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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 424-3 Filed 11/08/21 Page 20 of 29 114 J. Engle and W. O’Donobue between reports of childhood trauma and high levels of dissociation (e.g. Sanders & Giolas, 1991). Dissociation can occur either during the trau- matic experience (peritraumatic dissociation) or afterward (posttraumatic dissociation). Peritraumatic dissociation is characterized by numbness detachment, derealization, depersonalization, and reduced responsiveness during the traumatic event (Tichenor, Marmar, Weiss, Metzler, & Ronfeldt, 1996). A meta-analysis comparing the results of 35 empirical studies on the relationship between levels of peritraumatic dissociation and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) found that peritraumatic dissociation was a moderate predictor of PTSD (Breh & Seidler, 2009). Some psychologists have conceptualized dissociation as a coping mech- anism in response to trauma-related stress (Gershuny & Thayer, 1999). However, others have argued that dissociation is a trait that precedes a trau- matic experience and may contribute to psychological responses in trauma survivors (Tichenor et al., 1996). Whatever the case may be, dissociation has been shown in multiple studies to be related to memory fragmentation (Kindt, Van den Hout, & Buck, 2005; van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995) and to two prominent correlates: fantasy proneness (Merckelbach, Campo, Hardy, & Geisbrecht, 2005) and absentmindedness (Merckelbach, Muris, Rassin, & Horselenberg, 2000). In one study (Candel et al., 2003), low and high dissociators were read stories of a traumatic nature and asked to freely recall the story. Even after controlling for fantasy proneness, high dissociators provided more errors of commission—that is, added false content—than low dissociators, though the two groups did not differ on errors of omission. In another study by Merckelbach and colleagues (Merckelbach, Horselenberg, & Schmidt, 2002), participants were read a story and asked to recall the content of the story. They were then asked several misleading questions meant to test suggestibility. As hypothesized, participants who were high dissocia- tors were more likely to endorse story elements that were fabricated than low dissociators. Also, participants who were high dissociators were also more likely to have trait absentmindedness but were not more likely to have fantasy proneness. Similar studies have shown a small trend toward a rela- tionship between fantasy proneness and memory commissions (Giesbrecht, Geraerts, & Merckelbach, 2007). The results of these studies indicate that dissociators are capable of “remembering” events that did not happen and that absentmindedness may be a mediator in the relationship between trau- matic events and commission errors of memory. The results of these studies suggest that it may be important to consider the possibility that the mem- ory of the event may include false details if the claimant has high levels of dissociation. A review of the literature on dissociation and memory (Giesbrecht, Lynn, Lillienfild, & Merckelbach, 2008) cited evidence that trait dissociation is likely to be associated with memory distortions. In an effort to align DOJ-OGR- 00006288