Tunnel memory for traumatic events

✍ Scribed by Martin A. Safer; Sven-Åke Christianson; Marguerite W. Autry; Karin Österlund

• Book ID: 102657968
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 587 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0888-4080
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0720(199804)12:2<99::aid-acp509>3.0.co;2-7

✦ Synopsis

In four experiments subjects remembered the critical information in a traumatic slide as either more focused spatially than in its original presentation or more focused spatially than information in a matched neutral slide. Subjects comprehend a neutral scene by automatically extending its boundaries and understanding the visual information in a broader external context. However, when subjects are negatively aroused by a scene, they process more elaborately those critical details that were the source of the emotional arousal, and they maintain or restrict the scene's boundaries. `Tunnel memory' results from this greater elaboration of critical details and more focused boundaries. Tunnel memory may explain the superior recognition and recall of central, emotion-arousing details in a traumatic event, as shown in previous research on emotion and memory.