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Showing papers in "Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience in 2011"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Key findings from the longitudinal work and from earlier delay-of-gratification experiments examining the cognitive appraisal and attention control strategies that underlie preschoolers' ability to delay gratification are reviewed.
Abstract: In the 1960s, Mischel and colleagues developed a simple ‘marshmallow test’ to measure preschoolers’ ability to delay gratification. In numerous follow-up studies over 40 years, this ‘test’ proved to have surprisingly significant predictive validity for consequential social, cognitive and mental health outcomes over the life course. In this article, we review key findings from the longitudinal work and from earlier delay-of-gratification experiments examining the cognitive appraisal and attention control strategies that underlie this ability. Further, we outline a set of hypotheses that emerge from the intersection of these findings with research on ‘cognitive control’ mechanisms and their neural bases. We discuss implications of these hypotheses for decomposing the phenomena of ‘willpower’ and the lifelong individual differences in self-regulatory ability that were identified in the earlier research and that are currently being pursued.

478 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Examination of connectivity of the default network specifically in the subgenual cingulate both on- and off-task revealed that MDDs show more neural functional connectivity between the posterior-cingulate cortex and the sub genual-cesulate cortex than healthy individuals during rest periods, but not during task engagement.
Abstract: Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been characterized by excessive default-network activation and connectivity with the subgenual cingulate. These hyper-connectivities are often interpreted as reflecting rumination, where MDDs perseverate on negative, self-referential thoughts. However, the relationship between connectivity and rumination has not been established. Furthermore, previous research has not examined how connectivity with the subgenual cingulate differs when individuals are engaged in a task or not. The purpose of the present study was to examine connectivity of the default network specifically in the subgenual cingulate both on- and off-task, and to examine the relationship between connectivity and rumination. Analyses using a seed-based connectivity approach revealed that MDDs show more neural functional connectivity between the posterior-cingulate cortex and the subgenual-cingulate cortex than healthy individuals during rest periods, but not during task engagement. Importantly, these rest-period connectivities correlated with behavioral measures of rumination and brooding, but not reflection.

452 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The data suggest that OXT may impede trust and pro-social behavior depending on chronic interpersonal insecurities, and/or possible neurochemical differences in the OXT system, and suggest a more circumspect answer to the question of who will benefit from OXT.
Abstract: We investigated the effects of intranasal oxytocin (OXT) on trust and cooperation in borderline personality disorder (BPD), a disorder marked by interpersonal instability and difficulties with cooperation. Although studies in healthy adults show that intranasal OXT increases trust, individuals with BPD may show an altered response to exogenous OXT because the effects of OXT on trust and pro-social behavior may vary depending on the relationship representations and expectations people possess and/or altered OXT system functioning in BPD. BPD and control participants received intranasal OXT and played a social dilemma game with a partner. Results showed that OXT produced divergent effects in BPD participants, decreasing trust and the likelihood of cooperative responses. Additional analyses focusing on individual differences in attachment anxiety and avoidance across BPD and control participants indicate that these divergent effects were driven by the anxiously attached, rejection-sensitive participants. These data suggest that OXT does not uniformly facilitate trust and pro-social behavior in humans; indeed, OXT may impede trust and pro-social behavior depending on chronic interpersonal insecurities, and/or possible neurochemical differences in the OXT system. Although popularly dubbed the 'hormone of love', these data suggest a more circumspect answer to the question of who will benefit from OXT.

381 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The findings suggest the characteristic rationalization processes that are associated with decision-making may be engaged very quickly at the moment of the decision, without extended deliberation and may involve reappraisal-like emotion regulation processes.
Abstract: People rationalize the choices they make when confronted with difficult decisions by claiming they never wanted the option they did not choose. Behavioral studies on cognitive dissonance provide evidence for decision-induced attitude change, but these studies cannot fully uncover the mechanisms driving the attitude change because only pre- and post-decision attitudes are measured, rather than the process of change itself. In the first fMRI study to examine the decision phase in a decision-based cognitive dissonance paradigm, we observed that increased activity in right-inferior frontal gyrus, medial fronto-parietal regions and ventral striatum, and decreased activity in anterior insula were associated with subsequent decision-related attitude change. These findings suggest the characteristic rationalization processes that are associated with decision-making may be engaged very quickly at the moment of the decision, without extended deliberation and may involve reappraisal-like emotion regulation processes.

186 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: While older and younger adults use similar brain structures for emotion regulation and experience, the functional efficacy of those structures depends on underlying cognitive ability and increased performance on measures of cognition predicted greater regulation-related decreases in amygdala activation.
Abstract: Older adults, compared to younger adults, focus on emotional well-being. While the lifespan trajectory of emotional processing and its regulation has been characterized behaviorally, few studies have investigated the underlying neural mechanisms. Here, older adults (range: 59–73 years) and younger adults (range: 19–33 years) participated in a cognitive reappraisal task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. On each trial, participants viewed positive, negative or neutral pictures and either naturally experienced the image (‘Experience’ condition) or attempted to detach themselves from the image (‘Reappraise’ condition). Across both age groups, cognitive reappraisal activated prefrontal regions similar to those reported in prior studies of emotion regulation, while emotional experience activated the bilateral amygdala. Psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed that the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and amygdala demonstrated greater inverse connectivity during the ‘Reappraise’ condition relative to the ‘Experience’ condition. The only regions exhibiting significant age differences were the left IFG and the left superior temporal gyrus, for which greater regulation-related activation was observed in younger adults. Controlling for age, increased performance on measures of cognition predicted greater regulation-related decreases in amygdala activation. Thus, while older and younger adults use similar brain structures for emotion regulation and experience, the functional efficacy of those structures depends on underlying cognitive ability.

175 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results suggest that the insula may be a key shared neural substrate that mediates the influence of temperature on trust processes.
Abstract: Trust lies at the heart of person perception and interpersonal decision making. In two studies, we investigated physical temperature as one factor that can influence human trust behavior, and the insula as a possible neural substrate. Participants briefly touched either a cold or warm pack, and then played an economic trust game. Those primed with cold invested less with an anonymous partner, revealing lesser interpersonal trust, as compared to those who touched a warm pack. In Study 2, we examined neural activity during trust-related processes after a temperature manipulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The left-anterior insular region activated more strongly than baseline only when the trust decision was preceded by touching a cold pack, and not a warm pack. In addition, greater activation within bilateral insula was identified during the decision phase followed by a cold manipulation, contrasted to warm. These results suggest that the insula may be a key shared neural substrate that mediates the influence of temperature on trust processes.

161 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Scanning participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they made attractiveness judgments about faces and goodness judgments about hypothetical actions supported the idea of similar contributions of each region to both judgments, and suggested an opposing relationship between these regions during attractiveness and goodness judgment.
Abstract: The Beauty-is-Good stereotype refers to the assumption that attractive people possess sociably desirable personalities and higher moral standards. The existence of this bias suggests that the neural mechanisms for judging facial attractiveness and moral goodness overlap. To investigate this idea, we scanned participants with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they made attractiveness judgments about faces and goodness judgments about hypothetical actions. Activity in the medial orbitofrontal cortex increased as a function of both attractiveness and goodness ratings, whereas activity in the insular cortex decreased with both attractiveness and goodness ratings. Within each of these regions, the activations elicited by attractiveness and goodness judgments were strongly correlated with each other, supporting the idea of similar contributions of each region to both judgments. Moreover, activations in orbitofrontal and insular cortices were negatively correlated with each other, suggesting an opposing relationship between these regions during attractiveness and goodness judgments. These findings have implications for understanding the neural mechanisms of the Beauty-is-Good stereotype.

153 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results show that early-stage processing of facial information is enhanced by another person's direct gaze when the person is faced live, and proposes that seeing a live face with a direct gaze is processed more intensely than a face with averted gaze or closed eyes.
Abstract: Several recent studies have begun to examine the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in perceiving and responding to eye contact, a salient social signal of interest and readiness for interaction. Laboratory experiments measuring observers' responses to pictorial instead of live eye gaze cues may, however, only vaguely approximate the real-life affective significance of gaze direction cues. To take this into account, we measured event-related brain potentials and subjective affective responses in healthy adults while viewing live faces with a neutral expression through an electronic shutter and faces as pictures on a computer screen. Direct gaze elicited greater face-sensitive N170 amplitudes and early posterior negativity potentials than averted gaze or closed eyes, but only in the live condition. The results show that early-stage processing of facial information is enhanced by another person's direct gaze when the person is faced live. We propose that seeing a live face with a direct gaze is processed more intensely than a face with averted gaze or closed eyes, as the direct gaze is capable of intensifying the feeling of being the target of the other's interest and intentions. These results may have implications for the use of pictorial stimuli in the social cognition studies.

144 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is demonstrated that self-reference acts as a first processing filter for emotional material to receive higher order processing after an initial rapid attention capture by emotional content has been completed.
Abstract: Self-referential evaluation of emotional stimuli has been shown to modify the way emotional stimuli are processed. This study aimed at a new approach by investigating whether self-reference alters emotion processing in the absence of explicit self-referential appraisal instructions. Event-related potentials were measured while subjects spontaneously viewed a series of emotional and neutral nouns. Nouns were preceded either by personal pronouns ('my') indicating self-reference or a definite article ('the') without self-reference. The early posterior negativity, a brain potential reflecting rapid attention capture by emotional stimuli was enhanced for unpleasant and pleasant nouns relative to neutral nouns irrespective of whether nouns were preceded by personal pronouns or articles. Later brain potentials such as the late positive potential were enhanced for unpleasant nouns only when preceded by personal pronouns. Unpleasant nouns were better remembered than pleasant or neutral nouns when paired with a personal pronoun. Correlation analysis showed that this bias in favor of self-related unpleasant concepts can be explained by participants' depression scores. Our results demonstrate that self-reference acts as a first processing filter for emotional material to receive higher order processing after an initial rapid attention capture by emotional content has been completed. Mood-congruent processing may contribute to this effect.

136 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results provide evidence for an amygdalo-insular system involved in anxious auditory anticipation, and reactivity in the right anterior insula was predictive of individuals' subjective experience of anxious anticipation for both aversive and neutral stimuli, whereas the amygdala was predicted of anticipatory anxiety for aversive stimuli.
Abstract: Anticipation is a central component of anxiety and the anterior insula appears to be an important neural substrate in which this process is mediated. The anterior insula is also thought to underlie the interoceptive representation of one’s affective state. However, the degree to which individual differences in anticipation-related insula reactivity are associated with variability in the subjective experience of anxious anticipation is untested. To assess this possibility, functional magnetic resonance images were acquired while participants completed an auditory anticipation task with trial-by-trial self-report ratings of anxious anticipation. We hypothesized that the anterior insula would be positively associated with an individual’s subjective experience of anticipatory anxiety. The results provide evidence for an amygdalo-insular system involved in anxious auditory anticipation. Reactivity in the right anterior insula was predictive of individuals’ subjective experience of anxious anticipation for both aversive and neutral stimuli, whereas the amygdala was predictive of anticipatory anxiety for aversive stimuli. In addition, anxious anticipatory activation in the left insula and left amygdala covaried with participants’ level of trait anxiety, particularly when the anticipated event was proximal.

135 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results provide the first evidence of neural differences associated with SPS, the first direct support for the sensory aspect of this trait that has been studied primarily for its social and affective implications, and preliminary evidence for heightened sensory processing in individuals high in SPS.
Abstract: This exploratory study examined the extent to which individual differences in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a temperament/personality trait characterized by social, emotional and physical sensitivity, are associated with neural response in visual areas in response to subtle changes in visual scenes. Sixteen participants completed the Highly Sensitive Person questionnaire, a standard measure of SPS. Subsequently, they were tested on a change detection task while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). SPS was associated with significantly greater activation in brain areas involved in high-order visual processing (i.e. right claustrum, left occipitotemporal, bilateral temporal and medial and posterior parietal regions) as well as in the right cerebellum, when detecting minor (vs major) changes in stimuli. These findings remained strong and significant after controlling for neuroticism and introversion, traits that are often correlated with SPS. These results provide the first evidence of neural differences associated with SPS, the first direct support for the sensory aspect of this trait that has been studied primarily for its social and affective implications, and preliminary evidence for heightened sensory processing in individuals high in SPS.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results support the hypotheses that participants show less affective engagement when they are making choices for themselves that only involve options in the future or when they have choices for someone else and that behavioral choices reflect more patience when choosing forsomeone else.
Abstract: People have present-biased preferences: they choose more impatiently when choosing between an immediate reward and a delayed reward, than when choosing between a delayed reward and a more delayed reward. Following McClure et al. [McClure, S.M., Laibson, D.I., Loewenstein, G., Cohen, J.D. (2004). Separate neural systems value immediate and delayed monetary rewards. Science, 306, 503.], we find that areas in the dopaminergic reward system show greater activation when a binary choice set includes both an immediate reward and a delayed reward in contrast to activation measured when the binary choice set contains only delayed rewards. The presence of an immediate reward in the choice set elevates activation of the ventral striatum, pregenual anterior cingulate cortex and anterior medial prefrontal cortex. These dopaminergic reward areas are also responsive to the identity of the recipient of the reward. Even an immediate reward does not activate these dopaminergic regions when the decision is being made for another person. Our results support the hypotheses that participants show less affective engagement (i) when they are making choices for themselves that only involve options in the future or (ii) when they are making choices for someone else. As hypothesized, we also find that behavioral choices reflect more patience when choosing for someone else.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: These ERP results suggest that, in addition to threat-related stimuli, other evolutionary-relevant information is also prioritized by the authors' attention systems, and that men and women have evolved to pursue different mating strategies with men being more attentive to cues such as facial beauty.
Abstract: To examine the time course and automaticity of our attention bias towards attractive opposite sex faces, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 20 males and 20 females while they carried out a covert orienting task. Faces that were high, low or average in attractiveness, were presented in focus of attention, but were unrelated to task goals. Across the entire sample larger P2 amplitudes were found in response to both attractive and unattractive opposite sex faces, presumably reflecting early implicit selective attention to distinctive faces. In male but not female participants this was followed by an increased late slow wave for the attractive faces, signifying heightened processing linked to motivated attention. This latter finding is consistent with sexual strategy theory, which suggests that men and women have evolved to pursue different mating strategies with men being more attentive to cues such as facial beauty. In general, our ERP results suggest that, in addition to threat-related stimuli, other evolutionary-relevant information is also prioritized by our attention systems.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work examined the influence of a putatively dopamine-based personality trait, extraversion, and a dopamine-related gene polymorphism, DRD2/ANKK1, on FRN during an associative reward-learning paradigm and found that FRN was most negative following unpredicted non-reward and least-negative following unredicted reward.
Abstract: Medial frontal scalp-recorded negativity occurring ∼200–300 ms post-stimulus [known as feedback-related negativity (FRN)] is attenuated following unpredicted reward and potentiated following unpredicted non-reward. This encourages the view that FRN may partly reflect dopaminergic ‘reward–prediction–error’ signalling. We examined the influence of a putatively dopamine-based personality trait, extraversion (N = 30), and a dopamine-related gene polymorphism, DRD2/ANKK1 (N = 24), on FRN during an associative reward-learning paradigm. FRN was most negative following unpredicted non-reward and least-negative following unpredicted reward. A difference wave contrasting these conditions was significantly more pronounced for extraverted participants than for introverts, with a similar but non-significant trend for participants carrying at least one copy of the A1 allele of the DRD2/ANKK1 gene compared with those without the allele. Extraversion was also significantly higher in A1 allele carriers. Results have broad relevance to neuroscience and personality research concerning reward processing and dopamine function.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results confirm the independence of conditioned amygdala responses from contingency awareness and indicate specific neural circuits for different aspects of fear acquisition in unaware, learned aware and instructed aware subjects.
Abstract: In an fMRI study, effects of contingency awareness on conditioned responses were assessed in three groups comprising 118 subjects. A differential fear-conditioning paradigm with visual conditioned stimuli, an electrical unconditioned stimulus and two distractors was applied. The instructed aware group was informed about the contingencies, whereas the distractors prevented contingency detection in the unaware group. The third group (learned aware) was not informed about the contingencies, but learned them despite the distractors. Main effects of contingency awareness on conditioned responses emerged in several brain structures. Post hoc tests revealed differential dorsal anterior cingulate, insula and ventral striatum responses in aware conditioning only, whereas the amygdala was activated independent of contingency awareness. Differential responses of the hippocampus were specifically observed in learned aware subjects, indicating a role in the development of contingency awareness. The orbitofrontal cortex showed varying response patterns: lateral structures showed higher responses in instructed aware than unaware subjects, the opposite was true for medial parts. Conditioned subjective and electrodermal responses emerged only in the two aware groups. These results confirm the independence of conditioned amygdala responses from contingency awareness and indicate specific neural circuits for different aspects of fear acquisition in unaware, learned aware and instructed aware subjects.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Pictures previously preceded by negative compared to neutral reappraisal frames were rated as more unpleasant and more emotionally arousing; these pictures elicited a larger mid-latency occipital positivity.
Abstract: To examine whether reappraisal modifies responses to subsequent encounters with stimuli, participants viewed neutral and unpleasant pictures that were preceded by negative or neutral descriptions which served as reappraisal frames. A half an hour later, the same pictures were presented, without preceding frames; EEG was recorded and participants rated each picture on arousal and valence. In line with previous work, unpleasant compared to neutral pictures elicited more positive early- (359 ms), mid- (1074 ms) and late-latency (2436 ms) centrally-distributed ERP components. Pictures previously preceded by negative compared to neutral reappraisal frames were rated as more unpleasant and more emotionally arousing; these pictures elicited a larger mid-latency (1074 ms) occipital positivity. Together, the data suggest that reappraisal exerts an enduring effect on both subjective and neural responses to stimuli.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This is the first study to suggest effects of OXTR genotype on physiological reactivity to infant crying, and depressive symptoms may however suppress the effect of the OX TR GG genotype.
Abstract: Both the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and depressive symptoms have been associated with parenting behaviour. The OXTR GG genotype has been suggested to be related to more sensitive parenting, whereas depressive symptoms may affect sensitivity negatively. We examined the role of OXTR and the influence of depressive symptoms in explaining differences in physiological reactivity to infant crying. Heart rate responses of 40 healthy females without children (age 19–47 years, randomly selected half of twin pairs) were measured during the presentation of three episodes of infant cry sounds. Participants with the presumably more efficient variant of the oxytonergic system gene (OXTR GG) had more pronounced physiological reactivity to repeated cry sounds, except when they showed more symptoms of depression. Results were replicated in the second half of the twin sample. This is the first study to suggest effects of OXTR genotype on physiological reactivity to infant crying. Depressive symptoms may however suppress the effect of the OXTR GG genotype.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: An increased activation of the cortical midline structures in self-referential processing may embody the association between negative affectivity and self-focus in healthy subjects, as previously observed in major depression.
Abstract: The neural bases of the association between negative affectivity and self-focus remain unknown in healthy subjects. Building on the role of the cortical midline structures (CMS) in self-referential processing, we hypothesized that negative affectivity in healthy subjects would be associated with an increased activation of the CMS during self-referential processing. We presented positive and negative pictures to 45 healthy subjects during fMRI and asked them to judge whether the pictures were related to themselves or not (self condition), or whether the pictures were positive or negative (general condition). Negative affectivity was measured by the level of harm avoidance (HA) with the Temperament and Character Inventory. Self-referential processing activated the CMS, including the dorsal and ventral medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). A higher HA score was associated with a greater activation of the dorsal MPFC and PCC during self-referential processing, this greater activation being more pronounced for negative pictures in the dorsal MPFC. This increased activation of the CMS may embody the association between negative affectivity and self-focus in healthy subjects, as previously observed in major depression. Within the CMS, the dorsal MPFC may play a key role in negative affectivity, integrating an increased attention to negative stimuli with an increased attention to the self.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is found that recipients' assumptions about senders' charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network, which points to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence in other interpersonal interactions.
Abstract: This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how assumptions about speakers’ abilities changed the evoked BOLD response in secular and Christian participants who received intercessory prayer We find that recipients’ assumptions about senders’ charismatic abilities have important effects on their executive network Most notably, the Christian participants deactivated the frontal network consisting of the medial and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex bilaterally in response to speakers who they believed had healing abilities An independent analysis across subjects revealed that this deactivation predicted the Christian participants’ subsequent ratings of the speakers’ charisma and experience of God’s presence during prayer These observations point to an important mechanism of authority that may facilitate charismatic influence, a mechanism which is likely to be present in other interpersonal interactions as well

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Age-related differences in the amygdala and other nodes of face-processing networks in response to facial expression and familiarity are investigated and indicates that preferential amygdala activation for emotional expressions changes with age.
Abstract: The present study investigated age-related differences in the amygdala and other nodes of face-processing networks in response to facial expression and familiarity. fMRI data were analyzed from 31 children (3.5–8.5 years) and 14 young adults (18–33 years) who viewed pictures of familiar (mothers) and unfamiliar emotional faces. Results showed that amygdala activation for faces over a scrambled image baseline increased with age. Children, but not adults, showed greater amygdala activation to happy than angry faces; in addition, amygdala activation for angry faces increased with age. In keeping with growing evidence of a positivity bias in young children, our data suggest that children find happy faces to be more salient or meaningful than angry faces. Both children and adults showed preferential activation to mothers’ over strangers’ faces in a region of rostral anterior cingulate cortex associated with self-evaluation, suggesting that some nodes in frontal evaluative networks are active early in development. This study presents novel data on neural correlates of face processing in childhood and indicates that preferential amygdala activation for emotional expressions changes with age.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results indicate that the Val allele representing strong catabolism of dopamine is related to altruistic behaviour, the functional COMT Val158Met SNP.
Abstract: Findings from twin studies yield heritability estimates of 0.50 for prosocial behaviours like empathy, cooperativeness and altruism. First molecular genetic studies underline the influence of polymorphisms located on genes coding for the receptors of the neuropeptides, oxytocin and vasopressin. However, the proportion of variance explained by these gene loci is rather low indicating that additional genetic variants must be involved. Pharmacological studies show that the dopaminergic system interacts with oxytocin and vasopressin. The present experimental study tests a dopaminergic candidate polymorphism for altruistic behaviour, the functional COMT Val158Met SNP. N ¼ 101 healthy Caucasian subjects participated in the study. Altruism was assessed by the amount of money donated to a poor child in a developing country, after having earned money by participating in two straining computer experiments. Construct validity of the experimental data was given: the highest correlation between the amount of donations and personality was observed for cooperativeness (r ¼ 0.32, P � 0.001). Carriers of at least one Val allele donated about twice as much money as compared with those participants without a Val allele (P ¼ 0.01). Cooperativeness and the Val allele of COMT additively explained 14.6% of the variance in donation behaviour. Results indicate that the Val allele representing strong catabolism of dopamine is related to altruism.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This study indicates that both processes of selective rehearsal (parietal positivities) and frontally controlled inhibition contribute to successful directed forgetting, however, due to their deeper incidental processing, highly arousing negative pictures are exempt from directed forgetting.
Abstract: Subjective experience suggests that negatively arousing memories are harder to control than neutral ones. Here, we investigate this issue in an item-cued directed forgetting experiment. Electroencephalogram event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as participants viewed un-arousing neutral and highly arousing negative photographs, each followed by a cue to remember or forget it. Directed forgetting, that is reduced recognition of ’to-be-forgotten’ items, occurred for neutral but not negative pictures. ERPs revealed three underlying effects: first, during picture viewing a late parietal positive potential (LPP) was more pronounced for negative than for neutral pictures. Second, ’remember’ cues were associated with larger LPPs than ’forget’ cues. Third, an enhanced frontal positivity appeared for ’forget’ cues. This frontal positivity was generated in right dorso-lateral prefrontal regions following neutral pictures and in medial frontal cortex following negative pictures. LPP magnitude when viewing negative pictures was correlated with reduced directed forgetting, whereas both the enhanced frontal positivity for forget cues and the larger parietal positivity for remember cues predicted more directed forgetting. This study indicates that both processes of selective rehearsal (parietal positivities) and frontally controlled inhibition contribute to successful directed forgetting. However, due to their deeper incidental processing, highly arousing negative pictures are exempt from directed forgetting.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two basic building blocks of social cognition appear to be intact: spontaneous agency perception and spontaneous visual perspective taking.
Abstract: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders have highly characteristic impairments in social interaction and this is true also for those with high functioning autism or Asperger syndrome (AS). These social cognitive impairments are far from global and it seems likely that some of the building blocks of social cognition are intact. In our first experiment, we investigated whether high functioning adults who also had a diagnosis of AS would be similar to control participants in terms of their eye movements when watching animated triangles in short movies that normally evoke mentalizing. They were. Our second experiment using the same movies, tested whether both groups would spontaneously adopt the visuo-spatial perspective of a triangle protagonist. They did. At the same time autistic participants differed in their verbal accounts of the story line underlying the movies, confirming their specific difficulties in on-line mentalizing. In spite of this difficulty, two basic building blocks of social cognition appear to be intact: spontaneous agency perception and spontaneous visual perspective taking.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Functional magnetic resonance imaging is used to investigate the neural system underlying conditional cooperation by scanning participants during interaction with cooperative, neutral and non-cooperative opponents in prisoner's dilemma games and suggests that cognitive inhibition of the motivation to cooperate withNon-cooperators drives the conditional behavior.
Abstract: Cooperation among genetically unrelated individuals is a fundamental aspect of society, but it has been a longstanding puzzle in biological and social sciences. Recently, theoretical studies in biology and economics showed that conditional cooper- ationcooperating only with those who have exhibited cooperative behaviorcan spread over a society. Furthermore, experimen- tal studies in psychology demonstrated that people are actually conditional cooperators. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural system underlying conditional cooperation by scanning participants during interaction with cooperative, neutral and non-cooperative opponents in prisoner's dilemma games. The results showed that: (i) participants cooperated more frequently with both cooperative and neutral opponents than with non-cooperative oppon- ents; and (ii) a brain area related to cognitive inhibition of pre-potent responses (right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) showed greater activation, especially when participants confronted non-cooperative opponents. Consequently, we suggest that cognitive inhibition of the motivation to cooperate with non-cooperators drives the conditional behavior.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Positive approval and negative insult gestures appear more potent than positive approval gestures in inducing a heightened state of attention during processing stages implicated in stimulus recognition and focused attention.
Abstract: The present study used event-related brain potentials to examine the hypothesis that emotional gestures draw attentional resources at the level of distinct processing stages. Twenty healthy volunteers viewed pictures of hand gestures with negative (insult) and positive (approval) emotional meaning as well as neutral control gestures (pointing) while dense sensor event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Emotion effects were reflected in distinct ERP modulations in early and later time windows. Insult gestures elicited increased P1, early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) components as compared to neutral control gestures. Processing of approval gestures was associated with an increased P1 wave and enlarged EPN amplitudes during an early time window, while the LPP amplitude was not significantly modulated. Accordingly, negative insult gestures appear more potent than positive approval gestures in inducing a heightened state of attention during processing stages implicated in stimulus recognition and focused attention.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that controlled manipulation of the firing properties of this neural population produces strong predictable changes in the way the authors categorize others' actions, which are exquisitely consistent in humans with the existence of premotor mirror neurons that have access to the action meaning.
Abstract: Neurons firing both during self and others motor behavior (mirror neurons) have been described in the brain of vertebrates including humans. The activation of somatic motor programs driven by perceived behavior has been taken as evidence for mirror neuronscontribution to cognition. The inverse relation, that is the influence of motor behavior on perception, is needed for demonstrating the long-hypothesized causal role of mirror neurons in action understanding. We provide here conclusive behav- ioral and neurophysiological evidence for that causal role by means of cross-modal adaptation coupled with a novel transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)-adaptation paradigm. Blindfolded repeated motor performance of an object-directed action (push or pull) induced in healthy participants a strong visual after-effect when categorizing othersactions, as a result of motor-to-visual adaptation of visuo-motor neurons. TMS over the ventral premotor cortex, but not over the primary motor cortex, suppressed the after-effect, thus localizing the population of adapted visuo-motor neurons in the premotor cortex. These data are exquisitely consistent in humans with the existence of premotor mirror neurons that have access to the action meaning. We also show that controlled manipulation of the firing properties of this neural population produces strong predictable changes in the way we categorize othersactions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Combined electrophysiological measurement, performance accuracy and computational estimations of learning parameters suggest that trait and state vulnerability to stress alter cortico-striatal functioning during reinforcement learning, possibly mediated via medio-frontal cortical systems.
Abstract: How do individual differences in stress reactivity affect cognitive functioning? Substantial evidence exists to implicate stress reactivity as a curvilinear determinant of prefrontal executive and sub-cortical monoamine functioning, which are important for goal directed engagement with the environment (Arnsten, 1998). The varying effects of stress on performance are often described as an ‘inverted-U’, but few studies have investigated neural responses that differentiate facilitative from debilitating effects of stress. Increasing evidence has shown that both trait vulnerability and state emotional reactivity influence the psychobiological and neural response to social evaluative threat (Kemeny, 2003; Pruessner et al., 2004; Lerner et al., 2007; Cavanagh and Allen, 2008), suggesting that these individual differences may differentiate facilitative vs debilitating alterations in neural functioning. In this report, emotional reactivity to social evaluative stress is shown to facilitate punishment learning in highly stress vulnerable individuals, yet impede punishment learning in less vulnerable individuals. Stress-related alteration in a medio-frontal action monitoring system is identified as a possible mechanism by which

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The results suggest that emotional valence and type of visual stimulus both modulate brain activity at recognition, and influence multiple networks mediating visual, memory and emotion processing.
Abstract: We examined the influence of emotional valence and type of item to be remembered on brain activity during recognition, using faces and scenes. We used multivariate analyses of event-related fMRI data to identify whole-brain patterns, or networks of activity. Participants demonstrated better recognition for scenes vs faces and for negative vs neutral and positive items. Activity was increased in extrastriate cortex and inferior frontal gyri for emotional scenes, relative to neutral scenes and all face types. Increased activity in these regions also was seen for negative faces relative to positive faces. Correct recognition of negative faces and scenes (hits vs correct rejections) was associated with increased activity in amygdala, hippocampus, extrastriate, frontal and parietal cortices. Activity specific to correctly recognized emotional faces, but not scenes, was found in sensorimotor areas and rostral prefrontal cortex. These results suggest that emotional valence and type of visual stimulus both modulate brain activity at recognition, and influence multiple networks mediating visual, memory and emotion processing. The contextual information in emotional scenes may facilitate memory via additional visual processing, whereas memory for emotional faces may rely more on cognitive control mediated by rostrolateral prefrontal regions.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Social context plays an important role in explaining gender-specific phenotypic expression of the DRD4 gene, and males, but not females, with the 7-repeat allele (7R) had significantly higher delinquency, short temper and thrill seeking.
Abstract: The present study investigated gender differences in the associations between the DRD4 variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphism and adolescent delinquency, short temper and thrill seeking. We also explored whether the gender-specific expression of the DRD4 can be explained by gender differences in the exposure to psychosocial risks, such as poor parent-child relationship. Participants were 263 14- to 17-year olds (50% males) living in Russia. DNA was extracted from saliva samples and the VNTR DRD4 polymorphisms were genotyped using polymerase chain reaction. Participants reported on the extent of their delinquent behaviour, short temper, thrill seeking and exposure to psychosocial risk (i.e. poor parental monitoring of adolescent behaviour, exposure to violence and peer delinquency). Compared to individuals with the 4/4 genotype, males, but not females, with the 7-repeat allele (7R) had significantly higher delinquency, short temper and thrill seeking. This interaction effect, however, was completely explained by males' higher exposure to psychosocial risk factors. When parental monitoring of youths' activities and youth exposure to violence were included in the model, the 7R × gender interaction was no longer significant. Thus, social context plays an important role in explaining gender-specific phenotypic expression of the DRD4 gene.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Results indicated that older adults reported greater sadness in response to all films and greater physiological responses to the sadness film than did the younger age groups, supporting the notion that sadness reactivity is heightened with age.
Abstract: Although previous research suggests that overall emotional reactivity does not change with normal aging, it is possible that different emotions follow different developmental courses. We examined emotional reactivity to films selected to elicit sadness, disgust, and a neutral state in young, middle-aged and older adults (total N ¼ 222). Physiology and expressive behavior were measured continuously and reports of subjective emotional experience were obtained following each film. Results indicated that older adults reported greater sadness in response to all films and greater physiological responses to the sadness film than did the younger age groups. There were no age differences found in self-reported disgust or in behavioral expressions of sadness or disgust in response to any film. The age differences that were found were maintained even after controlling for pre-film self-reported sadness and for personal experiences of loss. These findings support the notion that sadness reactivity is heightened with age.