Eyewitness susceptibility to co-witness misinformation is influenced by co-witness confidence and own self-confidence

If an eyewitness is exposed to a co-witness statement that incorrectly blames an innocent bystander for a crime, the eyewitness can be influenced by this statement and also blame the innocent bystander for the crime. This effect is known as blame conformity. In two studies, we examined whether or not this effect is influenced by the degree of confidence a co-witness expresses in her incorrect statement (Study 1) and an eyewitness’s own level of self-confidence (Study 2). Participant eyewitnesses first watched a crime video featuring a perpetrator and an innocent bystander, then read a co-witness statement about the crime that either correctly blamed the perpetrator, incorrectly blamed the innocent bystander, or blamed nobody (a control condition). They were then asked who committed the crime. In Study 1, participants who read an incorrect statement were at increased risk of engaging in blame conformity when the co-witness expressed a high level of confidence, compared to a low level of confidence, in the accuracy of her statement. In Study 2, participants who were lowest in self-confidence were at increased risk of engaging in blame conformity. The theoretical underpinnings of these effects are considered

Repetitive love proposing: A case report and review of phenomenology of impulsivity and compulsivity

Interest in opposite sex is a normal phenomenon; however, when this interest starts affecting one's own or others life in a pathological manner, it warrants clinical attention. We report the case of a young man who had a tendency to propose love to girls impulsively. Apart from the presence of this, otherwise, normal behavior in a pathological manner, another dimension of this case was that he was having obsessive-compulsive disorder too. Since both impulsivity and compulsivity are repetitive in nature and result in a sense of relief when the act is committed, the chance of impulsivity to be misconstrued as compulsivity is high. In light of important differences between compulsive and impulsive behavior, the psychopathology of the present case has been discussed

Factors Associated with Family Retention or Involvement in Treatment of Persons with Severe Mental Illness: A Scoping Review

Objective: A scoping review was conducted to detect the factors that affect family retention (FR) or involvement (FI) in the treatment of persons with severe mental illness (PwSMI) and to understand the gaps in this research area. Design: We included studies that described factors associated with FR/FI in the treatment of persons with PwSMI. English language articles available in full text, published until June 2022, were included. The literature search was carried out in four major electronic databases, such as PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and EBSCOhost, for 6 months from January 2022 to June 2022, which yielded 5442 articles, of which six (four primary studies and two secondary studies) were considered for the final scoping review as per the inclusion criteria. Results: Five major categories of factors were identified: (a) family level, (b) professional level, (c) mental health system level, (d) related to characteristics of the patient and illness, and (e) related to the external environment. Most studies described barriers to FI, while only a few elaborated on facilitators for FI/FR. Systemic and family-level factors were the major contributors to the barrier to FI and FR in the treatment of people with PwSMI. Conclusion: There is a dearth of literature in the field of FR/FI in the treatment of people with schizophrenia. More research is required so that holistic interventions can be designed and provided

Neuropsychology of prefrontal cortex

The history of clinical frontal lobe study is long and rich which provides valuable insights into neuropsychologic determinants of functions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). PFC is often classified as multimodal association cortex as extremely processed information from various sensory modalities is integrated here in a precise fashion to form the physiologic constructs of memory, perception, and diverse cognitive processes. Human neuropsychologic studies also support the notion of different functional operations within the PFC. The specification of the component ‘executive’ processes and their localization to particular regions of PFC have been implicated in a wide variety of psychiatric disorders

Beginning steps in school mental health in India: a teacher workshop

As emphasised by this journal, school mental health (SMH) programmes and services, when done well, lead to valued outcomes for students and systems focused on children and adolescents. However, SMH is nearly non-existent in India. Acute scarcity of trained manpower is the main stumbling block. It is therefore imperative to facilitate the process of SMH with some alternative measures, and one way is to enable the primary stakeholders. Towards this end, at the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi, India a workshop for teachers was conducted which focused on various aspects of SMH. The effectiveness of the workshop was assessed with the help of pre-post and five-month follow-up assessments which showed increased understanding by teachers of psychological problems in children from participation in the workshop. Admittedly, this is a very early step, but we hope that our experiences will be helpful in moving SMH forward in developing nations

Impaired recollection-based episodic memory as a cognitive endophenotype in schizophrenia

IntroductionPatients with schizophrenia show impaired recollection but largely preserved familiarity-based episodic memory. This study was done to clarify the endophenotypic nature of recollection and familiarity-based episodic memory in schizophrenia and the role of emotional valence of memoranda and degree of recall confidence in it.MethodTwenty-five patients with schizophrenia, one unaffected sibling of each patient, and twenty-three healthy controls completed two tasks assessing recollection and familiarity-based processes in episodic memory. In the first task, participants were asked to remember positive, negative, and neutral emotional valence words in a remember–know paradigm. In the second task, in addition to recollection and familiarity-based responses, participants were asked to make confidence judgments about their responses.ResultsPatients with schizophrenia and their first-degree relatives (FDRs) performed poorly on recollection but not familiarity-based responses, compared to healthy controls; performance of first-degree relatives was in between and significantly different from that of both patients and controls. The differences in recollection and familiarity-based responses across the three groups were not moderated by recall confidence judgments or emotional valence of memoranda. Furthermore, there was no correlation between recollection-based memory impairments and duration or severity of illness or current medication exposure.ConclusionsImpaired recollection-based memory constitutes a potential cognitive endophenotype in schizophrenia. Furthermore, selective impairment of recollection-based, but sparing of familiarity-based, memory in patients and their FDRs supports the distinct nature of recollection and familiarity-based episodic memories

Effect of meta-cognitive training in the reduction of positive symptoms in schizophrenia

The Publisher's final version can be found by following the DOI link.Metacognitive training (MCT), a variant of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, is a recently developed therapeutic method that targets active positive symptoms, primarily delusions. It translates basic research related to cognitive biases behind these symptoms into a training procedure for schizophrenia patients. To see the effectiveness of MCT a total of sixteen recently admitted schizophrenia patients were randomly divided into two groups. One group underwent treatment as usual (TAU) and the other group underwent MCT plus TAU. The MCT group showed steeper decline in positive symptoms with medium to large effect sizes. Findings are discussed in the light of their practical implications