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McNally, Richard

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McNally

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Richard

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McNally, Richard
Author's Publications: search.filters.isAuthorOfPublication.aa543ecc-9f9c-46a6-9dff-7995f4e2015e

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 31
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    Commentary: A network theory of mental disorders
    (Frontiers Media S.A., 2017) Jones, Payton; Heeren, Alexandre; McNally, Richard
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    Anxiety Sensitivity in Bereaved Adults With and Without Complicated Grief
    (Ovid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health), 2014) Robinaugh, Donald; McNally, Richard; Leblanc, Nicole; Pentel, Kimberly Z.; Schwarz, Noah R.; Shah, Riva M.; Nadal-Vicens, Mireya; Moore, Cynthia; Marques, Luana; Bui, Eric; Simon, Naomi Michele
    Complicated grief (CG) is a bereavement-specific syndrome chiefly characterized by symptoms of persistent separation distress. Physiological reactivity to reminders of the loss and repeated acute pangs or waves of severe anxiety and psychological pain are prominent features of CG. Fear of this grief-related physiological arousal may contribute to CG by increasing the distress associated with grief reactions and increasing the likelihood of maladaptive coping strategies and grief-related avoidance. Here, we examined anxiety sensitivity (AS; i.e., the fear of anxiety-related sensations) in two studies of bereaved adults with and without CG. In both studies, bereaved adults with CG exhibited elevated AS relative to those without CG. In study 2, AS was positively associated with CG symptom severity among those with CG. These findings are consistent with the possibility that AS contributes to the development or maintenance of CG symptoms.
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    The trauma model of dissociation: Inconvenient truths and stubborn fictions. Comment on Dalenberg et al. (2012).
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2014) Lynn, Steven Jay; Lilienfeld, Scott O.; Merckelbach, Harald; Giesbrecht, Timo; McNally, Richard; Loftus, Elizabeth F.; Bruck, Maggie; Garry, Maryanne; Malaktaris, Anne
    Dalenberg et al. (2012) argue that convincing evidence (a) supports the longstanding trauma model (TM), which posits that early trauma plays a key role in the genesis of dissociation, and (b) refutes the fantasy model (FM), which posits that fantasy proneness, suggestibility, cognitive failures, and other variables foster dissociation. We review evidence bearing on Dalenberg et al.’s eight predictions, and find them largely wanting in empirical support. We contend that the authors repeat errors committed by many previous proponents of the TM, such as attributing a central etiological role to trauma in the absence of sufficient evidence. Specifically, Dalenberg et al. leap too quickly from correlational data to causal conclusions, do not adequately consider the lack of corroboration of abuse in many studies, and underestimate the relation between dissociation and false memories. Nevertheless, we identify points of agreement between the TM and FM regarding potential moderators and mediators of dissociative symptoms (e.g., family environment, biological vulnerabilities) and the hypothesis that dissociative identity disorder is a disorder of self-understanding. We acknowledge that trauma may play a causal role in dissociation, but that this role is less central and specific than Dalenberg et al. contend. Finally, although a key assumption of the TM is dissociative amnesia, the notion that people can encode traumatic experiences without being able to recall them lacks strong empirical support. Accordingly, we conclude that the field should now abandon the simple trauma-dissociation model and embrace multifactorial models that accommodate the diversity of causes of dissociation and dissociative disorders.
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    Mental Disorders as Causal Systems
    (SAGE Publications, 2014) McNally, Richard; Robinaugh, Donald; Wu, Gwyneth Winnie Y; Wang, Li; Deserno, M. K.; Borsboom, D.
    Debates about posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often turn on whether it is a timeless, cross-culturally valid natural phenomenon or a socially constructed idiom of distress. Most clinicians seem to favor the first view, differing only in whether they conceptualize PTSD as a discrete category or the upper end of a dimension of stress responsiveness. Yet both categorical and dimensional construals presuppose that PTSD symptoms are fallible indicators reflective of an underlying, latent variable. This presupposition has governed psychopathology research for decades, but it rests on problematic psychometric premises. In this article, we review an alternative, network perspective for conceptualizing mental disorders as causal systems of interacting symptoms, and we illustrate this perspective via analyses of PTSD symptoms reported by survivors of the Wenchuan earthquake in China. Finally, we foreshadow emerging computational methods that may disclose the causal structure of mental disorders.
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    Creative histories: Memories of past lives and measures of creativity.
    (American Psychological Association (APA), 2014) Meyersburg, Cynthia; Carson, Shelley; Mathis, Melinda B.; McNally, Richard
    Experiencing memories of past lives is anomalous in Western culture. Such experiences may signify an overinclusive cognitive style, associated with creative ability. Accordingly, are reports of past life memory (PLM) associated with creativity? Is PLM associated with measures of overinclusiveness? To investigate these issues, we conducted two studies. In study one, we recruited subjects who reported having recovered memories of previous lives, and compared them to demographically matched comparison subjects on measures of creativity and latent inhibition (LI). Relative to comparison subjects, those reporting PLM had significantly higher scores on a variety of creativity measures, but not significantly higher scores on creative achievement (p .10). The PLM subjects were significantly more likely to have low LI, an indicator of overinclusive cognition associated with creativity in high-IQ subjects (Carson, Peterson, & Higgins, 2003). Partly replicating Carson et al.’s findings, low LI scores in subjects with high IQ scores predicted high scores on measures of divergent thinking and creativity, but not on a measure of creative achievement. In study two, we investigated the prevalence of past life beliefs and PLM among high-creative versus low-creative students. Relative to low-creative subjects, those high on creative achievement were significantly more likely to endorse both past life beliefs and report PLM. Further, both high- (relative to low-) creative achievers and those with PLM (relative to those with no PLM) scored significantly higher on a schizotypal personality measure of overinclusive thinking.
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    Attention Bias Modification Training Via Smartphone to Reduce Social Anxiety: A Randomized, Controlled Multi-Session Experiment
    (Springer Science + Business Media, 2014) Enock, Philip M.; Hofmann, Stefan G.; McNally, Richard
    Testing feasibility and efficacy of psychological treatment via mobile devices is important, given its potential benefits for high-dosage treatment delivery, widespread and inexpensive dissemination, and efficient research methods. We conducted the first randomized controlled trial of attention bias modification training delivered via smartphones, comparing this training to control training in a double-blind design, also including a waitlist condition. All participants performed a variant of dot-probe training involving faces with neutral and disgust (representative of social threat) expressions in brief sessions three times daily over 4 weeks on their own smartphones, at home or anywhere they chose. Attention bias modification, also known as cognitive bias modification of attention, training included a contingency to induce attentional deployment away from disgust faces, whereas the control training included no contingency. Participants completed weekly Internet-based self-report symptom assessments as well as smartphone-delivered dot-probe attention bias assessments, whose reliability findings supported the viability of using smartphones for reaction-time based assessments. The between-groups training effect on attention bias scores was small, showing statistical significance in some analyses and not in others. On measures ofsocial anxiety, intention-to-treat analyses (n = 326) revealed significant pre–post treatment declines with medium to large effect sizes in both training groups, whereas small declines in a waitlist group were nonsignificant. Both training groups showed greater reductions in social anxiety than did waitlist; however, the benefits under these two training conditions were statistically indistinguishable. Improvements in the two training conditions beyond those of waitlist could be attributable to any factors common to them, but not to the contingency training specific to active attention bias modification training.
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    Attentional bias modification in depression through gaze contingencies and regulatory control using a new eye-tracking intervention paradigm: study protocol for a placebo-controlled trial
    (BioMed Central, 2016) Vazquez, Carmelo; Blanco, Ivan; Sanchez, Alvaro; McNally, Richard
    Background: Attentional biases, namely difficulties both to disengage attention from negative information and to maintain it on positive information, play an important role in the onset and maintenance of the disorder. Recently, researchers have developed specific attentional bias modification (ABM) techniques aimed to modify these maladaptive attentional patterns. However, the application of current ABM procedures has yielded, so far, scarce results in depression due, in part, to some methodological shortcomings. The aim of our protocol is the application of a new ABM technique, based on eye-tracker technology, designed to objectively train the specific attentional components involved in depression and, eventually, to reduce depressive symptoms. Methods: Based on sample size calculations, 32 dysphoric (BDI ≥13) participants will be allocated to either an active attentional bias training group or a yoked-control group. Attentional training will be individually administered on two sessions in two consecutive days at the lab. In the training task series of pairs of faces (i.e. neutral vs. sad; neutral vs. happy; happy vs. sad) will be displayed. Participants in the training group will be asked to localize as quickly as possible the most positive face of the pair (e.g., the neutral face in neutral vs. sad trials) and maintain their gaze on it for 750 ms or 1500 ms, in two different blocks, to advance to the next trial. Participants’ maintenance of gaze will be measured by an eye-tracking apparatus. Participants in the yoked-control group will be exposed to the same stimuli and the same average amount of time than the experimental participants but without any instruction to maintain their gaze or any feedback on their performance. Pre and post training measures will be obtained to assess cognitive and emotional changes after the training. Discussion The findings from this research will provide a proof-of-principle of the efficacy of eye-tracking paradigms to modify attentional biases and, consequently, to improve depressed mood. If the findings are positive, this new training approach may result in the improvement of cognitive bias modification procedures in depression. Trial registration This trial was retrospectively registered on July 28, 2016 with the ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02847793 registration number and the title ‘Attentional Bias Modification Through Eye-tracker Methodology (ABMET)’. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-016-1150-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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    Metacognitive appraisal of memory inconsistency for traumatic events in Dutch veterans
    (Informa UK Limited, 2014) Engelhard, Iris M.; McNally, Richard
    Although memories of traumatic events are often remembered vividly, these memories are subject to change over time. In our previous study, we found that Dutch infantry veterans who had served in Iraq often reported stressful events at a second assessment point that they had not reported during a prior assessment point and vice versa. In the present exploratory study, we recontacted subjects from this previous study and asked how they explained the discrepancy in their memory reports between postdeployment assessment points 1 and 2. Common explanations were: interpreting the item differently, having forgotten the incident initially, repression and having accidentally incorporated someone else’s experience into their own memory. Although such reports are not necessarily revelatory of the mechanisms driving discrepancies in memory reports over time, our study illuminates the metacognitive variables involved.
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    Effects of emotionally valenced working memory taxation on negative memories
    (Elsevier BV, 2014) Tsai, Cynthia; McNally, Richard
    Background and objectives: Memories enter a labile state during recollection. Thus, memory changes that occur during recollection can affect future instances of its activation. Having subjects perform a secondary task that taxes working memory while they recall a negative emotional memory often reduces its vividness and emotional intensity during subsequent recollections. However, researchers have not manipulated the emotional valence of the secondary task itself. Methods: Subjects viewed a video depicting the aftermath of three fatal road traffic accidents, establishing the same negative emotional memory for all subjects. We then tested their memory for the video after randomly assigning them to no secondary task or a delayed match-to-sample secondary task involving photographs of positive, negative, or neutral emotional valence. Results: The positive secondary task reduced memory for details about the video, whereas negative and neutral tasks did not. Limitations: We did not assess the vividness and emotionality of the subjects’ memory of the video. Conclusions: Having subjects recall a stressful experience while performing a positively valent secondary task can decrement details of the memory and perhaps its emotionality.