Lane et al. imply hypotheses that are questionable: that emotional arousal is a cause of positive change and reconsolidation research can be applied to therapy to alter memory. Given the history of problematic attempts to incorporate memory distortion or high emotional arousal into therapeutic techniques, both of which heralded premature optimism and hubris, I urge open-minded skepticism.

Neurobiologically informed integration of research on memory, emotion, and behavior change in psychotherapy is needed, which Lane at al. advance. Memory reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experience plays an important role in therapeutic change, converging with evidence for Fuzzy Trace Theory. Applications of Fuzzy Trace Theory to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for youth at risk for psychosis, and to other aspects of behavior change, are discussed.

Multilevel explanations abound in psychiatry. However, formulating useful such explanations is difficult or (some argue) impossible. I point to several ways in which Lane et al. successfully use multilevel explanations to advance understanding of psychotherapeutic effectiveness. I argue that the usefulness of an explanation depends largely on one's purpose, and conclude that this point has been inadequately recognised in psychiatry.

The purpose of learning is not to maintain records but to generate predictions. Successful predictions remain implicit; only prediction errors (“surprises”) attract consciousness. This is what Freud had in mind when he declared that “consciousness arises instead of a memory-trace.” The aim of reconsolidation, and of psychotherapy, is to improve predictions about how to meet our needs in the world.

Lane et al. argue that any psychotherapeutic intervention at its core acts on reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation which leads to modified memory traces. From our perspective, this model (1) only explains a small subsegment of psychotherapeutic mechanisms and (2) ignores the difficulties of generating reliable experimental conditions that allow interference with reconsolidation processes and – if successful – their transient nature.

Lane et al. view the process of memory reconsolidation as a main ingredient of psychotherapeutic change. They ascertain that in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) high priority is given to the “semantic structure.” We argue that memory-related mechanisms of change in CBT are more nuanced than the target article presents. Furthermore, we propose to partially shift the focus from the process of reconsolidation to the retrieval operations.

We share the idea of Lane et al. that successful psychotherapy exerts its effects through memory reconsolidation. To support it, we add further evidence that a behavioral interference may trigger memory update during reconsolidation. Furthermore, we propose that – in addition to replacing maladaptive emotions – new emotions experienced in the therapeutic process catalyze reconsolidation of the updated memory structure.

We challenge the idea that a cognitive perspective on therapeutic change concerns only memory processes. We argue that inclusion of impairments in more generative cognitive processes is necessary for complete understanding of cases such as depression. In such cases what is identified in the target article as an “integrative memory structure” is crucially supported by processes of mental model construction.

Lane et al. propose that memory reconsolidation through new emotional experiences is an integrative pathway to change in psychotherapy. My commentary suggests that memory reconsolidation is an element within self-reorganization. Given the focal nature of the self to every aspect of psychotherapy, it is a more useful construct on which to build integrative models than memory reconsolidation.

In this response to commentaries on our target article, we highlight and clarify a variety of issues and respond to several comments, challenges, and misconceptions. Topics covered include the mechanisms of enduring change, the nature of memory, the conditions in which memories are updated, the role of emotional arousal in change, and current limitations in our understanding of the neural basis of change in psychotherapy. It is our hope that through research stimulated by this exchange the latter may be advanced.

The human species is more reliant on cultural adaptation than any other species, but it is unclear how observational learning can give rise to the faithful transmission of cultural adaptations. One possibility is that teaching facilitates accurate social transmission by narrowing the range of inferences that learners make. However, there is wide disagreement about how to define teaching, and how to interpret the empirical evidence for teaching across cultures and species. In this article I argue that disputes about the nature and prevalence of teaching across human societies and nonhuman animals are based on a number of deep-rooted theoretical differences between fields, as well as on important differences in how teaching is defined. To reconcile these disparate bodies of research, I review the three major approaches to the study of teaching – mentalistic, culture-based, and functionalist – and outline the research questions about teaching that each addresses. I then argue for a new, integrated framework that differentiates between teaching types according to the specific adaptive problems that each type solves, and apply this framework to restructure current empirical evidence on teaching in humans and nonhuman animals. This integrative framework generates novel insights, with broad implications for the study of the evolution of teaching, including the roles of cognitive constraints and cooperative dilemmas in how and when teaching evolves. Finally, I propose an explanation for why some types of teaching are uniquely human, and discuss new directions for research motivated by this framework.

Focus on the way in which cultural variants affect other variants' probabilities of transmission in modeling and empirical work can enrich Kline's conceptualization of teaching. For example, the problem of communicating complex cumulative culture is an adaptive problem; teaching methods that manage transmission so that acquisition of some cultural variants increases the probability of acquiring others, provide a partial solution.

We propose that an underestimated albeit fundamental mechanism in teaching behavior is perceptual resonance. With this mechanism, many animals, including humans, are able to learn from each other by sharing and processing relevant events in the environment. For teaching, we suggest a triadic principle involving the teacher, the learner, and the events to be learned from the world.

To fully understand teaching, we need to know how it develops ontogenetically. Developmental questions about the emergence of different types of teaching behaviour in young humans and the psychological capabilities that underpin them are currently overlooked. Incorporating the individual's development from learner to teacher would expand the scope and impact of Kline's useful framework.

Functionalist approaches to teaching can be used to great effect in the study of teaching in both human societies and nonhuman species.

Classification schemes are useful when they elucidate common underlying mechanisms, bring together diverse examples, or illustrate gaps in knowledge for empirical investigation. Kline's scheme merges different approaches, but is orthogonal to existing schemes and overemphasizes evolved specializations, potentially at the detriment of clarifying teaching processes. Focus on underlying mechanisms, what is learned, and consequences for information transfer may provide additional utility.

Kline argues for an expanded taxonomy of teaching focusing on the adaptive behaviors needed to solve learning problems. Absent from her analysis is an explicit definition of learning, or a discussion of the iterative nature of the relationship between teaching and learning. Including the learner in the discussion may help to distinguish among the adaptive values of different teaching behaviors.

We welcome Kline's attempt to develop an overarching framework to allow much needed collaboration between fields in the study of teaching. While we see much utility in this enterprise, we are concerned that there is too much focus on the behavior of the teacher, without examining results or costs, and the categories within the framework are not sufficiently distinct.

The study of teaching indeed suffers from multiple approaches built upon disparate views. Kline does an excellent job in explaining the problem, but does not go all the way towards solving it. We suggest that a better operational definition, which could be utilized both in human studies and animal studies, is needed to integrate the field truly.

Frameworks that facilitate interdisciplinary communication on the topic of teaching are certainly needed. However, these frameworks require a solid and widely accepted definition of teaching on which to build. As Kline states, the functional definition forms a good basis for productive comparative work. I briefly discuss the most contentious aspects of the functional definition, and suggest that these issues must be resolved before more detailed frameworks become useful.