Investigation of the relationship between dissociative experiences and neurocognitive functions in university students

In this study, the relationship between dissociative experiences and neurocognitive functions in university students was examined. The sample group of the study consists of 47 university students living in Istanbul and Hatay provinces. The Sociodemographic Information Form developed by the researcher was used to measure sociodemographic data, and the Beck Depression Inventory was used to measure depression levels. Participants who scored above the cut-off score on the depression scale were not included in the study. Dissociative Experience Scale was given to measure the dissociative experiences of the participants, and the experimental and control groups of the study were formed according to the scores obtained from this scale. Stroop Test, Trail Making Test, Digit Span Test and Wecshler Memory Scale were used to measure neurocognitive functions. When we look at the scores obtained from the Stroop test, which measures executive functions in our study, the total time, number of errors and number of corrections performed in the fifth part of the test show a statistically significant mean difference between the groups. However, there was no significant difference between the research sample and the scores obtained from other neurocognitive tests. According to these findings, the experimental group performed lower than the control group in terms of executive functions, sensitivity to interference, and inhibition skills.