Base Rates,Deception Detection,and Deception Theory: A Reply to Burgoon (2015)

This essay continues a debate about the relative scientific merits of the Park‐Levine Model (PLM) and Interpersonal Deception Theory (IDT) with regard to accuracy in deception detection. Key points of disagreement include (a) the degree to which message recipients are sensitive to sender veracity and (b) the extent to which interactivity moderates the veracity and base‐rate effects specified by PLM. According to PLM, people are truth‐biased, truth‐bias makes people insensitive to deception, and as a consequence, base rates affect accuracy regardless of interactivity. IDT, in direct contrast, holds that people are sensitive to the veracity of other's communication and that interactivity is a key moderator. Consistent with PLM, data repeatedly show that people are insensitive to other's veracity and that this insensitivity is general across media affordances including interactivity. This rejoinder uses Burgoon's (2015) own interactive data to demonstrate the empirical superiority of PLM over IDT.     

Intrusive re-experiencing in post-traumatic stress disorder: phenomenology, theory, and therapy

The article describes features of trauma memories in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including characteristics of unintentional re-experiencing symptoms and intentional recall of trauma narratives. Reexperiencing symptoms are usually sensory impressions and emotional responses from the trauma that appear to lack a time perspective and a context. The vast majority of intrusive memories can be interpreted as re-experiencing of warning signals, i.e., stimuli that signalled the onset of the trauma or of moments when the meaning of the event changed for the worse. Triggers of re-experiencing symptoms include stimuli that have perceptual similarity to cues accompanying the traumatic event. Intentional recall of the trauma in PTSD may be characterised by confusion about temporal order, and difficulty in accessing important details, both of which contribute to problematic appraisals. Recall tends to be disjointed. When patients with PTSD deliberately recall the worst moments of the trauma, they often do not access other relevant (usually subsequent) information that would correct impressions/predictions made at the time. A theoretical analysis of re-experiencing symptoms and their triggers is offered, and implications for treatment are discussed. These include the need to actively incorporate updating information ("I know now ...") into the worst moments of the trauma memory, and to train patients to discriminate between the stimuli that were present during the trauma ("then") and the innocuous triggers of re-experiencing symptoms ("now").     

God,Information, and Complexity: From Descriptive to Explorative Metaphysics

Abstract

Information and complexity have become central concepts in our contemporary worldview. On this background, it is discussed in which sense concepts of information and complexity may apply to theology proper. While the inherited axiom of divine simplicity forbids complexity and plurality as features of divine nature, an argument is developed for the presence of information and complexity in divine life. Three forms of information are proposed as relevant for a contemporary concept of God: Information as difference (Information1), information as form and relational structure (Information2) and semantic information (Information3). It is argued that features of these forms of information must be internal to divine life, if God can properly be said to facilitate and value the complex world of creation, to allow embodied creates to participate in divine life, and to communicate with creatures. In this light, the notion of divine simplicity will have to be redefined as the divine self-identity throughout temporal flux.     

Responses to the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks: Experience of an Indirect Traumatic Event and Its Relationship With Perceived Benefits

Little is known about how people might benefit from an indirectly experienced traumatic event. The authors examined the relationship between perception of benefit and trauma symptoms in response to a relatively severe, but indirectly experienced, traumatic event. The authors sampled from 2 colleges located in the southeastern United States (N = 136). Individuals responded to questionnaires that assessed perceived benefits and trauma symptoms 1-2 weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and again approximately 10 weeks later. Participants did perceive benefits from witnessing this event, although their perception of benefit declined over time. Level of trauma symptoms correlated positively with perception of benefit, and experiencing a previous trauma also correlated positively with perceived benefits. Additional analysis indicated that level of trauma symptoms mediated the relationship between previous trauma and perception of benefit. These findings help to elucidate understanding of the development of perceived benefits in response to indirectly experienced events.     

Moral injury,coherence, and spiritual repair

In the PTSD literature, moral injury represents dissonance between a person’s beliefs about how they and the world should function, and the trauma event(s) they experienced. Given the association of moral injury with the assumptive world, it is not surprising the concept is closely intertwined with spiritual concerns. This paper reports on a spiritually integrated group intervention designed to help veterans with PTSD in the process of moral and spiritual repair. Qualitative findings are shared from interviews conducted with 18 participants who completed the intervention. Themes are centred around participants’ overall response to their experience in the group; where they are at regarding feelings such as guilt, shame, anger, trust, sense of betrayal, and desire for forgiveness; changes in religious/spiritual beliefs and practices and the experience of moral injury; and if they now find meaning in the trauma. The findings support the need for additional treatment options that address the moral and spiritual aspects of trauma.     

Object individuation: infants' use of shape, size, pattern, and color.

Recent research indicates that when an event-monitoring paradigm is used, infants as young as 4.5 months of age demonstrate the ability to use featural information to individuate objects involved in occlusion events (Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1998a, Object individuation in infancy: The use of featural information in reasoning about occlusion events. Cognitive Psychology 37, 97-155; Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1998b, Object individuation in young infants: Further evidence with an event monitoring task. Developmental Science 1, 127-142). For example, in one experiment (Wilcox & Baillargeon, 1998b, Object individuation in young infants: Further evidence with an event monitoring task. Developmental Science 1, 127-142) 4.5-month-old infants saw a test event in which a green ball with colored dots disappeared behind one edge of a narrow or wide screen, and a red box with silver thumbtacks appeared at the other edge; the narrow screen was too narrow to hide both objects simultaneously, whereas the wide screen was sufficiently wide to hide both objects at the same time. The infants looked reliably longer at the narrow- than at the wide-screen test event. These and control results suggested that the infants had: (a) used the featural differences between the ball and box to conclude that two objects were involved in the event; (b) judged that both objects could fit simultaneously behind the wide but not the narrow screen; and hence (c) were surprised by the narrow-screen event. The present experiments build on these initial findings by investigating the features to which infants are most sensitive. Four experiments were conducted with infants 4.5-11.5 months of age using the same procedure, except that only one feature was manipulated at a time: shape, size, pattern, or color. The results indicated that 4.5-month-olds use both shape and size features to individuate objects involved in occlusion events. However, it is not until 7.5 months that infants use pattern, and 11.5 months that infants use color, to reason about object identity. It is suggested that these results reflect biases in the kind of information that infants attend to when reasoning about occlusion events. Possible sources of bias are discussed.     

A few thoughts about the mind,the brain,and a child with early deprivation

Infant brain research is having an increasing impact on child psychotherapy and our understanding of the neurobiological effects of trauma and neglect. This paper outlines the 'experience-dependent' nature of brain development in infancy and the concept of critical periods in such development. The effects of deprivation on child development are illustrated and case material from a child who was institutionalized during his second year is used as a basis for posing questions about the nature of the mind and the brain. In spite of his deprivation, he was able to communicate imaginatively. Schore's proposal for the use of early interventions is put forward to counter discouragement that can be engendered by work with severely deprived children.     

Intrusive re‐experiencing in post‐traumatic stress disorder: Phenomenology,theory, and therapy

The article describes features of trauma memories in post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including characteristics of unintentional re‐experiencing symptoms and intentional recall of trauma narratives. Re‐experiencing symptoms are usually sensory impressions and emotional responses from the trauma that appear to lack a time perspective and a context. The vast majority of intrusive memories can be interpreted as re‐experiencing of warning signals, i.e., stimuli that signalled the onset of the trauma or of moments when the meaning of the event changed for the worse. Triggers of re‐experiencing symptoms include stimuli that have perceptual similarity to cues accompanying the traumatic event. Intentional recall of the trauma in PTSD may be characterised by confusion about temporal order, and difficulty in accessing important details, both of which contribute to problematic appraisals. Recall tends to be disjointed. When patients with PTSD deliberately recall the worst moments of the trauma, they often do not access other relevant (usually subsequent) information that would correct impressions/predictions made at the time. A theoretical analysis of re‐experiencing symptoms and their triggers is offered, and implications for treatment are discussed. These include the need to actively incorporate updating information ( “I know now …”) into the worst moments of the trauma memory, and to train patients to discriminate between the stimuli that were present during the trauma ( “then”) and the innocuous triggers of re‐experiencing symptoms ( “now”).     

Thanatos and massive psychic trauma: the impact of the death instinct on knowing,remembering, and forgetting

The connection between massive psychic trauma and the concept of the death instinct is explored using the basic assumptions that the death instinct is unleashed through and is in a sense characteristic of traumatic experience, and that the concept of the death instinct is indispensable to the understanding and treatment of trauma. Characteristics of traumatic experience, such as dissolution of the empathic bond, failure to assimilate experience into psychic representation and structure, a tendency to repeat traumatic experience, and a resistance to remembering and knowing, are considered as trauma-induced death instinct derivatives. An initial focus is on the individual, on how death instinct manifestations can be discerned in the survivors of trauma. Next the intergenerational force of trauma is examined; a clinical vignette illustrates how the death instinct acts on and is passed on to the children of survivors. Finally, the cultural or societal aspects of trauma are considered, with an eye to how death instinct derivatives permeate cultural responses (or failures to respond) to trauma. Because trauma causes a profound destructuring and decathexis, it is concluded that the concept of the death instinct is a clinical and theoretical necessity.     

Responses to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: experience of an indirect traumatic event and its relationship with perceived benefits

Little is known about how people might benefit from an indirectly experienced traumatic event. The authors examined the relationship between perception of benefit and trauma symptoms in response to a relatively severe, but indirectly experienced, traumatic event. The authors sampled from 2 colleges located in the southeastern United States (N = 136). Individuals responded to questionnaires that assessed perceived benefits and trauma symptoms 1-2 weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and again approximately 10 weeks later. Participants did perceive benefits from witnessing this event, although their perception of benefit declined over time. Level of trauma symptoms correlated positively with perception of benefit, and experiencing a previous trauma also correlated positively with perceived benefits. Additional analysis indicated that level of trauma symptoms mediated the relationship between previous trauma and perception of benefit. These findings help to elucidate understanding of the development of perceived benefits in response to indirectly experienced events.     

The informativeness and frequency of presentation of a social stimulus as determinants of its efficacy as a reinforcer

It was demonstrated that variations in the informativeness of a social stimulus place important limitations on the generality of the proposition that deprivation heightens, while satiation lowers, responsiveness to a social stimulus. Using 60 children 5 to 6 years of age as subjects, a social stimulus (“good”) was presented at either a high or a low frequency in one of three information-value contexts (high, medium, or low). Immediately following the exposure treatment the same social stimulus was employed as a reinforcer of nonpreferred responses in a two-choice discrimination learning task. The findings indicated that the heightened efficacy of deprivation relative to satiation only held for low information value; when initial information value was high the subsequent efficacy of a social stimulus was enhanced by its initial recurrent usage. Trend analyses revealed that the effects of variations in information value were strongest within the high-frequency-of-praise treatment. Possible mechanisms underlying the significant Information Value × Frequency interaction were discussed.     

An analogue study of intrusions

According to cognitive theorists, intrusive trauma memories have their origin in how information during the event is processed. Two studies investigated functional cognitive strategies during medical crises that might protect against intrusions. In Study 1, interviews with health-care professionals were used to identify cognitive strategies judged to be effective in controlling emotions and dealing with medical crises. Study 2 systematically manipulated the use of those strategies in a trauma analogue film paradigm. Experimental participants reported fewer intrusions, and less fear and avoidance of film-related stimuli during the subsequent week than controls. The manipulation did not affect anxiety during the film or memory disorganization. Implications for cognitive theories of intrusion development are discussed.     

Adverse Events in Emerging Adulthood Are Associated with Increases in Neuroticism

Previous studies have produced mixed results when examining whether experiencing an adverse event can lead to changes in Neuroticism. We sought to examine this effect when (a) the event was relatively recent, (b) the event occurred during a relatively early development stage (i.e., emerging adulthood), and (c) the event was severely adverse. A sample of 1,108 undergraduates completed three measures of Neuroticism twice, separated by approximately 3 months, and indicated the most traumatic or adverse event they experienced during the intervening 3 months. We examined two operationalizations of adverse events: one that is more objectively defined (indicated experiencing a trauma listed on a trauma history measure) and another more subjectively defined (participant ratings of event centrality). The results revealed that high Neuroticism at Time 1 predicted future exposure to both types of adverse events. Critically, participants who experienced either type of adverse event during the semester reported significant increases in Neuroticism. Experiencing a high event centrality event was also associated with small increases in the personality traits Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness. The results are discussed in terms of the conditions necessary for adverse events to affect personality traits.     

The relations between knowledge,search strategy,and performance in unaided and aided information search

Information search is a critical step in resolving complex issues in many different decision-making domains. This study examines the relations between knowledge, search strategy, and performance in both unaided and aided information search. The results of an experiment indicates that (a) task-relevant knowledge is directly related to performance in aided but not in unaided information search; (b) in unaided information search, search strategy mediates the relation between knowledge and performance; that is, knowledge indirectly affects performance through its effect on search strategy; and (c) an information search aid moderates both the relation between knowledge and search strategy and the relation between search strategy and performance. These findings highlight the importance and the roles of task-relevant technical knowledge and search strategy in explaining information search performance and are most likely to apply to complex, knowledge-intensive domains in which decision makers search large databases to resolve issues.     

Event-mapping tasks: investigating the effects of prior information and event complexity on performance

Infants younger than 11.5 months typically fail in event-mapping tasks with complex event sequences, yet succeed when the event sequences are made very simple and brief. The present research explored whether younger infants might succeed at mapping complex event sequences if infants were given information to help them organize and structure the event. Three experiments were conducted with 7.5-month-olds. In all of the experiments, the infants were shown a two-phase test event. In the first phase, infants saw a box–ball occlusion sequence in which the objects emerged at least once to each side of the screen, reversing direction each time to return behind the screen. In the second phase, infants saw a one-ball display. Prior to the test trials, infants were shown an “outline” of the test event that contained the basic components of the event. The experiments varied in (a) the kind of information included in the event outline and (b) the complexity of the box–ball test sequence (i.e., the number of object reversals). The results revealed that the 7.5-month-olds benefitted from viewing an event outline, although the performance of the males was more robust than the females. These results add to a growing body of research indicating that young infants can succeed on event-mapping tasks under more supportive conditions and provide insight into why event mapping is such a difficult task for young infants.     

How to Design the Infosphere: the Fourth Revolution, the Management of the Life Cycle of Information, and Information Ethics as a Macroethics

The paper reconstructs the read thread that links the information revolution, the information concept and information ethics in Floridi’s philosophy of information. In doing so, it acknowledges the grand attempt but doubts whether this attempt is up to the state of affairs concerning the actual point human history has reached. It contends that the information age is rather conceivable as a critical stage in which human evolution as a whole is at stake. The mastering of this crisis depends on an appropriate shaping of Information and Communication Technologies which requires ethical considerations. In this respect, Floridi’s notion of the fourth revolution, his assumption of the management of the life cycle of information, and his ontocentric macroethics will be discussed in the light of the term “scientific-technological revolution”, the idea of a noogenesis, a new way of thinking and new weltanschauung, the concept of friction in social and physical aspects, the concept of collective intelligence and its application to the Internet and last, but not least, the vision of a Global Sustainable Information Society.     

Prechoice awareness of relative deprivation as a determinant of cognitive dissonance

Two experiments were conducted to clarify whether negative information presented after a person has committed himself to a course of action is capable of creating cognitive dissonance. Subjects were exposed to high or low relative deprivation either before they chose to participate in a tedious task, after they chose to participate, or without the option not to participate. The results indicated that there was greater satisfaction about participation under high relative deprivation than under low, but only when subjects were aware of the relative deprivation prior to their choice to participate. Information presented after decision was not effective in arousing dissonance. The implications of the experiments for modified views of dissonance theory were discussed.     

Links Between Stressful Life Events and Proactive and Reactive Functions of Aggression

Recently, more attention has been devoted to understanding how stressful life events might relate to proactive and reactive aggression. Findings suggest that stressful life events are more strongly linked to reactive, than proactive, aggression; however, it is unclear whether the impact of stressful life events on proactive and reactive aggression might vary as a function of the level of exposure to or type of stressful life event. The current study examined how level of exposure to stressful life events (i.e., witnessed, experienced, and learned about) and stressful life event types (i.e., war zone exposure, sexual victimization, interpersonal violence, and other trauma exposure) related to proactive and reactive aggression. The sample was comprised of 500 undergraduate students (M = 18.96, SD = 1.22, 49.6% male) recruited from a Midwestern university. Findings indicated that all three levels of stressful life event exposure (i.e., experienced, witnesses, and learned) were associated with reactive aggression; however, only witnessed stressful life events were associated with proactive aggression. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.     

Preliminary Findings from a Qualitative Study of Trauma Survivors in Treatment: Changes in Personal Narratives

This article seeks to document the characteristics and themes of later trauma recovery using a grounded theory analysis of interviews with trauma survivors enrolled in outpatient treatment. Little research exists that speaks to patients’ own accounts of the process of trauma recovery. Such accounts might elucidate how psychotherapy helps survivors make and remake meaning of their lives, their experience of traumatic events, and the resources they might call on in psychotherapy to secure recovery. This study examined narrative material gathered in a series of interviews with trauma survivors (n?=?14) who had been in treatment for an average of 8 months and could be described as in a later phase of the recovery process. Two significant themes emerged from the analysis: (a) greater coherence to the trauma narrative, and (b) the emergence of a more reflective and observational stance with respect to one's history. Implications for trauma-informed therapy are discussed.