title: Individual differences in emotionality and peri-traumatic processing.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Recent cognitive models propose that intrusive trauma memories arise and persist because high levels of emotional arousal triggered by the trauma disrupt conceptual processing of elements of the event, while enhancing sensory/perceptual processing. A trauma film analogue design was used to investigate if the predicted facilitating effects on intrusions from inhibiting conceptual processing and predicted attenuating effects on intrusions from inhibiting sensory processing are moderated by individual differences in emotionality.
  
  
  METHODS
  One hundred and five non-clinical participants viewed a traumatic film while undertaking a conceptual interference task, a sensory interference task, or no interference task. Participants recorded the frequency and intensity of intrusions over the following week.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no facilitating effect for the conceptual interference task compared to no interference task. A significant attenuation of the frequency of intrusions was evident for those undertaking sensory interference (ŋ(2) = .04). This effect, however, was only present for those with high trait anxiety (d = .82) and not for those with low trait anxiety (d = .08). Relative to high trait anxious controls, high anxious participants who undertook sensory interference also reported lower intensity of intrusions (d = .66).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This is the first trauma film analogue study to show that the attenuating effect of concurrent sensory/perceptual processing on the frequency and intensity of subsequent intrusions is evident only for people with high trait anxiety. The results have implications for conceptual models of intrusion development and for their application to the prevention of post traumatic distress.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
authors.forename: Shanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Logan
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: O'Kearney
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D003210:Concept Formation; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory; D009040:Motion Pictures; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000009:adverse effects; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000150:complications* / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D014796:Visual Perception; D055815:Young Adult