The coherence of memories for trauma: evidence from posttraumatic stress disorder.
Abstract
Participants with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and participants with a trauma
but without PTSD wrote narratives of their trauma and, for comparison, of the most-important
and the happiest events that occurred within a year of their trauma. They then rated
these three events on coherence. Based on participants' self-ratings and on naïve-observer
scorings of the participants' narratives, memories of traumas were not more incoherent
than the comparison memories in participants in general or in participants with PTSD.
This study comprehensively assesses narrative coherence using a full two (PTSD or
not) by two (traumatic event or not) design. The results are counter to most prevalent
theoretical views of memory for trauma.
Type
Journal articleSubject
AdolescentCase-Control Studies
Comprehension
Humans
Life Change Events
Memory
Narration
Sense of Coherence
Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic
Young Adult
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9779Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.018Publication Info
Rubin, David C (2011). The coherence of memories for trauma: evidence from posttraumatic stress disorder.
Conscious Cogn, 20(3). pp. 857-865. 10.1016/j.concog.2010.03.018. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/9779.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
David C. Rubin
Juanita M. Kreps Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
For .pdfs of all publications click here My main research interest has been in
long-term memory, especially for complex (or "real-world") stimuli. This work includes
the study of autobiographical memory and oral tra

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