The cognitive-affective neuroscience of the unconscious

There is an ongoing debate about how best to conceptualize the unconscious. Early psychodynamic views employed theories influenced by physics to explain clinical material, while subsequent cognitivist views relied on computational models of the mind to explain laboratory data. More recently, advances in cognitive-affective neuroscience have provided new insights into the workings of unconscious cognition and affect. We briefly review some of this recent work and its clinical implications.     

Mind the gap: bridging economic and naturalistic risk-taking with cognitive neuroscience

Economists define risk in terms of the variability of possible outcomes, whereas clinicians and laypeople generally view risk as exposure to possible loss or harm. Neuroeconomic studies using relatively simple behavioral tasks have identified a network of brain regions that respond to economic risk, but these studies have had limited success predicting naturalistic risk-taking. By contrast, more complex behavioral tasks developed by clinicians (e.g. Balloon Analogue Risk Task and Iowa Gambling Task) correlate with naturalistic risk-taking but resist decomposition into distinct cognitive constructs. We propose here that to bridge this gap and better understand neural substrates of naturalistic risk-taking, new tasks are needed that: are decomposable into basic cognitive and/or economic constructs; predict naturalistic risk-taking; and engender dynamic, affective engagement.     

Using computational neuroscience to investigate the neural correlates of cognitive-affective integration during covert decision making

We presented a proposed neural level mechanism for the integration of cognitive and affective information during covert decision making. The central idea is that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex establishes predicted outcomes of responses through its connections with the amygdala, and that this information is passed through the context-moderated gateway in the nucleus accumbens in order to promote behaviours that are most beneficial to the long term survival of the organism. We then implemented the proposed mechanism in a network of spiking neurons, and tested one of its central claims. Results showed that the model was capable of producing behaviour similar to that observed in normal humans, as well as that exhibited during VMPFC damage.     

Mind racing: The influence of exercise on long-term memory consolidation

Over time, regular exercise can lower the risk for age-related decline in cognition. However, the immediate effects of exercise on memory consolidation in younger adults have not been fully investigated. In two experiments, the effects of exercise were assessed on three different memory tasks. These included paired-associate learning, procedural learning and text memory. Results indicate that performance on procedural learning and situation model memory was increased with exercise, regardless of if participants exercised before or after encoding. No benefit of exercise was found for paired-associate learning. These findings suggest that intense exercise may benefit certain types of memory consolidation.     

Commentary: cognitive-affective mechanisms and processes in autobiographical memory

This commentary highlights some of the interesting points to emerge from the preceding papers about the self, social, and directive functions of autobiographical memory. Additionally some cognitive functions are also considered and especially the way in which autobiographical memory supports, constrains, and maintains the goals of the self. Directions for future research into the self, social, directive, and cognitive-affective functions and processes of autobiographical memory are reviewed. Emphasis is placed on future research into the function of autobiographical memory in representations of attachment.     

Cognitive neuroscience: the biology of the mind and findings and current opinion in cognitive neuroscience

Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind by Michael Gazzaniga, Richard Ivry and George Mangun, W.W. Norton, 1998. ￡24.95 (xv+587 pages) ISBN 0 393 97219 4 Findings and Current Opinion in Cognitive Neuroscience by Larry Squire and Stephen Kosslyn, MIT Press, 1998. $35.00 (vii+381 pages) ISBN 0 262 69204 X.     

The half-life of cognitive-affective states during complex learning

We investigated the temporal dynamics of students' cognitive-affective states (confusion, frustration, boredom, engagement/flow, delight, and surprise) during deep learning activities. After a learning session with an intelligent tutoring system with conversational dialogue, the cognitive-affective states of the learner were classified by the learner, a peer, and two trained judges at approximately 100 points in the tutorial session. Decay rates for the cognitive-affective states were estimated by fitting exponential curves to time series of affect responses. The results partially confirmed predictions of goal-appraisal theories of emotion by supporting a tripartite classification of the states along a temporal dimension: persistent states (boredom, engagement/flow, and confusion), transitory states (delight and surprise), and an intermediate state (frustration). Patterns of decay rates were generally consistent across affect judges, except that a reversed actor-observer effect was discovered for engagement/flow and frustration. Correlations between decay rates of the cognitive-affective states and several learning measures confirmed the major predictions and uncovered some novel findings that have implications for theories of pedagogy that integrate cognition and affect during deep learning.     

Behavioral and cognitive-affective features of stuttering in preschool-age children: Regression and exploratory cluster analyses

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to investigate associations among behavioral and cognitive-affective features of stuttering in preschool-age children who stutter, and the extent to which participants may or may not cluster together based on multiple indices of stuttering.MethodsParticipants were 296 preschool-age children who stutter (mean age 47.9 months). Correlation and regression analyses, as well as k-means cluster analyses were conducted between and among several indices of stuttering: frequency of stuttering- and non-stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs and NSLDs), ratios of repetitions and prolongations/blocks out of total number of SLDs, associated nonspeech behaviors, duration of stuttering events, KiddyCAT scores (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2007), and a TOCS parent-rated scale (Gillam et al., 2009).ResultsFor preschool-age children who stutter, most indices of overt stuttering behaviors were intercorrelated (e.g., more SLDs were associated with higher ratio of repetitions). Self-reported KiddyCAT scores (Vanryckeghem & Brutten, 2007) were largely not significantly associated with stuttering. Cluster analyses yielded two participant groupings: a larger group with less prominent stuttering features and a smaller group with more prominent features.ConclusionsThis study contributes to an increasingly comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the heterogeneous features of stuttering and their development in preschool-age children. Findings show strong intercorrelations between measures of stuttering behaviors, but more tenuous relationships between behaviors and cognitive-affective reactions to stuttering. Exploration of clusters of characteristics within this population revealed potential opportunities for future research.     

Self-awareness: behavior analysis and neuroscience

Self-awareness is a specific type of autoclitic discriminative behavior and inferential generalization to similar performances exhibited by other people. Brain imaging findings take on special importance within behavior analysis when they indicate that dysfunctions in these areas are related to differential effects of our interventions, with some acquiring substantially typical self-awareness skills and others failing to do so. It appears that those individuals whose brain dysfunctions are limited to these areas, and are not part of more generalized brain abnormalities, are amenable to substantial acquisition of those most basic of human skills called self-awareness, whereas individuals with more generalized brain dysfunction are not so disposed. Through a combination of less or more effective teaching contingencies during childhood, and degrees of dysfunction of those brain structures, some children grow up lacking self-reflective abilities and self-insight, whereas others are extraordinarily astute at those capacities. Among children with autism spectrum disorders who lack those skills due to abnormal brain development, approximately half of them can acquire those skills, at least to some degree through the use of effective, intensive, early behavior therapy methods.     

Cognitive neuroscience: origins and promise

Both Freud and Wundt had hoped to base psychology on an understanding of the neural basis of mental events. Their efforts were unsuccessful because the structure and function of the human brain was not available for empirical study at the physiological level. Over the last part of this century, there has been amazing growth and vitality in the field of human brain function. In this paper, we trace critical developments in the fields of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and brain imaging related to the development of cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive Neuroscience has established that the decomposition of mental events can be united with an understanding of the mental and emotional computations carried out by the human brain. Cognitive neuroscience has the capability of influencing psychology in diverse areas from how children develop to how adults age; from how humans learn to how we imagine; from volitional control to psychopathologies.     

The multiplicity of dreams: cognitive-affective correlates of lucid, archetypal, and nightmare dreaming

This preliminary research is the first to compare lucid, nightmare, and archetypal-mythological dreams on dimensions important in previous research on each. A first study of 100 subjects showed all three forms significantly correlated with each other and with estimates of dream recall. In a second study, 41 subjects were selected from the above on the basis of relative specialization in each dream form, with a control group equally high on dream recall. Here, the lucid and archetypal dreamers tended to separate themselves from nightmare sufferers on the basis of high imaginativeness, proclivity to waking mystical experience, spatial/analytic skills, and physical balance. It appears that the intensification of dreaming is expressed positively or negatively, depending on variations in these cognitive dimensions.     

Pain demands attention: a cognitive-affective model of the interruptive function of pain.

Pain interrupts and demands attention. The authors review evidence for how and why this interruption of attention is achieved. The interruptive function of pain depends on the relationship between pain-related characteristics (e.g., the threat value of pain) and the characteristics of the environmental demands (e.g., emotional arousal). A model of the interruptive function of pain is developed that holds that pain is selected for action from within complex affective and motivational environments to urge escape. The implications of this model for research and therapy are outlined with an emphasis on the redefinition of chronic pain as chronic interruption.     

Extended Mind and After: Socially Extended Mind and Actor-Network

The concept of extended mind has been impressively developed over the last 10 years by many philosophers and cognitive scientists. The extended mind thesis (EM) affirms that the mind is not simply ensconced inside the head, but extends to the whole system of brain-body-environment. Recently, some philosophers and psychologists try to adapt the idea of EM to the domain of social cognition research. Mind is socially extended (SEM). However, EM/SEM theory has problems to analyze the interactions among a subject and its surroundings with opposition, antagonism, or conflict; it also tends to think that the environment surrounding the subject is passive or static, and to neglect the power of non-human actants to direct and regulate the human subject. In these points, actor-network theory (ANT) proposed by Latour and Callon is more persuasive, while sharing some important ideas with EM/SEM theory. Actor-network is a hybrid community which is composed of a series of heterogeneous elements, animate and inanimate for a certain period of time. I shall conclude that EM/SEM could be best analyzed as a special case of actor-network. EM/SEM is a system which can be controlled by a human agent alone. In order to understand collective behavior, philosophy and psychology have to study the actor-network in which human individuals are situated.     

Spiking Phineas Gage: a neurocomputational theory of cognitive-affective integration in decision making

The authors present a neurological theory of how cognitive information and emotional information are integrated in the nucleus accumbens during effective decision making. They describe how the nucleus accumbens acts as a gateway to integrate cognitive information from the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus with emotional information from the amygdala. The authors have modeled this integration by a network of spiking artificial neurons organized into separate areas and used this computational model to simulate 2 kinds of cognitive-affective integration. The model simulates successful performance by people with normal cognitive-affective integration. The model also simulates the historical case of Phineas Gage as well as subsequent patients whose ability to make decisions became impeded by damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex.