Information processing and reasoning with premises that are empirically false: Interference,working memory,and processing speed

In this study, we looked at the contributions of individual differences in susceptibility to interference and working memory to logical reasoning with premises that were empirically false (i.e., not necessarily true). A total of 97 university students were given a sentence completion task for which a subset of stimuli was designed to generate inappropriate semantic activation that interfered with the correct response, a measure of working memory capacity, and a series of logical reasoning tasks with premises that were not always true. The results indicate that susceptibility to interference, as measured by the error rate on the relevant subset of the sentence completion task, and working memory independently account for variation in reasoning performance. The participants who made more errors in the relevant portion of the sentence completion task also showed more empirical intrusions in the deductive reasoning task, even when the effects of working memory were partialed out. Working memory capacity was more clearly related to processes involved in generating uncertainty responses to inferences for which there was no certain conclusion. A comparison of the results of this study with studies of children's reasoning suggests that adults are capable of more selective executive processes than are children. An analysis of latency measures on the sentence completion task indicated that high working memory participants who made no errors on the sentence completion task used a strategy that involved slower processing speed, as compared with participants with similar levels of working memory who did make errors. In contrast, low working memory participants who made no errors on the sentence completion task had relatively shorter reaction times than did comparable participants who did make errors.     

Transdiagnostic Associations Among Parental Causal Locus Attributions,Child Behavior and Psychosocial Treatment Outcomes: A Systematic Review

Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review - Parents’ interpretations of the cause of their children’s behavior, i.e., parental attributions, are linked to parenting behavior and child...     

When is it time to stop? When good enough becomes bad enough

This article draws on Winnicott’s concept of the good enough mother to discuss how to know whether a therapeutic situation is good enough to continue or bad enough to end. This dilemma is explored in terms of clinical syndromes, such as anorexia and pathological gambling, but focuses mainly on analyst-initiated endings, which are termed the ‘Casablanca dilemma’, based on an amplification of the ending of the film Casablanca. The author goes on to discuss such one-sided endings, drawing on interviews with 40 analysts and therapists about their clinical experience. A typology of bad enough endings is presented. The psychological differences between a good enough analysis as opposed to a bad enough one are explored through the ideas of Winnicott and Neumann.