Ambiguity effect in working memory capacity and reaction time in PTSD

People with post-traumatic stress disorder suffer from different cognitive and emotional problems. Meta analyses studies in investigating PTSD cognitive functions has been revealed that working memory and speed processing are two vital components which can explain PTSD’s cognitive dysfunctions. In this study working memory capacity and speed processing investigated via an emotional working memory capacity task.

a total number of 50 participants (20 PTSD, 15 Non-PTSD, 15 healthy control) from road traffic accident recruited via social media advertisements. All participants screened based on SCID and then invited for the working memory and speed processing assessment session. In this study, IES-R, HSCL and emotional working memory capacity task has been used.

Mixed ANOVA repeated measure has shown that, speed processing in the PTSD group is significantly lower than Non-PTSD group. Also person correlation has revealed that in the PTSD group reaction time in correct response trials with trauma related distractors has a negative correlation with avoidance and hyperarousal symptoms and also there is a significant negative correlation between reaction time in correct responses in trials with white noise distractor and intrusion related symptoms in PTSD group.

it seems that exposing with vague distractors (white noise) can due to more intrusion, and less cognitive efficacy and it need more investigation in the future studies.