Intrusive memories, vivid, involuntary re-experiences of trauma, are often triggered by perceptual cues that resemble aspects of the original traumatic event. One emerging idea is that pairing these cues with a neutral context, such as gameplay, may reduce their intrusiveness by weakening their association with the trauma.

This study tested whether pairing trauma-related themes with gameplay shortly after encoding could produce a masking effect, where trauma cues become less likely to trigger trauma-related intrusions and more likely to trigger game-related ones instead. In other words, the game context might compete with the trauma memory, making the trauma less accessible.

After watching trauma films, participants either played a game while trauma cues were presented (paired condition), or not (unpaired). Later, during a vigilance task where these cues were reintroduced, participants reported the frequency and content of their intrusions. We also examined whether individual differences in sensory hypersensitivity influenced the strength of this effect.

This presentation will walk through the study’s design, findings, and what they suggest about how trauma cue reactivity might be shaped by early contextual associations.