Date Thesis Awarded

5-2010

Access Type

Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only

Degree Name

Bachelors of Arts (BA)

Department

Psychology

Advisor

Chris Ball

Committee Members

Glenn Shean

Danielle Currier

Abstract

Memory intrusions, a type of involuntary memory, are experienced by people on a daily basis yet are an under-researched phenomenon in psychology. This study examined how to better describe, manipulate, and predict memory intrusions. Participants (n=47) were tested using the stressful film paradigm to elicit memory intrusions, which were recorded over the following week. Three individual difference measures, working memory, physiological arousal, and anxiety sensitivity, were utilized for comparative analysis. The study was unable to manipulate memory intrusions with visuospatial or eye movement task conditions. Memory intrusion incidence was found to be correlated with anxiety sensitivity cognitive concerns and peaks in heart rate while no correlation with working memory was found. These results add to the current knowledge about memory intrusions phenomenology and correlates. Results also emphasize the need for future research on manipulating memory intrusions and curvilinear relationships between memory intrusion occurrence and both anxiety sensitivity and physiological arousal.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Comments

Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.

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