Attentional bias for trauma-related words: exaggerated emotional Stroop effect in Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans with PTSD

BMC Psychiatry

Research Article

Victoria Ashley¹  Timothy Justus¹  Nikki Honzel¹  Jary Larsen¹  Diane Swick¹ 

[1] Research Service, Veterans Affairs Northern California Health Care System, Martinez, CA, USA;The Department of Neurology, University of California, Davis, CA, USA;

关键词: Posttraumatic stress disorder;    PTSD;    Stroop;    Habituation;    Trauma;    Interference;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-244X-13-86

 received in 2012-07-02, accepted in 2013-03-05,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) involves debilitating symptoms that can disrupt cognitive functioning. The emotional Stroop has been commonly used to examine the impact of PTSD on attentional control, but no published study has yet used it with Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans, and only one previous study has compared groups on habituation to trauma-related words.MethodsWe administered the emotional Stroop, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the PTSD Checklist (PCL) to 30 veterans with PTSD, 30 military controls, and 30 civilian controls. Stroop word types included Combat, Matched-neutral, Neutral, Positive and Negative.ResultsCompared to controls, veterans with PTSD were disproportionately slower in responding to Combat words. They were also slower and less accurate overall, did not show interference on Negative or Positive words relative to Neutral, and showed a trend for delayed but successful habituation to Combat words. Higher PCL and BDI scores also correlated with larger interference effects.ConclusionsBecause of its specificity in detecting attentional biases to trauma-related words, the emotional Stroop task may serve as a useful pre- and post task with intervention studies of PTSD patients.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Ashley et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013