Evidence for the automatic evaluation of self-generated actions

The accuracy of simple actions is swiftly determined through specific monitoring brain systems. However, it remains unclear whether this evaluation is accompanied by a rapid and compatible emotional appraisal of the action that allows to mark incorrect actions as negative/bad and conversely correct actions as positive/good. In this study, we used a new method to decode the affective value of simple actions generated by participants during a standard Go/noGo task. Immediately after each Go/noGo action, participants responded to the valence of either a positive or a negative word. Results showed that False Alarms performed during the Go/noGo task led to a faster evaluative categorization of negative words relative to positive words. This action-word evaluative priming effect occurred when the interval between these two events was set to either 300 or 600ms, but not 1000ms. Finally, higher levels of trait anxiety were associated with a reduction of the evaluative priming effect. Our results suggest that simple actions are rapidly evaluated as positive or negative depending on the automatic monitoring of their perceived accuracy.     

Beyond priming effects: The role of positive affect and discrepancies in implicit processes of motivation and goal pursuit

Recent research demonstrates that goal pursuit can be instigated without conscious interventions when the mental accessibility of goal representations is enhanced by environmental cues. However, the mechanisms producing this non-conscious, motivational, goal-directed activity are not clearly addressed in the literature. In this chapter we present a framework within which the non-conscious activation of goal-directed behaviour can be understood. The framework departs from the idea that a goal is represented as a desired state and identifies three characteristics of this representation that render non-conscious goal pursuit more likely to occur: its mental accessibility, the discrepancy of the represented state with the actual state, and its association with positive affect. We present findings, largely established in our own labs, that demonstrate the crucial role of these three factors. We will close the chapter by showing how the framework can help to address some of the pressing issues in the research on non-conscious goal pursuit.     

Finding the Lost Girls: Multiplicity and Dissociation in the Treatment of Addictions

Relational perspectives on the nature of self and the unconscious have transformed how we can understand addictions and substance use problems. Addictions have received little attention in the contemporary literature and therapeutic approaches outside of psychoanalysis have been skeptical of psychoanalytic approaches. It is my contention that viewing substance use problems through the lens of a relational/multiple self-state model offers new clinical possibilities resulting in greater success in treating these patients. In this model, addictive behavior is seen as embedded in dissociated self-states. Therapy focuses on helping the patient to move from dissociation to a true multiplicity and a decreased dependence on substances.     

Anxiety not only increases,but also alters early error-monitoring functions

Anxiety has profound influences on a wide range of cognitive processes, including action monitoring. Eventrelated brain potential (ERP) studies have shown that anxiety can boost early error detection mechanisms, as reflected by an enhanced error-related negativity (ERN) following errors in high-anxious, as compared with low-anxious, participants. This observation is consistent with the assumption of a gain control mechanism exerted by anxiety onto error-related brain responses within the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). However, whether anxiety simply enhances or, rather, alters early error detection mechanisms remains unsolved. In this study, we compared the performance of low-versus high-trait-anxious participants during a go/no-go task while high-density EEG was recorded. The two groups showed comparable behavioral performance, although levels of state anxiety increased following the task for high-anxious participants only. ERP results confirmed that the ERN/Ne to errors was enhanced for high-anxious, relative to low-anxious, participants. However, complementary topographic analyses revealed that the scalp map of the ERN/Ne was not identical between the two groups, suggesting that anxiety did not merely increase early error detection mechanisms, but also led to a qualitative change in the early appraisal of errors. Inverse solution results confirmed a shift within the ACC for the localization of neural generators underlying the ERN/Ne scalp map in high-anxious participants, corroborating the assumption of an early effect of anxiety on early error-monitoring functions. These results shed new light on the dynamic interplay between anxiety and error-monitoring functions in the human brain.     

Personality and Reaction Time after Sleep Deprivation

The relationship between reaction time and both state and trait personality variables was investigated in 37 participants after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Regression analyses suggested that endorsement of greater Novelty Seeking, anger/hostility, and depression/dejection, and less confusion, was associated with greater reaction time declines on one Multi-Attribute Task Battery index after sleep deprivation. Further, greater Novelty Seeking and depression/dejection, and less vigor/activity, was associated with greater reaction time declines after sleep deprivation on another Multi-Attribute Task Battery index. Additional correlational analyses indicated that better reaction times were associated with greater Novelty Seeking and lower anger/hostility prior to sleep deprivation, and less confusion/bewilderment following sleep deprivation. Findings suggest that both state and trait personality variables are associated with reaction time performance following sleep deprivation.     

Unconscious reward cues increase invested effort,but do not change speed–accuracy tradeoffs

While both conscious and unconscious reward cues enhance effort to work on a task, previous research also suggests that conscious rewards may additionally affect speed–accuracy tradeoffs. Based on this idea, two experiments explored whether reward cues that are presented above (supraliminal) or below (subliminal) the threshold of conscious awareness affect such tradeoffs differently. In a speed–accuracy paradigm, participants had to solve an arithmetic problem to attain a supraliminally or subliminally presented high-value or low-value coin. Subliminal high (vs. low) rewards made participants more eager (i.e., faster, but equally accurate). In contrast, supraliminal high (vs. low) rewards caused participants to become more cautious (i.e., slower, but more accurate). However, the effects of supraliminal rewards mimicked those of subliminal rewards when the tendency to make speed–accuracy tradeoffs was reduced. These findings suggest that reward cues initially boost effort regardless of whether or not people are aware of them, but affect speed–accuracy tradeoffs only when the reward information is accessible to consciousness.