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Attitudes About Memory Dampening Drugs Depend on Context and Country
Abstract
When people take drugs such as propranolol in response to trauma, it may dampen their bad memories – tempering recall of a traumatic event. We examined people's attitudes toward these drugs. Americans and New Zealanders read about a hypothetical assault inserting themselves into a scenario as a victim attacked while serving on a peace keeping mission (soldier role) or while walking home from a job as a restaurant manager (civilian role). Then they told us whether they should receive a memory dampening drug, and whether they would want to take a memory dampening drug. Subjects were negatively disposed towards a memory dampening drug, but Americans who adopted the soldier role were more in favor of having access to the drug than those who adopted the civilian role. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to an increasing trend in ‘cosmetic neurology’, medicating with the goal of enhancement, rather than therapy. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... But it turns out that logic does not reflect what people say they would do: Negative valence is not the sole predictor of what people would choose to erase. In one study, people imagined being the victims of a vicious assault, and then were asked how willing they would be to take a memory-dampening drug to lessen the emotions associated with the event (Newman et al., 2011). There was only modest desire to take the drugand among those who had experienced a traumatic event, there was even less. ...
... Newman and colleagues speculated the results might have reflected a general discomfort towards tinkering with our memories, because of the functions they might serve for identity and self-understanding. That is, changing or even erasing one's memories could be regarded as a fundamental threat to identity, because it may change who we are (James, 1890(James, /1950Newman et al., 2011;Wilson & Ross, 2003). This speculation accords with theory connecting autobiographical memory and the self (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000;Prebble et al., 2013). ...
... Most people would want to hold on toperhaps even savourmemories of something that turned our well, even if it started out terribly. Both possibilities are in line with Newman et al.'s (2011) finding that those with a history of traumatic experiences were even less inclined to take the memorydampening drug. That is, to avoid the emotional aftereffects of trauma, you would presumably also forget what good came out of it. ...
Autobiographical remembering is a dynamic process in which narrators construct their life story from single memories. What is included in or deleted from the life story depends on many factors. Here, we examined the functions, emotions and correspondence with the life script for the memories that people desire to save or erase from their past. We asked people to generate either the two memories they were most likely to save and erase or the two memories they regarded as their most positive and negative memories. Then everyone rated those memories on function, emotion and correspondence with the life script. Overall, we found save and erase memories corresponded less with the life script relative to most positive and most negative memories though they were similarly emotionally intense. Additionally, erase memories were more associated with shame and less with social functions than most negative memories, whereas most negative memories to a higher degree involved the death of significant others, albeit being similarly traumatic. These findings have important implications for theory about autobiographical memory, and possible clinical relevance.
... Indeed, dampening memories of criminal acts could be considered tantamount to contaminating legal evidence, and legal scholars have debated whether people might therefore have a moral duty to remember traumatic events (Kolber, 2006). In one study, researchers examined people's attitudes toward memory-dampening drugs and found that although most (54%) claimed they would want the choice of receiving such a drug if they were a victim of a violent crime, relatively few (18%) would actually take it (Newman, Berkowitz, Nelson, Garry, and Loftus, 2011). These findings might lead us to expect that people would feel no more easy about the notion of altering memories via FMT. ...
... So what are people's attitudes on the ethics of FMT? At present , there is no systematic evidence of public views, akin to those captured by Newman et al. (2011), about this issue. People's responses to moral dilemmas often involve a utilitarian calculation of the 'greater good', opting for whichever course of action seems to evoke least harm (Baron, 1998; Gleichgerrcht and Young, 2013). ...
... In particular, these responses illustrate the value that people place upon authentic recollection, that is, remembering in ways that are 'true to ourselves' and that afford control over our own identities (Erler, 2011). In this respect, our findings are compatible with those of Newman et al. (2011), in showing that people typically resist the notion of tampering with memories, even when doing so could serve to benefit the individual. However, like in Newman et al.'s study, the present data also suggest that people do not always place memory authenticity above all other considerations. ...
Researchers have proposed that planting false memories could have positive behavioral consequences. The idea of deceptively planting 'beneficial' false memories outside of the laboratory raises important ethical questions, but how might the general public appraise this moral dilemma? In two studies, participants from the USA and UK read about a fictional 'false-memory therapy' that led people to adopt healthy behaviors. Participants then reported their attitudes toward the acceptability of this therapy , via scale-rating (both studies) and open-text (study 2) responses. The data revealed highly divergent responses to this contentious issue, ranging from abject horror to unqualified enthusiasm. Moreover, the responses shed light on conditions that participants believed would make the therapy less or more ethical. Whether or not deceptively planting memories outside the lab could ever be justifiable, these studies add valuable evidence to scientific and societal debates on neuroethics, whose relevance to memory science is increasingly acute.
... Yet, the results from Rasmussen and Berntsen (2009a) do not imply that negative memories cannot be important to someone's identity. For example, Newman et al. (2011) investigated whether participants would decide to take a memory pill after reading two vignettes. One vignette described the effect of the memory pill as a way to reduce the likelihood of developing PTSD by minimizing the intensity of emotions and reducing factual memory recall after experiencing a traumatic event. ...
... Participants indicated that after experiencing such an event, although they would like to be given the option to take the pill (54%), the majority of them (82%) expressed that they would not take the pill to dampen the memory. Newman et al. (2011) believed that although the memories were unpleasant, people do not want to change them because it would alter who they are. ...
In this advanced review, the development of the three most commonly used functions of autobiographical memory—directing behavior, social bonding, and self‐continuity—and the support they have received in the literature are discussed. Support for this tripartite model often comes from correlational studies that use self‐report measures, but participants in these studies may not be aware that they retrieved autobiographical memories to fulfill certain goals. Not only is more experimental research needed to confirm the findings from correlational studies, this kind of research needs to be more rigorous. Moreover, the functions of the tripartite model may not be the only autobiographical memory functions that can be distinguished. For example, there is already substantial support for the emotion‐regulation function. Although memories can be used for multiple functions, patterns between aspects of the event (e.g., emotional valence) or memory (e.g., specificity) and their functionality have been found. In addition, individual differences (e.g., cultural background, depression symptoms) and situational factors (e.g., is there a goal that needs to be fulfilled) may regulate the functional deployment of autobiographical memories. Future research should therefore extend its focus on the conditions in which these functions can be observed. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Memory Grandmother reminisces with her grandson.
... Interestingly, the limited research that has been done on perceptions of these memory-dampening drugs suggests that the public is reluctant to consider using them. For example, one study by Newman, Berkowitz, Nelson, Garry, and Loftus (2011) provided Americans and New Zealanders with a series of hypothetical scenarios where a memory-dampening drug could be used. Participants were asked to imagine they were either a restaurant manager or a soldier on a peace-keeping mission and were the victim of a violent assault. ...
... In investigating people's desire to preserve their memories, these experiments also contribute to our understanding of people's attitudes towards their memories. Our results are consistent with other work suggesting people often value their negative memoriespeople regularly keep photos and mementos that bring to mind negative experiences, and report they would not take a drug that would dampen a negative memory, even if doing so might reduce the likelihood of developing PTSD (Newman et al., 2011;Petrelli & Whittaker, 2010) . Nonetheless, some of our subjects reported they would want to rid themselves of negative memoriesespecially memories that were highly maladaptive. ...
Autobiographical memories are said to serve at least three functions: they direct people’s behaviour, inform their identity, and facilitate social bonding and communication. But much of the research on these three functions has not distinguished between memories that serve functions in adaptive ways from those that serve functions in maladaptive ways. Across two experiments, we asked subjects to provide either positive or negative memories. Then, to operationalise adaptive and maladaptive functions, we asked subjects to rate the extent to which those memories serve directive, self, and social functions in ways that “help” and in ways that “hurt”. To investigate whether people believe the adaptive benefits of their memories outweigh any maladaptive effects, we also asked subjects how willing they would be to erase the memories if given the opportunity. We found that negative memories served functions in both helpful and hurtful ways, whereas positive memories were primarily helpful. Furthermore, the more helpful a memory was, the more reluctant subjects were to erase it. Conversely, the more hurtful a memory was, the more willing subjects were to erase it. These results suggest it is important to distinguish between adaptive and maladaptive functions when investigating the functions of autobiographical memory.
... Nevertheless, the idea that we lean on cheap strategies seems improbable when we consider the great importance people place on autobiographical memories that provide an authentic and stable sense of self, and when we consider the importance of authenticity to people's general wellbeing (Bluck & Alea, 2008; Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997; Sutin & Robins, 2008). For example, most people say they would not want a drug to dampen the emotional intensity of a traumatic memory, nor a therapy that would provide them with false yet " beneficial " memories (Nash, Berkowitz, & Roche, under review; Newman, Berkowitz, Nelson, Garry, & Loftus, 2011). One reason many people give for opposing these treatments is a concern that artificially distorted memories would lead their thoughts and personalities to be inauthentic. ...
People depend on various sources of information when trying to verify their autobiographical memories. Yet recent research shows that people prefer to use cheap-and-easy verification strategies, even when these strategies are not reliable. We examined the robustness of this cheap strategy bias, with scenarios designed to encourage greater emphasis on source reliability. In three experiments, subjects described real (Experiments 1 and 2) or hypothetical (Experiment 3) autobiographical events, and proposed strategies they might use to verify their memories of those events. Subjects also rated the reliability, cost, and the likelihood that they would use each strategy. In line with previous work, we found that the preference for cheap information held when people described how they would verify childhood or recent memories (Experiment 1); personally-important or trivial memories (Experiment 2), and even when the consequences of relying on incorrect information could be significant (Experiment 3). Taken together, our findings fit with an account of source monitoring in which the tendency to trust one’s own autobiographical memories can discourage people from systematically testing or accepting strong disconfirmatory evidence.
... In one study people imagined experiencing a traumatic event and considered whether they would want to take a memory dampening drug to help guard against the risk of developing PTSD. Although people wanted the choice to take the drug, most said they would not take it themselves(Newman, Berkowitz, Nelson, Garry, & Loftus, 2011). Legal scholars have also expressed concerns about deleting or dampening memory and raised important ethical issues-should a victim of a serious assault have the right to be free from traumatic memory, or do they have a societal obligation to remember the crime so that perpetrators can be identified later(Kolber, 2006)? ...
Of all the higher mental processes, memory ranks up there as one of the most crucial. It helps us do rudimentary tasks such as turning on the toaster in the morning, grinding our coffee and meeting a friend at the right time. But it also helps us do more sophisticated things too: like solving complex problems, feeling love, reminiscing with family and telling stories about our lives. Without memory, we wouldn’t be able to do these things very well, if at all.
Our memories of past experiences influence the way that we think about ourselves and our relationships with others. But, as a growing body of empirical research has demonstrated, these memories are often biased and distorted. We sometimes play an active role in this process though our attempts at interpreting the past and ‘uncovering’ its true meaning; friends, lovers, and therapists often encourage us to do just this. In what follows, I argue that our memories are not always free from moral evaluation; for how we remember the past can enhance or impair our ability to relate to others in morally appropriate ways. In showing that an ethics of memory is possible, I look at the various forms of indirect control that we can exercise over our memories. While we cannot remember at will, we can influence our memories by using external aids, guarding against biases, and revising the interpretations that we develop of our past experiences.
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a “young” disorder formally recognized in the early 1980s, although the symptoms have been noted for centuries particularly in relation to military conflicts. PTSD may develop after a serious traumatic experience that induces feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror. It is currently characterized by three key classes of symptoms which must cause clinically significant distress or impairment of functioning: (1) persistent and distressing re-experiencing of the trauma; (2) persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness; and (3) persistent symptoms of hyper-arousal. One of the possible symptoms within the second class is difficulty in remembering an important aspect of the traumatic event.
PTSD is not an uncommon condition, with an estimated lifetime prevalence of about 7-9% based on studies conducted in the United States and Canada, with women at higher risk than men. While not everyone who experiences a significant trauma will go on to develop PTSD, about a third will do so. Sexual assault, along with other forms of assaultive violence, pose a comparatively high risk of PTSD.
The ability to mentally simulate hypothetical scenarios is a rapidly growing area of research in both psychology and neuroscience. Episodic future thought, or the ability to simulate specific personal episodes that may potentially occur in the future, represents one facet of this general capacity that continues to garner a considerable amount of interest. The purpose of this article is to elucidate current knowledge and identify a number of unresolved issues regarding this specific mental ability. In particular, this article focuses on recent research findings from neuroimaging, neuropsychology, and clinical psychology that have demonstrated a close relation between episodic future thought and the ability to remember personal episodes from one's past. On the other hand, considerations of the role of abstracted (semantic) representations in episodic future thought have been noticeably absent in the literature. The final section of this article proposes that both episodic and semantic memory play an important role in the construction of episodic future thoughts and that their interaction in this process may be determined by the relative accessibility of information in memory.
© The Author(s) 2010.
Only the United States and New Zealand allow advertising of prescription drugs directed at patients. US spending on such advertising grew rapidly during the 1990s, reaching $2.47bn (£1650m) in 2000.1 The dramatic increase in investment by the US pharmaceutical industry is evidence of an expected effect on sales. On the rationale that such advertising provides important information to consumers and patients who may benefit from advertised products, pharmaceutical manufacturers have campaigned in the European Union2 and Canada3 for the relaxing of current regulatory restrictions. We examined the relation between direct to consumer advertising and patients' requests for prescriptions and the relation between patients' requests and prescribing decisions.View this table:View PopupView InlineDetails from questionnaires given to patients and physicians regarding requests for prescription drugs
Participants, methods, and results
We carried out a cross sectional survey of a cluster sample of primary care patients in Sacramento, California, from March to June 2001 and in Vancouver, British Columbia, from June to August 2000. We used questionnaires to determine the frequency of patients' requests for prescriptions and of prescriptions resulting from requests. Seventy eight physicians participated in the study, 40 in Vancouver (all family physicians) and 38 in Sacramento (14 general internists and 24 family physicians).
Patients were all 18 years and over, spoke English, and provided informed consent. The unit of analysis was a matched set of patient-physician questionnaires covering a single consultation. We estimated adjusted odds ratios using a generalised estimation equation. We classified drugs as advertised to consumers if they were among the 50 drugs with the highest US advertising budgets4 or were described as advertised to consumers in Canadian media reports5 in 1999-2000, or both.
Sixty one per cent of patients attending physicians' offices on preset study days participated (1431 total; 683 in Sacramento and 748 in Vancouver). Patients in the two cities had similar demographic characteristics, socioeconomic status, and attitudes toward the doctor-patient relationship. In both settings, income was higher than average, and 80% were of European descent.
Patients requested prescriptions in 12% of surveyed visits. Of these requests, 42% were for products advertised to consumers. The table provides details of factors associated with requests. Physicians prescribed the requested drugs to 9% (128) of patients and requested advertised drugs to 4% (55) of patients. The prescribing rate was similar for advertised and non-advertised drugs (about 74%).
After we controlled for health status, demographics, socioeconomic status, drug payment, and physicians' sex, specialty, and years of practice we examined the influence of requests on the probability that a patient received a new prescription. Patients who requested a prescription (for advertised and non-advertised drugs) were more likely to receive one (139/175 v 329/1256, odds ratio 8.7, 95% confidence interval 5.4 to 14.2).
We asked physicians: “If you were treating another similar patient with the same condition, would you prescribe this drug?” An answer of “very likely” indicated confidence in choice and “possibly” or “unlikely” indicated some degree of ambivalence. Physicians were ambivalent about the choice of treatment in around 40% of cases when patients requested drugs (advertised and non-advertised, 62/143 v 62/500, 5.4, 3.5 to 8.5) and about half the cases when patients had requested advertised drugs (30/60 v 62/500, 7.1, 4.0 to 12.6) compared with 12% for drugs not requested by patients.
Comment
Patients' requests for medicines are a powerful driver of prescribing decisions. In most cases physicians prescribed requested medicines but were often ambivalent about the choice of treatment. If physicians prescribe requested drugs despite personal reservations, sales may increase but appropriateness of prescribing may suffer. Concerns about the value of opening up the regulatory environment to permit direct to consumer advertising in the EU and Canada seem well justified.
Acknowledgments
We thank Robert Woollard for assistance with recruitment of physicians in Vancouver and the physician questionnaire; the research assistants who administered the survey: Amit Ahuja, Danielle Lapointe, Michael Tsang, Christine Choi, Vanphen Chanthalangsy, Min H Ku, Laura Shively, Erica Stranger, Nicollet Knopf, Bryan Faulstich, Karry Nagai, and Meridith Cobari; Sara Lu Vorhes and Valerie Olson for research coordination in Sacramento; and Nhue L Do and Alicia Mintzes for data entry.
Members of a multidisciplinary expert advisory panel assisted with the study design: Wendy Armstrong, Alan Cassels, Jean-Pierre Gregoire, Matthew Hollon, Patricia Kaufert, Joel Lexchin, Bob Nakagawa, Nancy Ostrove, Richard Pollay, and Ingrid Sketris.We also thank all of the physicians and patients who participated in the survey.
Contributors: BM and MLB contributed to all aspects of study planning, design, analysis, and reporting. RLK, AK, and KB contributed to interpretation of the data, review of drafts the manuscript and, to a lesser extent, study planning, questionnaire design, and data collection. JL and RGE contributed to study design, interpretation, and review of the manuscript. RP contributed to US components of study design and organised and supervised data collection and entry in Sacramento. SAM contributed to the analysis plan and interpretation and to subsequent discusssion of these components of the manuscript. BM and MLB are guarantors.
Footnotes
Funding Health Transition Fund, Health Canada. Barbara Mintzes also received a PhD training fellowship for this research from the National Health Research and Development Programme (NHRDP) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Competing interests None declared.
Like many journals the BMJ derives income from pharmaceutical advertising. Direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs competes with this channel.References1.↵IMS Health.US leading products by DTC spend. January 2000-December 2000. Fairfield, CT: IMS Health,2001. (accessed 19 December 2001).2.↵Watson R.EC moves towards “direct to consumer” advertising.BMJ2001;323: 184.OpenUrlFREE Full Text3.↵Therapeutic Products Programme.Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Discussion document. Ottawa: Health Canada,1999.4.↵Findlay S.Prescription drugs and mass media marketing. Research brief.Washington, DC: National Institute of Health Care Management,2000.(accessed 15 March 2001).5.↵Silversides A.Direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads getting bolder.Can Med Assoc J2001;165: 462.OpenUrlFREE Full Text
Emotional arousal has been shown to enhance memory, an effect that is blocked by propranolol suggesting that the noradrenergic system is important in the mechanism action. Because PTSD has as prominent features heightened arousal and distressing memories, the current study was undertaken to examine whether PTSD subjects differed from controls in emotional enhancement of memory. Seventeen subjects with PTSD and 21 controls received either placebo or 40 mg of propranolol prior to exposure to either an emotionally arousing or emotionally neutral, narrated slide story. Recall, measured 1 wk later, for the arousing story was enhanced and this effect was reduced by propranolol. PTSD and control subjects did not differ in the acquisition and retention of memories under emotionally arousing or emotionally neutral conditions, nor were differential effects of propranolol observed between the two groups.
This chapter outlines recent developments in the consumer psychology literature examining people's health-related risk perceptions. We first define risk, and discuss the importance of studying risk perceptions in the health domain. We integrate extant models proposed in social and health psychology and build a theoretical model for examining risk perceptions. We then describe the model in terms of the antecedents of health risk perceptions (e.g., motivational, cognitive, affective, contextual, and individual differences), their consequences (e.g., awareness and interest in the health hazard, trial and adoption of precautions or medical treatments, and subsequent behavior in terms of continued adoption or repetition, and word-of-mouth/recommendations of precautionary steps or treatments), and the factors that moderate the link between these two (e.g., financial, performance, psycho-social, and physiological risk). A primary contribution of our approach is to suggest that eliciting risk perceptions serves a persuasive role besides a measurement role, leading to the provocative question as to whether marketers should knowingly leverage their knowledge of how consumers assess risk to encourage behaviors leading to a healthier lifestyle. Implications for public policy makers, consumer welfare advocates, and commercial marketing companies are also discussed.
This study is concerned with the question whether extremely emotional experiences, such as being the victim of Nazi concentration camps, leave traces in memory that cannot be extinguished. Relevant data were obtained from testimony by 78 witnesses in a case against Marinus De Rijke, who was accused of Nazi crimes in Camp Erika in The Netherlands. The testimonies were collected in the periods 1943–1947 and 1984–1987. A comparison between these two periods reveals the amount of forgetting that occurred in 40 years. Results show that camp experiences were generally well-remembered, although specific but essential details were forgotten. Among these were forgetting being maltreated, forgetting names and appearance of the torturers, and forgetting being a witness to murder. Apparently intensity of experiences is not a sufficient safeguard against forgetting. This conclusion has consequences for the forensic use of testimony by witnesses who were victims of violent crimes.
The base-rate fallacy is people's tendency to ignore base rates in favor of, e.g., individuating information (when such is available), rather than integrate the two. This tendency has important implications for understanding judgment phenomena in many clinical, legal, and social-psychological settings. An explanation of this phenomenon is offered, according to which people order information by its perceived degree of relevance, and let high-relevance information dominate low-relevance information. Information is deemed more relevant when it relates more specifically to a judged target case. Specificity is achieved either by providing information on a smaller set than the overall population, of which the target case is a member, or when information can be coded, via causality, as information about the specific members of a given population. The base-rate fallacy is thus the result of pitting what seem to be merely coincidental, therefore low-relevance, base rates against more specific, or causal, information. A series of probabilistic inference problems is presented in which relevance was manipulated with the means described above, and the empirical results confirm the above account. In particular, base rates will be combined with other information when the two kinds of information are perceived as being equally relevant to the judged case.
Recent research on changing fears has examined targeting reconsolidation. During reconsolidation, stored information is rendered labile after being retrieved. Pharmacological manipulations at this stage result in an inability to retrieve the memories at later times, suggesting that they are erased or persistently inhibited. Unfortunately, the use of these pharmacological manipulations in humans can be problematic. Here we introduce a non-invasive technique to target the reconsolidation of fear memories in humans. We provide evidence that old fear memories can be updated with non-fearful information provided during the reconsolidation window. As a consequence, fear responses are no longer expressed, an effect that lasted at least a year and was selective only to reactivated memories without affecting others. These findings demonstrate the adaptive role of reconsolidation as a window of opportunity to rewrite emotional memories, and suggest a non-invasive technique that can be used safely in humans to prevent the return of fear.
Differences between positive and negative autobiographical memories are often explained with reference to hypothesized evolutionary functions. Generally, it has been proposed that autobiographical memory serves directive, self-, and social functions. However, the relationship between emotional valence and the three functions has never been studied. In Study 1, participants generated memories that mapped onto each of the three functions. Directive memories were dominated by negative emotion, whereas self- and social memories were dominated by positive emotion. In Study 2, participants generated their most positive and most negative memories, as well as their most frequent involuntary and most vivid flashbulb memories, and the three functions were measured through rating-scale questions. The directive function had the lowest ratings across all memory classes, but, consistent with the results of Study 1, positive memories were rated higher on the self- and social functions, whereas negative memories were rated higher on the directive function.
Four studies examined the willingness of young, healthy individuals to take drugs intended to enhance their own social, emotional, and cognitive traits. We found that people were much more reluctant to enhance traits believed to be more fundamental to self-identity (e.g., social comfort) than traits considered less fundamental to self-identity (e.g., concentration ability). Moral acceptability of a trait enhancement strongly predicted people's desire to legalize the enhancement but not their willingness to take the enhancement. Ad taglines that framed enhancements as enabling rather than enhancing the fundamental self increased people's interest in a fundamental trait enhancement and eliminated the preference for less fundamental over more fundamental trait enhancements. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
Survivors of the Holocaust are expected to be at risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but few empirical data are available. This study investigated PTSD symptoms in Holocaust survivors with well-documented exposure to trauma.
The German files of 124 Jewish Holocaust survivors who were judged to be free from bipolar affective disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and organic brain syndrome were selected from those of 145 applicants to West German compensation boards. The psychiatric assessments were reexamined for explicit descriptions of current PTSD symptoms according to the DSM-III-R diagnostic criteria. A subgroup of 20 Auschwitz survivors with tattooed identification numbers were also compared with the 45 survivors who had not been in concentration camps.
Sixty-three percent of the total sample had been detained in concentration camps, and an average of 78% of their first-degree relatives were reported killed in the Holocaust. Forty-six percent of the total sample met the DSM-III-R criteria for PTSD. The most common symptoms were sleep disturbance, recurrent nightmares, and intense distress over reminders. The tattooed Auschwitz survivors had significantly more symptoms and were three times more likely to meet diagnostic criteria for PTSD than the survivors who had not been in concentration camps.
The results suggest a greater risk of chronic PTSD in survivors who were exposed to atrocities. Most survivors had not received adequate psychiatric care.
Conventional wisdom and decades of psychological research have linked the provision of choice to increased levels of intrinsic motivation, greater persistence, better performance, and higher satisfaction. This investigation examined the relevance and limitations of these findings for cultures in which individuals possess more interdependent models of the self. In 2 studies, personal choice generally enhanced motivation more for American independent selves than for Asian interdependent selves. In addition, Anglo American children showed less intrinsic motivation when choices were made for them by others than when they made their own choices, whether the others were authority figures or peers. In contrast, Asian American children proved most intrinsically motivated when choices were made for them by trusted authority figures or peers. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
The memory consolidation hypothesis proposed 100 years ago by Müller and Pilzecker continues to guide memory research. The
hypothesis that new memories consolidate slowly over time has stimulated studies revealing the hormonal and neural influences
regulating memory consolidation, as well as molecular and cellular mechanisms. This review examines the progress made over
the century in understanding the time-dependent processes that create our lasting memories.
Current psychological theory and research affirm the positive affective and motivational consequences of having personal choice. These findings have led to the popular notion that the more choice, the better-that the human ability to manage, and the human desire for, choice is unlimited. Findings from 3 experimental studies starkly challenge this implicit assumption that having more choices is necessarily more intrinsically motivating than having fewer. These experiments, which were conducted in both field and laboratory settings, show that people are more likely to purchase gourmet jams or chocolates or to undertake optional class essay assignments when offered a limited array of 6 choices rather than a more extensive array of 24 or 30 choices. Moreover, participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections and wrote better essays when their original set of options had been limited. Implications for future research are discussed.
Supporting predictions from temporal self-appraisal theory, participants in 3 studies reported feeling farther from former selves and experiences with unfavorable implications for their current self-view than from equally distant selves and experiences with flattering implications. This distancing bias occurred when assignment to negative and positive pasts was random, for both achievement and social outcomes and for single episodes as well as longer term experiences. Consistent with a motivational interpretation, the distancing bias was stronger among high than low self-esteem participants and occurred for personal but not for acquaintances' past events. Frequency of rehearsal and ease of recall of past episodes also predicted feelings of distance, but these variables did not account for the Self-Esteem x Valence interaction on subjective distancing of personal events.
Autobiographical memory plays an important role in the construction of personal identity. We review evidence of the bi-directional link between memory and identity. Individuals' current self-views, beliefs, and goals influence their recollections and appraisals of former selves. In turn, people's current self-views are influenced by what they remember about their personal past, as well as how they recall earlier selves and episodes. People's reconstructed evaluations of memories, their perceived distance from past experiences, and the point of view of their recollections have implications for how the past affects the present. We focus on how people's constructions of themselves through time serve the function of creating a coherent--and largely favourable--view of their present selves and circumstances.
Supporting predictions from temporal self-appraisal theory, participants in 3 studies reported feeling farther from former selves and experiences with unfavorable implications for their current self-view than from equally distant selves and experiences with flattering implications. This distancing bias occurred when assignment to negative and positive pasts was random, for both achievement and social outcomes and for single episodes as well as longer term experiences. Consistent with a motivational interpretation, the distancing bias was stronger among high than low self-esteem participants and occurred for personal but not for acquaintances' past events. Frequency of rehearsal and ease of recall of past episodes also predicted feelings of distance, but these variables did not account for the Self-Esteem × Valence interaction on subjective distancing of personal events.
Many decisions are based on beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events such as the outcome of an election, the guilt of a defendant, or the future value of the dollar. Occasionally, beliefs concerning uncertain events are expressed in numerical form as odds or subjective probabilities. In general, the heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors. The subjective assessment of probability resembles the subjective assessment of physical quantities such as distance or size. These judgments are all based on data of limited validity, which are processed according to heuristic rules. However, the reliance on this rule leads to systematic errors in the estimation of distance. This chapter describes three heuristics that are employed in making judgments under uncertainty. The first is representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event belongs to a class or event. The second is the availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development, and the third is adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value is available.
Our contribution to this special issue focuses on the phenomenon of intrusive trauma memory. While intrusive trauma memories can undoubtedly cause impairment, we argue that they may exist for a potentially adaptive reason. Theory and experimental research on intrusion development are reviewed and possible functions of intrusive trauma memory are explored. These functions include aiding emotional processing, preventing future harm and protecting the coherence of the self. The issue of intrusive images in other disorders than posttraumatic stress disorder is briefly addressed. This review suggests that the study of function is important for a nuanced view on the modulation of intrusive trauma memory in both experimental psychopathology and clinical treatment.
Prior research has demonstrated that imagining hypothetical future events may render those events subjectively more likely. The suggestion has been made that this effect is due to the increased availability in memory of the events imagined. To test directly this explanation in a health context, the present study examined the effects of both ease and difficulty of imagining contracting a disease on subjects' beliefs that the event would occur. Subjects were asked to imagine contracting a disease described either as having certain easy-to-imagine symptoms or difficult-to-imagine symptoms. Following this, subjects rated their ease of imagination and estimated the likelihood of contracting the disease. The results revealed that judgments of ease or difficulty of imagination paralleled judgments of the likelihood of contracting the disease. Those subjects who rated the disease as easy-to-imagine judged the disease as more likely to occur, whereas those who experienced difficulty in imagining the disease rated it as less likely to occur. The results are interpreted in terms of the availability heuristic and give direct support for and extend this principle by showing that trying to imagine difficult-to-construct or cognitively inaccessible events reduces likelihood estimates. Implications for preventive health programs are discussed.
Substantial evidence from animal studies suggests that enhanced memory associated with emotional arousal results from an activation of beta-adrenergic stress hormone systems during and after an emotional experience. To examine this implication in human subjects, we investigated the effect of the beta-adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol hydrochloride on long-term memory for an emotionally arousing short story, or a closely matched but more emotionally neutral story. We report here that propranolol significantly impaired memory of the emotionally arousing story but did not affect memory of the emotionally neutral story. The impairing effect of propranolol on memory of the emotional story was not due either to reduced emotional responsiveness or to nonspecific sedative or attentional effects. The results support the hypothesis that enhanced memory associated with emotional experiences involves activation of the beta-adrenergic system.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, more than 9,000 counselors went to New York City to offer aid to rescue workers, families, and direct victims of the violence of September 11, 2001. These mental health professionals assumed that many New Yorkers were at high risk for developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and they hoped that their interventions would mitigate psychological distress and prevent the emergence of this syndrome. Typically developing in response to horrific, life-threatening events, such as combat, rape, and earthquakes, PTSD is characterized by reexperiencing symptoms (e.g., intrusive recollections of the trauma, nightmares), emotional numbing and avoidance of reminders of the trauma, and hyperarousal (e.g., exaggerated startle, difficulty sleeping). People vary widely in their vulnerability for developing PTSD in the wake of trauma. For example, higher cognitive ability and strong social support buffer people against PTSD, whereas a family or personal history of emotional disorder heightens risk, as does negative appraisal of one's stress reactions (e.g., as a sign of personal weakness) and dissociation during the trauma (e.g., feeling unreal or experiencing time slowing down). However, the vast majority of trauma survivors recover from initial posttrauma reactions without professional help. Accordingly, the efficacy of interventions designed to mitigate acute distress and prevent long-term psychopathology, such as PTSD, needs to be evaluated against the effects of natural recovery. The need for controlled evaluations of early interventions has only recently been widely acknowledged.
Psychological debriefing—the most widely used method—has undergone increasing empirical scrutiny, and the results have been disappointing. Although the majority of debriefed survivors describe the experience as helpful, there is no convincing evidence that debriefing reduces the incidence of PTSD, and some controlled studies suggest that it may impede natural recovery from trauma. Most studies show that individuals who receive debriefing fare no better than those who do not receive debriefing. Methodological limitations have complicated interpretation of the data, and an intense controversy has developed regarding how best to help people in the immediate wake of trauma.
Recent published recommendations suggest that individuals providing crisis intervention in the immediate aftermath of the event should carefully assess trauma survivors' needs and offer support as necessary, without forcing survivors to disclose their personal thoughts and feelings about the event. Providing information about the trauma and its consequences is also important. However, research evaluating the efficacy of such “psychological first aid” is needed.
Some researchers have developed early interventions to treat individuals who are already showing marked stress symptoms, and have tested methods of identifying those at risk for chronic PTSD. The single most important indicator of subsequent risk for chronic PTSD appears to be the severity or number of posttrauma symptoms from about 1 to 2 weeks after the event onward (provided that the event is over and that there is no ongoing threat).
Cognitive-behavioral treatments differ from crisis intervention (e.g., debriefing) in that they are delivered weeks or months after the trauma, and therefore constitute a form of psychotherapy, not immediate emotional first aid. Several controlled trials suggest that certain cognitive-behavioral therapy methods may reduce the incidence of PTSD among people exposed to traumatic events. These methods are more effective than either supportive counseling or no intervention.
In this monograph, we review risk factors for PTSD, research on psychological debriefing, recent recommendations for crisis intervention and the identification of individuals at risk of chronic PTSD, and research on early interventions based on cognitive-behavioral therapy. We close by placing the controversy regarding early aid for trauma survivors in its social, political, and economic context.
Self‐knowledge is based on several different forms of information, so distinct that each one essentially establishes a different ‘self. The ecological self is the self as directly perceived with respect to the immediate physical environment; the interpersonal self, also directly perceived, is established by species‐specific signals of emotional rapport and communication; the extended self is based on memory and anticipation; the private self appears when we discover that our conscious experiences are exclusively our own; the conceptual self or ‘self‐concept’ draws its meaning from a network of socially‐based assumptions and theories about human nature in general and ourselves in particular. Although these selves are rarely experienced as distinct (because they are held together by specific forms of stimulus information), they differ in their developmental histories, in the accuracy with which we can know them, in the pathologies to which they are subject, and generally in what they contribute to human experience.
Previous studies have shown that people who have not been victimized by negative life events tend to perceive themselves as less vulnerable than others to victimization. The present 2 studies examined the conditions under which Ss' judgments of others' vulnerability would differ from judgments of their own vulnerability. In Study 1, 101 undergraduates saw vague comparison targets (either the average person or the average college student) as more vulnerable than themselves to 10 negative events. In contrast, Ss perceived a specific target (their closest friend, sibling, or same-sex parent) as equally invulnerable as themselves. In Study 2, 190 Ss who were instructed to consider a vague, abstract target (either the average college student or one of their friends) made downward comparisons, choosing a real or hypothetical other who was especially vulnerable to a particular event. Ss who were instructed to consider a specific, concrete target (their closest friend) perceived no self–other differences in risk status. It is concluded that when given the opportunity, Ss actively engage in downward comparisons, thereby seeing themselves as relatively invulnerable. Whereas vague targets facilitate downward comparisons, specific targets make such comparisons more difficult. Both cognitive and motivational mechanisms underlying such downward comparisons are discussed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This article presents a problem-solving approach to judgment under uncertainty. According to this approach, the application of statistical rules and nonstatistical rules depends on the same general problem-solving factors. The experiments reported herein used base-rate problems to study four such factors: the prior and immediate activation of the rules, their relation to the goal, and their applicability to the givens of the problem. All of the experiments used purely statistical base rates and highly representative case information. Supporting the prior activation assumption, Experiment 1 found that prior use of base rates enhanced subsequent use of other base rates. Consistent with the immediate activation assumption, Experiment 2 showed that the use of base rate increased with their immediate salience. Experiments 3 and 4 demonstrated that the application of inferential rules is goal driven. Specifically, base-rate and case information were used to the extent that they led to satisfactory solutions. Finally, Experiments 5 and 6 demonstrated subjects' sensitivity to restrictions on the application of the relevant statistical and nonstatistical rules. In these experiments, subjects' reliance on base rates increased with the perceived randomness of the process whereby the case was selected from the population and with the perceived unreliability of the source of case information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We have been oversold on the base rate fallacy in probabilistic judgment from an empirical, normative, and methodological standpoint. First, contrary to the conventional wisdom, a thorough examination of the literature reveals that base rates are almost always used and that their degree of use depends on task structure and internal task representation. Second, few tasks map unambiguously into the simple, narrow framework that is held up as the standard of good decision making. Third, the current approach is criticized for its failure to consider how the ambiguous, unreliable and unstable base rates of the real world should be used in the informationally rich and criterion-complex natural environment. A more ecologically valid research program is called for.
Neuroscientists have made significant advances in identifying drugs to dampen the intensity of traumatic memories. Such drugs hold promise for victims of terrorism, military conflict, assault, car accidents, and natural disasters who might otherwise suffer for many years from intense, painful memories. In 2003, the President's Council on Bioethics released a report entitled Beyond Therapy: Biotechnology and the Pursuit of Happiness, which analyzed memory dampening in some detail. While the Council acknowledged the potential benefits of memory dampening, some Council members were concerned that it may: (1) discourage us from authentically coping with trauma, (2) tamper with personal identity, (3) demean the genuineness of human life and experience, (4) encourage us to forget memories that we are obligated to keep, and (5) inure us to the pain of others. In this Article, I describe possible legal and ethical implications of memory dampening. For example, I note that traumatic events frequently lead to legal proceedings that rely on memories of those events. Drugs that dampen traumatic memories may someday test the boundaries between an individual's right to medically modify his memories and society's right to stop him from altering valuable evidence. More broadly, I respond to the Council by arguing that many of its concerns are founded on controversial premises that unjustifiably privilege our natural cognitive abilities. While memory dampening may eventually require thoughtful regulation, broad-brushed restrictions are unjustified: We have a deeply personal interest in controlling our own minds that entitles us to a certain freedom of memory.
The Centrality of Event Scale (CES) measures the extent to which a traumatic memory forms a central component of personal identity, a turning point in the life story and a reference point for everyday inferences. In two studies, we show that the CES is positively correlated with severity of PTSD symptoms, even when controlling for measures of anxiety, depression, dissociation and self-consciousness. The findings contradict the widespread view that poor integration of the traumatic memory into one's life story is a main cause of PTSD symptoms. Instead, enhanced integration appears to be a key issue. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Our contribution to this special issue focuses on the phenomenon of intrusive trauma memory. While intrusive trauma memories can undoubtedly cause impairment, we argue that they may exist for a potentially adaptive reason. Theory and experimental research on intrusion development are reviewed and possible functions of intrusive trauma memory are explored. These functions include aiding emotional processing, preventing future harm and protecting the coherence of the self. The issue of intrusive images in other disorders than posttraumatic stress disorder is briefly addressed. This review suggests that the study of function is important for a nuanced view on the modulation of intrusive trauma memory in both experimental psychopathology and clinical treatment. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Heavy drinkers, moderate drinkers, light drinkers, and nondrinkers were asked to rate a variety of negative health and social consequences of using alcohol. Subjects made probability ratings for fictional others who were heavy, moderate, or light drinkers or nondrinkers. Subjects also made probability ratings for themselves as hypothetical heavy, moderate, or light drinkers or nondrinkers and for themselves actually. A pattern of perceived personal immunity was found across groups. Subjects rated fictional others and themselves as hypothetical drinkers to be more likely to experience negative consequences than their actual selves. All groups of subjects (heavy, moderate, and light drinkers and abstainers) rated their actual chances of experiencing negative consequences to be approximately equal. In contrast, heavy drinkers saw the effects of drinking for other heavy drinkers as less likely than did subjects who had light or abstinent drinking patterns who rated fictional heavy drinkers. These findings suggest that individuals who drink more tend to deny the potential harm that may result from alcohol consumption. Short-term social consequences were viewed as most likely to occur. Long-term consequences were perceived as least likely to occur.
Emerging technologies raise the possibility that we may be able to treat trauma victims by pharmaceutically dampening factual
or emotional aspects of their memories. Such technologies raise a panoply of legal and ethical issues. While many of these
issues remain off in the distance, some have already arisen. In this brief commentary, I discuss a real-life case of memory
erasure. The case reveals why the contours of our freedom of memory—our limited bundle of rights to control our memories and
be free of outside control—already merit some attention.
Past research suggests that in judging a person's category membership, people largely ignore the population frequency of membership in the category (base rates) in favor of individuating information about the particular person. This study tested the hypothesis that base rates will be utilized to the extent that the usefulness of the individuating information for diagnosing category membership is diminished. Subjects were given problems in which both base rates of membership in each of two categories and individuating information about a target person were presented. Then, in each case, they were asked to assess the probability that the target person belonged to each category. In three sets of problems, the diagnostic usefulness of the individuating information (personality characteristics) was diminished by including individuating information that was either inconsistent or irrelevant, or by increasing the similarity of the two alternative membership categories. In a fourth set of problems, the individualistic information included consistent, relevant personal characteristics and the membership categories were dissimilar. As expected, base rates were used in each of the first three sets of problems but were ignored in the fourth set. The results were interpreted in terms of informational factors that induce a shift away from a habitual, spontaneous reliance on a source of information (e.g., personality traits) for which one has well-developed rules (e.g., intuitive personality theories), and toward a more controlled, deliberate mode of thinking wherein other sources of information (e.g., base rates) are attended to and incorporated into judgment through less frequently used rules (e.g., sampling rules).
This article described three heuristics that are employed in making judgements under uncertainty: (i) representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event A belongs to class or process B; (ii) availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development; and (iii) adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value is available. These heuristics are highly economical and usually effective, but they lead to systematic and predictable errors. A better understanding of these heuristics and of the biases to which they lead could improve judgements and decisions in situations of uncertainty.
Processing fluency, or the subjective experience of ease with which people process information, reliably influences people's judgments across a broad range of social dimensions. Experimenters have manipulated processing fluency using a vast array of techniques, which, despite their diversity, produce remarkably similar judgmental consequences. For example, people similarly judge stimuli that are semantically primed (conceptual fluency), visually clear (perceptual fluency), and phonologically simple (linguistic fluency) as more true than their less fluent counterparts. The authors offer the first comprehensive review of such mechanisms and their implications for judgment and decision making. Because every cognition falls along a continuum from effortless to demanding and generates a corresponding fluency experience, the authors argue that fluency is a ubiquitous metacognitive cue in reasoning and social judgment.
A mailed questionnaire was used to obtain comparative risk judgments for 32 different hazards from a random sample of 296 individuals living in central New Jersey. The results demonstrate that an optimistic bias about susceptibility to harm--a tendency to claim that one is less at risk than one's peers--is not limited to any particular age, sex, educational, or occupational group. It was found that an optimistic bias is often introduced when people extrapolate from their past experience to estimate their future vulnerability. Thus, the hazards most likely to elicit unrealistic optimism are those associated with the belief (often incorrect) that if the problem has not yet appeared, it is unlikely to occur in the future. Optimistic biases also increase with the perceived preventability of a hazard and decrease with perceived frequency and personal experience. Other data presented illustrate the inconsistent relationships between personal risk judgments and objective risk factors.
Four studies were conducted with college student subjects to examine: (1) perceptions of susceptibility to health and safety risks; (2) factors that subjects see as important in determining their susceptibility; and (3) subjects' actual standing on objective risk factors. Subjects were generally unbiased about hereditary risk factors and were even somewhat pessimistic about environmental risk factors. Their views of their own actions and psychological attributes, however, were excessively optimistic. Few acknowledged actions or psychological attributes that increased their risk. This pattern of findings helps to explain why risks thought to be controllable (i.e., preventable by personal action) are likely to evoke unrealistic optimism about susceptibility. Family histories of health problems were incorporated into judgments of susceptibility, but, except for smoking, correlations between behavioral risk factors and judgments of susceptibility were surprisingly weak. Self-esteem enhancement is suggested as a motive that could explain many of the present findings. Several recommendations are offered for health campaigns that seek to produce more realistic perceptions of susceptibility to health and safety problems.
Little is known about the total population prevalence and societal costs of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); this report reviews relevant literature on these topics.
A literature search of computerized databases for published reports on trauma and PTSD was conducted. This literature was reviewed to find data on general population exposure to trauma, conditional risk of PTSD among those exposed to trauma both in focused samples of trauma victims and in general population samples, and the adverse consequences of PTSD.
PTSD was found to be a commonly occurring disorder that often has a duration of many years and is frequently associated with exposure to multiple traumas. The impairment associated with PTSD in U.S. samples, where the majority of research on these consequences has been carried out, is comparable to, or greater than, that of other seriously impairing mental disorders. Risk of suicide attempts is particularly high among people with PTSD. Available evidence suggests that the prevalence of PTSD and the adverse emotional and psychological consequences of PTSD are much greater in the many countries around the world that are in the midst of armed conflicts involving political, racial, or ethnic violence.
PTSD is a highly prevalent and impairing condition. Only a minority of people with PTSD obtain treatment. Early and aggressive outreach to treat people with PTSD could help reduce the enormous societal costs of this disorder.
Despite abundant evidence that systemic administration of adrenergic drugs and hormones can produce retrograde memory enhancement, the literature contains no clear demonstration that postlearning systemic administration of adrenergic antagonists produces retrograde amnesia. Here we demonstrate retrograde amnesia for a stressful learning task (a spatial water maze) with systemic administration of the beta-adrenergic antagonist propranolol (5 mg/kg). The amnesic effect of the drug depended on the degree of learning in the subjects: Propranolol caused a robust retrograde amnesia in "good learners," but did not significantly affect memory in "poor learners." The findings provide critical additional support for the hypothesis that postlearning adrenergic activation modulates memory consolidation processes after emotionally stressful events and help explain previous failures to detect memory impairment after systemic administration of adrenergic blocking drugs.
Preclinical considerations suggest that treatment with a beta-adrenergic blocker following an acute psychologically traumatic event may reduce subsequent posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. This pilot study addressed this hypothesis.
Patients were randomized to begin, within 6 hours of the event, a 10-day course of double-blind propranolol (n = 18) versus placebo (n = 23) 40 mg four times daily.
The mean (SD) 1-month Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) score of 11 propranolol completers was 27.6 (15.7), with one outlier 5.2 SDs above the others' mean, and of 20 placebo completers, 35.5 (21.5), t = 1.1, df = 29, p =.15. Two propranolol patients' scores fell above, and nine below, the placebo group's median, p =.03 (sign test). Zero of eight propranolol, but six of 14 placebo, patients were physiologic responders during script-driven imagery of the traumatic event when tested 3 months afterward, p =.04 (all p values one-tailed).
These pilot results suggest that acute, posttrauma propranolol may have a preventive effect on subsequent PTSD.
Research on posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been notable for controversy as well as progress. This article concerns the evidence bearing on the most contentious issues in the field of traumatic stress: broadening of the definition of trauma, problems with the dose-response model of PTSD, distortion in the recollection of trauma, concerns about "phony combat vets," psychologically toxic guilt as a traumatic stressor, risk factors for PTSD, possible brain-damaging effects of stress hormones, recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse, and the politics of trauma.
Converging findings of animal and human studies provide compelling evidence that the amygdala is critically involved in enabling us to acquire and retain lasting memories of emotional experiences. This review focuses primarily on the findings of research investigating the role of the amygdala in modulating the consolidation of long-term memories. Considerable evidence from animal studies investigating the effects of posttraining systemic or intra-amygdala infusions of hormones and drugs, as well as selective lesions of specific amygdala nuclei, indicates that (a) the amygdala mediates the memory-modulating effects of adrenal stress hormones and several classes of neurotransmitters; (b) the effects are selectively mediated by the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA); (c) the influences involve interactions of several neuromodulatory systems within the BLA that converge in influencing noradrenergic and muscarinic cholinergic activation; (d) the BLA modulates memory consolidation via efferents to other brain regions, including the caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens, and cortex; and (e) the BLA modulates the consolidation of memory of many different kinds of information. The findings of human brain imaging studies are consistent with those of animal studies in suggesting that activation of the amygdala influences the consolidation of long-term memory; the degree of activation of the amygdala by emotional arousal during encoding of emotionally arousing material (either pleasant or unpleasant) correlates highly with subsequent recall. The activation of neuromodulatory systems affecting the BLA and its projections to other brain regions involved in processing different kinds of information plays a key role in enabling emotionally significant experiences to be well remembered.