ps > .05). Additionally, a chi-squared analysis indicated that participant gender did not predict stopping the film, X² (1, N = 101) = 0.57, p = .45.

2 The regression coefficient for perceptual change predictor was significant (b = .18, p < .001) when entered into the model without the conceptual change predictor.