The performance of post-traumatic stress disorder subjects in verbal and visual false memory tasks

The current study investigated verbal and visual false memories among post-traumatic stress disorder sufferers. This causal-comparative study recruited 20 patients suffering from PTSD according to the DSMIV-TR criteria، and 20 non-PTSD subjects who involved in the same trauma of PTSD as well as 20 normal subjects who were matched for age، sex، and socio-economic status. The instruments included Beck Depression Inventory، Beck Anxiety Inventory، Impact of Event Scale، WIAS (short version)، plus the Visual and Verbal False Memory Tasks prepared according to Deese-Roediger- McDermott’s (DRM) paradigm. Obtained data were analyzed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey’s post-hoc test. Our findings indicated that PTSD patients produced more false memories (both verbal and visual) than non-PTSD and healthy control subjects in both tasks. Such findings are interpretable within the framework of the cognitive theories of PTSD and other memory deficits of PTSD patients.