2. Holmes, E. A., James, E. L., Coode-Bate, T., & Deeprose, C. (2009). Can playing the computer game "Tetris" reduce the build-up of flashbacks for trauma?
Is the “trauma-film" paradigm really simulating intrusions in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder? Dr Carolyn J Choudhary, Hope Christie The current study... The trauma-film paradigm In order to investigate factors relevant to the development of PTSD in the lab, an ethically acceptable method has to be used. Several studies have used Steil’s (1996)1 footage of real-world aftermath of RTAs, but this is now outdated and more recent work, including Holmes and colleagues (e.g. 20092; 20103) have used a compilation of nine ‘films with traumatic content” 4.
The film literature suggests that film media exert powerful diegetic effects, creating for the viewer the illusion of inhabiting the fictional world so that they take on the role of empathetic witness. In previous work5, using an excerpt of the Shining found to target fear6, we showed that this film was capable of generating intrusions over a one week period.
....set out to compare intrusions generated , over a longer period of two weeks, by three types of film stimuli: An excerpt from The Shining targeting fear since fear mechanisms likely underlie PTSD A play through of a horror video game targeting fear from a first person perspective to contrast with the film’s third person perspective. Footage of the real-world aftermath of (two) RTAs to update the stimuli used in early trauma-film paradigms We hypothesised that the RTA footage may not target fear and may be qualitatively different to actual experience of an RTA All stimuli were capable of generating intrusions (in 57% of the sample)
Results Sample [n=63]: 14 males and 49 females; Age: 19 – 58 years (m=32.27, SD= 12.52)
Emotion ratings
A between-subjects design randomised participants across the three film conditions:
6
The Shining
Methods
4
Week 1 After watching the film, participants completed: Cognitive Failures Questionnaire
3 *
2 1
***
0 Anger 6
Dissociative Experiences Scale
4
Sadness
RTA footage
***
3 2
**
***
1 0 Fear
Disgust Sadness
6
Two weeks later
*
5
Video game
Emerging themes from interviews
Disgust
5
Anger
+ semi-structured interview
Fear
Frequency of intrusions declined rapidly over time in all three conditions
