Commentary on Stirling Moorey's and Janet Feigenbaum's papers

Our notions of what constitutes a good therapeutic relationship come from models developed for people with high levels of personal resources who actively choose therapy in preference to other ways of addressing their problems. The context is quite different for those with more severe and enduring mental health problems, when therapy can be one of many interventions being provided. Some of the dilemmas that arise within the therapeutic relationship in such cases can be understood in terms of the therapeutic relationship being conceived of within the dynamics of a dyad, when the actual situation is more akin to a triadic relationship comprising the client, the therapist and others involved in the client's care. Examples of threats to the therapeutic alliance, which I encounter quite frequently in my work, are explored from the perspective of the therapeutic couple within three-person space, as well as from the perspective of the differing, and sometimes conflicting, functions of mental health care. The implications of this for the provision of psychological therapy for people with severe mental health problems within the NHS are then considered.     

"SUBJECTIVE APPROACH TO VOCABULARY” ACQUISITION (OR “... I THINK MY BROTHER IS ARBOREAL!")

This article presents a method and rationale for enhancing verbal learning in a typical reading‐language arts lesson through personal and group generated images and associations.     

All of the above: When multiple correct response options enhance the testing effect

Previous research has shown that multiple choice tests often improve memory retention. However, the presence of incorrect lures often attenuates this memory benefit. The current research examined the effects of “all of the above” (AOTA) options. When such options are correct, no incorrect lures are present. In the first three experiments, a correct AOTA option on an initial test led to a larger memory benefit than no test and standard multiple choice test conditions. The benefits of a correct AOTA option occurred even without feedback on the initial test; for both 5-minute and 48-hour retention delays; and for both cued recall and multiple choice final test formats. In the final experiment, an AOTA question led to better memory retention than did a control condition that had identical timing and exposure to response options. However, the benefits relative to this control condition were similar regardless of the type of multiple choice test (AOTA or not). Results suggest that retrieval contributes to multiple choice testing effects. However, the extra testing effect from a correct AOTA option, rather than being due to more retrieval, might be due simply to more exposure to correct information.     

Influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on memory and social judgements

Prior work shows that appearance-behaviour congruity impacts memory and evaluations. Building upon prior work, we assessed influences of appearance-behaviour congruity on source memory and judgement strength to illustrate ways congruity effects permeate social cognition. We paired faces varying on trustworthiness with valenced behaviours to create congruent and incongruent face-behaviour pairs. Young and older adults remembered congruent pairs better than incongruent, but both were remembered better than pairs with faces rated average in appearance. This suggests that multiple, even conflicting, valenced cues improve memory over receiving fewer cues. Consistent with our manipulation of facial trustworthiness, congruity effects were present in the strength of trustworthiness-related but not dominance judgements. Subtle age differences emerged in congruity effects when learning about others, with older adults showing effects for approach judgements given both high and low arousal behaviours. Young adults had congruity effects for approach, prosociality and trustworthiness judgements, given high arousal behaviours only. These findings deepen our understanding of how appearance-behaviour congruity impacts memory for and evaluations of others.     

Directed remembering: Subliminal cues alter nonconscious memory strategies

Much research on memory function has focused on changes in recognition performance brought about by differences in the processes engaged during encoding. In most of this work, participants either receive explicit instructions to remember particular items or they perform orienting (i.e., encoding) tasks that support different levels of memory performance. In daily life, however, the retention or dismissal of information often occurs without conscious intent, thereby suggesting an alternative, nonconscious route through which purposive remembering and forgetting can occur. Based on this line of reasoning, we speculated that recognition performance in a standard item-based forgetting paradigm may be moderated by subliminal cues that trigger the automatic activation of different mnemonic strategies. We report the results of two experiments that supported this prediction. In each experiment, the basic item-based forgetting effect was replicated, but via the subliminal presentation of “remember” and “forget” cues. In addition, cue-dependent differences in memory performance were traced to the operation of a covert rehearsal mechanism during encoding. We consider the implications of these findings for the non-conscious operation of memory processes in everyday life.     

Psychosocial Implications of Foreign Accent Syndrome: Two Case Examples

Research on foreign accent syndrome (FAS), a rare form of speech disorder that typically follows some form of neurological insult, has concentrated almost exclusively on its neurogenic origins and motoric features, to the virtual neglect of its psychosocial implications for the patients who experience it. In this article we draw on the concepts and methods of personal construct theory to analyze two cases of FAS, demonstrating the significant and sometimes sweeping reconstruction of these persons’ sense of identity in the social world.     

Meaning is in the beholder’s eye: Morpho-semantic effects in masked priming

A substantial body of literature indicates that, at least at some level of processing, complex words are broken down into their morphemes solely on the basis of their orthographic form (e.g., Rastle, Davis, & New, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review 11:1090–1098, 2004). Recent evidence has shown that this process might not be obligatory, as indicated by the fact that morpho-orthographic effects were not found in a cross-case same–different task—that is, when lexical access was not necessarily required (Duñabeitia, Kinoshita, Carreiras, & Norris, Language and Cognitive Processes 26:509–529, 2011). In this study, we employed a task that required understanding a series of words and, thus, implied lexical access. Masked primes were shown very briefly right before the appearance of the target word; prime–target pairs entertained a morpho-semantic (dealer–DEAL), a morpho-orthographic (corner–CORN), or a purely orthographic (brothel–BROTH) relationship. Eye fixation times clearly indicated facilitation for transparent pairs, but not for opaque pairs (or for orthographic pairs, which were used as a baseline). Conversely, the usual morpho-orthographic pattern was found in a control experiment, employing a lexical decision task. These results indicate that the access to a morpho-orthographic level of representation is not always necessary for lexical identification, which challenges models of visual word identification that cannot account for task-induced effects.     

Rotation reveals the importance of configural cues in handwritten word perception

A dramatic perceptual asymmetry occurs when handwritten words are rotated 90 ° in either direction. Those rotated in a direction consistent with their natural tilt (typically clockwise) become much more difficult to recognize, relative to those rotated in the opposite direction. In Experiment 1, we compared computer-printed and handwritten words, all equated for degrees of leftward and rightward tilt, and verified the phenomenon: The effect of rotation was far larger for cursive words, especially when they were rotated in a tilt-consistent direction. In Experiment 2, we replicated this pattern with all items being presented in visual noise. In both experiments, word frequency effects were larger for computer-printed words and did not interact with rotation. The results suggest that handwritten word perception requires greater configural processing, relative to computer print, because handwritten letters are variable and ambiguous. When words are rotated, configural processing suffers, particularly when rotation exaggerates the natural tilt. Our account is similar to theories of the “Thatcher illusion,” wherein face inversion disrupts holistic processing. Together, the findings suggest that configural, word-level processing automatically increases when people read handwriting, as letter-level processing becomes less reliable.     

Representational momentum and the brain: An investigation into the functional necessity of V5/MT

The mental representation of objects can imply motion and momentum. This can be explored by investigating a distortion in recognition memory for pictures that depict objects “frozen” in mid-air, implying motion. This distortion is called representational momentum (RM). Recent functional neuroimaging studies have suggested that the V5/MT system (the area of the brain thought to be responsible for perceptual processing of motion) is involved in the mediation of RM. The results of these studies are reviewed here. However the presence of functional activity revealed in brain imaging studies does not mean that this part of the brain is necessary for a particular cognitive task. A greater degree of functional necessity can be inferred by disrupting function in that part of the brain. One way in which this can be done is with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS, a method of temporarily suspending cortical activity). We extended the findings of the previous fMRI experiments by using TMS in conjunction with an RM paradigm. Repetitive magnetic stimulation to V5/MT during the so-called freeze-frame RM task resulted in an absence of the stereotypical distortion in recognition memory (compared to stimulation at the vertex) for approximately 60% of