Arresting visuospatial stimulation is insufficient to disrupt analogue traumatic intrusions

Abstract

Intrusive memories are a core symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A growing body of analogue studies using trauma films suggest that carrying out specific demanding tasks (e.g., playing the video game Tetris, pattern tapping) after the analogue trauma can reduce intrusive memories. To examine the mechanism behind this effect, we tested whether mere engagement with attention-grabbing and interesting visual stimuli disrupts intrusive memories, and whether this depends on working memory resources and/or the concurrent activation of trauma film memories. In a total sample of 234 healthy participants, we compared no-task control conditions to a perceptual rating task with visually arresting video clips (i.e., non-emotional, complex, moving displays), to a less arresting task with nonmoving, blurred pictures (Study 1), and to more demanding imagery tasks with and without repetitive reminders of the trauma film (Study 2). Generally, we found moderate to strong evidence that none of the conditions lead to differences in intrusion frequency. Moreover, our data suggest that intrusive memories were neither related to individual differences in working memory capacity (i.e., operation span performance; Study 1), nor to the degree of engagement with a visuospatial task (i.e., one-week recognition performance; Study 2). Taken together, our findings suggest that the boundary conditions for successful interference with traumatic intrusions may be more complex and subtle than assumed. Future studies may want to test the role of prediction errors during (re-)consolidation, deliberate efforts to suppress thoughts, or the compatibility of the task demands with the individual's skills.

Visuospatial Working Memory Tasks May Not Reduce the Intensity or Distress of Intrusive Memories

“…Our hypotheses that participants in either of the visuospatial task conditions (the Tetris intervention or D-Corsi) would report lower levels of intensity and distress for intrusive memories as compared to participants in the control condition was not supported. This finding is broadly similar to the results of Meyer et al (21); at least so far as intrusion-related distress is concerned. However, our results differ from studies involving eye-movement only tasks wherein clinical (20) and non-clinical (18,19) participants reported lower levels of intensity for negatively valenced autobiographical memories.…”

No evidence for disruption of reconsolidation of conditioned threat memories with a cognitively demanding intervention

“…In both studies, the reactivation paired with cognitively demanding intervention led to significantly fewer intrusive memories of the aversive movie clips compared to the control conditions. A different study employed a similar design using a visuospatial stimulation task, which was not cognitively demanding 34 . Interestingly, they did not find a reduction in intrusions compared to a no-task control condition, implying that cognitive demand may be a crucial aspect in these paradigms.…”

Taking a walk through time: aversive memory re-experiencing may be linked to spatio-temporal distance

“…This finding runs counter to the idea that the symbolic visualization of chronological life events was the single ‘active ingredient’ varying between conditions. Speculatively, the walking-only exercise may have attenuated memory distress through distraction and/or active visuospatial engagement with the virtual environment (James et al, 2016 ; but see Meyer et al, 2020 ), possibly by disrupting reconsolidation/re-encoding of the aversive memories (e.g. James et al, 2015 ).…”