E-ISSN : 2733-4538
The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptual priming effect using the analogue trauma paradigm. This study also aimed to determine whether anxiety responses in individuals experiencing analogue trauma were triggered by stimuli specific to trauma or general threats. A total of 103 university students with a score of 10 or lower on the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and a score of 23 or lower on the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were included. Participants viewed a distressing film as an analogue for a traumatic event, after which they completed a perceptual identification task using words or pictures. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: First, the response rates were significantly faster to traumarelated stimuli than to general threat stimuli. Second, unlike the words-task, the response rates were significantly faster to trauma-related stimuli than to general threat stimuli in the pictures-task. To sum up, this study demonstrated that trauma survivors showed perceptual priming of traumatic stimuli when exposed to perceptual cues related to trauma. The present findings suggest that interventions for individuals who experience posttraumatic stress symptoms should be aimed at reconstructing perceptual information about trauma-related stimuli. Finally, the limitations of this study were discussed along with suggestions for further research.
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