Do 5-Month-Old Infants Possess an Evolved Detection Mechanism for Snakes,Sharks, and Rodents?

The 4 experiments reported here used the preferential looking and habituation paradigms to examine whether 5-month-olds possess a perceptual template for snakes, sharks, and rodents. It was predicted that if infants possess such a template, then they would attend preferentially to schematic images of these nonhuman animal stimuli relative to scrambled versions of the same stimuli. The results revealed that infants looked longer at a schematic snake than at 2 scrambled versions of the image and generalized from real snakes to the schematic image. The experiments also demonstrated that 5-month-olds showed no preferential looking for schematic sharks or schematic rodents relative to scrambled versions of those images. These data add to the growing support for the view that humans, like many nonhuman animals, possess an evolved fear mechanism for detecting threats that were recurrent across evolutionary time.     

Repeated Interrogations –Stretching the Deception Detection Paradigm

In real life, suspects are often subjected to repeatedinterrogations. Psycho-legal research on deception has neglectedthis fact. To remedy this mismatch a series of studies wasconducted mapping how repeated interrogations affectlie-catchers' judgemental processes, deception detectionperformance, and meta-assessments. In two experiments we foundthat lie-catchers given access to consecutive statements from onesuspect did not perform better than lie-catchers given access toone statement only. In addition, access to repeatedinterrogations inflated the lie-catchers' confidence in thecorrectness of their veracity judgement, which had a detrimentaleffect on the accuracy-confidence relation. As the basis forassessing veracity was changed from one to several statements thelie-catchers, to a large extent, seemed to trust the `consistencyheuristic'. The assumption underlying this heuristic is thatinconsistency implies deception and consistency implies truth.The data show that (a) people tend to disagree as to whether aparticular set of consecutive statements is consistent or not,and (b) deceptive statements are at least equally consistent astruthful statements. In order to explain the latter finding a`repeat vs. reconstruct' hypothesis was suggested, assuming thatliars try to repeat their initial statement, whereastruth-tellers try to reconstruct a previously experienced event.The low predictive accuracy found for the `consistency heuristic'strongly questions beliefs held by professional lie-catchers,opinions expressed in the psycho-legal literature andrecommendations found in applied interrogation manuals.     

Emotional Word Detection and Adolescent Repressive–Defensive Coping Style

This study used a computer-based emotional word-recognition task to assess the emotional processing styles of repressive–defensive youth. A hypothesis was tested proposing that adolescent repressive–defensive coping style is associated with rapid engagement and disengagement of emotional stimuli (negative and positive). Data were collected on a male adolescent sample enrolled in a juvenile diversion program allowing for the comparison of anxious, low-anxious, and repressive–defensive youth. Consistent with prediction, repressive–defensive participants exhibited facilitated responding to emotional relative to neutral word stimuli across valence category (i.e., positive and negative). In contrast, anxious participants exhibited a unique pattern of facilitated responding to positive word stimuli. The current findings represent a first attempt at investigating the processing impairments of repressive–defensive coping style in a nonadult sample. Results are interpreted in light of broader adult and child research findings on emotional processing and affective disturbance.     

Error Detection in Text: Do Feedback and Familiarity Help?

In the present study, the authors examined the extent to which familiarity and feedback (auditory and/or articulatory) might be beneficial to proofreading. Participants proofread unfamiliar and familiar (repeated) passages while (a) concurrently reading either aloud or silently, (b) concurrently listening to the passages being read to them, or (c) reading without either auditory or articulatory feedback. Errors were one-letter changes that transformed function words into contextually inappropriate words. Familiarity improved reading times largely irrespective of feedback, and it enhanced error detection only when auditory feedback was available to participants. Proofreaders' enhanced error detection in familiar text reflected a change in their sensitivity to errors rather than any change in the placement of the response criterion for reporting errors. These findings suggest that familiarity can produce two kinds of functional fluency, one involving speed of processing, which is largely independent of feedback, and the other concerned with accuracy of processing, which relies on feedback.     

Detection of cryptic prey: search image or search rate?

Animals' improvement in capturing cryptic prey with experience has long been attributed to a perceptual mechanism, the specific search image. Detection could also be improved by adjusting rate of search. In a series of studies using both naturalistic and operant search tasks, pigeons searched for wheat, dyed to produce 1 conspicuous and 2 equally cryptic prey types. Contrary to the predictions of the search-rate hypothesis, pigeons given a choice between the 2 cryptic types took the type experienced most recently. However, experience with 1 cryptic type improved accuracy on the other cryptic type, a result inconsistent with a search image specific to 1 prey type. Search image may better be thought of as priming of attention to those features of the prey type that best distinguish the prey from the background.     

Neuropsychological Characteristics of Dementia with Lewy Bodies and Parkinson’s Disease with Dementia: Differentiation, Early Detection, and Implications for “Mild Cognitive Impairment” and Biomarkers

Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) are neurodegenerative conditions sharing a disorder of α-synuclein metabolism. Temporal differences in the emergence of symptoms and clinical features warrant the continued clinical distinction between DLB and PDD. While DLB and PDD groups’ neuropsychological profiles often differ from those in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the diagnostic sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values of these profiles remain largely unknown. PDD and DLB neuropsychological profiles share sufficient similarity to resist accurate and reliable differentiation. Although heterogeneous cognitive changes (predominantly in memory and executive function) may manifest earlier and more frequently than previously appreciated in Parkinson’s disease (PD), and executive deficits may be harbingers of dementia, the enthusiasm to uncritically extend the concept of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to PD should be tempered. Instead, future research might strive to identify the precise neuropsychological characteristics of the prodromal stages of PD, PDD, and DLB which, in conjunction with other potential biomarkers, facilitate early and accurate diagnosis, and the definition of neuroprotective, neurorestorative, and symptomatic treatment endpoints.     

Detection of words versus good old counting: A note on Mizrahi and Dickinson, “The analytic-continental divide in philosophical practice”

In a recent Metaphilosophy article, Moti Mizrahi and Michael Dickinson argue against characterizing the divide between analytical and continental philosophy as a divide in the use of arguments. This hypothesis is rejected on the basis of a text-mining approach. The present paper argues that the results they extracted do not answer the questions they set out to answer as well as would have been possible. This is due to Mizrahi and Dickinson's choice to disregard duplicate occurrences of argument word pairs, their main indicator for the occurrence of arguments in articles. This paper reconstructs their method by now also counting duplicates. A small corpus (n = 436) of recent (2015–2021) analytical and continental articles is used to rerun the experiment; the results oppose Mizrahi and Dickinson's and suggest that arguments (as operationalized by Mizrahi and Dickinson) occur more in analytical articles. The paper argues that part of the discrepancy derives from the specific methodological choices they made.     

Detection of changes in spatial position: Short-term visual memory or motion perception?

The limiting conditions for short-term visual memory were explored for materials which are not readily codable. Two fields of random dots were presented successively in time. On half of the observations, the second display was identical to the first, and on the other half, a fraction of the dots was displaced relative to the first display. The task of the S was to indicate if any of the dots had moved (displacement detection), and in separate tests, if any of the dots had not moved (stationarity detection). Stationarity and displacement detection are largely related to the same variables, although performance is somewhat better with displacement detection. Discrimination of small displacements is critically dependent upon the interval between displays, with maximum accuracy in the region of 64 msec for briefly presented displays. Maximum accuracy is obtained under conditions which yield good apparent motion. By contrast, displacement discrimination is, within limits, relatively independent of the number of dots displayed, of the fraction of displaced dots.     

The Cognitive Interview and Lie Detection: a New Magnifying Glass for Sherlock Holmes?

The observation of serious deficiencies in the traditional police interview led Geiselman and colleagues to develop an alternative method of questioning. This method is known as the cognitive interview. The CI starts from the premise that the witness, victim or suspect wishes to cooperate. But, what happens if this is not the case? More seriously, what happens if he/she lies? The main aim of this study is to examine the differences between true and false statements, as a function of the interview technique employed (CI/STI). Participants were 73 students of the University of La Laguna. A 2×2 factorial design with the following variables was used: type of interview [traditional interview used in Spain by the Police (STI) and cognitive (CI)] and type of statement (true and false). The hypothesis was that the true and false accounts of witnesses would be qualitatively and quantitatively different independent of the type of interview used (STI/CI). Results confirmed the hypothesis. © 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Detection of changes in spatial position: III. Dot number or dot density?

Better detection of changes in spatial position is achieved within random dot patterns consisting of a small number of dots rather than a large number of dots. Why? The result might be related directly to the number of display elements which must be monitored and thereby linked to the sharing of attention across display elements. The result, previously obtained for displays of constant area, might be related to the density of display elements and thereby linked to proximity relations within spatial patterns. Or the result may be due to the local separation of neighboring dots when inquiring about the state of a specific dot. The present study attempts to unconfound these factors. It is shown that performance is related to the number of dots that must be motored, irrespective of dot density; that dot density 18 effective primarily 10 the inquiry of the state of specific elements; and then principally as It relates to the separation of the queried element from its neighbors.     

Early Detection of Memory Impairment in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Neurocognitive Perspective on Assessment

We propose that the earliest neuropsychological detection of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be informed by current views about the neuropathogenesis of AD and cognitive models of memory and its neurobiological substrates. The primary impairment in early AD is encoding/consolidation, resulting from medial temporal lobe (MTL) pathology. On theoretical and empirical grounds, paired associate learning (PAL) appears to be the ideal paradigm for detecting MTL dysfunction in early AD. It has not been embraced as a test of choice, however, and this critical review discusses why the paradigm may have not fulfilled its potential. We suggest that a new PAL variant, ‘associate-recognition’, may prove to be clinically efficacious.     

Change Detection Without Awareness: Do Explicit Reports Underestimate the Representation of Change in the Visual System?

Evidence from many different paradigms (e.g. change blindness, inattentional blindness, transsaccadic integration) indicate that observers are often very poor at reporting changes to their visual environment. Such evidence has been used to suggest that the spatio-temporal coherence needed to represent change can only occur in the presence of focused attention. In four experiments we use modified change blindness tasks to demonstrate (a) that sensitivity to change does occur in the absence of awareness, and (b) this sensitivity does not rely on the redeployment of attention. We discuss these results in relation to theories of scene perception, and propose a reinterpretation of the role of attention in representing change.     

Diagnostic Accuracy of the MMPI–2 Malingering Discriminant Function Index in the Detection of Malingering Among Inmates

The MMPI–2 Malingering Discriminant Function Index (M-DFI) was designed to detect malingerers educated about MMPI–2 validity indicators. However, given current attorney practices, the clinical utility of the M-DFI lies in its ability to detect examinees who are cautioned about the indicators. In this study, we compared 45 inmate simulators cautioned to avoid detection on the MMPI–2 with 46 psychiatric inmates who completed the MMPI–2 under standard instructions. Logistic regression analyses indicated that although the M-DFI performed better than several individual indicators, results were mixed for combinations of indicators, and the M-DFI did not outperform different sets of existing indicators. These findings support existing strategies to detect malingering on the MMPI–2. We discuss considerations concerning the clinical applicability of M-DFI.     

Children’s understandings of counting: Detection of errors and pseudoerrors by kindergarten and primary school children

In this study, the development of comprehension of essential and nonessential aspects of counting is examined in children ranging from 5 to 8 years of age. Essential aspects, such as logical rules, and nonessential aspects, including conventional rules, were studied. To address this, we created a computer program in which children watched counting errors (abstraction and order irrelevance errors) and pseudoerrors (with and without cardinal value errors) occurring during a detection task. The children judged whether the characters had counted the items correctly and were asked to justify their responses. In general, our data show that performance improved substantially with age in terms of both error and pseudoerror detection; furthermore, performance was better with regard to errors than to pseudoerrors as well as on pseudoerror tasks with cardinal values versus those without cardinal values. In addition, the children’s justifications, for both the errors and pseudoerrors, made possible the identification of conventional rules underlying the incorrect responses. A particularly relevant trend was that children seem to progressively ignore these rules as they grow older. Nevertheless, this process does not end at 8 years of age given that the conventional rules of temporal and spatial adjacency were present in their judgments and were primarily responsible for the incorrect responses.     

Is "Change Blindness" Attenuated by Domain-specific Expertise? An Expert-Novices Comparison of Change Detection in Football Images

When an aspect of a visual image is altered, observers often fail to notice the change. Recent studies suggest that successful change detection requires the observer to attend to and effortfully encode the changing aspect between the images. In this study we addressed the question of whether individual characteristics of the observer, namely expertise in a domain, selectively influence the ability to detect changes in images from that domain. A total of 48 individuals, half of whom were experts in the sport of American football and half of whom were American football novices, were presented alternating sequences of football-related and unrelated images. Our results indicate that expertise in a specific domain increases observers' sensitivity to semantic changes of domain-related images. Implications for the development of diagnostic tools are briefly addressed.     

Who,What, When,Where, How,and Mostly Why?

SUMMARY

The death of a client by suicide was very emotionally destabilizing to this therapist. She worked hard to distance herself personally from the pain at first and at the same time she found herself overfocused on the “psychological autopsy.” She had difficulty accepting new clients and wanted to withdraw from a meaningful appointment to a state advisory committee. Only when she was able to identify with the client's pain and realize how that pain touched her own history of loss was she able to grieve productively. She realized that gender was relevant in her identification with the victim and in sorting out each of their histories of loss.     

Identität, Familie, Patienten, Olympier

The author deals with the tradition of mental patterns in psychoanalytic institutes shaping the character of training. He discusses several patterns which in his opinion have become dysfunctional and are already in change: the family model, the patient model, the conception of training analysts as Olympians, the psychoanalytic identity as the endpoint of training and the model of the closed society. He argues for further transformation of these institutionalized patterns in order to avoid stagnation and remain future oriented. For each pattern he proposes concrete measures, which can be helpful for change.