ERP Evidence for Intentional Suppression of Traumatic Events in Repressors

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event ERP Evidence for Intentional Suppression of Traumatic Events in Repressors Deok-Yong Kim1* and J.H Lee1 1 Clinical Neuro-Psychology Lab., Department of Psychology, Chung-Ang University, South Korea Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a common reaction to traumatic events, and one of the core features is reexperiencing the trauma via intrusive symptoms, such as repetitive thoughts, images, and memories. Reexperiencing mainly consists of sensory impressions, such as vivid visual images of the traumatic event. The repressive coping style refers to a habitual style of avoidant coping with aversive events. For repressors, the suppression of intrusive thoughts is initially successful, but the long term consequences of suppression are maladaptive as they tend to utilize more distraction strategies when presented with negative stimuli than non-repressor groups. The Think/No-Think (TNT) paradigm was used to investigate characteristics of the memory suppression. The TNT paradigm is a method for measuring intentional inhibition of unwanted memories, and it suggests that trying to not think about information could reduce subsequent recall of information. We used the TNT paradigm to determine whether repressors use intentional memory inhibition or not. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) can be used to show the process of memory inhibition strategies used by repressors and nonrepressors. The present study will investigate differences in memory suppression between repressor and nonrepressor groups during recording of ERPs for trauma-related pictures. The participants were 4 undergraduates (2 repressors and 2 nonrepressors) from an initial 75 students who were chosen on the basis of their scores on the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Material used 48 pairs of neutral-words and pictures of motorbike accidents were from the TNT paradigm. Participants first watched a motorbike accidents video clip for 5 minutes. The TNT paradigm consisted of three phases. In the initial learning phase, participants learned word-picture pairs to a criterion of 50% accuracy in responding to pictures among nine examples when provided with a word (cue). In the second TNT phase, they were instructed to either think about or suppress the target picture when cued during recording of ERPs. The last phase was a final recognition test of all the target pictures, regardless of the prior TNT instructions. The present study is ongoing, and these analyses reflect data for 4 participants. In the behavioral data, pictures in the no-think condition were less remembered in the final recognition test than in the initial recognition test. The ERP results show that parietal region amplitude of repressors was higher than that of nonrepressors early (approximately 300 ms) in the recordings (Fig 1.). These results indicate that increased cognitive processing for repressors during the suppression of pictures, because the distraction strategy required more cognitive effort besides just processing the target pictures. We have investigated the abilities of memory suppression in repressors. Examination of the ERPs suggests that the distraction strategies used during intentional inhibition are shown by the difference in amplitude between groups. In the poster presentation, we will discuss how the repressive coping style could be used to control images of, or thoughts about, the trauma. This work was supported by the Korea Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by the Korea government(MOST)(No. M10740030003-07N4003-00310)(No. R01-2007-000-20777-0). kim tn_kim Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Memory & Learning Citation: Kim D and Lee J (2008). ERP Evidence for Intentional Suppression of Traumatic Events in Repressors. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.287 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 09 Dec 2008; Published Online: 09 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Deok-Yong Kim, Clinical Neuro-Psychology Lab., Department of Psychology, Chung-Ang University, Seoul, South Korea, dyongkim@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Deok-Yong Kim J.H Lee Google Deok-Yong Kim J.H Lee Google Scholar Deok-Yong Kim J.H Lee PubMed Deok-Yong Kim J.H Lee Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.