The Word Completion Memory Test (WCMT): a new test to detect malingered memory deficits.

In recent years, much research has focused on developing tests to detect malingering. A drawback of existing tests is their poor ability to detect malingerers possessing more "sophisticated" knowledge of neuropsychological deficits. The current study presents preliminary validation data on a new measure, the Word Completion Memory Test (WCMT), which is the first malingering test to utilize a sophisticated coaching methodology in its development. The WCMT was administered to control participants, memory-impaired patients, and coached simulators. The coached simulators were provided with specific information about and examples of memory deficits commonly experienced following closed head injury (CHI; e.g., anterograde vs. retrograde amnesia). They also read a detailed scenario describing the lifestyle and motivations likely experienced by CHI litigants, and then practiced their roles by taking a quiz about their deficits. Results showed that 93% of coached simulators and 100% of control and memory-impaired participants were correctly classified by the WCMT.

Manipulations of irrelevant information: suffix effects with articulatory suppression and irrelevant speech.

Numerous studies have demonstrated impaired recall when the to-be-remembered information is accompanied or followed by irrelevant information. However, no current theory of immediate memory explains all three common methods of manipulating irrelevant information: requiring concurrent articulation, presenting irrelevant speech, and adding a stimulus suffix. Five experiments combined these manipulations to determine how they interact and which theoretical framework most accurately and completely accounts for the data. In Experiments 1 and 2, a list of auditory items was followed by an irrelevant speech sound (the suffix) while subjects engaged in articulatory suppression. Although articulatory suppression reduced overall recall compared to a control condition, comparable suffix effects were seen in both conditions. Experiments 3 and 4 found reliable suffix effects when list presentation was accompanied by irrelevant speech. Experiment 5 found a suffix effect even when the irrelevant speech was composed of a set of different items. Implications for working memory, precategorical acoustic store, the changing-state hypothesis, and the feature model are discussed.

Role of study strategy in recall of mixed lists of common and rare words.

Experiment 1 confirmed previous findings that common words are more recallable than are rare words when the 2 kinds of words are presented in separate lists but not when they are presented in the same list. Experiment 2 showed much the same pattern when an orienting task was performed during word presentation. In Experiment 3 common words were found to be more recallable than rare words even for mixed lists when no warning was given of the memory test, although the effect was less pronounced than for pure lists. In Experiment 4 stronger measures were taken to preclude anticipation of the memory test, and the effect of word commonness was found to be just as pronounced with mixed lists as it was with pure lists. It was suggested that lists are studied in a way believed to optimize recall and that mixed lists foster a strategy of favoring the rare words.

Revelation without presentation: counterfeit study list yields robust revelation effect.

This study explores the revelation effect, a recognition memory phenomenon that occurs when test items (or related items) are specially processed before recognition judgment. These revealed items, whether targets or lures, receive a positive response bias. Although the effect occurs across various conditions, it has not been shown to occur when participants make judgments unrelated to episodic memory. We investigated whether the effect would occur when a recognition decision was nominally one of episodic memory, but when a complete episodic event had not occurred. Specifically, participants listened to noise that allegedly masked a list of words (in fact, no words existed). A revelation effect occurred with this pseudo-subliminal procedure, suggesting that the revelation effect need not rely on stimuli recalled through episodic memory but only a specific event to recall. The effect did not occur when participants simply guessed whether words were on an unheard list or made semantic judgments.

Age and individual differences influence prospective memory.

The influence of age and individual ability differences on event-based prospective memory was examined using an adapted version of G. O. Einstein and M. A. McDaniel's (1990) task. Two samples of younger and older adults who differed in educational attainment, occupational status, and verbal ability were compared. Results yield comparable prospective performance for the younger groups and higher ability older adults; lower ability older adults performed more poorly by comparison. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that working memory span and recognition accounted for small but significant proportions of variance in prospective performance. The contribution of ability level to prospective memory remained significant even after statistically controlling for self-reported health and social activity characteristics. Implications for current views on prospective memory aging are discussed.

The importance of semantic similarity to the irrelevant speech effect.

Irrelevant speech disrupts immediate recall of a short sequence of items. Salamé and Baddeley (1982) found a very small and nonsignificant increase in the irrelevant speech effect when the speech comprised items semantically identical to the to-be-remembered items, leading subsequent researchers to conclude that semantic similarity plays no role in the irrelevant speech effect. Experiment 1 showed that strong free associates of the to-be-remembered items disrupted serial recall to a greater extent than words that were dissimilar to the to-be-remembered items. Experiment 2 showed that this same pattern of disruption in a free recall task. Theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.

The economic value of atypical antipsychotics: A comparison of risperidone and olanzapine revisited.

Careful analysis of clinical experience to date throws fresh light on the optimal and actual doses used in clinical practice of risperidone and olanzapine. Since launch, the optimal dose for treatment of schizophrenia of risperidone has been established at 4-6 mg/day and that of olanzapine at around 15 mg/day. We have applied these more realistic dosing assumptions to the published economic comparisons between the various atypical agents and conclude that there are economic and efficacy arguments for risperidone to be considered as the first choice for treatment of patients with schizophrenia. The other atypicals, such as olanzapine and clozapine, should be used as second-line therapy in preference to conventional agents such as haloperidol. Funding arguments support this approach and reinforce the need to reconsider therapy for patients whose current treatment may not be optimal.

Irrelevant speech eliminates the word length effect.

The word length effect refers to the observation that memory is better for short than for long words. The irrelevant speech effect refers to the finding that memory is better when items are presented against a quiet background than against one with irrelevant speech. According to Baddeley's (1986, 1994) working memory, these variables should not interact: The word length effect arises from rehearsal by the articulatory control process, whereas irrelevant speech reduces recall through interference in the phonological store. Four experiments demonstrate that, like articulatory suppression, irrelevant speech eliminates the word length effect for both visual and auditory items. These results (1) provide further evidence against the ability of working memory to explain the word length and irrelevant speech effects and (2) confirm a specific prediction of Nairne's (1990) feature model.

Irrelevant speech and irrelevant tones: the relative importance of speech to the irrelevant speech effect.

Irrelevant auditory stimuli disrupt immediate serial recall. In the equipotentiality hypothesis, D. M. Jones and W. J. Macken (1993) made the controversial prediction that speech and tones have an equivalent disruptive effect. In the present study, 5 experiments tested their hypothesis. Experiments 1-4 showed that meaningful speech disrupts recall more than do tones. Experiments 3 and 4 provided some evidence that meaningful speech disrupts recall more than does meaningless speech, and Experiment 4 showed that even meaningless speech disrupts recall more than do tones. Using slightly different experimental procedures, Experiment 5 showed that letters disrupt recall more than do tones. Implications of these results for a number of theories of primary memory and the irrelevant speech effect are discussed.

On the irrelevance of phonological similarity to the irrelevant speech effect.

Irrelevant background speech disrupts immediate recall of visually presented items. Salamé and Baddeley (1982) found that increasing the phonological similarity between the irrelevant speech and the visual items greatly increased this disruption. In contrast, Jones and Macken (1995) found little evidence for such an increase. The present experiments directly manipulated the phonological similarity of the irrelevant speech background and the to-be-remembered visual items. Experiments 1-4 compared background speech that shared virtually no phonemes with the visual stimuli with background speech that shared all of the phonemes of the visual stimuli. No effect of phonological similarity was found. Experiment 5 replicated the method of Salamé and Baddeley's critical experiment but not their results. With regard to the two primary explanations of the irrelevant speech effect, these data present a strong challenge to the phonological store hypothesis while offering some support to the changing state hypothesis.

Irrelevant speech, serial rehearsal, and temporal distinctiveness: a new approach to the irrelevant speech effect.

D. C. LeCompte (1994) showed that the irrelevant speech effect--that is, the impairment of performance by the presentation of irrelevant background speech--extends to free recall, recognition, and cued recall. The present experiments extended the irrelevant speech effect to the missing-item task (Experiments 1 and 2), thereby contradicting a key prediction of the changing state hypothesis, which states that tasks that do not involve serial rehearsal should not be affected by the presence of irrelevant speech. Temporal distinctiveness theory provides an alternative explanation of the irrelevant speech effect. Experiment 3 tested and confirmed a unique prediction of this theory.

The management of drug-resistant, persistent and unpleasant auditory hallucinations.

This article attempts to give an overview of the main cognitive-behavioral therapeutic approaches in order to reduce persistent, unpleasant and drug-resistant auditory hallucinations. These procedures are based on operant conditioning principles and cognitive self-management techniques. A brief case history is reported to illustrate the therapeutic interventions.

Visual distinctiveness can enhance recency effects.

Experimental efforts to meliorate the modality effect have included attempts to make the visual stimulus more distinctive. McDowd and Madigan (1991) failed to find an enhanced recency effect in serial recall when the last item was made more distinct in terms of its color. In an attempt to extend this finding, three experiments were conducted in which visual distinctiveness was manipulated in a different manner, by combining the dimensions of physical size and coloration (i.e., whether the stimuli were solid or outlined in relief). Contrary to previous findings, recency was enhanced when the size and coloration of the last item differed from the other items in the list, regardless of whether the "distinctive" item was larger or smaller than the remaining items. The findings are considered in light of other research that has failed to obtain a similar enhanced recency effect, and their implications for current theories of the modality effect are discussed.

Recollective experience in the revelation effect: separating the contributions of recollection and familiarity.

The revelation effect is a phenomenon of recognition memory in which words presented for a recognition decision are more likely to be identified as previously studied if they are initially disguised and are then somehow revealed to the subject. The goal of the present experiments was to determine whether the revelation effect has similar or different influences on the conscious recollection of a previous encounter with a test item and on the feeling of familiarity evoked by a test item. The process-dissociation procedure (Experiment 1) and the remember/know procedure (Experiment 2) were used to achieve this goal. The main findings of these experiments were that revealing an item at test (1) increased the feeling of familiarity associated with that item, especially if it was not previously studied, and (2) decreased conscious recollection of previously studied items. These data narrow the range of potential explanations of the revelation effect.

Drug compliance and cognitive-behavioral therapy in schizophrenia.

The cognitive-behavioral profession provides a theoretical model to understand the drug-compliance problem in schizophrenia and to enhance its therapeutic approach. The main components of this approach include continuous behavioral analysis, enhancement of therapeutic alliance, psychoeducation of the patient and significant others, perceptual and attitudinal strategies, behavioral strategies and cognitive restructuring.

Grouping in primary memory: the case of the compound suffix.

Appending a nominally irrelevant item, or "suffix," to the end of a short list of items impairs recall of the list. Appending a second such item, however, does not increase the impairment. The research reported here shows that the impairment can in fact be increased if the suffix items are physically dissimilar. Thus, Experiments 1-4 show that memory for a sequence of digits is impaired more by the addition of two zeros uttered in different voices than by either a single zero or two zeros uttered in the same voice. Experiment 5 shows a similar pattern of results in the visual modality, with physical similarity defined by typefont. The findings are contrary to at least two theories of the suffix effect but can be accounted for by assuming that physically similar items tend to form a cohesive group.

The paradoxical increase in involuntary admissions after the revision of the Civil Commitment Law in Belgium.

The revision in 1990 of the Mental Health Commitment Law in Belgium, which was initially intended to decrease the use of civil commitment, has resulted in a paradoxical increase in involuntary hospital admissions. To understand the reasons for this increase, the relative importance of the various factors involved, notably the criteria of mental illness, dangerousness and clinical treatability, is examined.

A comparison of item and source forgetting.

The purpose of the present research was to compare memory for an item with memory for the item's source. Experiment 1 investigated discrimination between two external sources: each item in a list of words was spoken in either a male or a female voice. Subjects received a test of item recognition and a test of source monitoring at each of four delay intervals (immediate, 30 min, 48 h, 1 week). In contrast with previous research, no evidence of differential forgetting rates for item and source information was found. With delay intervals of 0 and 48 h, Experiment 2 replicated Experiment 1 while adding a reality monitoring condition that required discrimination between an internal (i.e., self-generated) and an external source. Subjects were better at making internal-external discriminations than at making external-external discriminations, but both types of source monitoring declined at the same rate as memory for the items themselves.

An irrelevant speech effect with repeated and continuous background speech.

The irrelevant speech effect is the impairment of task performance by the presentation of to-be-ignored speech stimuli. Typically, the irrelevant speech comprises a variety of sounds, but previous research (e.g., Jones, Madden, & Miles, 1992) has suggested that the deleterious effect of background speech is virtually eliminated if the speech comprises repetitions of a sound (e.g., "be, be, be") or a single continuous sound (e.g., "beeeeeee"). Four experiments are reported that challenge this finding. Experiments 1, 2, and 4 show a substantial impairment in serial recall performance in the presence of a repeated sound, and Experiments 3 and 4 show a similar impairment of serial recall in the presence of a continuous sound. The relevance of these findings to several explanations of the irrelevant speech effect is discussed.