Reflections on trauma,symbolization and psychic pain in a case of neurosis and a case of psychosis

This paper seeks to advance some considerations on trauma, historical reality, its symbolization and the psychic pain generated by the investigation of unconscious processes in psychoanalytic treatment. These themes will be explored by demonstrating the differences arising between traumatic experiences and their expression in phantasy, as they occurred in a case of neurosis and another of psychosis. In each case, the differences in the features of the symbolization and the processes of working through shall also be taken into consideration. Particular attention shall be paid to the specific difficulties encountered by the analyst in the interpretative treatment of the trauma resulting from the amount of psychic pain induced in the patient, which at times proves to be an insurmountable barrier and a destructive distortion of the process.     

Recognition Practice Results in a Generalizable Skill in Older Adults: Decreased Intrusion Errors to Novel Objects Belonging to Practiced Categories

Accessing memories is often accompanied by both positive and negative consequences. For example, practice recognizing some visual images held in memory can improve memory for the practiced images and hurt memory for related images (i.e., recognition‐induced forgetting). However, visual stimuli have been shown to improve memory for older adults by decreasing false memories. This suggests that older adults may be immune to recognition‐induced forgetting and that recognition practice may decrease susceptibility to intrusion errors. We first tested the hypothesis that older adults are immune to recognition‐induced forgetting. We found older adults exhibit recognition‐induced forgetting. Next, we tested the hypothesis that recognition practice decreases older adult's rates of intrusion errors. We found lower intrusion errors for novel objects from practiced categories. This represents a generalizable learning effect; practice recognizing a target object (e.g., your pill bottle) improves the rejection of new lures (e.g., identifying the pill bottle that is not yours).Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Algorithmic complexity for psychology: a user-friendly implementation of the coding theorem method

Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity has long been believed to be impossible to approximate when it comes to short sequences (e.g. of length 5-50). However, with the newly developed coding theorem method the complexity of strings of length 2-11 can now be numerically estimated. We present the theoretical basis of algorithmic complexity for short strings (ACSS) and describe an R-package providing functions based on ACSS that will cover psychologists’ needs and improve upon previous methods in three ways: (1) ACSS is now available not only for binary strings, but for strings based on up to 9 different symbols, (2) ACSS no longer requires time-consuming computing, and (3) a new approach based on ACSS gives access to an estimation of the complexity of strings of any length. Finally, three illustrative examples show how these tools can be applied to psychology.     

Causal beliefs and empirical evidence

Causal beliefs often facilitate decision making. However, strong causal beliefs can also lead to neglect of relevant empirical evidence causing errors in risky decision making (e.g., medical, financial). We investigated the impact of pre-training and post-experience on the evaluation of empirical evidence in a two-alternative medical diagnostic task. Participants actively searched for information about two patients on the basis of four available cues. The first experiment indicated that pre-training can weaken the strong influence of causal beliefs reducing neglect of empirical evidence. The second experiment demonstrated that increasing amounts of empirical evidence can improve people's ability to decide in favor of a correct diagnosis. The current research converges with other recent work to clarify key mechanisms and boundary conditions shaping the influence of causal beliefs and empirical evidence in decisions and causal judgments.     

Reconsolidation in humans opens up declarative memory to the entrance of new information

A consolidated memory recalled by a reminder enters a vulnerability phase (labilization), followed by a process of stabilization (reconsolidation). Several authors have suggested that the labilization of the consolidated memory makes the incorporation of new information possible. Here, we demonstrate updating in the framework of memory declarative reconsolidation in humans by giving an opportune verbal instruction. Volunteers learn an association between five cue-syllables (L1) and their respective response-syllables. Twenty-four hours later, the paired-associate verbal memory is labilized by exposing the subjects to the reminder, and then they receive the verbal Instruction of adding three new cue-response syllables (INFO) with their respective responses to the former list of five. The new information is incorporated into the single former L1-memory and both INFO and L1 are successfully retrieved on the third day. However, when the Instruction is not preceded by a proper reminder, or when the instruction omits the order of adding the INFO into the former L1-memory, we observed interference in retrieval of both the original and the new information, suggesting that they are encoded independently and coexist as separate memories.     

Cognitive performance and morning levels of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase in children reporting high vs. low daily stress perception

The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of daily stress perception on cognitive performance and morning basal salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase levels in healthy children aged 9-12. Participants were classified by whether they had low daily perceived stress (LPS, n = 27) or a high daily perceived stress (HPS, n = 26) using the Children Daily Stress Inventory (CDSI). Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase were measured at awakening and 30 minutes later. Cognitive performance was assessed using the Cognitive Drug Research assessment system. The HPS group exhibited significantly poorer scores on speed of memory (p < .05) and continuity of attention (p < .05) relative to the LPS group. The HPS group also showed significantly lower morning cortisol levels at awakening and at +30 minutes measures in comparison with the LPS group (p < .05), and mean morning cortisol levels were negatively correlated with speed of memory (p < .05) in the 53 participants. No significant differences were observed between both groups in alpha-amylase levels. These findings suggest that daily perceived stress in children may impoverish cognitive performance via its modulating effects on the HPA axis activity.     

Second-order conditioning of human causal learning

This article provides the first demonstration of a reliable second-order conditioning (SOC) effect in human causal learning tasks. It demonstrates the human ability to infer relationships between a cause and an effect that were never paired together during training. Experiments 1a and 1b showed a clear and reliable SOC effect, while Experiments 2a and 2b demonstrated that first-order extinction did not affect SOC. These results were similar to those found in animal and human conditioning and suggested that a similar associative mechanism could explain these effects. However, they can also be used to look into the underlying causal mental model people build and store while they are learning this task. From a cognitive view, overall results suggest that an independent rather than a chain causal mental model is stored after second-order learning in human causal tasks.     

Reconsolidation of declarative memory in humans

The reconsolidation hypothesis states that a consolidated memory could again become unstable and susceptible to facilitation or impairment for a discrete period of time after a reminder presentation. The phenomenon has been demonstrated in very diverse species and types of memory, including the human procedural memory of a motor skill task but not the human declarative one. Here we provide evidence for both consolidation and reconsolidation in a paired-associate learning (i.e., learning an association between a cue syllable and the respective response syllable). Subjects were given two training sessions with a 24-h interval on distinct verbal material, and afterward, they received at testing two successive retrievals corresponding to the first and second learning, respectively. Two main results are noted. First, the first acquired memory was impaired when a reminder was presented 5 min before the second training (reconsolidation), and also when the second training was given 5 min instead of 24 h after the first one (consolidation). Second, the first retrieval proved to influence negatively on the later one (the retrieval-induced forgetting [RIF] effect), and we used the absence of this RIF effect as a very indicator of the target memory impairment. We consider the demonstration of reconsolidation in human declarative memory as backing the universality of this phenomenon and having potential clinical relevance. On the other hand, we discuss the possibility of using the human declarative memory as a model to address several key topics of the reconsolidation hypothesis.