Revictimization and information processing in women survivors of childhood sexual abuse Nigel P. Field a, *, Catherine Classen b , Lisa D. Butler b , Cheryl Koopman b , Julia Zarcone b , David Spiegel b a Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 935 East Meadow Drive, Palo Alto, CA 94303, USA b Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Received 11 August 1999; received in revised form 20 October 1999; accepted 7 December 1999 Abstract This study examined the effect of sexual revictimization on information processing of trauma-related stimuli in a sample of child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Fifty-one treatment-seeking women participated in this study. Participants completed the Sexual Experiences Survey regarding sexual revictimization in the last 6 months and performed a modified emotional Stroop task in which they named the colors of neutral words (e.g., apple), general threat words (e.g., malignant and death), and sexual/victimization words (e.g., penis and abuser). As predicted, the revictimized participants (n = 16) took significantly longer to color-name sexual/victimization words than did the nonrevictimized participants. These results suggest that revictimization serves to prime preexisting ‘‘trauma’’ memory networks, thereby amplifying the impact of childhood sexual trauma on selective attention toward trauma- related stimuli. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The modified color-naming Stroop paradigm has been usefully applied in the investigation of processing of trauma-related information in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD; e.g., Cassiday, McNally, & Zeitlin, 1992; McNally, Kaspi, 0887-6185/01/$ – see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII:S0887-6185(01)00076-7 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: n.field@pgsp.edu (N.P. Field). Anxiety Disorders 15 (2001) 459 – 469