Background and objectives

Traumatic or negative stimuli facilitate item memory but impair associated context memory. Vulnerability factors related to the maintenance and onset of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), such as anxiety sensitivity, looming cognitive style, dissociation, and low working memory capacity, have been identified. However, little is known about how these factors influence negative item or associative memory.

Methods

Eighty-five undergraduates completed self-report questionnaires, the operation span with words (OSPAN) task, and an item and associative memory task in which incidental encoding of negative and neutral items and context information (Day 1) was followed by an unexpected retrieval test (Day 2).

Results

The results showed greater Hit rates and False Alarms on item memory and lower accuracy on context memory with negative stimuli than with neutral stimuli, replicating previous findings. Low working memory capacity and high dissociation were correlated with low negative item memory. Under low working memory capacity, high levels of anxiety sensitivity and looming cognitive style predicted high dissociation levels and low accuracy for negative item memory. There were no individual differences involving associative memory.

Limitations

A nonclinical sample was used, which limits the generalizability of our results to clinical samples.

Conclusions

Dissociation could be a coping strategy for reducing negative item memory. Anxiety sensitivity and looming cognitive style facilitate dissociative coping; however, working memory capacity buffers against these vulnerabilities.

中文翻译：

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负面项目记忆和联想记忆：工作记忆容量、焦虑敏感性和迫在眉睫的认知的影响。

背景和目标

创伤性或负面刺激促进项目记忆，但损害相关的上下文记忆。已经确定了与创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 的维持和发作相关的脆弱因素，例如焦虑敏感性、隐约可见的认知风格、分离和低工作记忆能力。然而，关于这些因素如何影响负面项目或联想记忆知之甚少。

方法

85 名本科生完成了自我报告问卷、单词操作跨度 (OSPAN) 任务以及项目和联想记忆任务，其中负面和中性项目和上下文信息的偶然编码（第 1 天）之后是意外检索测试（第 2 天）。

结果

结果显示，与中性刺激相比，项目记忆的命中率和误报率更高，上下文记忆的准确率低于中性刺激，重复了以前的发现。低工作记忆容量和高分离度与低负面项目记忆相关。在低工作记忆容量下，高水平的焦虑敏感性和隐约可见的认知风格预测了消极项目记忆的高分离水平和低准确性。没有涉及联想记忆的个体差异。

限制

使用了非临床样本，这限制了我们的结果对临床样本的普遍性。

结论

分离可能是减少负面项目记忆的应对策略。焦虑敏感性和隐约可见的认知风格促进分离式应对；然而，工作内存容量可以缓冲这些漏洞。