Enhanced perceptual priming for neutral stimuli in a traumatic context: A pathway to intrusive memories?

Clinical observations suggest that re-experiencing symptoms are triggered by stimuli that are perceptually similar to those present shortly before the trauma or its worst moments. Two experiments investigated the possible role of perceptual priming in this phenomenon. Volunteers (N = 28, N = 62) watched a series of “traumatic” and neutral picture stories, and completed blurred object identification (priming) and recognition memory tasks. Neutral objects that immediately preceded the “traumatic” stories were more strongly primed, but not better recognised, than objects from neutral stories. Enhanced priming predicted subsequent re-experiencing symptoms. The results support the role of perceptual priming in re-experiencing.     

Psychological assessment of prematurely born infants and young children

The current literature on the cognitive, perceptual, motor, and personal-social development of prematurely born children is reviewed. The implications of this literature for the psychological assessment of prematurely born infants and young children are then discussed.     

Historical inferences from ethnohistorical data: Boasian views

Just before Boasian anthropologists turned from trying to reconstruct North American prehistory to synchronic work on social organization and on the psychological integration of intact cultures, they considered the validity of traditional/folk accounts. Robert Lowie, editor of the official journal of the American Anthropological Association, categorically rejected any use of such data, twisting the carefully delimited claims made for them by the anthropologists engaged in disentangling American ethnic groupings, who were unwilling to throw out all data except those provided by professionally trained (that is, Boasian) anthropologists. Rather than the “refutation” (in the Popperian sense) this episode has been taken to represent, it exemplifies a problematic along with the appropriate methods for the problematic being dropped as other problematics and methods become fashionable.     

The effect of cognitive reappraisal on the emotional memory trade-off

Emotional information is often remembered better than neutral information, but this enhancement can come at the cost of memory for non-emotional stimuli presented alongside emotionally salient items. Two encoding-related factors have been proposed to influence the magnitude of this trade-off: The intensity of the affective response to the scenes (which increases the trade-off) and the cognitive control exerted to process the scenes (which decreases the trade-off). The present study examined the relative importance of these two factors by assessing the effect of cognitive reappraisal on the magnitude of the trade-off effect. Cognitive reappraisal refers to the implementation of cognitive strategies to assist a person in changing the intensity of their response to an experience. Thus, reappraisal provides a way to assess both of the factors that are important for the elicitation of the trade-off. The results revealed that when participants were asked to view the scenes, without cognitive reappraisal, a robust memory trade-off occurred. But, when participants were asked to either heighten or decrease their emotional reactions via reappraisal, there was a reduction in the magnitude of the trade-off. These results suggest that the cognitive process of reappraising the scenes is sufficient to reduce the trade-off effect, even when such processing leads to an intensified affective response.