Brain activations associated with shifts in response criterion on a recognition test.

Sensitivity and bias can be manipulated independently on a recognition test. The goal of this fMRI study was to determine whether neural activations associated with manipulations of a decision criterion would be anatomically distinct from neural activations associated with manipulations of memory strength and episodic retrieval. The results indicated that activations associated with shifting criteria (a manipulation of bias) were located in bilateral regions of the lateral cerebellum, lateral parietal lobe, and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex extending from the supplementary motor area. These regions were anatomically distinct from activations in the prefrontal cortex produced during memory-based retrieval processes (manipulations of sensitivity), which tended to be more medial and anterior. These later activations are consistent with previous studies of episodic retrieval. Determining patterns of neural activations associated with decision-making processes relative to memory processes has important implications for Cognitive Neuroscience, including the use of these patterns to compare memory models in different paradigms.     

What do the MMPI scales fundamentally measure? Some hypotheses

I consider the question of whether all psychopathological behaviors can, on an evolutionary foundation, be considered as positive adaptations. I proposed that higher functions can be differentiated from their associated emotional modulations at simultaneous subjective, behavioral, and neural levels and that organizing analyses in this way will enable us to fill in our understanding of both the effects and relief of traumatic experiences. I then present each of the 8 clinical scales of the MMPI (Hathaway & McKinley, 1943) as a dimension of positive adaptation with simultaneous cognitive-emotional, operant-classical, and neocortical-limbic elements. A variety of life-experience paradigms are then offered to explain the factors that operate to increase MMPI scale elevations as well as countermeasures that can operate to reduce such elevations. Understanding all such behaviors as adaptive leads to a notable enhancement of empathy.     

Cue-switch effects do not rely on the same neural systems as task-switch effects

The cued task-switching paradigm is often used to study cognitive control. In this paradigm, people are generally slower and make more errors when switching tasks as compared with repeating the same task. When two cues are mapped to each task, these switch costs could result from a mixture of cue-switch effects (which are thought to reflect cue encoding) and task-switch effects (which are thought to reflect task set preparation). In the behavioral literature, there has been a lively debate on the degree to which cue-switch effects and task-switch effects indeed reflect different phenomena. In the present study, we used fMRI to examine whether and to what extent the neural network underlying task-switch effects is also involved in cue-switch effects. We found task-switch but no cue-switch effects in the frequently observed preparation-related activation in fronto-parietal areas. These results suggest that the fronto-parietal areas displaying preparatory activity in task-switching paradigms are engaged in task preparation but not in cue encoding and that task preparation and cue encoding rely on completely different processes.     

Neuropsychology of Environmental Navigation in Humans: Review and Meta-Analysis of fMRI Studies in Healthy Participants

In the past 20 years, many studies in the cognitive neurosciences have analyzed human ability to navigate in recently learned and familiar environments by investigating the cognitive processes involved in successful navigation. In this study, we reviewed the main experimental paradigms and made a cognitive-oriented meta-analysis of fMRI studies of human navigation to underline the importance of the experimental designs and cognitive tasks used to assess navigational skills. We performed a general activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis of 66 fMRI experiments to identify the neural substrates underpinning general aspects of human navigation. Four individual ALE analyses were performed to identify the neural substrates of different experimental paradigms (i.e., familiar vs. recently learned environments) and different navigational strategies (allocentric vs. egocentric). Results of the general ALE analysis highlighted a wide network of areas with clusters in the occipital, parietal, frontal and temporal lobes, especially in the parahippocampal cortex. Familiar environments seem to be processed by an extended temporal-frontal network, whereas recently learned environments require activation in the parahippocampal cortex and the parietal and occipital lobes. Allocentric strategy is subtended by the same areas as egocentric strategy, but the latter elicits greater activation in the right precuneus, middle occipital lobe and angular gyrus. Our results suggest that different neural correlates are involved in recalling a well-learned or recently acquired environment and that different networks of areas subtend egocentric and allocentric strategies.     

情绪自动化加工的证据与争议

情绪信息对人类的生存非常重要, 研究者一直在探讨情绪产生的本质问题：情绪的产生是“自动”的吗？已有的大量实验证据表明, 情绪可以被快速识别, 甚至在非注意条件下或者无意识条件下, 情绪信息也可以被大脑(尤其是杏仁核)识别。大量实验结果分析了情绪自动化加工的表现, 并探讨了情绪自动化加工的大脑机制：皮层下通路。视觉信息在视网膜接受后, 经上丘脑与枕核传递至杏仁核, 这条通路被称为皮层下通路, 负责情绪信息的快速化加工。但是新的研究对已有的实验范式与技术手段进行了质疑, 反驳情绪的自动化加工, 并质疑皮层下通路存在的可能性。为了进一步理清情绪加工的本质与大脑机制, 今后的研究应当采用更为严格地控制意识、注意资源的实验范式, 以及采用更精确、更高时间与空间分辨率的技术手段。     

A connectionist implementation of the theory of planned behavior: association of beliefs with exercise intention.

The theory of planned behavior suggests attitudes are a product of salient beliefs. This study examined whether aggregating salient beliefs was plausible within a more biologically centered information-processing environment. A neural network was used to examine associations among beliefs relating to exercise intention. Data on intentions and behavioral, normative, and control beliefs from 114 respondents were used to train (by error backpropagation) a neural network to associate beliefs with intention. The R-sup-2 between the network's estimated and self-reported intention was.66. The network's representation comprised 6 belief profiles associated with high, moderate, or low behavioral intention. The neural network accommodated complex relationships among beliefs and belief-intention associations and indicated how high-level constructs such as attitudes may be viewed as the best fit (compromise state) between aroused beliefs.     

神经科学视角下的共情研究热点

共情是指个体对他人情绪和想法的感受及理解。近年来关于共情神经机制的研究日益增多,但多集中在情感共情、认知共情、生理性疼痛共情等方面,而对社会痛共情、积极共情和不对称共情反应的研究相对较少。且由于研究范式及个体差异等原因,研究结果之间也充满着争议。未来研究可以设计更具生态效度的共情研究范式、进一步深化和细化共情的神经机制研究、从神经机制角度探讨不同共情能力个体的特点及共情反应的调节因素。     

Are errors detected before they occur? Early error sensations revealed by metacognitive judgments on the timing of error awareness

Errors in choice tasks are not only detected fast and reliably, participants often report that they knew that an error occurred already before a response was produced. These early error sensations stand in contrast with evidence suggesting that the earliest neural correlates of error awareness emerge around 300 ms after erroneous responses. The present study aimed to investigate whether anecdotal evidence for early error sensations can be corroborated in a controlled study in which participants provide metacognitive judgments on the subjective timing of error awareness. In Experiment 1, participants had to report whether they became aware of their errors before or after the response. In Experiment 2, we measured confidence in these metacognitive judgments. Our data show that participants report early error sensations with high confidence in the majority of error trials across paradigms and experiments. These results provide first evidence for early error sensations, informing theories of error awareness.     

Identification,discrimination, and match-to-sample as instances of comparative judgment

Identification, discrimination, and match-to-sample paradigms are discussed in the context of a comparative judgment between an external stimulus and a memorial representation. An experiment comparing the paradigms at different levels of stimulus dimensionality is described. The absence of clear-cut interactions of the paradigms with dimensionality differences is offered as support for the contention that the three seemingly diverse procedures may be considered as part of a comparative judgment continuum,with performance differences reflecting increased memorial demands.     

行为抑制的认知神经基础:基于两种行为抑制任务范式的差异分析

Go/no go任务与stop signal任务是行为抑制研究中两个常用的任务。本文从任务所涉及的认知过程,各自的理论基础以及任务操作所激活的大脑神经网络这三个方面对这两个任务进行比较,阐明这两个任务涉及的是两种类型的行为抑制:优势反应抑制与反应停止。     

发展性阅读障碍与脑异常的因果关系:研究范式及发现

关于阅读障碍神经机制的研究已经有很多,但到目前为止,研究者仍不完全清楚,阅读障碍者脑区的异常,究竟是阅读障碍的原因还是结果。研究者发展出不同的研究范式来探究此问题,包括学龄前研究、双对照组研究、纵向研究等。文中综述了这些研究范式各具的优势、不足和研究结果之间的一致性,并分析了确认因果关系之所以困难的原因。在此基础上,提出如下建议：（1）细致区分阅读障碍的亚类型;（2）以成熟和完善的阅读认知-神经模型为指导;（3）通过不同的研究范式进行交叉印证;（4）综合考虑脑的动态发展变化特点,和基因、环境、经验的作用等多种因素的影响。     

预先承诺的理论解释及其神经机制

预先承诺是指个体提前做出一个有长远目标的决定来限制对即时诱惑的选择,从而避免在未来决策中由于意志力缺乏而出现的自我控制失败。最后期限法和限制选择法是开展预先承诺研究的常用范式。本研究在系统回顾预先承诺的三种理论解释（自我控制资源模型、神经网络模型和时间差强化学习模型）的基础上,尝试提出一个整合性的认知神经机制模型来解释预先承诺的作用过程。未来研究可进一步丰富预先承诺的研究范式和应用范围,并探究预先承诺调控非理性决策的心理与神经机制。     

预先承诺的理论解释及其神经机制

预先承诺是指个体提前做出一个有长远目标的决定来限制对即时诱惑的选择,从而避免在未来决策中由于意志力缺乏而出现的自我控制失败。最后期限法和限制选择法是开展预先承诺研究的常用范式。本研究在系统回顾预先承诺的三种理论解释（自我控制资源模型、神经网络模型和时间差强化学习模型）的基础上,尝试提出一个整合性的认知神经机制模型来解释预先承诺的作用过程。未来研究可进一步丰富预先承诺的研究范式和应用范围,并探究预先承诺调控非理性决策的心理与神经机制。     

痛苦共情的功能性核磁共振成像研究述评

对他人痛苦的共情是指自动模拟受痛者的情感和运动状态,以及在自我-他人区分的基础上替代性地分享和理解他人由于受痛所引发的情绪状态.痛苦共情的fMRI研究常用图片诱导范式和线索诱导范式.痛苦共情的神经机制,包括(1)疼痛矩阵(该区域在个体自身受痛时也会激活)和(2)观点采择的相关脑区.痛苦共情的水平会受到实验范式和任务,以及共情者对于受痛者态度两方面因素的共同影响.加强应用研究和推出新型范式是痛苦共情研究的当务之急.     

Persistence and accommodation in short‐term priming and other perceptual paradigms: temporal segregation through synaptic depression

Perceptual input changes constantly in an unpredictable fashion, often changing before our somewhat sluggish perceptual systems have adequately processed this input. This can give rise to source confusion—how do we know whether a given perceptual activation is due to the current input, or a previous input that had yet to be completely processed? We propose that activity‐dependent neural accommodation naturally limits this source confusion by suppressing items once they have been identified. We review behavioral paradigms from different literatures that measure the correlates of persistence and accommodation. Of the various accommodative mechanisms, we focus on synaptic depression, deriving a rate‐coded expression that can be used to produce accommodating dynamics in any neural network with real valued activation. We implement this expression in a hierarchical model of perception termed, “a neural mechanism for responding optimally with unknown sources of evidence” (nROUSE). This model can be viewed as a more detailed version of the more abstract ROUSE model of Huber, Shiffrin, Lyle, and Ruys (2001), which produces accommodated levels of feature evidence through an optimal calculation. We apply nROUSE to three short‐term priming experiments that manipulated prime duration.     

Neural activity,neural connectivity,and the processing of emotionally valenced information in older adults: links with life satisfaction

This study examines whether differences in late-life well-being are linked to how older adults encode emotionally valenced information. Using fMRI with 39 older adults varying in life satisfaction, we examined how viewing positive and negative images would affect activation and connectivity of an emotion-processing network. Participants engaged most regions within this network more robustly for positive than for negative images, but within the PFC this effect was moderated by life satisfaction, with individuals higher in satisfaction showing lower levels of activity during the processing of positive images. Participants high in satisfaction showed stronger correlations among network regions—particularly between the amygdala and other emotion processing regions—when viewing positive, as compared with negative, images. Participants low in satisfaction showed no valence effect. Findings suggest that late-life satisfaction is linked with how emotion-processing regions are engaged and connected during processing of valenced information. This first demonstration of a link between neural recruitment and late-life well-being suggests that differences in neural network activation and connectivity may account for the preferential encoding of positive information seen in some older adults.     

On-call work and physicians’ turnover intention: the moderating effect of job strain

Physician shortage and turnover are major problems worldwide. On-call duties may be among the risk factors of high turnover rates among physicians. We investigated whether having on-call duties is associated with physicians’ turnover intention and whether job strain variables moderate this association. The present study was a cross-sectional questionnaire study among 3324 (61.6% women) Finnish physicians. The analyses were conducted using analyses of covariance adjusted for age, gender, response format, specialization status and employment sector. The results showed that job strain moderated the association between being on-call and turnover intention. The highest levels of turnover intention were among those who had on-call duties and high level of job strain characterized by high demands and low control opportunities. The lowest levels of turnover intention were among those who were not on-call and who had low strain involving low demands and high control. Also, job demands moderated the association between being on-call and turnover intention; turnover intention levels were higher among those with on-call duties and high demands than those being on-call and low demands. To conclude, working on-call was related to physicians’ turnover intention particularly in those with high job strain. Health care organizations should focus more attention on working arrangements and scheduling of on-call work, provide a suitable working pace and implement means to increase physicians’ participation and control over their job.     

时距知觉的动物研究范式及相关神经机制

在探索时距知觉的脑机制的过程中, 相对于人类被试相关研究, 动物研究可以提供较多的药理学、分子生物学、单个神经元电生理学以及光遗传等方面的研究证据。目前较为常用的时距知觉动物研究范式包括时间二分法、峰值间隔法以及低比率差别强化法等。根据不同的研究需求, 动物研究的范式常会进行调整。对时距知觉的动物研究的探讨将基于两方面展开：(1) 常用的时距知觉动物研究范式的介绍及比较; (2) 基于动物研究范式的时距知觉神经机制研究进展, 旨在为深入探索时间知觉的心理学相关研究提供参考。     

Patients with bipolar disorder show a selective deficit in the episodic simulation of future events

A substantial body of evidence suggests that autobiographical recollection and simulation of future happenings activate a shared neural network. Many of the neural regions implicated in this network are affected in patients with bipolar disorder (BD), showing altered metabolic functioning and/or structural volume abnormalities. Studies of autobiographical recall in BD reveal overgeneralization, where autobiographical memory comprises primarily factual or repeated information as opposed to details specific in time and in place and definitive of re-experiencing. To date, no study has examined whether these deficits extend to future event simulation. We examined the ability of patients with BD and controls to imagine positive, negative and neutral future events using a modified version of the Autobiographical Interview (Levine, Svoboda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002) that allowed for separation of episodic and non-episodic details. Patients were selectively impaired in imagining future positive, negative, and neutral episodic details; simulation of non-episodic details was equivalent across groups.