The proposed research will examine emotional reactivity among individuals with varying levels of potentially traumatic exposure to motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and associated stress. This proposal was motivated by the prominence in the diagnostic nosology of emotional dysregulation and physiological symptoms (i.e., physiological hyper-reactivity to traumarelevant cues, exaggerated startle) as hallmark components of the posttraumatic presentation. The specific goals of this research are both methodological and conceptual. Employing parametric manipulations will allow examination of specific hypotheses regarding emotional modulation among individuals with traumatic exposure with and without PTSD symptoms. Self-report and physiological responses will be measured during two laboratory paradigms; a narrative imagery task and a picture-viewing task, thereby allowing comparison of the utility of the two different tasks and stimuli in eliciting emotional reactivity in this sample.
