Feigning symptoms distorts diagnostic evaluations. Therefore, dedicated tools known as symptom validity tests have been developed to help clinicians differentiate feigned from genuine symptom presentations. While a deviant SVT score is an indicator of a feigned symptom presentation, a non-deviant score provides support for the hypothesis that the symptom presentation is valid. Ideally, non-deviant SVT scores should temper suspicion of feigning even in cases where the patient fits the DSM’s stereotypical yet faulty profile of the “antisocial” feigner. Across three studies, (...) we tested whether non-deviant SVT scores, indeed, have this corrective effect. We gave psychology students and clinical experts a case alluding to the DSM profile of feigning. In successive steps, they received information about the case, among which non-deviant SVT outcomes. After each step, participants rated how strongly they suspected feigning and how confident they were about their judgment. Both students and experts showed suspicion rates around the midpoint of the scale and did not respond to non-deviant SVT outcomes with lowered suspicion rates. In Study 4, we educated participants about the shortcomings of the DSM’s antisocial typology of feigning and the importance of the negative predictive power of SVTs, after which they processed the case information. Judgments remained roughly similar to those in Studies 1–3. Taken together, our findings suggest that students and experts alike have difficulties understanding that non-deviant scores on SVTs reduce the probability of feigning as a correct differential diagnosis. (shrink)

The nonrandom distribution of fears is not as clearly related to phylogenetically survival relevance as preparedness theory seems to imply. Although delayed extinction reflects some of the best human evidence for preparedness, even this phenomenon is not as robust as it once seemed to be. Apart from the evidence reviewed by Davey, recent studies from our laboratory provide further evidence for an expectancy bias model of selective associations.

Inspired by theories of prosocial behavior, we tested the effect of relationship status and incentives on intended voluntary blame-taking in two experiments. Participants imagined a close family member, a close friend, or an acquaintance and read a scenario that described this person committing a minor traffic offense. The person offered either a monetary, social, or no incentive for taking the blame. Participants indicated their willingness to take the blame and reasons for and against blame-taking. Overall, a sizable proportion of participants (...) indicated to be willing to take the blame. Blame-taking rates were higher for family members than close friends or acquaintances in both experiments, as expected. Unexpectedly, there was no difference between a close friend and an acquaintance in Experiment 2. Social incentives did not have an effect on voluntary blame-taking in either experiment. Neither did we find an interaction between relationship status and incentives. The results highlight the importance of kin relationships in the context of voluntary blame-taking. (shrink)

Pezdek and Lam [Pezdek, K. & Lam, S. . What research paradigms have cognitive psychologists used to study “False memory,” and what are the implications of these choices? Consciousness and Cognition] claim that the majority of research into false memories has been misguided. Specifically, they charge that false memory scientists have been misusing the term “false memory,” relying on the wrong methodologies to study false memories, and misapplying false memory research to real world situations. We review each of these claims (...) and highlight the problems with them. We conclude that several types of false memory research have advanced our knowledge of autobiographical and recovered memories, and that future research will continue to make significant contributions to how we understand memory and memory errors. (shrink)

Several authors have argued that traumatic experiences are processed and remembered in a qualitatively different way from neutral events. To investigate this issue, we interviewed 121 Croatian war veterans diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder about amnesia, intrusions , and the sensory qualities of their most horrific war memories. Additionally, they completed a self-report scale measuring dissociative experiences. In contrast to what one would expect on the basis of theories emphasizing the special status of traumatic memories, amnesia, and high frequency intrusions (...) were not particularly typical for our sample of traumatized individuals. Moreover, traumatic memories were not qualitatively different from neutral memories with respect to their stability and sensory qualities. The severity of PTSD symptoms was not significantly correlated with dissociative experiences. Our findings do not support the existence of special memory mechanisms that are unique to experiencing traumatic events. (shrink)

Dissociative symptoms have been related to higher rapid eye movement sleep density, a sleep phase during which hyperassociativity may occur. This may enhance artistic creativity during the day. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a creative photo contest to explore the relation between dissociation, sleep, and creativity. During the contest, participants (N = 72) took one photo per day for five consecutive days, based on specific daily themes (consisting of single words) and the instruction to take as creative a photo (...) as possible each day. Furthermore, they completed daily measures of state dissociation and a short sleep diary. The photos and their captions were ranked by two professional photographers and two clinical psychologists based on creativity, originality, bizarreness, and quality. We expected that dissociative people would rank higher in the contest compared with low-dissociative participants, and that the most original photos would be taken on days when the participants scored highest on acute dissociation. We found that acute dissociation predicted a higher ranking on creativity. Poorer sleep quality and fewer hours of sleep predicted more bizarreness in the photos and captions. None of the trait measures could predict creativity. In sum, acute dissociation related to enhanced creativity. These findings contribute to our understanding of dissociative symptomatology. (shrink)

Extending a strategy previously used by Clancy, Schacter, McNally, and Pitman , we administered a neutral and a trauma-related version of the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm to a sample of women reporting recovered or repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse , women reporting having always remembered their abuse , and women reporting no history of abuse . We found that individuals reporting recovered memories of CSA are more prone than other participants to falsely recalling and recognizing neutral words that were never presented. (...) Moreover, our study is the first to show that this finding even held when trauma-related material was involved. Correlational analyses revealed that fantasy proneness, but not self-reported traumatic experiences and dissociative symptoms were related to false recall and false recognition. (shrink)

The present study examined whether individuals with full-blown memories of highly implausible events are prone to commit source monitoring errors. Participants reporting previous-life memories and those without such memories completed a false fame task. This task provides an index of source monitoring errors . Participants with previous-life memories had a greater tendency to judge the names of previously presented non-famous people as famous than control participants. The two groups did not differ in terms of correct recognition of new non-famous names (...) and famous names. Although dissociation, cognitive failures, sleep-related experiences, depressive symptoms, and signs of psychological distress were all significantly higher in participants with previous-life memories than in controls, these variables did not predict the false fame illusion. (shrink)

Llewellyn has written a fascinating article about rapid eye movement dreams and how they promote the elaborative encoding of recent memories. The main message of her article is that hyperassociative and fluid cognitive processes during REM dreaming facilitate consolidation. We consider one potential implication of this analysis: the possibility that excessive or out-of-phase REM sleep fuels dissociative symptomatology. Further research is warranted to explore the psychopathological ramifications of Llewellyn's theory.

We explored whether children’s suggestion-induced omission errors are caused by memory erasure. Seventy-five children were instructed to remove three pieces of clothing from a puppet. Next, they were confronted with evidence falsely suggesting that one of the items had not been removed. During two subsequent interviews separated by one week, children had to report which pieces of clothing they had removed. Children who during both interviews failed to report that they had removed the pertinent item completed a choice reaction time (...) task. In this task, they were presented with different clothing items. For each item, children had to indicate whether or not they had removed it. Significantly more errors were made for those removed items that children failed to report than for those they had not removed. This indicates that children’s suggestion-based omission errors are not due to erasure of memories. (shrink)

Traditionally, recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse have been classified as those emerging spontaneously versus those surfacing during the course of suggestive therapy. There are indications that reinterpretation of memories might be a third route to recovered memories. Thus, recovered memories do not form a homogeneous category. Nevertheless, the conceptual distinctions between the various types of recovered memories remain difficult for researchers and clinicians. With this in mind, the current study explored whether recovered memories can be reliably classified. We found (...) that classification is rather problematic in a subset of cases. To reduce potential bias, we urge for the development and subsequent use of a more reliable classification system and multiple expert raters in research on recovered memories. (shrink)

In two studies, we explored whether susceptibility to false memories and the underestimation of prior memories tap overlapping memory phenomena. Study 1 investigated this issue by administering the Deese/Roediger–McDermott task and the forgot-it-all-along task to an undergraduate sample . It was furthermore explored how performances on these tasks correlate with clinically relevant traits such as fantasy proneness, dissociative experiences, and cognitive efficiency. Results show that FIA and DRM performances are relatively independent from each other, suggesting that these measures empirically apparently (...) refer to separate dimensions. However, they do not seem to define different profiles in terms of dissociation, fantasy proneness, and cognitive efficiency. Study 2 replicated the finding of relative independence between false memory propensity and the underestimation of prior memories in people with a history of childhood sexual abuse. (shrink)

This book investigates the metaphysical position of dual-aspect monism, with particular emphasis on the concept of meaning as a fundamental feature of the fabric of reality.

Following much work in linguistic theory, it is hypothesized that the language faculty has a modular structure and consists of two basic components, a lexicon of (structured) entries and a computational system of combinatorial operations to form larger linguistic expressions from lexical entries. This target article provides evidence for the dual nature of the language faculty by describing recent results of a multidisciplinary investigation of German inflection. We have examined: (1) its linguistic representation, focussing on noun plurals and verb inflection (...) (participles), (2) processes involved in the way adults produce and comprehend inflected words, (3) brain potentials generated during the processing of inflected words, and (4) the way children acquire and use inflection. It will be shown that the evidence from all these sources converges and supports the distinction between lexical entries and combinatorial operations. (shrink)

This essay argues that Oscar Wilde noticeably contributed to the emerging discourse about world literature, even though his views in this regard have to be unearthed from the margins of his works, from his early and unpublished American lectures and ‘between the lines’ of his major critical essays. Wilde’s implicit ideas around world literature can be understood as being closely related to his broader endeavour of redirecting and revaluing the pejorative discourse around ‘decadence’ in art and literature. More specifically, the (...) arch-aesthete preferred to use the word ‘romance’ rather than ‘decadence’, signalling a sensitivity attuned to what he called the ‘love of things impossible’. This reconceptualization of the decadent outlook was to inspire a critical ideal of literature which relied on creatively activating the other as Other, culminating in a vision of intersubjective, transcultural and unlimited literary communication. Wilde’s thought can be more specifically understood as anticipating central tenets of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s evocations of the planetary, thus preparing the way for an alterity-oriented understanding of literary cosmopolitanism. (shrink)

The dual-aspect monist conjecture launched by Pauli and Jung in the mid-20th century will be couched in somewhat formal terms to characterize it more concisely than by verbal description alone. After some background material situating the Pauli–Jung conjecture among other conceptual approaches to the mind–matter problem, the main body of this paper outlines its general framework of a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects. Some related (...) approaches are discussed to identify key similarities to and deviations from the Pauli–Jung framework that may be useful for cross-fertilization. (shrink)

The concept of complementarity, originally defined for non-commuting observables of quantum systems with states of non-vanishing dispersion, is extended to classical dynamical systems with a partitioned phase space. Interpreting partitions in terms of ensembles of epistemic states (symbols) with corresponding classical observables, it is shown that such observables are complementary to each other with respect to particular partitions unless those partitions are generating. This explains why symbolic descriptions based on an ad hoc partition of an underlying phase space description should (...) generally be expected to be incompatible. Related approaches with different background and different objectives are discussed. (shrink)

1,857 adults rated the grandparental solicitude they received in childhood. Through a simple model based on the evolutionary concepts of ontogenetically differentiated reproductive strategy and paternity confidence, an ordered discriminative pattern of grandparental caregiving was predicted and confirmed by solid main effects, based on 603 complete cases. The maternal grandmother was the most caring. Unlike prevalent gender stereotypes, she was followed by the maternal grandfather, the paternal grandmother, and the paternal grandfather. The preferential grandparental solicitude was not influenced by residential (...) distance, grandparent age, and availability of other grandparents. A predicted higher correlation for male than for female progenitors between solicitude and phenotypic resemblance could be confirmed. (shrink)

A novel conceptual framework for theoretical psychology is presented and illustrated for the example of bistable perception. A basic formal feature of this framework is the non-commutativity of operations acting on mental states. A corresponding model for the bistable perception of ambiguous stimuli, the Necker–Zeno model, is sketched and some empirical evidence for it so far is described. It is discussed how a temporal non-locality of mental states, predicted by the model, can be understood and tested.

Following on Westerståhl’s argument that many is not Conservative [9], I propose an intensional account of Conservativity as well as intensional versions of EXT and Isomorphism closure. I show that an intensional reading of many can easily possess all three of these, and provide a formal statement and proof that they are indeed proper intensionalizations. It is then discussed to what extent these intensionalized properties apply to various existing readings of many.

Scepticism, a philosophical tradition that casts doubt on our ability to gain knowledge of the world and suggests suspending judgment in the face of uncertainty, has been influential since its beginnings in ancient Greece. Harald Thorsrud provides an engaging, rigorous introduction to the central themes, arguments, and general concerns of ancient Scepticism, from its beginnings with Pyrrho of Elis to the writings of Sextus Empiricus in the second century A.D. Thorsrud explores the differences among Sceptics and examines in particular (...) the separation of the Scepticism of Pyrrho from its later form—Academic Scepticism—the result of its ideas being introduced into Plato's Academy in the third century B.C. Steering an even course through the many differences of scholarly opinion surrounding Scepticism, the book also provides a balanced appraisal of the philosophy's enduring significance by showing why it remains so interesting and how ancient interpretations differ from modern ones. _Copub: Acumen Publishing Limited _. (shrink)

The relationship between the international mobility of academic researchers and social capital is complex. On the one hand, the literature suggests that social capital facilitates the international mobility of academics which, in turn, promotes the accumulation of international social capital, enhances research productivity, and advances careers. On the other hand, international mobility can isolate researchers from the national social capital in their origin countries. In this paper, I present the results of 42 interviews in Canada and Germany to examine how (...) academics in both countries have experienced the connection between international mobility and social capital. In addition to revealing the complexity of this connection, the results show that social capital facilitates international mobility and that mobility sometimes creates social capital. However, mobility can also lead to the loss of national social capital that negatively affects early-career researchers in particular. (shrink)

Although foreign workers contribute to the economy and society, their lack of citizenship renders them unequal, vulnerable and exploitable. In this article, I suggest that the citizenship principle of jus domicile can address this aspect of inequality and exploitation experienced by migrant labour. In addition, I argue that the jus domicile principle should be combined with open borders. In making this argument, I draw on a dialectical methodology and a diverse literature on social justice and liberal political theory. The model (...) I am developing is not necessarily for immediate policy implementation but rather presents a vision for a future of free mobility and settlement. (shrink)

A Companion to the Spanish Scholastics offers a much-needed survey of the entire field of early modern Spanish scholastic thought. The volume introduces main themes and contexts of scholastics inquiry (theology, philosophy, ethics, politics, economics, law, science and the senses) through close examination of a wide range of texts, debates, methods, and authors, as well as in-depth discussion of the relevant literature. Each chapter includes a useful bibliography and serves as point of departure for future research. The volume not only (...) draws the sum of existing research, but also challenges established notions and breaks new ground. (shrink)