Memory Under Minor Stress

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Several years ago, I did some Force-on-Force training with simunitions. We were wearing only the helmets for protective gear in order to give a little extra incentive not to get shot. For this particular scenario, I guess I was a little more tightly wound than usual.

As I walked to my car, the bad guy appeared rapidly with a pistol already presented and demanded what I was carrying. I threw it on the ground and I can remember seeing the brief hesitation in his eyes as he reached down for it. I used the opportunity to draw on him and started shooting. He fell down on to his back; with the revolver still pointing my way, so I continued to shoot as he lay on the ground. One of the referees called an early end to the scenario, fearing I was going to continue dumping the whole mag into the the "attacker."

At the time, I thought what I did was pretty reasonable given the circumstance. However, when we came back the next day to continue the class, I "remembered" a whole bunch of details that I didn't recall at the time. I can remember the look in his eyes when I threw the case down. It practically had a "I guess I know what is coming next!" balloon over it. I could also remember him looking at me like "Dude what is your problem?" and looking over to the referee as if to say "Help!" In fact, I remembered all kinds of very fine, specific details and "freeze frame photos" that I don't think I was aware of at all during the scenario or in the several hours afterwards.

One question I have often had is whether or not I am actually remembering details that my mind discarded as unimportant at the time. Or is my brain just adding new remembered details based on what other people told me afterwards?

I've read summaries of studies conducted that suggest that during fight-or-flight response, the brain continues to receive and store information; but basically discards everything that it considers less than critical. As a result, people may not have complete memories of a car accident, self-defense shooting or similar event for up to 24 hours afterwards. I was interested to see if anyone at TFL had any recommended reading on this subject?

[Dwight55]

If you ever find out a definitive answer, . . . I'd like to hear it, . . . as I have and know others with the same or similar "memories".

May God bless,
Dwight

[Jim March]

Been there, done that. About eight times, mostly from 20+ years on motorcycles.

Best I can tell, in order to speed up processing your brain stops trying to record "full motion video" or the equivalent and grabs a few "stills" here and there.

The time in my life I came closest to being seriously killed to death (at age 12), all I ever had afterwards were a series of still images...just enough to tell me what happened.

I've hit this state once in something akin to combat and my ability to make moral judgments remained intact. So that's good. I've also hit a berserker rage state once and once ONLY, with zero memory afterwards (and no moral judgment whatsoever, also around age 12) so I can tell you for sure, the "fast state" where memory gets choppy isn't something to be afraid of. Many people go their whole lives without hitting it, and then when it does in an emergency it freaks 'em out.

For the record, I've spent the rest of my life making sure I never ever go berserk again. I'm 43 now, and have never once even come close since that first. That is one horrible place to be, and a damn good way to get killed - you focus only on the target. Literally: don't go there. Ever.

[Capt. Charlie]

I've also experienced this, and a number of crime victims I've interviewed have as well. I believe it's tied in with post traumatic stress disorder, and Jim's reasoning may explain delayed bad dreams or flashbacks that occur weeks, months, or even years later, and why hypnosis sometimes helps in victim interviews.

Vivid memories of two past events I can think of come crashing back in at their full intensity at the most unexpected and inappropriate times. Just something you learn to live with, I guess.

I believe Col. David Grossman addresses this in one of his books. It's either in "Killology" or "On Killing", but I can't remember which. (Both are well worth reading .)

But, as Col. Grossman's not here, we do have our own expert on PTSD, Glenn Meyer. Dr. Meyer is offline for the weekend, but I'll ask him to chime in here as soon as he gets back.

[Jim March]

I believe it's tied in with post traumatic stress disorder

...umm...I don't. Not at all. It's tied to your brain having to move damned fast in a hurry. Lucky for me, all of the cases where I've hit that state have been memories that I don't find stressful after the fact. They were hairy but nobody got seriously hurt, I handled them OK, I'm not embarrassed to recall any and there's no stress associated with talking about them.

Now, if any had involved actually killing or maiming somebody, maybe that would be a different story...but the root cause there wouldn't be the fact that my brain and body had to go into overdrive.

No, "overdrive" itself (AS OPPOSED TO BERSERKER RAGE!) is not long-term harmful in any way, and it radically boosts your odds of survival with no downside in terms of loss of moral bearings. It's not to be feared at all, it's to be accepted both during the incident and afterwards as a reason your memory might be a bit jumbled, which in turn is a damn good reason not to talk to cops right after the fact. Ever.

PS: "Overdrive" is a term used by somebody who has written about and studied this issue extensively (and is a war veteran): Jerry Pournelle.

[GUNSITE]

Training develops confidence, confidence enhances ability, learning to react without the interference of emotions.

Training... not going target shooting, not going to a shooting camp once, but training on tactical/combat courses twice a month under stress situations/conditions by trained and qualified instructors.

Most Police officers are not trained or take it upon themselves to train tactically, they just qualify twice/once a year and their weapon never voluntarily comes out again under next range day.

Most civilians are green when it comes to shootouts and have no idea what their up against or what they have to endure, most psychological problems (lack of memory/events etc..) happen to untrained people/officers who were never trained under stressful tactical situations, and when their confronted with life and death (shootings)... their brain can't handle it, they can not react without emotion, they get overwhelmed... even the highly trained have no guarantee. Its scary.

[Capt. Charlie]

...umm...I don't. Not at all.

Understand, I'm not saying that the event IS PTSD, but PTSD often does encompass that phenomenon.

It's tied to your brain having to move damned fast in a hurry.

Agreed, but it's your conscious mind that does so. Your subconscious records every instant, every word, every image in IMAX color and surround sound. It's all there, in the background, for all your living days, but your conscious mind suppresses it.... most of the time. It's when it doesn't that dreams and flashbacks occur.

Lucky for me, all of the cases where I've hit that state have been memories that I don't find stressful after the fact. They were hairy but nobody got seriously hurt, I handled them OK, I'm not embarrassed to recall any and there's no stress associated with talking about them.

None that you consciously recognize . The mind is a funny thing, and the subconscious is like a little child in all of us. (Again, I encourage y'all to study Col. Grossman's writings.) Adrenalin flow and anticipation of pain (as in being hit by simunition rounds, which really do hurt, by the way,) even in training, can produce some of the same effects.

[pax]

Barthomew,

I summarize some of the current memory studies in Lessons from Armed America. From my footnotes there:

The most easily-obtained brief synopsis of various studies giving specific percentages to each perceptual phenomenon may be Perceptual and Memory Distortions During Officer Involved Shootings (2008 update), given as a presentation by Dr. Alexis Artwohl, Ph.D. during an AELE seminar in 2008. It is available
online at http://www.aele.org/law/2008FPJUN/wb-19.pdf.

More in-depth material may be obtained from the original article that the 2008 presentation is based upon, Perceptual and Memory Distortions During Officer Involved Shootings (2002), by Dr. Alexis Artwohl, published in the October 2002, Volume 71, Number 10 edition of the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, available online at http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/...eb.htm#page_19.

The books I found most helpful were:

Deadly Force Encounters: What Cops Need to Know to Mentally and Physically Prepare for and Survive a Gunfight, by Dr. Alexis Artwohl and Loren W. Christensen.

On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and in Peace, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman with Loren W. Christensen.

Into the Kill Zone: a cop's-eye view of using deadly force by David Klinger gives a lot of individual perspectives about using deadly force, and might help you picture the array of memory-related possibilities.

In Defense of Self and Others...: Issues, Facts & Fallacies-The Realities Of Law Enforcement's Use Of Deadly Force, by Urey W. Patrick and John C. Hall.

See also Critical Incident Amnesia: The Physiological Basis and Implications of Memory Loss During Extreme Survival Stress Situations, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Bruce K. Siddle. Published in The Firearms Instructor: The Official Journal of the International Association of Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors, Issue 31, Aug 2001. It may be accessed online at Lt. Col. Grossman’s website, http://www.killology.com/article_amnesia.htm. Essential quote: “Unfortunately, by their very nature, traumatic situations will inevitably result in memory impairment...The greater the stress, the greater the potential will be for these memory problems to occur.”

Just for kicks, don't forget to look up the classic Gorillas in our midst: Sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events, by D.J. Simons and C.F. Chabris (1999). Perception, 28, 1059-1074, which can be found online at https://www.psych.uiuc.edu/reprints/index.php?site_id=1 (and which never fails to make me giggle).

Hope it helps.

pax

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Thanks for all the references, Pax.

It's not related directly to PTSD. That technically is a condition that takes a significant time to develop and not in the scale we are talking about. It's diagnosed if symptoms are present after 6 months.

Stress does screw up things as Pax's references demonstrate.

There are failures to code things, stores things and perceive things. Interesting, current research indicates that things don't slow perceptually under stress - tachypsychia. Time flows the same way in the critical incident but memory of the event is distorted. Guy from Baylor did this (duh - the book's at home).

You probably are coding flashes and then having trouble with retrieval cues. Later events aid in retrieval , but you do add your own details as you try to fill in the pieces.

[Capt. Charlie]

Thanks for all the references, Pax.

Ditto that, and for the considerable time it must've taken to put that together .

It's not related directly to PTSD.

Oops! My bad. Note to self: Leave psychology to the psychologists .

You probably are coding flashes and then having trouble with retrieval cues. Later events aid in retrieval , but you do add your own details as you try to fill in the pieces.

Glenn, is this true of the subconscious, or does the subconscious retain every fine detail as I've been told?

[Glenn E. Meyer]

No, that's an old chestnut about the mind being a tape recorder.

The memory of a dramatic incident was called flashbulb memory. The idea was that a vivid incident would be imprinted by a special mechanism that printed it.

However, lots of research on it and memory for critical incidents shows that they can coded incorrectly and then subject to the same memory loss process as anything.

Some researchers suggested that hypnosis was the way to tap into the subconscious perfect memory but that turned out to be true. There wasn't a perfect memory store and hypnosis led to memories that were reconstructed and subject to demand characteristics.

Since memories may be hard to recall but interviewers can suggest things that then get incorporated as memories by the subject, there are interview techniques developed by psychologists and the FBI to avoid this but get good info. I have the report somewhere at work.

[Capt. Charlie]

Very interesting; thanks Glenn.

You've also proven that the old adage, "Old pharts retain old ideas", is true as well .

[pax]

Since memories may be hard to recall but interviewers can suggest things that then get incorporated as memories by the subject, there are interview techniques developed by psychologists and the FBI to avoid this but get good info. I have the report somewhere at work.

Glenn,

I'm fascinated with that one -- please do share whatever sources you have for those.

pax

[pax]

By the way, there are some fascinating online stories about the way the brain works at

http://forgetomori.com/2007/skeptici...-under-matter/

and

http://www.quirkology.com/USA/index.shtml

On the Quirkology site, be sure to check out the "Amazing Color Changing Card Trick" video.

pax

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I'll look for it when I get to the office.

Glenn