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Note: Reappearance hypothesis does not exist within wikipedia yet. Reappearance hypothesis Reappearance hypothesis is a type of involuntary memory that appears within a person’s autobiographical memory system. Within Reappearance hypothesis, an individual experiences a past memory, later in time, in the exact same form as they did when the event first happened. In addition the individual will experience the same images or cognitive mindset as they did in the past and the memory continues to reappear and disappear. Reappearance hypothesis usually occurs under certain circumstances, which include: flashbulb memories and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD. Until an individual receives treatment for the memories they are reexperiencing they will continue to see replays of images and have intrusive thoughts about the event from the past (Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson, 2015) Ulric Neisser, who was known to be the father of cognitive psychology, developed the theory of Reappearance hypothesis when looking at involuntary memories. Neisser discovered that the hypothesis was not just memory related but also part of cognition as he states in his famous book cognitive psychology written in 1967 (Belardinelli, 2012). Neisser also identified the hypothesis to be correlated with intrusive thoughts and memories that usually occur within individuals who are diagnosed with PTSD (Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson, 2015). As Reappearance hypothesis is usually correlated with individuals who experience PTSD, it is common to look at the symptoms that people may experience when they are diagnosed with PTSD. For example, people who have PTSD may have flashbacks that occur involuntarily and without our awareness. The same flashback experience will happen for a person who is experiencing the Reappearance hypothesis. In addition, people who experience PTSD may have reappearance of their memory by matching cues that result in triggering an intrusive memory (Ehler, 2010). An example of triggering intrusive memories by matching cues is: seeing headlights coming towards an individual, if the individual was previously in a car accident where they experienced headlights coming their way, this may trigger matching cues (Baddeley, Eysenck, & Anderson, 2015). Therefore, the individual will experience the Reappearance hypothesis as they are experiencing the images of the event again. Another example is, people who saw the planes crash at the world trade center on 9/11. If these people were to see a plane get too close to a building they may experience the reappearance hypothesis (Myers, 2014). Not only would these people have the memory reappear, they would cognitively think that the plan my crash into another building just by seeing the plane being too close to another building. The Reappearance hypothesis also occurs when individuals learn how to associate stimuli towards one another. This is seen in the above examples of the car crash and the terrorist attack on 9/11. Through classical conditioning a person is able to associate seeing a car’s headlights to believing the event will happen again, which will increase the reappearance of the event. In addition, Reappearance hypothesis occurs through priming which is where cues will trigger the reappearance of images or thoughts (Ehlers, 2010). As researchers have discovered how reappearance hypothesis occurs, it can be treated very similarly to PTSD. Reappearance hypothesis can be treated through several different types of therapies. These therapies consist of exposure therapy, systematic desensitization, and other forms of behavioral therapies as well. Treatment may be different for everyone but they have all been seen to be effective (Myers, 2014). References Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M., & Anderson, M. (2015). When memory systems fail. In Memory (2nd ed.). New York, New York: Psychology Press. Belardinelli, M. (2012). The debt of cognitive science to Ulric Neisser.Cogn Process Cognitive Processing, 13, 189-191. doi:10.1007/s10339-012-0506-4 Ehlers, A. (2010). Understanding and Treating Unwanted Trauma Memories in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Zeitschrift Für Psychologie / Journal of Psychology, 218(2), 141-145. doi:10.1027/0044-3409/a000021 Myers, D. (2014). Anxiety Disorders. In Psychology: Tenth edition in modules (10th ed.). New York, NY, NY: Worth Pub.