Adult post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) patients often report a wide range of cognitive problems in memory, concentration, attention, planning, and judgement. Evaluation of these cognitive aspects of PTSD in adults has helped to define the nature of the disorder. However, there is a paucity of such work in younger subjects. This study has employed the Rivermead Behavioural Memory Test (RBMT) to examine cognitive factors in children and adolescents with PTSD. Eighteen child and adolescent patients with PTSD and 22 control subjects completed the test. PTSD subjects showed poorer overall memory performance compared with controls. Specifically, they were worse on the prospective and orientation items of the RBMT. The results are discussed in the light of research on everyday memory in adults with PTSD.

Objectives: People suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often experience distressing traumatic memories. Therapeutic methods that apply a secondary task while clients recall a trauma memory may further assist in modifying the vividness and emotionality of the trauma memory and in reducing intrusions. In this experiment, we aimed to investigate whether the emotional valence (positive vs. neutral) and sensory modality (visual vs. auditory) of a secondary task reduces the vividness and emotionality of the trauma memory and the proactive interference. Method: Sixty PTSD patients exposed to road traffic accident traumas were randomized to one of four groups in a 2 (emotional valence: positive, neutral) × 2 (modality: visual, auditory) design. Participants were then exposed to a positive or a neutral clip that was visual or auditory and were required to recall the trauma memory during exposure to the clip. Vividness and emotionality of the trauma memory and proactive interference were assessed before and after exposure to the clip and at a 1-week follow-up. Results: Results revealed that participants who recalled the trauma memory while exposed to the positive clip reported their trauma memory as being less distressing (but not less vivid) and indicated less proactive interference than did participants exposed to the neutral clip. Nevertheless, modality had no significant effect in attenuating the proactive interference under conditions of modality congruence. Conclusion: Inducing positive emotion while performing a dual task may be an effective module in therapeutic approaches.

Introduction:The current research was conducted to examine the effect of “Loneliness”, on time spent in Social Networking Sites (S.N.S), main reasons for S.N.S use, and its related behaviors.Materials and Methods:156 students of Shiraz University voluntarily participated in this research. Loneliness was assessed usingthe UCLA Loneliness scale. 25% of highest scoring students reported that they were lonely whereas 25% of the lowest scoring students were considered to be non-lonely. The positive and negative reasons of using S.N.S were assessed based on Reasons for Internet Use Scale, and internet behaviors were assessed based on Scale of Internet Behaviors.Results:There was no difference in time spent in S.N.S as well as the positive and negative reasons of using S.N.S (contrary to literature), but internet behaviors showed a significant difference between “lonely” and “non-lonely” individuals. “Lonely” and “non-lonely” individuals showed a significant difference in “social aspect” of S.N.S behaviors. There was also a significant difference between “Lonely” and “non-Lonely” individuals in “Negative impact” of S.N.S behaviors. Yet, there seemed to be no difference in “competency and convenience aspect” of S.N.S behaviors.Conclusions:This study suggested that there is no difference between lonely and non-lonely individuals in reasons for using S.N.S and time spent in S.N.S. This finding stands contrary to previous research findings and general literature on the subject In other words, what drives people to S.N.S at the first place shows no significant difference between lonely and non-lonely individuals while after attending S.N.S, social behavior of lonely individuals shows a significant difference which is consistently enhanced online. Lonely people also significantly develop internet-related problems in their daily functioning, including interference with real life socializing.

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Deficits in working memory (WM) have a role in maintaining posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, including intrusions, which are a hallmark of PTSD symptomatology. As intrusions are distressing and uncontrollable, it is important to investigate whether PTSD is associated with altered control of proactive interference in WM. Moreover, it is important to consider both verbal and visual WM, as previous research has demonstrated a visual versus verbal dissociation in PTSD. Although previous studies have explored proactive interference in visual and verbal stimuli using a recent probe task, the stimuli used thus far have been non–trauma‐related. Therefore, we aimed to investigate proactive interference in PTSD using trauma‐related verbal and visual stimuli. Road traffic accident (RTA) survivors with (n = 60) and without PTSD (n = 30) completed a recent probe task to assess proactive interference of visual and verbal trauma‐related material. Participants with PTSD displayed significantly more proactive interference than trauma‐exposed controls for visual, ηp2 = .40, and verbal material, ηp2 = .10, indicating that proactive interference is significantly impaired in PTSD. This demonstrates that further research is warranted and highlights the possibility of considering proactive interference of trauma‐related stimuli in therapeutic approaches.