Bottom-Up and Top-Down Processes in Emotion Generation: Common and Distinct Neural Mechanisms

ABSTRACT— Emotions are generally thought to arise through the interaction of bottom-up and top-down processes. However, prior work has not delineated their relative contributions. In a sample of 20 females, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the neural correlates of negative emotions generated by the bottom-up perception of aversive images and by the top-down interpretation of neutral images as aversive. We found that (a) both types of responses activated the amygdala, although bottom-up responses did so more strongly; (b) bottom-up responses activated systems for attending to and encoding perceptual and affective stimulus properties, whereas top-down responses activated prefrontal regions that represent high-level cognitive interpretations; and (c) self-reported affect correlated with activity in the amygdala during bottom-up responding and with activity in the medial prefrontal cortex during top-down responding. These findings provide a neural foundation for emotion theories that posit multiple kinds of appraisal processes and help to clarify mechanisms underlying clinically relevant forms of emotion dysregulation.     

Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.     

Developing connections for affective regulation: age-related changes in emotional brain connectivity

The regulation of affective arousal is a critical aspect of children’s social and cognitive development. However, few studies have examined the brain mechanisms involved in the development of this aspect of “hot” executive functioning. This process has been conceptualized as involving prefrontal control of the amygdala. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the brain mechanisms involved in the development of affective regulation in typically developing 5- to 11-year-olds and an adult comparison sample. Children and adults displayed differing patterns of increased anterior cingulate cortex and decreased amygdala activation during episodes in which emotion regulation was required. Specifically, amygdala activation increased in adults but decreased in children during recovery from a frustrating episode. In addition, we used effective connectivity analyses to investigate differential correlations between key emotional brain areas in response to the regulatory task demands. We found reliable increases in effective connectivity between the anterior cingulate cortex and the amygdala during periods of increased demand for emotion regulation. This effective connectivity increased with age.     

Positive emotion impedes emotional but not cognitive conflict processing

Cognitive control enables successful goal-directed behavior by resolving a conflict between opposing action tendencies, while emotional control arises as a consequence of emotional conflict processing such as in irony. While negative emotion facilitates both cognitive and emotional conflict processing, it is unclear how emotional conflict processing is affected by positive emotion (e.g., humor). In 2 EEG experiments, we investigated the role of positive audiovisual target stimuli in cognitive and emotional conflict processing. Participants categorized either spoken vowels (cognitive task) or their emotional valence (emotional task) and ignored the visual stimulus dimension. Behaviorally, a positive target showed no influence on cognitive conflict processing, but impeded emotional conflict processing. In the emotional task, response time conflict costs were higher for positive than for neutral targets. In the EEG, we observed an interaction of emotion by congruence in the P200 and N200 ERP components in emotional but not in cognitive conflict processing. In the emotional conflict task, the P200 and N200 conflict effect was larger for emotional than neutral targets. Thus, our results show that emotion affects conflict processing differently as a function of conflict type and emotional valence. This suggests that there are conflict- and valence-specific mechanisms modulating executive control.     

Positive emotion modulates cognitive control: An event‐related potentials study

There is substantial evidence to indicate that negative emotion can modulate cognitive control processing. However, only a few studies have investigated this effect with positive emotion. Therefore, the present study explored the electrophysiological correlates of the impact of positive emotional stimuli on cognitive control, using event‐related potentials (ERPs). Sixteen healthy young adults completed a modified Simon task (Simon, 1969). Behavioral data indicated that reaction times were faster for positive emotional stimuli than for neutral emotional stimuli in the incongruent condition, but not in the congruent condition, which suggested that positive emotion expedited conflict resolution. The ERP data showed that two negative ERP components (N300–400 and N450–550) were associated with the positive emotional stimuli in the incongruent minus congruent condition. It is suggested that these components may respectively be related to the conflict monitoring (N300–400) and response selection (N450–550) stages of cognitive control processing. Overall, our results indicated that positive emotion could facilitate cognitive control processing. These results are in line with the neuropsychological theory, according to which, positive emotion could modulate cognitive control mediated by increased dopamine levels in frontal brain areas.     

Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: Cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.     

Neural activation underlying cognitive control in the context of neutral and affectively charged pictures in children

The neural correlates of cognitive control for typically developing 9-year-old children were examined using dense-array ERPs and estimates of cortical activation (LORETA) during a go/no-go task with two conditions: a neutral picture condition and an affectively charged picture condition. Activation was estimated for the entire cortex after which data were exported for four regions of interests (ROIs): ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VLPFC), dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (OFC/VMPFC). Results revealed faster reaction times, greater N2 activation, and greater prefrontal activation for the affectively charged picture condition than the neutral picture condition. The findings are discussed in reference to the impact of affective stimuli on recruitment of specific brain regions involved in cognitive control.     

Resisting emotional interference: Brain regions facilitating working memory performance during negative distraction

Survival-relevant information has privileged access to our awareness even during active cognitive engagement. Previous work has demonstrated that during working memory (WM) negative emotional distraction disrupts activation in the lateral prefrontal regions while also engaging the amygdala. Here, using slow eventrelated fMRI, we replicate and extend previous work examining the effect of negative emotional distraction on WM: (1) We demonstrate that prefrontal regions showed activation differences between correct and incorrect trials during negative, but not neutral, distraction. Specifically, frontopolar prefrontal cortex showed more deactivation for incorrect trials faced with negative distraction, whereas ventrolateral prefrontal regions showed less activation; (2) individual differences in amygdala activity predicted WM performance during negative as well as neutral distraction, such that lower activity predicted better performance; and (3) amygdala showed negative correlations with prefrontal and parietal cortical regions during resting state. However, during negative distraction, amygdala signals were more negatively correlated with prefrontal cortical regions than was found for resting state and neutral distraction. These results provide further evidence for an inverse relationship between dorsal prefrontal cortical regions and the amygdala when processing aversive stimuli competes with ongoing cognitive operations, and further support the importance of the prefrontal cortex in resisting emotional interference. Supplemental materials associated with this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals .org/content/supplemental.     

Emotional Word Detection and Adolescent Repressive–Defensive Coping Style

This study used a computer-based emotional word-recognition task to assess the emotional processing styles of repressive–defensive youth. A hypothesis was tested proposing that adolescent repressive–defensive coping style is associated with rapid engagement and disengagement of emotional stimuli (negative and positive). Data were collected on a male adolescent sample enrolled in a juvenile diversion program allowing for the comparison of anxious, low-anxious, and repressive–defensive youth. Consistent with prediction, repressive–defensive participants exhibited facilitated responding to emotional relative to neutral word stimuli across valence category (i.e., positive and negative). In contrast, anxious participants exhibited a unique pattern of facilitated responding to positive word stimuli. The current findings represent a first attempt at investigating the processing impairments of repressive–defensive coping style in a nonadult sample. Results are interpreted in light of broader adult and child research findings on emotional processing and affective disturbance.     

A general response style factor: Evidence from a multi-ethnic study in the Netherlands

In a cross-cultural study we addressed commonalities and differences of acquiescence, extremity, midpoint responding, and socially desirable responding that can be taken to constitute a single underlying response style. Participants were 548 Dutch nationals and 1116 first- and second-generation immigrants of Western and Non-Western origins in the Netherlands. Self-report measures of the four response styles, and personality traits were administered. Conventional, indirect measures of acquiescence, extremity, and midpoint responding were also calculated. A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis showed support for a general response style factor with positive loadings of extremity and socially desirable responding, and negative loadings of acquiescence and midpoint responding. The response style factor was strongly associated with personality (notably the “Big One” factor). Furthermore, acquiescence and impression management were related to agreeableness, extremity and midpoint responding to extraversion, and self-deceptive enhancement to neuroticism. These findings support a view that there is a general response style factor and that, in addition, each response style has some unique meaning. The ethnic groups differed significantly on response style use, with Non-Western immigrants showing higher acquiescence and midpoint responding than the other groups. The general response style factor can be interpreted as a communication filter that moderates self-reports. Implications are discussed.     

情绪调节对消极元刻板印象激活的认知效应的影响

以101名中职生为被试,采用不同难度的工作记忆任务,探讨认知重评与表达抑制两种情绪调节策略对消极元刻板印象激活的认知效应的影响。结果发现:(1)情绪调节策略对元刻板印象激活的认知效应具有影响,且与认知任务的难度有关;(2)在低难度工作记忆任务中,情绪调节策略对元刻板印象激活的认知效应没有影响,在中等难度任务中,认知重评减弱了激活的认知效应,但表达抑制没有影响,在高难度任务中,认知重评没有影响,表达抑制反而增强了激活的认知效应。总之,不同情绪调节策略会对消极元刻板印象激活的认知效应产生不同的作用。     

负性情绪背景和延迟对时间性前瞻记忆的影响

采用2（情绪效价：负性、中性）×2（延迟设置：无延迟、有延迟）的实验设计,探究负性情绪对时间性前瞻记忆的干扰效应。结果显示在无延迟条件下,负性情绪组的前瞻记忆成绩差于中性情绪组,负性情绪组的总时间监控次数和监控后期的时间监控次数均少于中性情绪组;在有延迟条件下,负性情绪组的前瞻记忆成绩和监控后期的时间监控次数与中性情绪组均无差异。结果说明负性情绪会干扰时间性前瞻记忆,而延迟可以消除这种干扰效应。     

Strategic regulation of cognitive control by emotional salience: A neural network model

We present a neural network model of stimulus processing, which uses a mechanism of adaptive attentional control to regulate the moment to moment deployment of attention according to both the demands of the current task, and the demands of emotionally salient information. This mechanism allows negative emotional information to reduce cognitive control to aid in the detection of threats, which produces a momentary withdrawal from the current task set to allow unbiased processing of available information. The combination of cognitive and emotional regulation of task set allows this model to address inter-trial aspects of emotional interference in colour naming. In particular, we focus on the nature of the emotional interference in colour naming (McKenna & Sharma, 2004) as well as in word reading (Algom, Chajut, & Lev, 2004) and show how this form of interference is functionally distinct from the classic Stroop effect. Our model addresses a range of findings in colour naming and word reading tasks and is informed by recent neuroimaging data concerning the interaction between the anterior cingulate and prefrontal cortices. The model is used to explore the interface between cognition and emotion with a series of predictions, including a qualitative distinction between state and trait forms of anxiety.     

Anxiety and cognitive efficiency: Differential modulation of transient and sustained neural activity during a working memory task

According to the processing-efficiency hypothesis (Eysenck, Derakshan, Santos, & Calvo, 2007), anxious individuals are thought to require greater activation of brain systems supporting cognitive control (e.g.,dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; DLPFC) in order to maintain equivalent performance to nonanxious subjects. A recent theory of cognitive control (Braver, Gray, & Burgess, 2007) has proposed that reduced cognitive efficiency might occur as a result of changes in the temporal dynamics of DLPFC recruitment. In this study, we used a mixed blocked/ event-related fMRI design to track transient and sustained activity in DLPFC while high- and low-anxious participants performed a working memory task. The task was performed after the participants viewed videos designed to induce neutral or anxiety-related moods. After the neutral video, the high-anxious participants had reduced sustained but increased transient activation in working memory areas, in comparison with low-anxious participants. The high-anxious group also showed extensive reductions in sustained activation of "default-network" areas (possible deactivation). After the negative video,the low-anxiety group shifted their activation dynamics in cognitive control regions to resemble those of the high-anxious group. These results suggest that reduced cognitive control in anxiety might be due to a transient, rather than sustained, pattern of working memory recruitment. Supplementary information for this study may be found at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

两种任务下情绪韵律的加工进程

采用ERP技术分别考察了情绪判断和性别判断任务下情绪韵律的加工进程。结果显示：在175-275ms时间段,情绪韵律的加工受实验任务的调节,情绪判断任务下存在效价主效应及负性偏向,愤怒比高兴和中性诱发了更正的P2成分,而性别判断任务则无效价效应。在后期评价加工及反应准备阶段（400-800ms）,两种任务下,愤怒都比高兴和中性诱发了更正的晚成分。上述结果说明,不同情绪韵律的识别存在不同的认知机制,并在一定程度上会受加工任务的调节。     

Post-error slowing is influenced by cognitive control demand

Post-error slowing (PES) has been shown to reflect a control failure due to automatic attentional capture by the error. Here we aimed to assess whether PES also involves an increase in cognitive control. Using a cued-task-switching paradigm (Experiment 1) and a Stroop task (Experiment 2), the demand for top down control was manipulated. In Experiment 1, one group received dimension cues indicating the relevant stimulus dimension (e.g., “number”) without specifying the response-category-to-key mapping, hence requiring considerable top down control. Another group was shown mapping cues providing information regarding both the relevant task identity and its category-to-key mapping (e.g., “one three”), requiring less top down control, and the last group received both types of cues, intermixed. In Experiment 2, one group performed a pure incongruent Stroop condition (name ink color of incongruent color names, high control demand), and another group received a pure neutral Stroop condition (name color patches, low control demand). In Experiment 2a, participants received the two conditions, intermixed. A larger PES was observed with dimension cues as compared with mapping cues, and with incongruent Stroop stimuli as compared to neutral stimuli, but not when the conditions were intermixed. These findings reveal that PES is influenced by the control demands that characterize the given block-wide experimental context and show that proactive cognitive control is involved in PES.     

晚期正成分的时间-空间迁移模式在情绪调节发展研究中的应用

近二十年,使用认知神经科学手段探讨情绪调节成为了研究的热点。晚期正成分(Late Positive Potential,LPP)是情绪调节脑电研究中的一个典型成分,在不同的时间窗中分析LPP的波幅的变化及其优势激活脑区的迁移能够反映情绪调节加工过程中个体由对情绪刺激的感知到相应的认知调控过程的转变。LPP的时间-空间迁移模式被应用于情绪调节的发展研究,揭示从童年到青少年再到成年期个体情绪的潜在神经机制。研究者关注幼儿期、童年期、青少期、成人期个体在情绪调节加工过程中LPP波幅的变化及其时间-空间迁移模式特征,把不同年龄段个体情绪调节的发展特点与其大脑关键脑区(主要是前额叶)发育状况进行联系,为儿童身体发育和心理发展的主题提供更多的证据支持。未来的研究应加强对LPP在异常发展研究中应用,关注大脑发育与激素变化对LPP变化的影响,并加强对LPP调节效应的个体差异等问题的探讨。     

Preschoolers’ use of feedback for flexible behavior: Insights from a computational model

This study addressed preschoolers’ cognitive flexibility in an inductive task requiring response feedback processing to infer relevant task goals. A total of 63 4- to 6-year-olds were tested on a perceptual matching task in which they needed to switch attention among three colors. A computational model was designed to track down how responses to positive and negative feedback changed as children progressed through the task. The results showed that children’s differential response to positive and negative feedback developed with age. In addition, age differences in feedback responding increased as the task unfolded. These findings are interpreted as reflecting an increase in flexibility with age in terms of growing efficiency in feedback processing.