Psychology of Emotions, Motivations and Actions : Emotion's Effects on Attention and Memory : Relevance to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

Attentional processes, engaged during an event's unfolding, are essential for allowing us to transform an experience into a memory, and emotion can critically modulate those attentional processes, increasing the likelihood that an emotional experience becomes part of our memory stores. This book reviews behavioral and neuroimaging evidence that has revealed effects of emotion on memory and attention in individuals with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with particular emphasis on how emotion influences the attentional processes that allow individuals to transform experiences into a memory, the differences in the way emotional items are remembered and current controversies regarding the uniqueness of traumatic memories in PTSD. EMOTION’S EFFECTS ON ATTENTION AND MEMORY: RELEVANCE TO POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER 3 CONTENTS 6 PREFACE 8 ACKNOWELEDGMENTS 10 EMOTION'S MODULATION OF ATTENTION 13 ATTENTIONAL PROCESSING OF EMOTION IN PEOPLE WITHOUT PTSD 17 EFFECTS OF EMOTION ON DIRECTED ATTENTION 21 DIFFICULTY DISENGAGING FROM EMOTIONAL INFORMATION 25 ATTENTIONAL PROCESSING IN PEOPLE WITH PTSD 29 PREATTENTIVE PROCESSES 31 DIRECTED ATTENTION 35 EMOTION'S MODULATION OF MEMORY 40 EMOTIONAL MEMORY IN PEOPLE WITHOUT PTSD 43 EMOTIONAL MEMORY IN PEOPLE WITH PTSD 49 VOLUNTARY MEMORIES 53 INVOLUNTARY MEMORY 57 A MEMORY CONTROVERSY IN PTSD 61 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 67 REFERENCES 68 INDEX 84 Encoding and attentional processes -- Attentional processing of emotion in people without PTSD -- Effects of emotion on directed attention -- Difficulty disengaging from emotional information -- Attentional processing in people with PTSD -- Preattentive processes -- Directed attention -- Emotional memory -- Emotional memory in people without PTSD -- Emotional memory in people with PTSD -- Voluntary memories -- Involuntary memory -- Memory controversy : are trauma memories unique?