Mental time travel after trauma: The specificity and temporal distribution of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts

Abstract

The present study investigated the relationship between trauma exposure and specificity and temporal distribution of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts. A group of sexual assault victims were compared with women without previous trauma exposure in relation to specificity of autobiographical memories, as measured by the Autobiographical Memory Task (AMT) and specificity of future-directed thoughts as measured by the Future Cueing Task (FCT). The temporal distribution of future-directed thoughts and autobiographical memories was studied by asking the participants to estimate when each memory reported on the AMT had occurred and when each future event reported on the FCT would occur. The results showed no difference between the trauma group and the controls on specificity of autobiographical memories and future-directed thoughts. In line with a review of Moore and Zoellner (2007), PTSD symptoms as measured by the Impact of Event Scale (IES) correlated negatively with specificity. Furthermore, we observed no difference in temporal distribution of future-directed thoughts or autobiographical memories between trauma exposed participants and controls.

Keywords:

• Autobiographical memory
• Overgeneral memory
• Future foreshortening
• Future
• Mental time travel
• Imageability
• Rape
• Trauma
• Memory

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Atle Dyregrov, the staff at Oslo Emergency Center, Bergen Emergency Center, and DIXI for invaluable help with recruiting participants to the study. Thanks to Alf Børre Kanten for helpful comments. Our biggest debt is to the participants who gave their time to the project.