The Role of Verbal Cues in Eliciting Intrusive Memories in a Non-Clinical Population: A Laboratory Study

Diary and laboratory-based studies of Involuntary Autobiographical Memories (IAMs) have demonstrated the importance of verbal cues in bringing these memories to conscious awareness. These methods have been less frequently applied to the study of repetitive, unwanted Intrusive Memories (IMs), and less is known about the cues for this type of memory. The present studies represent the first investigation of verbal cueing for participants’ own IMs under controlled laboratory conditions. The results of Study 1 showed that it was possible to elicit IMs, nominated by non-clinical participants before the study, by engaging them in a simple vigilance task with a steady stream of incidental verbal cues. Moreover, more IMs (and spontaneous thoughts including IAMs) were elicited in the condition with incidental verbal cues than in the control condition with less meaningful stimuli (maths calculations). The findings were replicated and extended in Study 2, which demonstrated more clearly the importance of personalised cues, overlapping with the contents of nominated IMs, in eliciting self-nominated IMs in the laboratory. The findings have implications for ongoing theoretical debates about the relationship of IMs to IAMs and suggest that real-life IMs experienced by the general population can be studied as analogue intrusions present in PTSD.