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News Anchor Brian Williams and the Science of Memory
Memory distortion has become a hot topic this week in the wake of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams’s admission of falsely recounting one of his experiences during coverage of the Iraq War. For years, Williams talked about riding in a helicopter that was ultimately forced down after taking fire during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. But this week he publicly apologized and admitted that he had been mistaken after reports surfaced that he was not in that particular aircraft, but in a following helicopter. Williams said he made a mistake in recalling the incident, having conflated video he had seen with his own experience.
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Countering “Neuromyths” in the Movies
After a head injury sustained in a plane crash, CIA assassin Jason Bourne wakes up floating in the Mediterranean Sea with two bullets in his back, a Swiss bank account code implanted in his hip, and no memory of who is or how he ended up in the open ocean. Bourne is afflicted with no memory whatsoever of his identity or life before the accident. Even with the severe retrograde amnesia Bourne experiences in the movie The Bourne Identity, it’s dubious that he would also lose all sense of his identity. In fact, complete memory loss after a head injury — often reversed after another blow to the head — is a common but rather preposterous representation of brain damage or amnesia.
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Inside the Psychologist’s Studio: Paul Ekman
He created an "atlas of emotions" with more than 10,000 facial expressions. His research on identifying deception and hidden demeanor is used to train law enforcement and security personnel around the world. He was even the inspiration for a television drama series. APS William James Fellow Paul Ekman reflects on his storied career in an interview for the Inside the Psychologist’s Studio video series. The interview, filmed before a live audience last May at the 2014 APS Annual Convention in San Francisco, was conducted by APS Past President Robert Levenson.
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FY15 Announcement of the Anticipated Availability of Funds for Phase I Research on Research Integrity
The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) announces funding opportunity IR-ORI-15-001. The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to foster innovative approaches to empirical research on societal, organizational, group, and individual factors that affect, both positively and negatively, integrity in research. Integrity is defined as the use of honest and verifiable methods in proposing, performing, and evaluating research and reporting research results with particular attention to adherence to rules, regulations, guidelines, and commonly accepted professional codes or norms. Applications are due April 20, 2015, by 5:00 p.m. EST.
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The Facts About Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD
In a recent article in The New York Times Sunday Review, US Marine Corps Veteran David J. Morris chronicled his experience getting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder at a Veterans Affairs hospital. In his essay, he detailed his adverse reactions to Prolonged Exposure (PE) therapy, one of the only PTSD treatments to have wide-reaching empirical support. In PE therapy, individuals are asked to approach — in both imaginary and real-life settings — situations, places, and people they have been avoiding. The repeated exposure to the perceived threat disconfirms individuals’ expectations of experiencing harm and over time leads to a reduction in their fear.
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8th World Congress of the World Institute of Pain
The 8th World Congress of the World Institute of Pain (WIP 2016, to be held May 20–23 ) is a major biennial gathering of pain management specialists. Aimed at physicians, researchers, students and nurses, WIP 2016 will combine participant-friendly educational activities with hands-on courses. This combined theoretical and practical approach has already facilitated breakthroughs in pain management interventional techniques.
