A memory like an elephant? The consistency of memory for emotional events.

Giezen, A.E. van (2007)

Doctoral Thesis

The studies in this thesis concentrate on memory for an emotional event, with a specific focus on completeness, consistency and accuracy of emotional memories and their predictors. In doing so, both field and laboratory studies were conducted. The results show that overall, memory for emotional events is fairly complete and consistent over time. Still, the human memory is sometimes incomplete and prone to inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Maybe an elephant never forgets, people occasionally do! Emotional state, psychiatric status and psychological variables, with the exception of (peri) traumatic dissociation, did not have a strong influence on completeness, consistency and accuracy of memory for emotional events.

• Violent assault
• Accuracy
• Completeness
• Consistency
• Dissociation
• PTSD
• Recall
• Thought suppression
• Trauma

• All authors: Giezen, A.E. van
• Supervisor: Spinhoven, P.
• Co-supervisor: Arensman, E.
• Qualification: Doctor (dr.)
• Awarding Institution: Department Clinical, health and neuropsychology, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Leiden University
• Date: 2007-11-08
• Court: LEI Universiteit Leiden