Conceptual and perceptual priming and dissociation in chronic posttraumatic stress disorder.

Lyttle, Nigel; Dorahy, Martin J.; Hanna, Donncha; Huntjens, Rafaële J. C.

doi:10.1037/a0020894

Cited by 30 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Thus, there is something about living day-to-day with the physical ongoing aftermath of an earthquake that seems to be associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms, beyond any contribution from direct exposure. This may be due to (1) the insidious nature of ongoing stress in affected areas (Dorahy & Kannis-Dymand, 2012;Scott & Stradling, 1994), (2) the notion that living with distressing reminders in the context of ongoing disruption may maintain already elevated dissociative symptoms and inhibit effective conceptual processing of the whole series of events (Holmes, Brewin, & Hennessy, 2004;Lyttle, Dorahy, Hanna, & Huntjens, 2010), or (3) subjective cognitions and emotions (e.g., fear, shame, helplessness) maintained by the environmental cues. This study is one of many that suggest post-traumatic stress symptoms are not limited to events involving direct harm or threatened death (e.g., Alcorn, O'Donovan, Patrick, Creedy, & Devilly, 2010;Dorahy & Kannis-Dymand, 2012;Scott & Stradling, 1994).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of average household income and damage exposure on post‐earthquake distress and functioning: A community study following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Dorahy

Rowlands

Renouf

et al. 2014

British J of Psychology

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Post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety symptoms are common outcomes following earthquakes, and may persist for months and years. This study systematically examined the impact of neighbourhood damage exposure and average household income on psychological distress and functioning in 600 residents of Christchurch, New Zealand, 4-6 months after the fatal February, 2011 earthquake. Participants were from highly affected and relatively unaffected suburbs in low, medium and high average household income areas. The assessment battery included the Acute Stress Disorder Scale, the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), and the Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale (GAD-7), along with single item measures of substance use, earthquake damage and impact, and disruptions in daily life and relationship functioning. Controlling for age, gender and social isolation, participants from low income areas were more likely to meet diagnostic cut-offs for depression and anxiety, and have more severe anxiety symptoms. Higher probabilities of acute stress, depression and anxiety diagnoses were evident in affected versus unaffected areas, and those in affected areas had more severe acute stress, depression and anxiety symptoms. An interaction between income and earthquake effect was found for depression, with those from the low and medium income affected suburbs more depressed. Those from low income areas were more likely, post-earthquake, to start psychiatric medication and increase smoking. There was a uniform increase in alcohol use across participants. Those from the low income affected suburb had greater general and relationship disruption post-quake. Average household income and damage exposure made unique contributions to earthquake-related distress and dysfunction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of average household income and damage exposure on post‐earthquake distress and functioning: A community study following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Dorahy

Rowlands

Renouf

et al. 2014

British J of Psychology

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“…One possible pathway is perceptual priming (Ehlers & Clark, 2000) which is thought to rely heavily on perceptual operations and unconscious processes and should therefore benefit from encoding styles that favour perceptual information (Roediger, 1990). In line with this hypothesis, data-driven processing and dissociation correlated with priming in clinical and analogue studies (Ehlers et al., 2006; Lyttle, Dorahy, Hanna, & Huntjens, 2010; Michael & Ehlers, 2007). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptual processing during trauma, priming and the development of intrusive memories

Sündermann

Hauschildt

Ehlers

2013

Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry

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BackgroundIntrusive reexperiencing in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is commonly triggered by stimuli with perceptual similarity to those present during the trauma. Information processing theories suggest that perceptual processing during the trauma and enhanced perceptual priming contribute to the easy triggering of intrusive memories by these cues.MethodsHealthy volunteers (N = 51) watched neutral and trauma picture stories on a computer screen. Neutral objects that were unrelated to the content of the stories briefly appeared in the interval between the pictures. Dissociation and data-driven processing (as indicators of perceptual processing) and state anxiety during the stories were assessed with self-report questionnaires. After filler tasks, participants completed a blurred object identification task to assess priming and a recognition memory task. Intrusive memories were assessed with telephone interviews 2 weeks and 3 months later.ResultsNeutral objects were more strongly primed if they occurred in the context of trauma stories than if they occurred during neutral stories, although the effect size was only moderate (ηp2=.08) and only significant when trauma stories were presented first. Regardless of story order, enhanced perceptual priming predicted intrusive memories at 2-week follow-up (N = 51), but not at 3 months (n = 40). Data-driven processing, dissociation and anxiety increases during the trauma stories also predicted intrusive memories. Enhanced perceptual priming and data-driven processing were associated with lower verbal intelligence.LimitationsIt is unclear to what extent these findings generalize to real-life traumatic events and whether they are specific to negative emotional events.ConclusionsThe results provide some support for the role of perceptual processing and perceptual priming in reexperiencing symptoms.

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“…Data-driven or perceptual processing refers to bottom-up processing of sensory impressions and perceptual characteristics, such as stimuli form and structure (Lyttle, Dorahy, Hanna, & Huntjens, 2010). Strong perceptually-driven memories usually concern the physical features of an event (i.e., remember seeing a friend, talking to someone; driving home).…”

Section: Perceptual Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Conceptual processing is brought about through elaboration and organization of memory (Lyttle et al, 2010). Contextual information about an experience may involve having an understanding of why the event happened and what this means for the individual.…”

Section: Conceptual Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dissociation, perceptual processing, and conceptual processing in survivors of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

Hooper

Dorahy

Blampied

et al. 2014

Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy

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Exposure to overwhelming events can result in difficulties cognitively processing the experience, which may be a precursor to posttraumatic stress symptoms. Trauma-induced dissociation has been proposed to be a mechanism related to these cognitive processing difficulties. Most research on information processing and dissociation has used controlled analogue trauma or has not focused on information processing and dissociation or has measured these constructs shortly after (analogue) trauma. Over the course of 20 months this study examined the relationship between different markers of dissociation, information processing, and posttraumatic stress symptoms in 20 individuals directly exposed to the fatal 6.3 magnitude Christchurch earthquake (February 22, 2011). Along with narrative assessment of experiences at the time of the earthquake, participants were given the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS; Foa, 1995), Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES; Carlson & Putnam, 1993), and the State Dissociation Questionnaire (SDQ; Murray, Ehlers, & Mayou, 2002) at different time intervals. An increase in perceptual processing of the earthquake experience was not associated with increased dissociation. However, perceptual processing approximately 6 months after the earthquake and trait dissociation 18 months after the earthquake were associated with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. The findings suggest that trauma-related difficulties should be addressed as early as possible to resolve factors associated with more chronic problems.

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Conceptual and perceptual priming and dissociation in chronic posttraumatic stress disorder.

Cited by 30 publications

References 56 publications

Impact of average household income and damage exposure on post‐earthquake distress and functioning: A community study following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Impact of average household income and damage exposure on post‐earthquake distress and functioning: A community study following the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake

Perceptual processing during trauma, priming and the development of intrusive memories

Dissociation, perceptual processing, and conceptual processing in survivors of the 2011 Christchurch earthquake.

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