Peter W Halligan
Cardiff University, Psychology, Department Member
- Cardiff University, Cardiff Psychology, Faculty Memberadd
- Professor Halligan gained qualifications in psychology, philosophy and education at University College Dublin. A rese... moreProfessor Halligan gained qualifications in psychology, philosophy and education at University College Dublin. A research psychologist and neuroscientist by background, he has worked in neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry and neuro-rehabilitation. In 1985, he moved from Ireland to work at Rivermead, a specialist NHS neuro-rehabilitation Centre in Oxford as a research psychologist while also perusing a PhD in neuropsychology.
In 1987, he joined the Neuropsychology Unit at the Department of Clinical Neurology in Oxford University and in 1997 following a MRC Senior Research Fellowship award joined the Department of Experimental Psychology in Oxford. In 2000, he moved to Cardiff’s School of Psychology as a Distinguished Research Professor.
In 2003, he became the founding Director of the Cardiff University’s Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) and later in 2006 Dean of Interdisciplinary Studies at Cardiff University. In 2012, he joined Universities Wales as Head of Strategic Futures as part of a 2 year secondment before joining the Learned Society of Wales in 2015 as Chief Executive. At Cardiff, he played a central role in establishing Cardiff University’s Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), Wales Research and Diagnostic Positron Emission Tomography Imaging Centre (PETIC), Wales Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (WICN), the UnumProvident Centre for Psychosocial and Disability Research, the Cardiff Cognitive Neuroscience Seminar Series, School of Psychology MindArt project, the Haydn Ellis Distinguished Lecture Series and Cardiff’s University Research Institutes.
His own research has been reported widely in the national and international media including New York Times, Conversation, Economist, New Scientist, Guardian, Western Mail, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC Radio 4. He is Co-editor of the international journal Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, and has published over 200 papers including papers in Nature, BMJ, Lancet, Nature Reviews Neuroscience,Trends in Cognitive Science and also edited 10 books.He was a former Director of the British Neuropsychiatry Association, and is a member of QS World University Rankings Advisory Board and Science Advisory Council for Wales.In 1993, he was awarded the British Psychological Society’s early career Spearman Medal for outstanding published research and in 2005 the BPS Presidents’ Award for outstanding contributions to psychology.
He is recognized as a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, Psychological Society of Ireland, Academy of Medical Sciences and Royal Society of Biology. From 2010-2014, he was Chair and Academic lead of the Welsh Crucible, the all -Wales staff leadership programme for early career researchers. This flagship researcher development programme, showcased at the European Commission in Brussels, won the Times Higher Education Award for Outstanding Contribution to Leadership Development in 2013. edit
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Interest in malingering has grown in recent years, and is reflected in the exponential increase in academic publications since 1990. Although malingering is more commonly detected in medicolegal practice, it is not an all-or-nothing... more
Interest in malingering has grown in recent years, and is reflected in the exponential increase in academic publications since 1990. Although malingering is more commonly detected in medicolegal practice, it is not an all-or-nothing presentation and moreover can vary in the extent of presentation. As a nonmedical disorder, the challenge for clinical practice remains that malingering by definition is intentional and deliberate. As such, clinical skills alone are often insufficient to detect it and we describe psychometric tests such as symptom validity tests and relevant nonmedical investigations. Finally, we describe those areas of neurologic practice where symptom exaggeration and deception are more likely to occur, e.g., postconcussional syndrome, psychogenic nonepileptic seizures, motor weakness and movement disorders, and chronic pain. Factitious disorders are rare in clinical practice and their detection depends largely on the level of clinical suspicion supported by the systematic collection of relevant information from a variety of sources. In this chapter we challenge the accepted DSM-5 definition of factitious disorder and suggest that the traditional glossaries have neglected the extent to which a person's reported symptoms can be considered a product of intentional choice or selective psychopathology largely beyond the subject's voluntary control, or more likely, both. We present evidence to suggest that neurologists preferentially diagnose factitious presentations in healthcare workers as "hysterical," possibly to avoid the stigma of simulated illness.
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Page 1. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY. 1989, 6(4) 423435 Perceptual Cueing and Rrceptuo-motor Compatibility in Visuo-spatial Neglect: A Single Case Study Peter W. Halligan Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, Oxford, U. K. ...
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In visuo-spatial neglect after right hemisphere damage, patients fail overtly to notice and respond to stimuli on the side of space contralateral to lesion. Nonetheless, these neglected stimuli may covertly influence their performance in... more
In visuo-spatial neglect after right hemisphere damage, patients fail overtly to notice and respond to stimuli on the side of space contralateral to lesion. Nonetheless, these neglected stimuli may covertly influence their performance in other tasks less direct than overt detection or identification. We report here a new type of dissociation between two forms of conscious perceptual awareness in a patient with left neglect. J.R. was shown hierarchical drawings in which a larger (global) form, such as a geometric figure or an alphabetic letter, is composed of smaller (local) forms (dots, circles, or letters). She gave accurate verbal reports of the global structure of these stimuli (Navon figures), yet when required to cross out the smaller subfigures, she only cancelled those on the right of each global figure. Conscious perception of the whole does not automatically lead to visual awareness of all the parts thereof.
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... Breuer (1895/1992) speculated that the mechanism may be related to the nervous arrangement whereby movement is inhibited during dreaming sleep; Kretschmer (1926) argued that the mechanism was related to the ``sham-death reflex or... more
... Breuer (1895/1992) speculated that the mechanism may be related to the nervous arrangement whereby movement is inhibited during dreaming sleep; Kretschmer (1926) argued that the mechanism was related to the ``sham-death reflex or immobilisation reflex in which ...
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Page 1. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 1994, I 1 (2) 167-2M Toward a Principled Explanation of Unilateral Neglect Peter W. Halligan Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, Oxford, UK John C . Marshall Neuropsychology Unit, The Radclqfe Infirmary,... more
Page 1. COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, 1994, I 1 (2) 167-2M Toward a Principled Explanation of Unilateral Neglect Peter W. Halligan Rivermead Rehabilitation Centre, Oxford, UK John C . Marshall Neuropsychology Unit, The Radclqfe Infirmary, Oxford, UK ...
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I have taken the time to argue for a cognitive neuropsychiatric methodology so that it may survive critics of Charlton's more general radicalism. Where I join with him on the barricades is the plea for a theoretically motivated... more
I have taken the time to argue for a cognitive neuropsychiatric methodology so that it may survive critics of Charlton's more general radicalism. Where I join with him on the barricades is the plea for a theoretically motivated psychological approachto psychiatric classification andinhisbelief thatthis will lead to a sensible and non-arbitrary classificatory system. Cognitive neuropsychiatry has first to demonstrate it can do this. It is early days and the results are mixed (Shallice eta!, 1991;David & Lucas, 1993; David, l994b). Cognitive probes of the sort envisaged by Charlton will need to be developed and tested before older methods are abandoned. Cognitive neuropsychiatry could turn out to be the saviour of psychiatric diagnosis, rather than its nemesis, leading it out of the current dark ages into a new era of rational enlightenment (Charlton, 1993).
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In ‘left’ neglect—a frequent consequence of damage to posterior areas of the right cerebral hemisphere—the relational term ‘left’ immediately raises the question ‘left of what?’. It is shown that on a simple copying task the answer can be... more
In ‘left’ neglect—a frequent consequence of damage to posterior areas of the right cerebral hemisphere—the relational term ‘left’ immediately raises the question ‘left of what?’. It is shown that on a simple copying task the answer can be ‘left of the principal axis of the object or objects depicted’. Under conditions in which the stimulus material was intrinsically controlled for lateral extent and position, ‘object-centred’ neglect seemed to reflect some basic principles of perceptual parsing.
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Beliefs are stable mental representations of reality that we accept as true. As such, they play a critical role in shaping our phenomenological experiences and determining the choices and actions we make. Despite their considerable... more
Beliefs are stable mental representations of reality that we accept as true. As such, they play a critical role in shaping our phenomenological experiences and determining the choices and actions we make. Despite their considerable importance, the cognitive nature of belief and the underlying processes involved in forming beliefs have received little formal investigation in their own right. This may be due, in part, to the challenges of operationalising intimately familiar, yet highly complex and distributed cognitive processes. One promising avenue, however, has come from cognitive neuropsychiatry and the investigation into delusions, considered by many as pathological forms of belief. Identifying the nature of the responsible causal pathologies can be used to reveal some of the cognitive processes likely to be present in non-pathological belief formation. In this chapter, we describe a tentative five-stage account of belief formation that accommodates some of the key features of both delusions and belief. We provide evidence for this account and discuss its implications for understanding belief.
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Research Interests: Medicine, Complication, Humans, Derivation, Female, and 15 moreMale, Artery, Health Status, Clinical Sciences, Middle Aged, Cognitive impairment, Cognitive Function, Cognition disorders, Cardiopulmonary bypass, Myocardial Ischemia, Coronary artery bypass graft, Cognitive dysfunction, Cardiovascular medicine and haematology, Coronary Artery Bypass, and functional outcome
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Hypnotic suggestibility is part of the wider psychological trait of direct verbal suggestibility (DVS). Historically, DVS in hypnosis has informed theories of consciousness and of conversion disorder. More recently it has served as a... more
Hypnotic suggestibility is part of the wider psychological trait of direct verbal suggestibility (DVS). Historically, DVS in hypnosis has informed theories of consciousness and of conversion disorder. More recently it has served as a research tool in cognitive science and in cognitive neuroscience in particular. Here we consider DVS as a general trait, its relation to other psychological characteristics and abilities, and to the origin and treatment of clinical conditions. We then outline the distribution of DVS in the population, its measurement, relationship to other forms of suggestibility, placebo responsiveness, personal characteristics, gender, neurological processes and other factors, such as expectancy. There is currently no scale specifically designed to measure DVS outside a hypnotic context. The most commonly used and well-researched of the hypnosis-based scales, the Harvard Group Scale, is described and identified as a basis for a more broadly based measure of DVS for use in psychological research.
Research Interests: Neuroscience, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Philosophy, and 12 moreCognition, Consciousness, Medicine, Hypnosis, Measurement, Trait, Suggestibility, Suggestion, Hypnotic Susceptibility, Expectancy Theory, Cognitive and Experimental Psychology, and Developmental and Educational Psychology
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Hypnotic suggestibility (HS) is the ability to respond automatically to suggestions and to experience alterations in perception and behavior. Hypnotically suggestible participants are also better able to focus and sustain their attention... more
Hypnotic suggestibility (HS) is the ability to respond automatically to suggestions and to experience alterations in perception and behavior. Hypnotically suggestible participants are also better able to focus and sustain their attention on an experimental stimulus. The present study explores the relation between HS and susceptibility to the rubber hand illusion (RHI). Based on previous research with visual illusions, it was predicted that higher HS would lead to a stronger RHI. Two behavioral output measures of the RHI, an implicit (proprioceptive drift) and an explicit (RHI questionnaire) measure, were correlated against HS scores. Hypnotic suggestibility correlated positively with the implicit RHI measure contributing to 30% of the variation. However, there was no relation between HS and the explicit RHI questionnaire measure, or with compliance control items. High hypnotic suggestibility may facilitate, via attentional mechanisms, the multisensory integration of visuopropriocept...
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Science, Perception, Self and Identity, and 15 moreIndividuality, Self Consciousness, Consciousness, Body Image, Medicine, Proprioception, Hypnosis, Humans, Illusions, Multisensory Integration, Illusion, Body representation, Body representation and ownership, Adult, and Bf
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Research Interests: Psychology, Neurology, Visual perception, Medicine, Population, and 15 moreHumans, Female, Male, Anosognosia, Motor Cortex, Middle Aged, Neglect, Prognosis, Visual Fields, Hemianopsia, Cerebrovascular Disorders, Functional Laterality, Acute Disease, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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We report a case of severe visuo-spatial neglect consequent upon right-hemisphere stroke. At the time of testing, the patient had no visual field cut and no significant hemiparesis. Conventional testing on cancellation tasks with the... more
We report a case of severe visuo-spatial neglect consequent upon right-hemisphere stroke. At the time of testing, the patient had no visual field cut and no significant hemiparesis. Conventional testing on cancellation tasks with the right hand revealed reliable left neglect, but performance was significantly improved when the left hand was used. Investigations of (manual) line bisection showed normal performance with the right hand but right neglect when the left hand was used. Right neglect was also observed on a purely perceptual version of the line bisection task. We argue that the attentional vectors of the cerebral hemispheres can be modulated by (perceptual) task-demands and by (motorie) response demands. (JINS, 1996, 2, 412–418.)
Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Perception, Attention, Medicine, and 15 moreRight Hemisphere Functions, Temporal Lobe, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Neglect, Parietal Lobe, Hemianopsia, Cerebral Infarction, Bisection method, Functional Laterality, Psychomotor Performance, Neuropsychological Tests, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
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Research Interests: Psychology, Neurology, Audiology, Attention, Laterality, and 15 moreMedicine, Space perception, Humans, Female, Male, Aged, Middle Aged, Hemianopsia, Cerebrovascular Disorders, Brain Damage, Brain Diseases, Functional Laterality, Neuropsychological Tests, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, and Medical and Health Sciences
The present study examined a battery of tests to evaluate unilateral spatial neglect; the tests included different tasks involving several modalities of spatial exploration mapping perceptual, motor, attentional and personal or... more
The present study examined a battery of tests to evaluate unilateral spatial neglect; the tests included different tasks involving several modalities of spatial exploration mapping perceptual, motor, attentional and personal or extrapersonal space dimensions. The subjects, 121 right-brain-damaged patients with unilateral neglect, were studied in seven laboratories in four European countries. Relationships among the various tests were examined by correlations, a cluster analysis and by an analysis of individual cases. Different sensitivity was found among various tests for detecting neglect performances. Both the cluster analysis and the single case analysis clearly showed a segregation between personal and extrapersonal neglect. Analysis of the large cluster, including a variety of tests of extra personal neglect, together with the study of single cases, suggests the possibility of differentiating the various manifestations of spatial neglect which can be interpreted on the basis of...
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Mirrored-self misidentification delusion is the belief that one's reflection in the mirror is not oneself. This experiment used hypnotic suggestion to impair normal face processing in healthy participants and recreate key aspects of... more
Mirrored-self misidentification delusion is the belief that one's reflection in the mirror is not oneself. This experiment used hypnotic suggestion to impair normal face processing in healthy participants and recreate key aspects of the delusion in the laboratory. From a pool of 439 participants, 22 high hypnotisable participants ("highs") and 20 low hypnotisable participants were selected on the basis of their extreme scores on two separately administered measures of hypnotisability. These participants received a hypnotic induction and a suggestion for either impaired (i) self-face recognition or (ii) impaired recognition of all faces. Participants were tested on their ability to recognize themselves in a mirror and other visual media - including a photograph, live video, and handheld mirror - and their ability to recognize other people, including the experimenter and famous faces. Both suggestions produced impaired self-face recognition and recreated key aspects of t...
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Introduction Understanding the neural basis of abnormal personal belief (or delusion) is clearly an important scientific goal given the clinical and social implications. Nevertheless, the field is beset by a number of conceptual and... more
Introduction Understanding the neural basis of abnormal personal belief (or delusion) is clearly an important scientific goal given the clinical and social implications. Nevertheless, the field is beset by a number of conceptual and historical difficulties, not least problems in agreeing an acceptable definition of what a belief actually is and a tentative taxonomy of what constitutes false belief (delusion). Part of this problem remains the fact that existing clinical classifications were created without establishing an acceptable operational definition of belief based on theoretical accounts of normal belief formation. In considering the neural basis of belief, we start by reviewing some of the conceptual challenges that continue to bedevil this topic before covering some of the early psychiatric assumptions and more recent operational definitions proposed by cognitive neuropsychiatry. Although not traditionally considered as approaches we subsequently review some of the neuropath...
Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the... more
Consciousness as used here, refers to the private, subjective experience of being aware of our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, actions, memories (psychological contents) including the intimate experience of a unified self with the capacity to generate and control actions and psychological contents. This compelling, intuitive consciousness-centric account has, and continues to shape folk and scientific accounts of psychology and human behavior. Over the last 30 years, research from the cognitive neurosciences has challenged this intuitive social construct account when providing a neurocognitive architecture for a human psychology. Growing evidence suggests that the executive functions typically attributed to the experience of consciousness are carried out competently, backstage and outside subjective awareness by a myriad of fast, efficient non-conscious brain systems. While it remains unclear how and where the experience of consciousness is generated in the brain, we suggested that...
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Advances in our knowledge of corporeal awareness is not limited to patients with amputations, however, until recently, the study of... more
Advances in our knowledge of corporeal awareness is not limited to patients with amputations, however, until recently, the study of ''phantom limbs'' was neglected by comparison with less common disorders of body perception. Reasons for the neglect of this potentially informative and common condition are conspicuous by their absence in previous reviews. Over the past decade, however, experimental investigations of phantom limbs have revealed the dynamic neural processes that provide for both phantom and normal corporeal embodiment. Moreover, these findings helped to overturn widely held scientific assumptions regarding the extent of neural plasticity in the adult brain. It is suggested that throughout medical history, the construct of ''phantom limbs'' posed a challenge to fundamental folk assumptions regarding the assumed relationship between body and mind. Reluctance to entertain the counter-intuitive phenomenon of a ''limbless perception'' contributed to the comparative neglect of this fascinating phenomenon until the late 20th century.
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BackgroundCapgras delusion is scientifically important but most commonly reported as single case studies. Studies analysing large clinical records databases focus on common disorders but none have investigated rare syndromes.AimsIdentify... more
BackgroundCapgras delusion is scientifically important but most commonly reported as single case studies. Studies analysing large clinical records databases focus on common disorders but none have investigated rare syndromes.AimsIdentify cases of Capgras delusion and associated psychopathology, demographics, cognitive function and neuropathology in light of existing models.MethodCombined computational data extraction and qualitative classification using 250 000 case records from South London and Maudsley Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) database.ResultsWe identified 84 individuals and extracted diagnosis-matched comparison groups. Capgras was not ‘monothematic’ in the majority of cases. Most cases involved misidentified family members or close partners but others were misidentified in 25% of cases, contrary to dual-route face recognition models. Neuroimaging provided no evidence for predominantly right hemisphere damage. Individuals were ethnically diverse with a range of p...
The biopsychosocial model outlined in Engel's classic Science paper four decades ago emerged from dissatisfaction with the biomedical model of illness, which remains the dominant healthcare model. Engel's call to arms for a... more
The biopsychosocial model outlined in Engel's classic Science paper four decades ago emerged from dissatisfaction with the biomedical model of illness, which remains the dominant healthcare model. Engel's call to arms for a biopsychosocial model has been taken up in several healthcare fields, but it has not been accepted in the more economically dominant and politically powerful acute medical and surgical domains. It is widely used in research into complex healthcare interventions, it is the basis of the World Health Organisation's International Classification of Functioning (WHO ICF), it is used clinically, and it is used to structure clinical guidelines. Critically, it is now generally accepted that illness and health are the result of an interaction between biological, psychological, and social factors. Despite the evidence supporting its validity and utility, the biopsychosocial model has had little influence on the larger scale organization and funding of healthcare...
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Loss or reduction of awareness is common in neuropsychiatric disorders and culturally influenced dissociative phenomena but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. fMRI was combined with suggestions for automatic writing in... more
Loss or reduction of awareness is common in neuropsychiatric disorders and culturally influenced dissociative phenomena but the underlying brain mechanisms are poorly understood. fMRI was combined with suggestions for automatic writing in 18 healthy highly hypnotically suggestible individuals in a within-subjects design to determine whether clinical alterations in awareness of thought and movement can be experimentally modelled and studied independently of illness. Subjective ratings of control, ownership, and awareness of thought and movement, and fMRI data were collected following suggestions for thought insertion and alien control of writing movement, with and without loss of awareness. Subjective ratings confirmed that suggestions were effective. At the neural level, our main findings indicated that loss of awareness for both thought and movement during automatic writing was associated with reduced activation in a predominantly left-sided posterior cortical network including BA ...
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We report an investigation of unilateral visual neglect in 23 patients with right cerebro-vascular accident (CVA) and 3 with left CVA. On a modified version of Albert's test of line cancellation the patients show the typical... more
We report an investigation of unilateral visual neglect in 23 patients with right cerebro-vascular accident (CVA) and 3 with left CVA. On a modified version of Albert's test of line cancellation the patients show the typical errors of omission in the hemispace contralateral to the lesion. In addition, however, there is a significant effect of stimulus position in the vertical dimension; the patients made most errors in the lower quadrant of the array, contralateral to the site of lesion. We emphasize the importance of studying the distribution of attention along all spatial dimensions in the hemispatial neglect syndromes.
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It has been known for well over a century that brain-damaged patients are often unaware of the very deficits that impair performance in everyday life. Pathologies of awareness have been described for many neurological, psychiatric and... more
It has been known for well over a century that brain-damaged patients are often unaware of the very deficits that impair performance in everyday life. Pathologies of awareness have been described for many neurological, psychiatric and neuropsychological deficits and the construct of "awareness" or "insight" understandably now receives attention from many researchers within the clinical and cognitive neurosciences. This paper does not attempt to explain the nature of consciousness or its impairment but rather considers four aspects of consciousness/awareness that health care professionals interested in understanding, measuring and improving deficits of awareness should consider.