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The article describes rhythm suggestive compensation (RSC), a new method of autonomous crew psychological support based on recruitment of cerebral mechanisms of regulation (psychological defense). The method integrates several ways of optimization such as rhythmic stimulation, binaural drumming and verbal suggestion. Procedure of rhythm suggestive compensation is tailored to each individual person with allowance for actual functional interaction of the brain hemispheres, person specific reaction to suggestive information and psychological defense. Meaningful suggestive patterns are modulated by an algorithm and harmonize with rhythmic sensory stimulation. Hence, the controlled change in activities of the hemispheres and different regions of the brain is combined with the effective form of suggestion. Effectiveness of rhythm suggestive compensation was verified with two groups of participants in combat operations (n=5). Compensatory procedure for Group-1 consisted of a simple combination of rhythmic audiovisual stimulation and verbal suggestion. Effectiveness was evaluated by cerebral potentials evoked by emotionally engaging images. Group-2 was treated with the RSC procedure. RSC was found to outdo rhythmic audiovisual stimulation. In addition, it was shown that regular repetition of the rhythm/suggestive procedures does optimize mental state and builds up a stable mental set.

Multi-level simultaneous component analysis (MLSCA) was designed for the exploratory analysis of hierarchically ordered data. MLSCA specifies a component model for each level in the data, where appropriate constraints express possible similarities between groups of objects at a certain level, yielding four MLSCA variants. The present paper discusses different bootstrap strategies for estimating confidence intervals (CIs) on the individual parameters. In selecting a proper strategy, the main issues to address are the resampling scheme and the non-uniqueness of the parameters. The resampling scheme depends on which level(s) in the hierarchy are considered random, and which fixed. The degree of non-uniqueness depends on the MLSCA variant, and, in two variants, the extent to which the user exploits the transformational freedom. A comparative simulation study examines the quality of bootstrap CIs of different MLSCA parameters. Generally, the quality of bootstrap CIs appears to be good, provided the sample sizes are sufficient at each level that is considered to be random. The latter implies that if more than a single level is considered random, the total number of observations necessary to obtain reliable inferential information increases dramatically. An empirical example illustrates the use of bootstrap CIs in MLSCA.

Many robust analogs of the classic analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) method have been proposed, some of which are based on some type of regression smoother. A method that first appeared in this journal, which is relatively simple and performs well in simulations, is based on a running interval smoother combined with comparing medians or 20% trimmed means. It makes no parametric assumption about the regression lines and does not assume that the regression lines are parallel. A possible way of improving the efficiency of the running interval smoother is to use bootstrap bagging and a minor goal here is to report some results supporting this approach. The major goal is to consider how ANCOVA might be performed when bootstrap bagging is used. Simple extensions of extant approaches that use some type of bootstrap method were found to be unsatisfactory. However, a basic percentile bootstrap method was found to perform well in simulations. And a reanalysis of data dealing with teachers' expectations about the cognitive ability of students illustrates that bootstrap bagging can make a practical difference.

We explore a new distinction between the future, prospective memory system being investigated in current neuroscience and the past, retrospective memory system, which was the original theoretical foundation of therapeutic hypnosis, classical psychoanalysis, and psychotherapy. We then generalize a current evolutionary theory of sleep and dreaming, which focuses on the future, prospective memory system, to conceptualize a new evolutionary perspective on therapeutic hypnosis and brief psychotherapy. The implication of current neuroscience research is that activity-dependent gene expression and brain plasticity are the psychobiological basis of adaptive behavior, consciousness, and creativity in everyday life as well as psychotherapy. We summarize a case illustrating how this evolutionary perspective can be used to quickly resolve problems with past obstructive procrastination in school to facilitate current and future academic success.

This article examines the legal histories and social contexts of testimony and interrogation involving minors, developmental research on suggestibility and judgment, interactions between development and legal/sociological contexts, and the reasoning behind how minors are treated in different legal contexts. The authors argue (a) that young witnesses, victims, and suspects alike possess youthful characteristics that influence their ability to validly inform legal processes, some of which were recently recognized by the Supreme Court as they apply to the juvenile death penalty, and (b) that consideration should be given to reforming current practices in the context of juvenile interrogation. ((c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).

The scientific study of child witnesses has influenced both developmental science and jurisprudence concerning children. Focusing on the author's own studies, 4 categories of research are briefly reviewed: (a) children's eyewitness memory and suggestibility; (b) memory for traumatic events in childhood; (c) disclosure of child sexual abuse; and (d) experiences of child victim/witnesses within the legal system. Implications for psychology and for legal practice are discussed., (Copyright (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved.)

Between 1903 and America's entrance into World War I, journalist and psychologist H. Addington Bruce wrote numerous articles and books about psychology for the lay reader. At a time when widespread differences existed between psychologists as to subject matter and methods of study, he cultivated a decidedly Progressive image of psychology dominated by the concepts of the subconscious and power of suggestion. In contrast to the more hereditarian and materialistic assumptions embraced by most academic psychologists, Bruce's promotion of the importance of the environmentalistic and spiritualistic to psychology lent popular scientific credibility to a Progressive ideology and foreshadowed psychology's shift in the 1920s towards a greater emphasis on the environment and interest in the unconscious.

As early as 1896, experimental psychologists began studying the mental processes involved in advertising. The first psychological theory of advertising maintained, in effect, that the consumer was a nonrational, suggestible creature under the hypnotic influence of the advertising copywriter. Walter Dill Scott was the major proponent of this theory, and it was largely through his writings that advertising men learned about the psychology of suggestion. Scott's theory was consistent with a growing trend in the advertising profession toward viewing consumer behavior as irrational. Scott's efforts might also be viewed as part of the trend in the advertising profession toward seeking a scientific basis for copywriting theory and practice.

Charles Lloyd Tuckey (1854–1925) was one of the leaders of the British 'New Hypnotism' movement of the late nineteenth century. This neglected figure is important because of his contributions to the early psychotherapies in Britain, ushering in the concept of suggestion to British medicine from Europe. Through his networks and clubs, Tuckey demonstrates the bewildering range of institutions that shaped and spread the novel theory of suggestion and the nascent talking therapies at this time. His affiliations to psychic investigation and ceremonial magic societies demonstrate his intellectual curiosity rather than backwards primitivism. Tuckey played an important role in establishing the term 'psychotherapeutics' and legitimising medical hypnotism, a precursor of the psychological therapies of the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our study, we use the post-hypnotic suggestion of easy remembering to improve memory with long-lasting effects. We tested 24 highly suggestible participants in an online study. Participants learned word lists and recalled them later in a recognition memory task. At the beginning of the study, participants were hypnotized and the post-hypnotic suggestion to remember easily was associated with a cue that participants used during the recognition memory task. In a control condition, the same participants used a neutral cue. One week later, participants repeated both conditions with new word lists.Participants were significantly faster and more confident in their recognition ratings in the easy-remembering condition compared to the control condition, and this effect persisted over one week. Crucially, the increased speed and confidence in the easy-remembering condition did not affect memory accuracy. That makes our hypnosis intervention promising for patients experiencing subjective memory impairments. APA PsycINFO codes: 2343 (Learning and Memory), 2380 (Consciousness States), 3351 (Clinical Hypnosis)

The present review is intended as an overview of our current understanding of how children's individual characteristics, in terms of demographic, cognitive, and psycho-social variables, may influence their susceptibility to suggestion. The goals are to revisit conceptual models of the mechanisms of suggestibility, to provide an updated practical guide for practitioners, and to make recommendations for future research. Results suggest that children with intellectual impairment and those with nascent language skills may be particularly vulnerable to suggestion. Further, memory for separate events, theory of mind, executive function, temperament, and social competence may not be related to suggestibility, whereas additional work is needed to clarify the potential contributions of knowledge, stress, mental health, parental elaborative style, and adverse experiences/maltreatment to children's suggestibility.

In legal cases, testimonies can become contaminated because of an amalgam of external and internal influences on memory. It is well-established that external influences (e.g., suggestive interviews) can hurt memory. However, less focus has been placed on the impact of internal influences (e.g., lying) on memory. In the current review, we show that the available evidence suggests that both external and internal influences exert similar effects on memory. That is, we review studies showing that suggesting non-occurrences and suggesting non-experiences can lead to omission errors and false memories, respectively. Likewise, these memory effects are also observed when focusing on internal influences. That is, false denials, feigning amnesia and fabrication have been shown to affect memory in terms of forgetting (i.e., omissions) and false memories (i.e., commissions). Also, we show that both external and internal influences can lead to changes in the belief that an event occurred. We argue that in legal cases, triers of fact should concentrate on whether both types of influences might have affected testimonial accuracy in witnesses, victims, and suspects.

Decades of research show that people are susceptible to developing false memories. But if they do so in one task, are they likely to do so in a different one? The answer: "No". In the current research, a large number of participants took part in three well-established false memory paradigms (a misinformation task, the Deese-Roediger-McDermott [DRM] list learning paradigm, and an imagination inflation exercise) as well as completed several individual difference measures. Results indicate that many correlations between false memory variables in all three inter-paradigm comparisons are null, though some small, positive, significant correlations emerged. Moreover, very few individual difference variables significantly correlated with false memories, and any significant correlations were rather small. It seems likely, therefore, that there is no false memory "trait". In other words, no one type of person seems especially prone, or especially resilient, to the ubiquity of memory distortion.

The current study tested the effects of two interview techniques on children's report productivity and accuracy following exposure to suggestion: implicit encouragement (backchanneling, use of children's names) and the putative confession (telling children that a suspect "told me everything that happened and wants you to tell the truth"). One hundred and forty-three, 3-8-year-old children participated in a classroom event. One week later, they took part in a highly suggestive conversation about the event and then a mock forensic interview in which the two techniques were experimentally manipulated. Greater use of implicit encouragement led to increases, with age, in children's narrative productivity. Neither technique improved or reduced children's accuracy. No increases in errors about previously suggested information were evident when children received either technique. Implications for the use of these techniques in child forensic interviews are discussed.

Retrieval-enhanced suggestibility (RES) refers to the finding that immediately recalling the details of a witnessed event can increase susceptibility to later misinformation. In three experiments, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of the role that retrieval plays in the RES paradigm. Consistent with past research, initial testing did increase susceptibility to misinformation - but only for those who failed to detect discrepancies between the original event and the post-event misinformation. In all three experiments, subjects who retrospectively detected discrepancies in the post-event narratives were more resistant to misinformation than those who did not. In Experiments 2 and 3, having subjects concurrently assess the consistency of the misinformation narratives negated the RES effect. Interestingly, in Experiments 2 and 3, subjects who had retrieval practice and detected discrepancies were more likely to endorse misinformation than control subjects who detected discrepancies. These results call attention to limiting conditions of the RES effect and highlight the complex relationship between retrieval practice, discrepancy detection, and misinformation endorsement.

This study tested predictions from Bowlby's attachment theory about children's memory and suggestibility. Young children (3-5years old, N=88; 76% Caucasians) and their parents took part in the Strange Situation Procedure, a moderately distressing event and "gold standard" for assessing children's attachment quality. The children were then interviewed about what occurred during the event. Children's age and attachment security scores positively predicted correct information in free recall and accuracy in answering specific questions. For children with higher (vs. lower) attachment security scores, greater distress observed during the Strange Situation Procedure predicted increased resistance to misleading suggestions. In addition, for children who displayed relatively low distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, significant age differences in memory and suggestibility emerged as expected. However, for children who displayed greater distress during the Strange Situation Procedure, younger and older children's memory performances were equivalent. Findings suggest that attachment theory provides an important framework for understanding facets of memory development with respect to attachment-related information and that distress may alter assumed age patterns in memory development.

In the context of the theoretical uncertainty of the phenomenon of Architecture, two opposing positions are compared, after some similarities between them have been identified. One belongs to the author, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arch. Emil Yordanov, to which he dedicated a monograph. The idea is to clarify the phenomenon of Architecture by delving into the stages of its development, in parallel with the determining stages in the development of culture and mentality. Within this interaction, personal architectural professionalism is being cultivated. The other position – of Assoc. Prof. Dr. Arch. Todor Tsigov, accepts Architecture as a myth, whose utilitarian and artistic sides are (respectively) real and similar, i. e. – qualitatively different manifestations of essence, that do not interact objectively: two autonomous objects in a common entity. The interaction with the real manifestations of essence turns out to be a ritual towards the similar, mythologising them as real. Out of this follows the suggestive potential of Architecture and a conclusion about the architectural nature of perceptions and the religious nature of the psyche. The comparison between the two thesises reveals unusual aspects of the phenomenon Architecture – beyond the professional practice, with humanitarian and philosophical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features the way political discourse shapes the image of the region. The research was based on a number of speeches given by A. G. Tuleyev, the ex-governor of the Kemerovo Region. The author used the classification of communicative strategies and tactics developed by O. S. Issers. The strategies demonstrated a strong suggestive potential aimed at changing the values and worldview of the recipient while promoting the image of the territory and its main political figure. The speeches appeared to be quite expressive as they contained a lot of emotional vocabulary, which was almost completely absent from the original written texts. A. G. Tuleyev chose informative and incentive tactics, e.g. focus on the positive development of the region (22 %), campaigning tactics (15 %), and historical references (12 %). The ex-governor pursued several parallel goals, e.g. to describe the region as dynamic, attractive, and prosperous while demonstrating his care about the electorate and showing respect to people of hard labor.

The article is devoted to the problem of studying and applying the phenomena of suggestion, auto-suggestion and altered states of consciousness in modern sports psychology. A brief excursion into the history of the use of altered states of consciousness in elite sports is given. The advantages, disadvantages, limitations and specificity of different methods using suggestion and auto-suggestion in the framework of psychological support for athletes of various sports are discussed. The article also raises questions about the methods of assessing the effectiveness of psychological and pedagogical interventions with athletes using hypnosis and self-hypnosis, as well as verification of suggestive influences at the psychophysiological level. Finally, the article discusses the ethical aspects of using altered states of consciousness in the framework of psychological support for athletes and the prospects for popularizing sports hypnosis.

Two experiments that studied the effects of hypnotic suggestions on tactile sensitivity are reported. Experiment 1 found that suggestions for anesthesia, as measured by both traditional psychophysical methods and signal-detection procedures, were linearly related to hypnotizability. Experiment 2 employed the same methodologies in an application of the real-simulator paradigm to examine the effects of suggestions for both anesthesia and hyperesthesia. Significant effects of hypnotic suggestion on both sensitivity and bias were found in the anesthesia condition but not for the hyperesthesia condition. A new bias parameter, C', indicated that much of the bias found in the initial analyses was artifactual, a function of changes in sensitivity across conditions. There were no behavioral differences between reals and simulators in any of the conditions, though analyses of postexperimental interviews suggested the 2 groups had very different phenomenal experiences.

PurposeThis study examined the effects of the putative confession (telling the child that an adult "told me everything that happened and he wants you to tell the truth") on children's disclosure of a minor transgression after questioning by their parents.MethodsChildren (N = 188; 4 - 7-year-olds) played with a confederate, and while doing so, for half of the children, toys broke. Parents then questioned their children about what occurred, and half of the parents were given additional scripted suggestive questions. Finally, children completed a mock forensic investigative interview.ResultsChildren given the putative confession were 1.6 times more likely in free recall to disclose truthfully that toys had broken. Among children who failed to disclose during free recall, those who received the putative confession were 1.9 times more likely when asked yes/no questions to disclose true breakage. The putative confession did not decrease accuracy, and children who received the putative confession were 2.6 times less likely to report false toy play. Parent suggestion did not adversely affect the efficacy of the putative confession.ConclusionsThe current study demonstrates that children are often quite reticent to disclose transgressions, and that the putative confession is a promising avenue for increasing children's comfort with disclosing and minimizing their tendency to report false details, even in the face of suggestive questioning by parents.

IntroductionIn the context of giving risk information for obtaining informed consent, it is not easy to comply with the ethical principle of “primum nihil nocere.” Carelessness, ignorance of nocebo effects and a misunderstood striving for legal certainty can lead doctors to comprehensive and brutal risk information. It is known that talking about risks and side effects can even trigger those and result in distress and nonadherence to medication or therapy.MethodsRecently, we have reported on significant clinically relevant effects of verbal and non-verbal suggestions on maximal muscular arm strength in healthy volunteers and in patients at two time points before surgery. Maximal strength during arm abduction was measured by dynamometry of the deltoid muscle group. Suggestions from clinical everyday life were formulated as presumed negative and neutral versions.ResultsHere, we report on the effects of two versions of risk information in 45 patients. After sole mentioning risks of a puncture for the placement of a pain catheter, the maximal arm muscle strength was significantly reduced to 83% of baseline several days (T1), and to 84% the evening before surgery (T2). Strength was not significantly decreased and close to baseline at T1 and T2 when risks and benefits of a pain catheter were combined in one sentence. The difference between both versions was significant. With persistent normal distribution of values, the effect was due to uniform reactions of many patients, not to strong reactions of a few. High suggestibility and increase of anxiety with approaching surgery were identified as influencing factors for the neutralizing effect of modified wording.ConclusionWe not only suggest an alternative formulation for risk information to avoid nocebo effects but present an objective method to quantify and compare effects of different wordings. Thereby, we provide evidence that concurrently given positive aspects can neutralize negative effects during medical interview.

The purpose of this study was to explore whether asking middle-aged gamers and non-gamers about their video games habits will affect their performance of cognitive-motor tasks. One-hundred and twenty-one participants were randomly assigned to four groups: (a) gamers who were asked about their playing habits prior to the study, (b) gamers who were asked about their playing habits following the study, (c) non-gamers who were asked about their playing habits prior to the study, and (d) non-gamers who were asked about their playing habits following the study. The participants performed three reaction time (RT) tasks and a digit-span memory task. In a task-switching task, gamers had more correct responses when they answered the questionnaire before performing the task compared with after the task. For the non-gamers, the opposite occurred. We conclude that some performance measures of cognitive-motor tasks could have been affected by the timing of the completion of the questionnaire. This finding should be known to researchers as it may lead to biases gaming research.

Introduction:The effects of specific suggestions are usually studied by measuring parameters that are directly addressed by these suggestions. We recently proposed the use of a uniform, unrelated, and objective measure like maximal muscle strength that allows comparison of suggestions to avoid nocebo effects and thus to improve communication. Since reduced breathing strength might impair respiration and increase the risk of post-operative pulmonary complications, the aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of the suggestions on respiratory muscle power. Both the identification and neutralization of negative suggestions in the clinical context and stimulating suggestions could improve breathing force, a predictor of physical fitness and convalescence.MethodsIn 50 healthy, adult volunteers, respiratory muscle strength was measured by maximal inspiratory and expiratory pressures, as well as by maximal inspiratory and expiratory flows. Baseline was compared to values after application of eleven suggestions, five out of clinical context, including memory of negative or positive past, risk information for informed consent, and a non-verbal suggestion. Six stimulating suggestions included self-affirmation, empowering words, a heroic mirror image, and an imagination.ResultsAll suggestions showed an impact on respiratory muscle strength, indicating placebo and nocebo effects. No single parameter could represent the breathing force in its complexity, however, trends and different specific aspects of it were measured. The strongest reaction was observed with the recall of a previous negative situation resulting in a reduction in expiratory flow to 96.1% of baseline (p = 0.041). After risk information, a decrease was observed in three of the parameters, with the highest extend in expiratory pressure by 4.4%. This nocebo effect was neutralized by adding positive aspects to the risk information. Every intended strengthening suggestion resulted in statistically significant increases of at least one parameter, with changes of up to 10% (e.g., MEP 110.3%, p = 0.001), indicating placebo effects. Here, expiration was more affected than inspiration. Sex was the only influencing factor reaching statistical significance, with stronger reactions in women.ConclusionRespiratory muscle strength proved to be sensitive to suggestions with clinical context, as well as suggestions intended for stimulation. With this objective measurement, evaluation, and comparison of different suggestions is possible to help avoid nocebo effects. The demonstrated effect of supporting suggestions can be followed up and used in clinical practice.

The present research featured German texts of mining equipment advertising, namely phrases with suggestive pragmasemantic potential. The research objective was to reveal the semantic characteristics of these language units. The article classifies and describes various pragmasemantic types of suggestive phrases using methods of componential, morphological, and syntactic analyses. The function of suggestion in mining equipment advertising proved to be of specific nature, as it has to oppose the conscious desire of a technical specialist to purchase effective and profitable equipment. The suggestion function in these texts belonged to words and phrases that created a positive image of the advertising object and suggestively described its usefulness to the consumer. A significant proportion of phrases contained the seme "safety", which could be explained by the following pragmatic presupposition: mining is highly dangerous; therefore, equipment should help to increase production safety. Such ergonomic characteristics of mining equipment as "controllability", "manufacturability", and "masterability" also depended on industrial safety. Most suggestive phrases appeared to have an adjective nuclear component, because German primarily uses adjectives to describe quality.

Many studies have investigated factors that affect susceptibility to false memories. However, few have investigated the role of sleep deprivation in the formation of false memories, despite overwhelming evidence that sleep deprivation impairs cognitive function. We examined the relationship between self-reported sleep duration and false memories and the effect of 24 hr of total sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories. We found that under certain conditions, sleep deprivation can increase the risk of developing false memories. Specifically, sleep deprivation increased false memories in a misinformation task when participants were sleep deprived during event encoding, but did not have a significant effect when the deprivation occurred after event encoding. These experiments are the first to investigate the effect of sleep deprivation on susceptibility to false memories, which can have dire consequences.

Se ha estudiado el efecto placebo en el dolor musculoesquelético cervical ampliamente. Se deriva del contexto de la intervención y es común a todas ellas. Las últimas investigaciones apuntan a que Kinesio Taping podría ser una forma de efecto placebo. A través del presente estudio se prende analizar si el Kinesio Taping es una forma de efecto placebo en sujetos con dolor musculoesquelético cervical. Se comparó el efecto del Kinesio Taping con el de un placebo. Tras analizar 30 sujetos, los resultados muestran que el efecto clínico del Kinesio Taping es similar al de un placebo. Las expectativas, el condicionamiento o la sugestión pueden estar muy relacionadas con el efecto clínico en los pacientes.

The article presents a look at the results of the classical experiment of S. Milgram from the point of view of the theories of B. Porshnev and D. Jaynes. A review of the provisions of both theories that are relevant to the analysis of the experiment of S. Milgram is given. A comparative analysis was carried out. It is shown that both theories postulate the existence in human history of a period when our ancestors were guided in their behavior not by their own motives, goals and objectives, but by other people’s speech commands — either given by real leaders (B. Porshnev), or their “doubles” — voice-hallucinations (D. Jaynes). If we agree with the authors of these theories, the unquestioning obedience to “authority”, demonstrated by the majority of subjects in the experiment of S. Milgram, is in a certain sense a recurrence of those psychological mechanisms and behaviors that existed in a person in that historical era of total suggestion (according to B. Porshnev) or “bicameral mind” (according to D. Jane).

The recent identification of highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) raised the possibility that there may be individuals who are immune to memory distortions. We measured HSAM participants' and age- and sex-matched controls' susceptibility to false memories using several research paradigms. HSAM participants and controls were both susceptible to false recognition of nonpresented critical lure words in an associative word-list task. In a misinformation task, HSAM participants showed higher overall false memory compared with that of controls for details in a photographic slideshow. HSAM participants were equally as likely as controls to mistakenly report they had seen nonexistent footage of a plane crash. Finding false memories in a superior-memory group suggests that malleable reconstructive mechanisms may be fundamental to episodic remembering. Paradoxically, HSAM individuals may retrieve abundant and accurate autobiographical memories using fallible reconstructive processes.

False sexual abuse allegations have spurred research on suggestibility, on the assumption that leading questions may produce false accusations. Most researchers, however, have not measured the likelihood that those who respond to suggestive questioning will take the next step and make a formal (false) accusation. The present study incorporates both aspects of abuse investigations: suggestibility (i.e., responsiveness to questions in a leading interview) and false accusations (i.e., signing a formal complaint against an innocent suspect). Participants (N = 129) were observed in a laboratory session and then interviewed twice about their experiences by an interviewer who suggested that the laboratory assistant had behaved inappropriately. Although only 17% of the participants were suggestible, 39% agreed to sign the complaint. Suggestible participants were significantly more likely to make a false accusation than were non-suggestible participants. However, because of the low rate of suggestibility, most false accusations were made by non-suggestible participants. Implications for the legal system are discussed.

Three studies examined the impact of stereotype messages on men's and women's performance of a mental rotation task involving imagined self-rotations. Experiment 1 established baseline differences between men and women; women made 12% more errors than did men. Experiment 2 found that exposure to a positive stereotype message enhanced women's performance in comparison with that of another group of women who received neutral information. In Experiment 3, men who were exposed to the same stereotype message emphasizing a female advantage made more errors than did male controls, and the magnitude of error was similar to that for women from Experiment 1. The results suggest that the gender gap in mental rotation performance is partially caused by experiential factors, particularly those induced by sociocultural stereotypes.

Some methodological aspects of multimodal suggestive psychotherapy are investigated. It is established that multimodal suggestive psychotherapy is an original psychotherapeutic system with its specific theoretical base and methodological principles. It is shown that one of the main psychotherapeutic tasks is correction of nonadaptive inference. It is noted that nonadaptive conclusions of an individual disrupt true perception of himself and the world decrease a level of his thinking adaptiveness and provoke various emotional and behavior deviations. It is paid attention to necessity to make goal-oriented direction of client’s actions by means of psychotherapeutic suggestion. It is found that multimodal suggestive psychotherapy allows to practice adaptive modification of thinking for humans with neurotic disorders. Mainly, multimodal suggestive psychotherapy is aimed at determining of a personally ideal lifestyle for a client, as well as developing such basic abilities as self-sufficiency, adaptiveness and creativity. There were considered the following ten key methods of multimodal suggestive psychotherapeutic influence: complex verification of inference, psychotherapeutic hypotheses, attitudinal suggestion, suggestive modeling of the future, provocation of physiological and mental stresses, immersion into reality, suggestive pressing by setting conditions, psychotherapeutic confrontational suggestion, actualization of creativity, psychotherapeutic travel alone. It is ascertained that these methods are considered to be effective for psychotherapeutic assistance to humans with various neurotic disorders.

Background Yielding to suggestions can be viewed as a relatively stable individual trait, called suggestibility. It has been long proposed that there are two kinds of suggestible influence, and two kinds of suggestibility corresponding to them: direct and indirect. Direct suggestion involves overt unhidden influence, while indirect suggestion concerns influence that is hidden, and the participant does not know that the suggestibility is being measured. So far however, empirical evidence for the existence of the two factors has been scarce. In the present study, more sophisticated and reliable tools for measuring suggestibility were applied than in the previous research, in the hope that better measurement would reveal the factor structure of suggestibility. Two tests of direct suggestibility were used: the Harvard Group Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility, Form A, measuring hypnotic susceptibility, and the Barber Suggestibility Scale, measuring non-hypnotic direct imaginative suggestibility. Three tests served to measure indirect suggestibility: the Sensory Suggestibility Scale, measuring indirect suggestibility relating to perception; the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale, measuring the tendency to yield to suggestive questions and changing answers after negative feedback; and the Emotional Dialogs Tests, measuring the tendency to perceive nonexistent aggression. Participants and procedure In sum, 115 participants were tested, 69 women, 49 men, mean age 22.20 years, SD = 2.20. Participants were tested in two sessions, lasting for a total of four hours. Results Confirmatory factor analyses confirmed the existence of two uncorrelated factors of suggestibility: direct and indirect. Conclusions Suggestibility may indeed involve two factors, direct and indirect, and failure to discover them in previous research may be due to methodological problems.

Las intervenciones psicológicas para incrementar el rendimiento de los deportistas han ganado gran popularidad. En este artículo se realizó una revisión de la utilización de intervenciones placebo para potenciar el rendimiento deportivo, a partir de la cual se concluyó que el contexto de aplicación, los rasgos de personalidad del deportista y el ritual de intervención han sido propuestos como los factores más relevantes a tomar en consideración. Se estima que, a pesar de las limitaciones, las intervenciones placebo constituyen alternativas eficaces que tienen distintos modos de aplicación. La utilización de vías conscientes y no-conscientes para activar el efecto placebo se materializa en el empleo de las potencialidades que brindan tanto la sugestión verbal como el priming.

Despite the compelling subjective experience of executive self-control, we argue that “consciousness” contains no top-down control processes and that “consciousness” involves no executive, causal, or controlling relationship with any of the familiar psychological processes conventionally attributed to it. In our view, psychological processing and psychological products are not under the control of consciousness. In particular, we argue that all “contents of consciousness” are generated by and within non-conscious brain systems in the form of a continuous self-referential personal narrative that is not directed or influenced in any way by the “experience of consciousness.” This continuously updated personal narrative arises from selective “internal broadcasting” of outputs from non-conscious executive systems that have access to all forms of cognitive processing, sensory information, and motor control. The personal narrative provides information for storage in autobiographical memory and is underpinned by constructs of self and agency, also created in non-conscious systems. The experience of consciousness is a passive accompaniment to the non-conscious processes of internal broadcasting and the creation of the personal narrative. In this sense, personal awareness is analogous to the rainbow which accompanies physical processes in the atmosphere but exerts no influence over them. Though it is an end-product created by non-conscious executive systems, the personal narrative serves the powerful evolutionary function of enabling individuals to communicate (externally broadcast) the contents of internal broadcasting. This in turn allows recipients to generate potentially adaptive strategies, such as predicting the behavior of others and underlies the development of social and cultural structures, that promote species survival. Consequently, it is the capacity to communicate to others the contents of the personal narrative that confers an evolutionary advantage—not the experience of consciousness (personal awareness) itself.