Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Center on Autobiographical Memory Research, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.
Memory. 2023 May;31(5):678-688. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2023.2188642. Epub 2023 Mar 18.
Tonic immobility (TI) is a phylogenetically conserved, passive, obligatory defense mechanism commonly engaged during sexual and physical assaults. During TI, people become immobile while remaining conscious and later reexperience intrusive memories of both their assault and of its accompanying immobility. Here we show that this well-studied biological process has powerful effects on memory and other processes. Participants had experienced either a serious sexual ( = 234) or physical ( = 137) assault. For both the assault and its accompanying immobility, the standard measure of the peritraumatic severity of TI correlated between .40 and .65 with post-assault effects on memory, including memory of the assault and memory of the immobility, the two memory-based self-concept measures of self-blame and event centrality, and post-assault anxiety and depression. The correlations with TI were much higher than other peritraumatic characteristics commonly used to predict and describe posttraumatic effects in assaults and other traumas. The results suggest that TI should be considered for a broader, more biologically based and ecologically valid understanding of the effects of trauma on memory and memory-based reactions.
强直静止反应（tonic immobility，TI）是一种在性侵犯和身体攻击中普遍存在的、被动的、强制性防御机制，具有明显的种系发生保守性。在强直静止反应期间，人会在保持意识清醒的同时变得无法动弹，随后会重新体验到侵犯行为及其伴随的无法动弹的侵入性记忆。在这里，我们展示了这一经过充分研究的生物学过程对记忆和其他过程具有强大的影响。参与者经历了严重的性侵犯（ = 234）或身体侵犯（ = 137）。对于侵犯及其伴随的强直静止反应，强直静止反应的创伤期严重程度的标准测量值与创伤后对记忆的影响之间的相关性在.40 到.65 之间，包括对侵犯行为的记忆和对无法动弹的记忆、自我谴责和事件中心性这两个基于记忆的自我概念衡量标准，以及创伤后焦虑和抑郁。与强直静止反应的相关性远高于其他常用于预测和描述性侵犯和其他创伤后影响的创伤期特征。研究结果表明，强直静止反应应被视为更广泛、更基于生物学和更具生态有效性的理解创伤对记忆和基于记忆的反应的影响的因素。
