Narrating traumatic experience:effects of empathic arousal and memory retrieval

The experimental research addresses the topic of empathic arousal and memory retrieval effects in autobiographical narration of traumatic experiences. The influence of trauma on memory has grown a wide debate in psychology; recently, effects of attention orientation and the resulting effects on memory were ascribed to empathy defined as a “thematically induced emotion” (i.e., thematic arousal, Laney et al., 2004). Particularly, comparing the emotional arousal induced by visual stimuli with the empathic arousal a similarity was observed between them as regards the positive enhancement of the central gist of a narration. Nevertheless, empathy, opposite to arousal induced by visual stimuli, appears to preserve also the memory for the peripheral events, i.e., for the details of what is narrated. Thus, during the empathic activation the “narrowing effect” of attention doesn’t seem to take place (i.e. “Easterbrook hypothesis” or “weapon effect”). These results were obtained in laboratory settings using slides and stories artificially prepared for experimental goals. Our research aims to investigate if the same effects on attention and memory can be found when the empathic arousal is reached using true autobiographical narratives. More specifically, the research aims to investigate the effect of the neutral or traumatic content of the autobiographical narrative on empathic arousal and, hence, on memory. Negative higher evaluations are expected in arousal test for traumatic narratives along with a better memory retrieval.