Why Do People Remember Trivial Aspects of Trauma?

Everyone has experienced remembering seemingly trivial aspects of major trauma, e.g., what they were wearing on the day of an accident or what they were doing when they heard about 9/11. To understand the relationship between such “weak” memories and trauma, investigators used a three-phase, fear-conditioning paradigm.

The 89 participants were not informed of the study design, which obviated anticipatory fear as a mechanism of memory enhancement. In phase 1, they viewed pictures from two neutral categories (animals or tools). In phase 2, participants saw new pictures and randomly received electric shocks via electrodes for some pictures in only one of the categories. The electrodes were removed prior to phase 3, in which subjects viewed new …