psychologist

Williams may be benefitting from what psychologists call the brain's neuroplasticity.

"First you violate expectations by making something worse, then you compound the injury by revealing the violation was both expensive and avoidable," psychologist and neuroscientist Joel Pearson told the BBC, explaining the public outrage.

As explained by Suraj Samtani, a clinical psychologist with the University of New South Wales, dementia symptoms can be remediated through an immersion in the places—and among the people—of one’s early life.

However, Turi Frederiksen, a senior psychologist whose team currently administers the tests, defends them, saying that while they are not perfect, "they are valuable, extensive psychological tools".

People in that situation, she said, go into what psychologists call survival mode, asking themselves, “How can I come out with the least loss?”