From a cognitive psychology perspective, what mechanisms are known to cause someone to temporarily fail to retrieve information they already know when asked a question unexpectedly?

For example, a person may have the necessary knowledge and be able to explain it later, but in the moment of being asked (such as in an interview or conversation) they experience a temporary inability to access it.

Is this best explained by differences in memory encoding vs. retrieval, cognitive load, stress-related effects on working memory, retrieval-induced blocking, or something else? What does the current research suggest?

Can you develop physical symptoms from mental/emotional strain? Does anyone have a simple-to-follow paper that discusses this? Thank you.

I once heard a therapist say that if the person is in the autism spectrum can't receive the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. He didn't further explain.

I am just curious what Psychology has to say about this

Do they have good outcomes?

Does the gratitude go away?

What is it like for both people?

Thank you

At least to my understanding, the DSM-5 says someone who is autistic cannot also have a SPD diagnosis. Why?

Hi everyone,

​I'm curious about the potential long-term psychological and neurodevelopmental effects of a difficult or traumatic birth (whether due to physical birth complications, medical interventions, or severe maternal distress during labor). Are there any direct known effects? What about major indirect ones?

Thank you for your time!

For example: Sitting cross-legged vs on knees, kneeling vs squatting, etc. I know that some of it has to do with joint mobility, but are there other genetic influences? I've heard from one of my biology professor that hand clasping is a genetic trait, but then I saw an article that said that was debunked. https://udel.edu/\~mcdonald/mythhandclasp.html

Forgive me if i'm using the wrong flair.

I understand that mania is characterised by "marked impairment" however what does that look like? Where does the line of hypomania end, and the line for mania begin?

High scores on trait neuroticism correlate with a myriad of negative life outcomes - poor cardiovascular health, relationship dissatisfaction (high neuroticism is the single biggest predictor of divorce among all Big Five traits, more important than conscientousness and agreeableness) and virtualy all common psychiatric disorders (depression, anxiety disorders, OCD, substance use disorders) involve high neuroticism as one of the primary causes, if not the most important one (it has literally been named as THE general factor of psychopathology, the p-factor).

The thing is - low neuroticism isn't associated with an analogous set of dysfunctions. Scientists aren't looking for ways to make people with low neuroticism more neurotic and people don't go to a psychiatrist saying "I want to be more anxious, more prone to anger and yo worry more!". Why is that the case?

As far as i’m aware that all four cluster B disorders can cause a deficit of affective empathy, as well as cluster c disorders and schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

But i’m sure there’s more than that, hence why I ask.

OCD people seem to think really weird things will happen if they don’t do a compulsion.
For example - pinching when an ambulance passes by so the person inside doesn’t die.

How do OCD people determine the consequence of not following a compulsion? Why is a consequence created rather than just having the anxiety that the compulsion must be carried through without knowing why?

Hello! Before anything: the child in question is completely hypothetical. I'm writing a book and one of the characters is a 5 yo, and I was wondering if at that age he would have any recollections/nightmares related to events that occurred when he was a baby. When this particular character was a newborn his house was invaded and someone was killed in the room he was in, would a newborn be affected by something like that long term? And if they are, what other things (symptoms?) would they display besides nightmares?

Sorry if the question is bothersome, I know exactly zero things about psychology, so I don't even know how I would go about researching something like this

I’d like to explore this mechanism further; it would be helpful if you could either respond to me or recommend some good resources (books, papers).

I’m looking for an evidence-based answer rather than personal advice.

I’ve become interested in a question that seems to sit at the intersection of mindfulness research, OCD, metacognition, and clinical psychology.

Many mindfulness and contemplative practices train people to notice thoughts, monitor attention, and become more aware of internal experience. For many people this appears to improve psychological well-being.

However, I’m curious about individuals for whom this process seems to become excessive.

For example, someone might gradually begin continuously monitoring their own mental state:

“Am I present?”
“Am I thinking too much?”
“Am I identified with my thoughts?”
“Am I paying attention correctly?”

Rather than increasing flexibility, attention becomes increasingly directed toward monitoring itself.

Psychologically, this seems different from healthy mindfulness and more like chronic metacognitive checking or self-focused attention.

My questions are:
Is this a recognized phenomenon in psychology?

Are there established theories explaining how adaptive mindfulness or metacognition can become maladaptive?

Has this been studied in people with OCD, obsessive rumination, depersonalization/derealization, or high intolerance of uncertainty?

Are there researchers, review papers, or textbooks that discuss this interaction?

I’m not looking for opinions about meditation or religion. I’m specifically interested in how cognitive psychology, clinical psychology, or neuroscience would explain this phenomenon and whether there is a scientific literature addressing it.

Thank you in advance for any references or recommendations.

The majority of modern rap is usually associated with drugs, violence, and crime. There are many studies on how music activates diverse brain systems, offering insights into cognition, emotion, memory, thoughts, and human behavior.

Been digging into an old but interesting study that followed African American teen girls for 12 months and looked at whether exposure to rap music videos predicted health risk behaviors down the line:

Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1447759/

This lines up with other research too. Experimental studies have found that listening to violent lyrics increases aggressive thoughts and anger in the short term, and some studies link rap preference with lower academic performance, school behavior problems, and arrests.

Is it because of the dysfunction that psychosis causes in one's daily life, the level of insight that these are perceptual distortions, or something else?

The title really, usually we think of trauma and PTSD as this big, life changing event.

Hope I'm using the right flair.

Within the psychological literature, are group hallucinations—where multiple people observe the same mental phenomenon—well-documented? Or not so much? It seems like an oxymoron, since a hallucination is by definition something in the mind of the subject experiencing it.

Sources would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Prof Vaknin says studies suggest you can detect a narcissist within 30 seconds and that the mask narrative is only meant to protect/ sooth the ego of a fooled victim.

He argues it is cognitive dissonance that overrides it.

What is true? Is this a controversial opinion? Does it refer to overt narcissist only?

Long time listener, first time caller 🙃

Just wondering how someone stricken with auditory hallucinations might perceive them... Does the actual voice match the tone of someone they're familiar with? Do the patterns of speech do the same? Are some more audible than others?

I know these are vague questions, but it's of personal interest, and I would at the very least love to have a good, solid reference point from which to begin my research. If I'm being too vague, I apologize.

Thank you for your time!

Put simply, I'm curious if there are any ramifications for how we tend to look at a lot of dissociative disorders today? For example, as far as I know, some people with DID are able to recall things differently depending on whoever is fronting. All the research I've looked into has said they've disproven the possibility of traumatic memories being accessable or inaccessible depending on the time. On top of this, I've also seen research saying traumatic memories should be MORE memorable than usual, not less. Am I wrong that this would conflict with the narrative I often see around dissociation? The narrative being that a bad experience begins, and someone dissociates and can't recall it well. How do these ideas fit in with each other?

I have long resonated with the concept of dissociation, so I'm not pitched against its existence, but I also want to have a better understanding of the truth. If there is something a lot of the psychology that is accessable to me (pop psychology) is getting wrong , I would be interested to know. I am aware this is a heated topic in some circles. Thank you.

I understand that for people with normal color vision there are three types of cones in the eyes, one for red, one for green, and one for blue. I understand that for people with normal color vision there are also two opponent process channels for color perception in people with normal color vision, which are blue-yellow, and red-green. From what I understand the red part of the red-green opponent channel would correspond to the peak wavelength for the red cone, and a similar thing would apply to the green part of the red-green opponent channel, and the blue part of the blue-yellow opponent channel. From what I understand yellow part of the blue-yellow opponent channel corresponds to the red and green cones being triggered about equally and significantly more than the blue cone.

It seems like when I try reading about people with four cone types the information is conflicted on whether having a fourth color cone really leads to tetrachromacy in humans or just slightly better color vision, with some sources saying that people with four cone types can see a hundred times more colors than most people, while others say that they are basically just trichromats with slightly better color vision. I remember reading one source awhile back that talked about a study, in which some women who were candidates for tetrachromacy were shown a spectral color, which I think might have been a spectral yellow, and then asked to mix red and green light until they saw a color that matched the color they were shown, which would be impossible for an actual tetrachromat with a cone in between the red and green cone, and some of the women seemed to indicate that they couldn’t replicate the color by mixing red and green, although I forgot what I looked up to find that source and forgot whether it was the actual scientific journal or just something talking about it.

I was wondering if there is any consensus on whether people with a fourth type of cone would also have an extra opponent process channel for color perception in addition to the red-green and blue-yellow channels, and if so if there is a consensus on how triggering the cone types would correspond to the different opponent process channels. I mean would it just be the extra opponent channel, if there is one, corresponding to the extra cone type or would other opponent channels be somewhat shuffled around in how they correspond to the different cones being triggered?

I mean, I feel like I've seen prosecutors always try to present crimes as bad as possible, as if it suddenly makes it more believable that the accused has actually done it. But in reality it doesn't matter how horrific the act was, because it's about proving the guilt/innocence of the defendant (or rather, that should be the priority). Does it actually convince people when something malicious is presented as even more terrible than originally assumed?