Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

What is PTSD?

PTSD is posttraumatic stress disorder which is an anxiety disorder that can occur after a traumatic event. Traumatic event is something horrible and frightening that one either saw or experienced. Any life-threatening event can lead to PTSD:

-          Military exposure

-          Sexual or physical abuse or assault

-          Terrorist attacks

-          Serious accidents (Natural disaster, etc)

What are the symptoms?

The symptoms of PTSD can occur suddenly, gradually or temporarily. The three main types of symptoms are:

-          Re-experiencing the traumatic event

-          Avoiding reminders of trauma

-          Increased anxiety and emotional arousal

Other common symptoms are PTSD includes:

-          Anger, irritability

-          Guilt, shame, or self-blame

-          Substance abuse

-          Mistrust and betrayal

-          Depression

-          Suicidal force and feelings

-          Physical aches and pains

What causes PTSD?

Traumatic events are more likely to cause PTSD when they involve a threat to one’s life or safety. Other risk factors for PTSD include:

-          Previous traumatic experiences (physical abuse, substance abuse, mental illness, stress)

-          Family history of PTSD

Briefly explain how memory and emotion relate to PTSD. 

Flashbulb Memory

Explain the study – Brown & Kulik (1977)

The aim of the study of Brown and Kulik (1977) was basically to investigate whether dramatic or personally important and influential events can cause flashbulb memories. They assessed memories of 80 American people for the circumstance in which they learned of public events. They found out that flashbulb memory is more likely for unexpected and personally relevant events that are usually shocking. So, they concluded that dramatic events that are unusual can cause physiological imprinting of a memory of the event. One weakness was that the data was collected through questionnaires which made it impossible to verify the accuracy of memories and also as dramatic events are rehearsed more, memories could be made more durable.

Explain the study – Neisser & Harsch (1992)

The morning after the explosion of space-shuttle Challenger (January 1996), 106 students were given a questionnaire. Among the questions asked were how they heard the news, where they were, what they were doing, who tole them, and what time it occurred. Thirty-two month later the participants were asked to complete the questionnaire again to compare the results. The finding showed that memories of these people were not accurate. Of 220 facts from the original questionnaire, 150 were wrong in the second questionnaire. Participants on the other hand weren’t aware of their performance and were highly confident in recalling the memory. The conclusion was that flashbulb memories are not accurate as people’s confidence in their memories are different.

Explain the study – Talarico & Rubin (2003)

The experiment gave 52 students a questionnaire about their memory of September 11 and an ordinary event of their preceding few days. Students were then divided into three groups each group returning for follow-up questionnaire session after different amount of time: 7, 42, 224 days. In the follow-up session, they were asked the same question about their memories about both ordinary event and flashbulb memory of September 11. The number of details remembered about September 11 and ordinary event were indistinguishable. Most memories were consistent and over time, details declined but there was no difference in ordinary event and September 11. Inconsistent details increased but the difference was the confidence and vividness. Students were more likely to believe their memories of September 11 were accurate than their ordinary memories as they reported that ordinary memories were becoming less vivid and reliable. So, when accuracy of memories is checked, flashbulb memories are not different from other memories.

Seneca and Lazarus

Roman philosopher Lucious Annaeus Seneca was the most famous philospher of his days and he served as the tutor of Emperor Nero.

Articles about Emotion

    I chose the article: Perception of Facial Expressions Differs Across Cultures. This article was basically about the new research published by the American Psychological Association which shows that different culture think about facial expression in different ways to certain degrees. It compared the East Asians and Western Caucasians through statistical image processing techniques and aimed to challenge the theory that facial expressions are innate with evolutionary origins. Fifteen Chinese people and Caucasians living in Glasgow attended the experiment. The study found out that Chinese people relied on the eyes while Caucasians relied on eyebrows and mouth. 


    I chose this article because I also observed that people from different cultures have different way of expression and these distinctions can lead to misunderstanding among these people from different cultures. I thought this article was most easy to understand and connect to because if you live abroad you can easily spot out that such expressions don't unite together for many different cultures.


    This article mentioned that some prior research supported the theory of evolution that "facial expressions are hard-wired human behavior with evolutionary origins, so facial expressions wouldn't differ across cultures". 

Difference in Emotion

Gender

One study asked men and women to say few sentences such as “My dog died today”. Women read this sentence making droopy and gloomy faces and many of their faces were expressionless to indicate pain. However, men showed more resentment and anguish than sadness or pain when they read the sentence. So, it was concluded that men are either poor emotion encoders or have difficulty displaying emotions. Also, from this experiment, it demonstrated that women are more expressive than men.


Researchers at Wake Forest University reported that although men show qualities of being strong and powerful than women, they do face ups and downs in their emotions. Though women share their problems with friends and others, men don’t easily express their emotions with others and keep their emotions to themselves. One researcher, Professor Robin Simon further stated that both men and women express their emotion in different ways.

Culture

Study conducted by psychologist David Matsumoto of San Francisco State University concluded that Russians control their expression of emotion such as smiling, much more than Americans do. They study show the nature of collectivist societies: where people are more group-oriented, they tend to neutralize these expressions, especially in public. However, people of individualist societies like America, they smile, promoting more openness in general.

EMOTION

Emotion is a powerful force on human behavior. Emotions are complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological changes that influence thought and behavior. Emotions signal change in environment, change within a person or both. Emotions are different from moods and personalities. Emotion gets attention and demands a response.

In the course of evolution, human developed rich emotional system. From evolutionary point, emotions are agents of change and reaction. It also serves to maintain social bonds.

Psychologists think that humans are equipped with set of predictable responses to certain situations. These are called basic emotions: anger, fear, surprise, disgust, joy and sadness.

James-Lange theory of emotion suggest that emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions to events. When one sees external stimulus that leads to physiological reaction, emotion reaction is dependent upon hos one interpret those physical reactions. So, this theory states that one will interpret one’s physical reactions and conclude their emotion.
Canon-Bard theory of emotion suggest that one feel emotions and experience physiological reactions simultaneously. Emotions result when thalamus sends a message to the brain in response to stimulus, resulting in physiological reaction.
Schachter-Singer theory is also known as two-factor theory of emotion which is an example of cognitive theory of emotion. It suggests that physiological arousal occurs first and one must identify the reason behind this arousal in order to experience and label it as an emotion.

Emotions helped humans to survive. It is necessary in order to react quickly to stimuli. Humans developed emotions because it could create quick response to danger. Being self-conscious, it makes human increasingly invested and crafty in needs for survival. Human also developed more complex rational system where they imagine past and future selves to reason about old and future.

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease attacks the brain with gradual memory loss and difficulties with language and emotions. About 5-6% of US population has AD or related dementia (4 million people). AD ranks fourth in the cause of death among adults as about 100,000 people die per year as a result. It is a progressive disease of the brain which cause thinking and memory to malfunction. It is the most common form of dementia which symptoms are loss of memory, judgment and reasoning and changes in mood, behavior and communication. The basic symptom of AD is memory loss, especially of recent and new information. Alzheimer’s disease was identified by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1906 who described the two hallmarks of the disease : “plaques” and “tangles”. He also found out that when brain cell degenerate and die, the some regions of the brain shrink. AD affects different areas of the brain causing various abilities to shut down. Plaques are composed of protein called beta-amyloid. Proteins are vital in body but as one age, there are too much formation of these molecules that accumulate in the brain. Plaques cause nerve deaths. Hippocampus and medial temporal lobe in the brain are first to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease. 

The video, “The Forgetting”, explained the realistic social affects of the Alzheimer’s Disease. There were few clips of different people who had Alzheimer’s Disease. I could see the suffering of the patient and the loved ones who had to watch their friend or family slowly die. It’s very depressing because the loved ones not only have to watch the patient die but gradually lose their everyday life abilities. They also have to watch them forget and lose themselves. I was sad after watching the video because memory loss didn’t only affect the person with AD but friends and families around them. The person can also not be able to recognize friends or families. Personality change as one lose their identity. This was the saddest part because losing what you are is tragic.

The Case of H.M.

"Everyday is alone by itself" - H.M.

Henry Gustav Molaison, known by the initial H.M., was an American memory disorder patient who was widely studied as he played a vital role in development of theories of link between brain function and memory, and cognitive neuropsychology. He was born on February 26, 1926 and suffered from epilepsy caused by bicycle accident at age of 9. He suffered seizures for several years and finally was sent to Hartford Hospital for treatment. As a result, he lost approximately two-thirds of his hippocampus (two parts of the lower brain), parahippocampal gyrus and amygdale. The surgery was successful in controlling the seizures but H.M suffered severe amnesia; he could not commit new events to long-term memory. He could no longer remember anything for more than few minutes though he could still remember events that happened more than 2 years before the surgery. New experiences were quickly forgotten though he could remember a set of numbers or fact for short while.

The case of H.M. provided about memory impairment and amnesia, and allowed for better understanding of how some areas of brain may be linked to specific processes in memory formation. Problem with H.M wasn’t long-term memory or short-term memory. His personality, IQ and knowledge of the world were intact but the problem was that he lost the ability to convert short-term memories into long-term memories, known as anterograde amnesia (inability to learn new information).

Based on H.M.’s memory loss, scientists formed some hypotheses about memory formation.

1)     Short-term memories are biologically different from long-term memories because they don’t require hippocampus for formation

2)     Long-term memories are stored throughout the brain, but hippocampus is necessary for it to reach long-term storage. Once it is stored, hippocampus sis no longer required. So, hippocampus is not needed for memory maintenance or retrieval after formation.

These hypotheses explain why H.M. could remember events before surgery but not store any new memories after. However, scientists could spot that Henry could perform skill learning by unconscious memory (procedural memory). For H.M., though he couldn’t remember learning such skills, he showed some degree of improvement which means skill learning doesn’t require hippocampus. 

Schema Theory

According to George Santayana, “Memory itself is an internal rumor”. This quote means that memory is malleable as it can be easily adjusted, changed, and distorted. As time goes by, memory might fade away from its fundamental clarity. Cases like Bartlett 1932, Loftus and Palmer 1974, French and Richards 1993 and Ronald Cotton explain schema theory and its assistance and obstacles as to recall memory.

Memory plays a vital role in schema theory. Schema is an organized pattern of thought or behavior. It consists of structured cluster of pre-conceived ideas. It represents some aspect of the world and influence memory as people are more likely to notice things that fit into the schema. So, schema is open to distortion because as information contradicts the schema, it will be perceived as exception. It influence people’s perception in a situation and may stay unchanged. Schema theory emphasizes the fact that memory is influenced by already known facts. Pre-existing information of episodic memory and facts of semantic memory alter memory. 

Experiment of Bartlett involved participants being asked to recall a story called “The War of the Ghosts”. Some participants left out some details and showed some tendency to modify the story to fit their own sense. During recalling of the story, distortion of memory of the story occurred and it became clear that the participants used schema theory to interpret the story. It also became clear that participants tend to throw away details in order to make sense of the information. The conclusion of this experiment sure did explain the schema theory because of its demonstration of human memory that memory can reconstruct following the schema. Bartlett concluded that people follow schema theory or unconscious mental structure that represents one’s general information and through that, memory is influenced.

The experiment of French and Richards directly showed the influence of schemata on memory retrieval. Overview of the experiment is that 3 kinds of participants were shown a clock with roman numeric symbols and the number four was represented with IIII, not IV. They were asked to draw this clock and the conclusion was that part of participants wrote IV whereas the other part wrote IIII just as the clock showed. So, this experiment proved to French and Richards that due to schemata knowledge of roman numerals of the participants, it affected the memory retrieval of the participants.

Loftus and Palmer experiment was to test if language used in eyewitness testimony can affect memory. The experiment consisted of participants who were asked to estimate the speed of car using different forms of questions. They changed the verb in each questions such as smashed, bumped, hit, collided and contacted. They concluded that memory is easily distorted by different techniques of questioning. Information can blend causing inaccurate recall of memory. 

Furthermore, case of Ronald Cotton showed how memory can change and adjust according to the situation. Jennifer Thompson, who have been raped, claimed that Ronald Cotton was her raper but it was found out that she was wrong. Though twice she has stated that Ronald Cotton was the attacker, it wasn't true because her memory adjusted in a way that in her memory, Cotton was her attacker, no one else. Her memory through eyewitness testimony was shown to be erroneous. 

To conclude, memory is malleable, as schema theory both helps and hinders the accurate recall of memory. Based on one’s pre-conceived information based one some situation can affect one’s memory either as an advantage or disadvantage. It might allow one to possess the memory but also to change it extensively.

Review on Case of Ronald Cotton

In 1984, two sets of crimes occurred when a person broke into an apartment, destroyed phone wires, raped a woman and stole her money and belongings. One victim was Jennifer Thompson, who claims that during the attack she studied the attacker’s face to identify him if she survived the attack. In the investigation, Jennifer was certain and chose Ronald Cotton as her attacker. Ronald Cotton was arrested for the rapes and burglary in January 1985. The court sentenced him to life and 54 years.
His family members supported Cotton’s alibi but the jury couldn’t hear evidence that the second victim failed to pick Cotton out of either a photo or police lineup. So, Ronald Cotton was arrested for photo identification and police lineup identification made by one victim and the matching of rubber from Cotton’s shoes to rubber found at one crime scene.
In November 1987, Cotton was retried for both rapes but the second victim decided that he was the attacker. Before the trial, a man in prison called Bobby Poole claimed that he was the one who committed Cotton’s crimes, the court refused to allow this information into trial.
DNA testing proved that sample from one of the victim’s DNA didn’t match to Cotton. So, this showed the court that the attacker was not Ronald Cotton but Bobby Poole who had earlier confessed to the crime. Cotton was officially free from all charges on June 30, 1995.

"I was certain, but I was dead wrong" - Jennifer Thompson

False memory of Jennifer Thompson can be said that her memory of the attacker, Bobby Poole wasn’t reliable to be used as evidence. When Jennifer Thompson saw the photos that the police provided, Thompson probably didn’t have certain idea who her attacker was. She was filled with anger and desire to find her attacker and when she saw Ronald Cotton, she picked him because his facial features were similar to that of Bobby Poole. From this, her memory of attacker modified and adjusted to the picture of Ronald Cotton. When she saw the physical lineup, she picked Ronald Cotton again because by then her memory allowed her to be certainly sure that her attacker was Cotton.
This can be understood because identifying people from other race, ethnicity and nationality is a challenge to people because they are not accustomed to other faces.

Since this occurrence, Jennifer Thompson worked for eyewitness testimony reform because she is now aware that memory can be changed, modified, matched and adjusted. As it is malleable, memories become unclear and vague over time and it can change according to new information and experiences, so eyewitness testimony is not the best evidence that the court could use. So, my conclusion is that this kind of evidence is not useful, reliable, and trustworthy. The way it is used should change, for example, the witness don’t have to have a view of the pictures all at once but shown a picture one by one so that they just say “yes” or “no”. This way, the memory of the witness wouldn't be affected; it will stay neutral.