BACKGROUND Psychotherapy research has long investigated the factors that influence the success of treatment. While the focus of psychotherapy research was initially primarily on disorder-specific methods, the focus has now increasingly shifted to common factors and techniques that are effective in different therapeutic schools. A central factor is the competence of the therapist, the personality, attitude, and interpersonal skills of the respective psychotherapist. AIM To investigate the detailed process and course of psychoanalytic therapeutic work using the Psychoanalytic Core Competency Q-Sort. METHODS We conducted a retrospective, single-center observational reanalysis of data from 90 depressed patients originally included in the Munich Psychotherapy Study, which was conducted at Medical University Vienna as a psychotherapy research center. All patients were analyzed using audio recordings of the sessions. One-third of the patients received behavioral therapy, 1/3 received psychodynamic psychotherapy and 1/3 received classical psychoanalytical treatment. Data from the first and last sessions of psychoanalytic treatments of severely depressed patients were used to document intervention processes and their effects on outcome. RESULTS Using Core Competency Q-Sort Coding to provide a detailed description of the process and course of therapeutic work, interesting findings were made regarding the core analytical competencies that revolve around curative work on the unconscious and on implicit memory: On the one hand more confrontational interventions were used significantly more intensively in the first sessions (P < 0.05) and contributed to remarkable therapeutic success (effect size: r = -0.58; P = 0.05); conversely, attitude elements tended to be more effective towards the end of treatment. In addition to the statistical evaluations, individual cases are presented that show that each encounter is unique. CONCLUSION Precise adaptation and attunement to the patient’s inner life and socialization history-relevant representations in the present moment ensured a successful therapeutic process.

The specific conditions in which age differences in priming emerge remain to be clarified. Three experiments systematically investigated how cognitive processing requirements moderate age differences in priming. Experiment 1manipulated perceptual/conceptual encoding prior to a continuous identification priming task, and Experiments 2A and 2Bmanipulated perceptual/conceptual encoding prior to identification (perceptual) and category verification (conceptual) priming tasks. Recognition was also captured to allow comparison of effects on explicit and implicit memory. A further aim was to provide the first direct comparison of online versus laboratory experiments concerned with priming in aging, necessary to understand the feasibility and robustness of online methods, which are increasing in popularity. Experiments 1(35 young participants, Mage = 20.51 years; 35 older participants, Mage = 70.49 years) and 2A (48 young participants, Mage = 22.65 years; 48 older participants, Mage = 69.19 years) were conducted online, and Experiment 2B(48 young participants, Mage = 22.17 years; 48 older participants, Mage = 76.29 years) was conducted in the laboratory. In all experiments, there was an age difference in perceptual identification priming favouring young adults when encoding was conceptual, but no age difference following perceptual encoding. There was no priming on the category verification task. Priming effects in Experiment 1were mirrored in the recognition data-recognition was greater in young than older adults following conceptual encoding. There was a reliable age difference in recognition in Experiment 2B, but not Experiment 2A, and no interaction with processing. Findings suggests that age differences in priming emerge as a function of the way stimuli are processed during encoding.

Spatial memory tasks in aged animals: Overcoming methodological challenges.

BackgroundRecognition abilities are often considered severely impaired in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease and related neurocognitive diseases. However, implicit forms of recognition, supported by emotional and relational processes, may remain preserved despite profound cognitive decline.ObjectiveThis study aimed to explore implicit recognition in older adults with advanced neurocognitive diseases through repeated interactions with an unfamiliar experimenter in emotionally modulated contexts.MethodsForty residents of long-term care facilities were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: a positive emotional condition (warm interaction and emotional expressions) or a neutral emotional condition (detached and factual interaction). An 11-session protocol was designed to capture the progressive emergence of recognition behaviors-verbal and nonverbal, spontaneous or elicited-toward the experimenter. Behavioral responses were analyzed across sessions using statistical analyses examining recognition type, emotional condition, and temporal progression.ResultsA main effect of recognition type was observed, with verbal responses, particularly those elicited by prompts, being predominant. The positive emotional condition significantly enhanced the expression of implicit recognition behaviors. A significant temporal progression was also identified, peaking at session 11, suggesting implicit learning across repeated exposures.ConclusionsDespite advanced neurocognitive diseases, older adults appear to retain the capacity for new learning mediated by implicit memory. Repeated exposure and emotionally meaningful interactions foster familiarity with the experimenter and highlight the persistence of relational and affective competencies. These findings emphasize the role of affective memory in sustaining interpersonal connections and support emotionally attuned human interaction as a valuable therapeutic approach in institutional care.

Sleep-mediated axes of interaction between psychological and immune memory.

Photoreceptor degeneration in Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is the most prevalent cause of inherited legal blindness, for which effective visual restoration treatments are still missing. Injectable prosthetic strategies represent a promising tool for vision restoration. We demonstrated that injectable poly(3-hexylthiophene) nanoparticles (P3HT-NPs) promote a sustained visual restoration in Royal College of Surgeons rats, an RP model harboring a mutation that impairs the phagocytic activity of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and microglia, leading to progressive and combined rod/cone degeneration. However, it is unclear whether the efficacy of P3HT-NPs in this model is enhanced by the impairment of RPE and microglial phagocytosis, and thus whether this prosthetic intervention will also be effective in more typical forms of RP that primarily affect rods. Here, we evaluated the efficacy of P3HT-NPs in the pigmented retinal degeneration 10 (rd10) mouse, which carries a recessive missense mutation in the rod phosphodiesterase-6B gene, while retaining a morphologically and functionally intact RPE. We demonstrate that, in this mouse model of RP, P3HT-NPs restore visually driven responses at both subcortical and cortical levels at the end stage of photoreceptor degeneration. Although partial phagocytosis of P3HT-NPs by the RPE occurs, the P3HT-NPs remaining in the outer retina were sufficient to mediate a significant recovery of visual function characterized by complex light-dependent reactivation of the primary visual cortex and formation of implicit visual memories. These results demonstrate that healthy RPE and microglial activities do not compromise the efficacy of the injectable nanotherapeutic strategy, underscoring the clinical potential of P3HT-NPs for visual restoration in late-stage retinal degeneration, which closely mimics the conditions of RP patients undergoing prosthetic interventions.

Introduction: the functions of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) extend from the central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system to the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, skeletal, and reproductive systems; therefore, it is involved in many physiological processes including those related to cognition. Objective: this review aims to explain the role of the ECS in brain regions that control memory, learning, reinforcement and self-control, to understand the impact that its dysfunction could have on these processes and in the abuse of substances. Method: searches focused on ECS and its involvement in memory, reinforcement, self-control, and substance use were conducted in PubMed, covering a period from 1990 to 2024. Results: the ECS regulates hippocampal function, influencing declarative, spatial, and contextual memory. By modulating the basal ganglia, it regulates non-declarative memory, and through its action on the amygdala and memory related to adverse events. In the prefrontal cortex, it is involved in processes such as working memory, self-control, and decision-making. Its presence in the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens, and medial prefrontal cortex contributes to the modulation of motivation and reward, thus participating in substance-induced gratification. Discussion and conclusions: dysfunction of the ECS may manifest through symptoms that, within clinical practice, often remain undetected due to the limited consideration of its functions in psychiatric assessment. This observation highlights the importance of expanding the conceptual framework regarding the role of the ECS in the regulation of cognitive and emotional processes. Such an expansion is essential for advancing diagnostic accuracy and for fostering a more comprehensive understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders.

Bifurcation and pattern formation driven by implicit memory and nonlocal perception in diffusive resource-consumer systems

Even though memory plays a pervasive role in perception, the nature of the memory traces left by past sounds is still largely mysterious. Here, we probed the memory for natural auditory textures. For such stochastic sounds, two types of representations have been put forward: a representation based on sets of temporally local features, or a representation based on time-averaged summary statistics. We synthesized naturalistic texture exemplars and used them in an implicit memory paradigm based on repetition, previously shown to induce rapid learning for artificial sounds such as white noise. Results were similar for artificial and natural sounds, exhibiting a general trend for a decrease in repetition detection performance with increasing exemplar duration, although with some variation depending on texture type. This trend could be captured by a summary statistics model, but also by a new model based on the random sampling of temporally local features. Moreover, repeated exposure to a same natural texture or artificial noise exemplar systematically induced a performance gain, which was comparable across all sound types and exemplar durations. Thus, natural texture exemplars were amenable to learning when repeated exposure was available. The findings are consistent with two interpretations: the existence of a special processing mode when acoustic repetition is involved, to which natural textures are not immune, or a convergence of the local features versus summary statistics descriptions if a continuum of time scales is considered for auditory representations.

Emotional learning selectively distorts the temporal organization of memory: A quantitative synthesis.

In this paper, we investigate a coupled system of hyperbolic equations with control applied to one of the two parameters. A key feature of this work is the integration of a kernel modelled as a functional that implicitly incorporates the system's history. The memory term is represented by an integral involving a fractional operator with exponent ℓ, where the amplitude of the functional is explicitly linked to this exponent. The interaction between the amplitude ϱ and the exponent ℓ plays a crucial role in the dynamic behaviour and stability properties of the system. We demonstrate that the polynomial stability depends on the interaction between the memory kernel, the fractional operator's exponent ℓ, and the amplitude ϱ, while also studying the system's optimal controllability. Under appropriate assumptions, we establish that the solutions decay at the rate t − ϱ 1 − ℓ , where the decay is influenced by both the amplitude and the infinite memory. Furthermore, detailed spectral analysis provides asymptotic expressions for the eigenvalues, confirming the optimality of the obtained decay rates.

ABSTRACT Regular incidental exposure to a language that someone does not speak can allow a person to build a proto-lexicon of the language – a set of implicitly stored word forms without semantic knowledge. Previous research shows that non-speakers of Māori in New Zealand (NZ) have well-developed phonotactic and proto-lexical knowledge of Māori. However, we still do not know whether exposure in early childhood is completely necessary for the formation of the proto-lexicon, nor how much proto-lexical knowledge develops from exposure in childhood versus exposure in adulthood. It is also unclear how robust these implicit memories are. To address these gaps, we examine the extent to which childhood exposure and/or ongoing consistent adult exposure are necessary conditions for the creation and/or maintenance of a proto-lexicon by comparing four groups (expats, migrants, local adolescents and local adults). The results reveal that migrants’ proto-lexicon is greater than that of local adolescents, indicating that early childhood exposure to the language is not necessary. In addition, expats retained robust memory for their proto-lexical knowledge, acquired before moving overseas. Thus, implicit learning in adulthood plays a significant role and a proto-lexicon can be built and maintained over the course of the entire lifespan.

This study explores the psychological transformation of Ketty, the main character in The Mystery of Me by Karen McCombie, through the lens of Carl Jung’s concept of infantile memory. The research aims to examine how amnesia in the story reflects deeper unconscious struggles and contributes to Ketty’s identity reconstruction. A qualitative method and psychoanalytic approach were applied to analyze textual data, focusing on key moments that reveal Ketty’s emotional disconnection, symbolic imagery, and evolving self-awareness. The findings reveal three major aspects of amnesia: Ketty’s unconscious rejection of her past self, the emergence of symbolic fragments, which is butterflies as manifestations of infantile memory, and amnesia as a medium for the unconscious to surface and initiate personal growth. These elements demonstrate how memory loss functions not merely as a cognitive impairment but as a meaningful narrative tool that reveals the character’s inner conflict and gradual individuation. This study differs from previous works by offering a Jungian reading of amnesia, emphasizing the symbolic and emotional processes involved in self-discovery. The research contributes to literary and psychological discourse by showing how unconscious memory and symbolic elements shape the formation of identity in trauma-affected characters.

Learning how actions change the environment is crucial for goal-directed actions and skill acquisition. Here, we applied a process dissociation approach to investigate the contribution of explicit and implicit memory to the learning of action–effect relations across four experiments. Participants produced object images by pressing one of two keys, with each action–effect episode experienced three times. Learning was either incidental (Experiments 1-2) or intentional (Experiments 2-4) and occurred under full (Experiments 1-4) or divided (Experiments 3-4) attention. In a test phase, participants were re-presented the effect images and asked to either reproduce or alternate the action that had produced them. Results obtained through cognitive modeling revealed that action–effect relations are primarily represented in explicit memory, with minimal contributions of implicit memory. Intentional learning enhanced memory compared to incidental learning, while divided attention during encoding reduced it, with these factors mainly affecting explicit memory. These findings elucidate the mechanisms underlying skill acquisition and provide insights into the representational nature of action–effect relations.

Abstract Background: Prenatal and perinatal experiences can be encoded in implicit memory, influencing neurodevelopment, affective regulation, and relational patterns. Children’s narratives offer insights into these early experiences, often expressed through symbolic or paradoxical storytelling. Case Presentation: We report a case of a young boy, born caesarean, who described prenatal and birth experiences, including “eating candy in the belly,” the sensation of his eyelashes being taken, and Oglebay as a paradisiacal homeland. These narratives reflect prenatal agency, relational responsiveness, and symbolic processing of transition, safety, loss, and connection. The child’s accounts corresponded to maternal anxiety during pregnancy and a cesarean birth, suggesting implicit affective encoding and early-life relational awareness. Discussion: Symbolic storytelling in this case illustrates how children externalize prenatal and perinatal experiences, integrating physiological, affective, and relational dimensions. Eyelashes symbolized chastity and protection and the perceived loss of safety during surgical birth, while candy represented the pleasurable, endorphin-mediated prenatal state. Oglebay served as a symbolic homeland, reflecting a pre-embodiment sense of origin and relational longing. Recognition of these narratives informs parental support, clinical practice, and research, emphasizing attentive listening, reflective caregiving, and the study of spontaneous early childhood narratives as indicators of fetal and perinatal experience. Conclusion: The case underscores the importance of integrating prenatal and perinatal experiences into developmental models and highlights the role of symbolic narrative in conveying agency, relational awareness, and affective continuity from womb to early childhood.

The relationship between the unconscious and narrative identity remains unresolved within Russian philosophy. This study seeks to rectify this situation. The work’s scientific novelty is also determined by its interdisciplinary approach, which integrates the traditions of phenomenology (E. Husserl), psychoanalysis (S. Freud), and philosophical hermeneutics (P. Ricoeur). This article conceptualizes the unconscious as a noumenal source of subjectivity, inaccessible to direct signification but manifesting itself through symptoms and affects. As a noumenon, the unconscious is inaccessible to direct reference, precedes symbolization, and serves as a space for the accumulation of “pre-reflective” experience. A hypothesis is advanced and substantiated regarding the dual function of the unconscious in the structure of narrative identity: on the one hand, it serves as a “reservoir” for the formation of counternarratives that challenge established self-narratives, while on the other, it constitutes the foundation of pre-reflective experience, ensuring the continuity of the pre-reflective and the affective content of implicit memory. It is demonstrated that the process of constructing narrative identity is linked not only to the symbolic horizon but also to affective experience rooted in pre-reflective experience, opening new perspectives for understanding the dynamics of personal identity construction.

Crime is often understood through conscious intent, rational decision-making, and environmental influences, yet a substantial body of psychological and neuroscientific research demonstrates that many criminal behaviours originate from subconscious processes shaped during early development. Subconscious or implicit memories—formed through nonverbal, emotional, and sensory experiences—persist outside conscious awareness but continue to influence perception, affect regulation, and behavioural responses. Traumatic childhood experiences, insecure attachment, and chronic stress become encoded in these implicit memory systems, creating automatic patterns of reactivity that can manifest as aggression, impulsivity, or compulsive offending in adulthood.This review synthesizes findings from developmental psychology, neurocriminology, trauma science, and psychodynamic theory to explain the mechanisms through which subconscious memory contributes to criminal behaviour. These mechanisms include pattern completion, where present cues reactivate emotionally charged childhood templates; amygdala-driven threat responses that precede conscious awareness; and repetition compulsion, in which individuals unconsciously re-enact unresolved trauma. Neurobiological studies further show that offenders with trauma histories often exhibit hyperreactive limbic systems and reduced prefrontal regulatory control, increasing vulnerability to trigger-driven violence.Beyond causation, this review highlights important forensic implications, including the need for trauma-informed assessments, recognition of dissociation and emotional triggers, and careful interpretation of memory reports in legal contexts. Additionally, emerging therapeutic approaches—such as EMDR, reconsolidation therapies, and emotion regulation interventions—offer promising pathways for rehabilitation by targeting the implicit memory networks that underlie maladaptive behaviour.Overall, understanding the subconscious foundations of crime expands the scientific and forensic perspective, emphasizing early intervention, psychological integration, and evidence-based rehabilitation to reduce recidivism and promote long-term behavioural change.

The article examines the specifics of therapy for clients from dysfunctional families and adult children of alcoholics (ACoA). Using a clinical case example, it demonstrates the application of the «Lifeline» tool for future modeling, taking into account the influence of implicit memory on the life script. The methodology includes a comparative analysis of approaches to integrating dissociative experience, based on relational transactional analysis (J. Statheridge) and «Future Memory» psychotherapy. A practical case illustrates the analysis of a client’s «Lifeline» with a history of chronic trauma. As a result, a therapeutic plan has been developed comprising two interconnected directions that comprehensively engage explicit and implicit memory to achieve sustainable changes. The effectiveness of the tool for working with the consequences of long-term trauma in clients from ACoA and dysfunctional families is emphasized.

BackgroundDespite their explicit memory difficulties, individuals with Alzheimer's Disease (AD) exhibit implicit memory (Moran, 2023). We assessed whether evaluative conditioning, in which irrelevant stimuli paired with stimuli eliciting positive or negative emotions, evoke an emotional response (a type of implicit memory), is preserved in older adults with and without AD.MethodParticipants were older adults (aged 65+) diagnosed with AD (Group AD), type 2 diabetes (Group DB), or without neurodegenerative disease or diabetes diagnoses (Group ND). Group DB was included because diabetes increases the risk of developing AD. All participants had a minimum score of 15 (mild memory impairment) in the Self‐Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE). Participants viewed a set of fictitious books on a computer screen. For each book, they first saw the cover (a colored pattern with foreign characters), and then saw and heard a brief summary of the story, which could be pleasant (e.g., a lost puppy finds its way home) or unpleasant (e.g., a lost puppy is never found). Unbeknownst to participants, one of the features of the book covers (e.g., red letters) was associated with pleasant stories, and a different feature (e.g., blue letters) with unpleasant stories. Then, participants were presented with a book cover, and asked to rate how pleasant they expected the story to be. They were also asked to recall as many of the stories as they could.ResultIt is expected, based on previous research, Group AD will exhibit little recall of the stories, and will be unlikely to explicitly link a characteristic of the book cover with the type of story it contains, but should not differ from Group ND on predicting whether it will be a pleasant or unpleasant story (Maturana, 2023). Group DB's performance in the explicit test should be similar or lower than in Group ND, but should show no deficits in the implicit test.ConclusionThis study is expected to replicate the dissociation between explicit and implicit memory. As a new contribution, it will determine whether evaluative conditioning is a valid tool to assess emotional learning in individuals with dementia.

This study developed and validated an instrument to assess the personality masks of mothers of young children, addressing a gap in the developmental psychology. Using a mixed-methods approach grounded in Carl Jung’s theory of persona, we collected data from 486 mothers in two-parent families in China’s Z region. The research involved three phases: scale development via open-ended questionnaires, which identified a three-dimensional structure of the maternal personality mask (Collective Ideals, Personal Ideals, and Physical/Mental Qualities); confirmatory factor analysis, which validated the model with excellent fit indices; and an implicit memory experiment, which explored the unconscious expression of these dimensions. Results showed significant correlations between the mask dimensions and various parenting behaviors, accounting for notable variance in parenting outcomes. These findings suggest that the personality mask is a valuable construct for understanding maternal behavior, and supporting balanced psychological adaptation in mothers may improve parenting effectiveness. The study provides a practical tool for future research and intervention, while also highlighting the need for further studies with greater cultural diversity and ecological validity.