To Forget – To Empty the Mental Energy
What does ‘mentally relaxing’ mean? It is to forget the thing you have focused your attention on together with its semantical relations. Namely, to forget what you pay attention to and its relations.
To concentrate is focusing your attention to a certain subject and remember related things , thus forget the unrelated things. Hence you erase things unrelated to the subject from your working memory. You remember and bring relavent things into your working memory instead.
In fact the working memory of the mind should not be viewed like a computer addressed page. It should be viewed as a network and even networks of networks of which connection weights can be adjusted and reduced to null.
When focusing the weights of connections between some specific neurons increase. These neurons have to be related to the subject and may be located at various parts distributed in our brain.
High concentration occurs when the application duration ofdedicated attention and the character of focusing is augmented. Long duration high concentration occurs when concentration on a subject continuously for three or six months. The mind accumulates a large amount of information on a specific subject and tries to find a solution (for example in large software projects).
In the case of long duration high concentration, the brain adds buffers related to perception to the working memory and the short term memory layer(episodic and other). The slowness in the body movements of large systems engineers or the behaviour of surgeons after operations, for ex. Both group has the tendency to put their personal belongings always to the same locations... are the result of extreme mental load. This difficulty is the result of the working memory expanding over average size and short term memory getting overloaded with too many relations. Episodic memory and buffer memories related with basic senses get added to the working memory. The situation gets to the stage that you begin to forget simple things such as you have stopped at the previous red light. Smell and taste senses get weaker.
Under heavy load, the brain does not only lncrease the relations of the elements in the subject matter but also takes meaures to increase the relational mechanisms and elavating precautions. It changes the neuraş networks’ propogational properties by making the body secrete hormones. Hence, thresholds for making decisions change and it gets easier to resolve a decision regardless of whether it is right or wrong. The hormones that affect this, affects the person’s affections also. It is not a coincidence that engineers get increasingly more sensitive at the end of difficult projects or calm people get belligerent... Strangely, things get calmed down by the end of the project.
The commands that the brain sends to the body under heavy mental load affects not only the affective behaviour and decision thresholds of the person. The affective changes affect the thinking speed also. The new propogation conditions created by the hormones does not only affect the macro level decision making but also affects the micro events of relational connection establishing and determination of connection weights. For ex. The abrupt and mostly correct reactions shown under emergency conditions depend on the adjustment of the thinking speed as well as automatic processes.
A global result of high and long duration concentration is that the mental control ability of the person increases over normal levels. An indication of this is the increase in the speaking native and foreign languages ability, also an increase in the perception sensitivity. You begin to notice things on your computer screen that you normally did not see before. You begin to remember the relational details of past events that you have not noticed before.
An even more increase of the thinking speed causes serious problems. You begin to see halucinations or hear sounds. Difficulties in using the language begin. You begin to hear other languages when speaking your native tongue. The same problems recur in your mind continuously.
A person under stress has difficulty to forget(interalia). The inability to put aside everything and to look at problems with a fresh mind stops the chance of finding solutions as well as deepening of the mental disturbance. It may not be a good solution to go to a long nice vacation in this situation. When you open the house door on your return, you will find the same problems exactly as you have left them behind.
If paid attention the stages that the problem occurs most seriously give strong clues to its solution. Forgetting is one of these. If we can forget even some details of the things that happened after a mentally loaded day, if they do not come back to your mind this means everything is OK.The key to relaxing, to stay away from the bad effects of high concentration is forgetting.
Forgetting destroys the semantic relations network formed by the high concentration, erases the connection weights created for this network. The destroying-reduction of the connection weights reduces the cognitive ability and slows down the thinking speed. Although speed is a chemical or hormonal phenomenon logical structure may have a slowing effect on the speed.
Forgetting, specifically forgetting the context, reduces the load on the memory hence reduces the enforcement of the perception buffer memories to act as the working memory. The speed of the forgetting process may cause negative effects after heavy concentration periods. The person begins to get interested with many cmopletely unrelated subjects using the mental capacity he/she has created. Such as pushing self to remember details of things in the past, thinking extremely abstract subjects. He tries to continue to push self mentally with other activities.
When stopping long duration high concentration or even stopping the daily working process,mental activities with increasingly lower densities may help. One should leave some time to the brain to adjust. For example, listening English news first, then Turkish news, and then an art program and then an entertainment program... Close the TV and sip some tea on your favorite armchair...
By the way, what does normal people do when they use high concentration sometimes? They do not do anything intentional. Their physique and the personality that they have developed protects them. The problem occurs on people who work on large systems with critical responsibilities, concentrating highly for long durations or jobs requiring to carry a subject in one’s mind for long durations. These people break down the resistence their brains show to high concentration by material or immaterial motivations. If these people are not trained to take precautions against these problems they become prone to serious mental risks.
When your mind gets tired your attention drops and you begin to think different subjects. As an example to your mind taking autonomous precautions is seeing halucinations when the thinking speed increases too much. Infact halucination is a way of getting rid of excessive mental energy.
Your behavioural patterns may have a protective effect. For example, a person under heavy load tries to act using more plans. Programming and planning, designing require a high amount of mental effort hence, help to empty the brain from mental energy. These not only organize the tasks to do but also helps to spend the excessive mental energy.
The problem is the excessive increase in the mental energy and the thinking speed because of the excessive concntration. They remain at these high levels for durations as long as 3 – 6 months and they do not drop down to normal levels during this long period of time. This unreducing mental energy and thinking speed causes permanent changes in the brains of the related employees. The employees must be trained against the bad side effects of long duration high concentration and they must be screened psychologically in a systematic way.
My next article will propose a method to relax for large systems employees who have critical duties. The most important problem with a tired mind is being unable to forget that day and its difficulties. There must be some memory mechanisms in order to forget easily. If we can analize these mechanisms carefully may be we can develop some useful techniques.
29 Temmuz 2012 Pazar
16 Temmuz 2012 Pazartesi
Relaxing After High Concentration- 1
What can be done after a tiring day to relax? Even people working in normal jobs have to spend effort to relax after some heavy loaded days. This article is the first of a series that explains some of the techniques that can be used to relax... After the first article which is about ‘Focal’ and ‘ambient’ vision types and their relation to relaxing, I will write about getting rid of mental energy by using it for nothing and the function of imagination. As the last point of interest, I will propose a technique to get rid of the high concentration and relax by alluding to Sartre’s “Imagination and Consciousness”.
Every engineer, air traffic controller, large systems operator who work with computers have to focus their attention to a small area for long periods of time. These people have difficulty looking at large areas and at distant things when they get out of their working place.
Our mental operations related to vision are of two kinds- focal and ambient. Focal vision is almost always related with fovea which is without rods and related with small details, pattern recognition. For example reading writings and identifying small things. Ambient vision is related with seing things on the periphery not the center. It is related with orientation and ego motion – to feel the speed and direction of our own movement[1].
Our focal and ambient vision abilities and mental resources define each other actively. For example, we can read a book while we walk down the aisle or we can read the street names while we drive. This situation show that there is an effective time sharing between them, they are executed by different brain structures and their information processing characteristics are different.
It is suggested that an effective time sharing between focal and ambient vision exists because the ambient vision is an automatic process[1]. The mental tiredness created by the concious process of the focal vision in the case of long durations, may be elavated by the automatic process of ambient vision. The problem, at this point arises in the case of long duration high concentration. High concentration stops the automatic process triggering. Hence, the relaxing of the vision mechanism of the mind by its natural balancing becomes impossible. The relaxing of the mind in some cases by driving a car may be related to the balanced use of automatic processes and attention.
The mind’s vision processing gives strong hints about its whole processing. The focal and ambient vision mechanisms may abstractly be related to focusing on a subject and feel the peripheral concepts and objects related to this subject automatically. For example, it is mind’s ambient like mechanisms that enables us to trust him.
When you look at the carpet under the table, even though some of the patterns are behind the table’s legs you still percieve the situation as if you see the whole carpet. The mind deducts the continuation of patterns from the way day come and although they are not seen it is felt as if they are[2]. The deduction of patterns may be related with the ambient vision and more general automatic processing of the brain.
When we see an object, our mind deals with its visual attributes primarily. It completes the missing parts with good continuation if they can not be seen. As the time passes, the semantic tree objects begin to get triggered. An object passes to the working memory after staying in the perception memory for a certain amount of time.
Hence it begins to trigger the semantic connections related to itself[3]. When you see a person, even though you do not focus on him, his height, suit colour, physical attributes, gender, etc. And his abstract attributes get triggered and gets prepared to serve your attention. In fact Sartre’s example for visual completion is valid for mental completion also.
Focusing infact is leaving enough time for looking. If we look at a constant object and continue to do so for a long time, our attention concentrates on that object. Blinking period increases, even our breathing decreases. A large systems engineer who works with high concentration for long durations gets physically tired even by simply concentrating. The engineer focuses on a specific subject and related issues, building semantic relations. This process continues iteratively till it converges to a solution. To change a single line of code in an air traffic control system the whole system has to be studied in relation to this change and its functional effects have to be analized. This process requires a high level of concentration to be maintained for upto six months.
Not only people who work at long duration high concentration jobs but also even students who prepare for finals have difficulty in relaxing after a complete working day. Everyone has developed a personal technique to relax intuitively or by experience. My point is, large systems operators have to be trained to learn and apply these techniques systematically...
Let’s return back to the vision metaphor. If we focus on something and look at it sternly, our looking focus gets smaller, concentration increases to maximum, on the other hand ambient vision begins to increase and after a while our vision gets blurred and our eyes begin to contemplate. There is a natural control mechanism.
We adjust our concentration level by looking and seeing. The balancing of each of focal and ambient vision in the flow of the normal life adjusts our mind’s thinking speed[4]. At the beginning of our cognitive evolution lies in the visual ability. Systematic seeing and looking may give us some clues for relaxing after long duration heavy concentration.
After high concentration jobs with focused vision one should give more chance to the automatic processes of the ambient vision. It would be usefull to stay 3-4 hours in an environment with a wide view and far distances. To view the depths not the surface, the view not the objects but the volume created between them would be useful. To view objects in their context and imagine the missing parts that can not be seen.
After non-visual jobs that concentrate on abstract concepts it would be useful to stay in a wide view environment with horizon and a far sea sight too. To look at the things on the surface, to view objects without their relations, to bring everything to the surface would be necessary...
References:
[1] Wickens, C. D., “Multiple Resources and Performance Prediction”, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute of Aviation USA
[2] Sartre, J. P., “Basic Writings - Imagination and Emotion, The Psychology of Imagination, Consciousness and Imagination”, Edited By Stephen Priest, Routledge, 2005
[3] Saral, A. R., “Düşünüş Durağanlığı”, http://largesystems-atc.blogspot.com/2008/09/dn-duraanlii.html
[4] Saral, A. R., “Farklılaşan Beyin”, http://largesystems-atc.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Some allusions::
[1] Multiple resources and performance prediction
CHRISTOPHER D. WICKENS*
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute of Aviation Willard Airport, Aviation
Human Factors Division, Aviation Research Laboratory, 1 Airport Road, Savoy, IL 61874,
USA
Keywords: Attention; Performance; Time sharing workload.
4.3. Visual channels
In addition to the distinction between auditory and visual modalities of processing, there is good evidence that two aspects of visual processing, referred to as focal and ambient vision, appear to define separate resources in the sense of
(a) supporting efficient time-sharing,
(b) being characterized by qualitatively different brain structures, and
(c) being associated with qualitatively different types of information processing
(Leibowitz et al. 1982, Weinstein and Wickens 1992, Previc 1998).
Focal vision, which is nearly always foveal, is required for fine detail and pattern recognition (e.g. reading text, identifying small objects). In contrast, ambient vision heavily (but not exclusively) involves peripheral vision, and is used for sensing orientation and ego motion (the direction and speed with which one moves through the environment). When we successfully walk down a corridor while reading a book, we are exploiting the parallel processing or multiple resource capabilities of focal and ambient vision, just as we are when keeping the car moving forward in the centre of the lane (ambient vision) while reading a road sign, glancing at the rear view mirror or recognizing a hazardous object in the middle of the road (focal vision).
Aircraft designers have considered several ways of exploiting ambient vision to provide guidance and alerting information to pilots, while their focal vision is heavily loaded by 166 C. D. Wickens perceiving specific channels of displayed instrument information (Stokes et al. 1990, Liggett et al. 1999) It is appropriate to ask whether the successful time sharing of focal and ambient visual tasks results because ambient vision uses separate resources, or because it uses no resources at all; that is, processing from ambient vision may be said to be 'preattentive' or automated. At the present time, insufficient data exist to answer this question, as few researchers have attempted to examine dual task performance of two ambient tasks. One study (Weinstein and Wickens 1992), however, did suggest that the second (pre-attentive/automatic) explanation offered above may in fact be the more correct one.
[2] Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings, Edited By Stephen Priest, Routledge, 2005
Imagination and Emotion, The Psychology of Imagination, Consciousness and Imagination
P 95
For an objects or any element of an object there is a great difference between being grasped as nothing and being-given-as-absent.
…
For instance, the arabesques of the rug I am viewing are both in part given to my intuition. The legs of the arm chair which stands before the window conceal certain curves, certain designs. But I nevertheless seize these hidden arabesques as existing now, as hidden but not at all as absent. … I grasp what has been given me of their continuation.
…
It is therefore in the way in which I grasp the data that I posit that which is not given as being real. Real by the same right as the data, as that which gives its meaning and its very nature. Likewise the successive tones of a melody are grasped by appropriate retentions as that which makes of the tone now heard exactly what it is. In this sense, to percieve this or that real datum is to percieve it on the foundation of total reality as a whole.”
P96
“If I want to imagine the hidden arabesques, I direct my attention upon them and isolate them, just as I isolate on the foundation of an undifferentiated universe the thing I actually percieve. I cease to grasp them as empty but constituting the sense of the percieved reality, instead I present them to myself, in themselves. But at the moment that I cease to concieve them as continuous present in order to grasp them in themselves, I grasp them as absent. Of course they really exist over there, under the chair , and it is over there that I think of them, but in thinking of them where they are not given to me, I grasp them as nothing for me. Thus the imaginative act is at once constitutive, isolating and annihilating.
Every engineer, air traffic controller, large systems operator who work with computers have to focus their attention to a small area for long periods of time. These people have difficulty looking at large areas and at distant things when they get out of their working place.
Our mental operations related to vision are of two kinds- focal and ambient. Focal vision is almost always related with fovea which is without rods and related with small details, pattern recognition. For example reading writings and identifying small things. Ambient vision is related with seing things on the periphery not the center. It is related with orientation and ego motion – to feel the speed and direction of our own movement[1].
Our focal and ambient vision abilities and mental resources define each other actively. For example, we can read a book while we walk down the aisle or we can read the street names while we drive. This situation show that there is an effective time sharing between them, they are executed by different brain structures and their information processing characteristics are different.
It is suggested that an effective time sharing between focal and ambient vision exists because the ambient vision is an automatic process[1]. The mental tiredness created by the concious process of the focal vision in the case of long durations, may be elavated by the automatic process of ambient vision. The problem, at this point arises in the case of long duration high concentration. High concentration stops the automatic process triggering. Hence, the relaxing of the vision mechanism of the mind by its natural balancing becomes impossible. The relaxing of the mind in some cases by driving a car may be related to the balanced use of automatic processes and attention.
The mind’s vision processing gives strong hints about its whole processing. The focal and ambient vision mechanisms may abstractly be related to focusing on a subject and feel the peripheral concepts and objects related to this subject automatically. For example, it is mind’s ambient like mechanisms that enables us to trust him.
When you look at the carpet under the table, even though some of the patterns are behind the table’s legs you still percieve the situation as if you see the whole carpet. The mind deducts the continuation of patterns from the way day come and although they are not seen it is felt as if they are[2]. The deduction of patterns may be related with the ambient vision and more general automatic processing of the brain.
When we see an object, our mind deals with its visual attributes primarily. It completes the missing parts with good continuation if they can not be seen. As the time passes, the semantic tree objects begin to get triggered. An object passes to the working memory after staying in the perception memory for a certain amount of time.
Hence it begins to trigger the semantic connections related to itself[3]. When you see a person, even though you do not focus on him, his height, suit colour, physical attributes, gender, etc. And his abstract attributes get triggered and gets prepared to serve your attention. In fact Sartre’s example for visual completion is valid for mental completion also.
Focusing infact is leaving enough time for looking. If we look at a constant object and continue to do so for a long time, our attention concentrates on that object. Blinking period increases, even our breathing decreases. A large systems engineer who works with high concentration for long durations gets physically tired even by simply concentrating. The engineer focuses on a specific subject and related issues, building semantic relations. This process continues iteratively till it converges to a solution. To change a single line of code in an air traffic control system the whole system has to be studied in relation to this change and its functional effects have to be analized. This process requires a high level of concentration to be maintained for upto six months.
Not only people who work at long duration high concentration jobs but also even students who prepare for finals have difficulty in relaxing after a complete working day. Everyone has developed a personal technique to relax intuitively or by experience. My point is, large systems operators have to be trained to learn and apply these techniques systematically...
Let’s return back to the vision metaphor. If we focus on something and look at it sternly, our looking focus gets smaller, concentration increases to maximum, on the other hand ambient vision begins to increase and after a while our vision gets blurred and our eyes begin to contemplate. There is a natural control mechanism.
We adjust our concentration level by looking and seeing. The balancing of each of focal and ambient vision in the flow of the normal life adjusts our mind’s thinking speed[4]. At the beginning of our cognitive evolution lies in the visual ability. Systematic seeing and looking may give us some clues for relaxing after long duration heavy concentration.
After high concentration jobs with focused vision one should give more chance to the automatic processes of the ambient vision. It would be usefull to stay 3-4 hours in an environment with a wide view and far distances. To view the depths not the surface, the view not the objects but the volume created between them would be useful. To view objects in their context and imagine the missing parts that can not be seen.
After non-visual jobs that concentrate on abstract concepts it would be useful to stay in a wide view environment with horizon and a far sea sight too. To look at the things on the surface, to view objects without their relations, to bring everything to the surface would be necessary...
References:
[1] Wickens, C. D., “Multiple Resources and Performance Prediction”, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute of Aviation USA
[2] Sartre, J. P., “Basic Writings - Imagination and Emotion, The Psychology of Imagination, Consciousness and Imagination”, Edited By Stephen Priest, Routledge, 2005
[3] Saral, A. R., “Düşünüş Durağanlığı”, http://largesystems-atc.blogspot.com/2008/09/dn-duraanlii.html
[4] Saral, A. R., “Farklılaşan Beyin”, http://largesystems-atc.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html
Some allusions::
[1] Multiple resources and performance prediction
CHRISTOPHER D. WICKENS*
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Institute of Aviation Willard Airport, Aviation
Human Factors Division, Aviation Research Laboratory, 1 Airport Road, Savoy, IL 61874,
USA
Keywords: Attention; Performance; Time sharing workload.
4.3. Visual channels
In addition to the distinction between auditory and visual modalities of processing, there is good evidence that two aspects of visual processing, referred to as focal and ambient vision, appear to define separate resources in the sense of
(a) supporting efficient time-sharing,
(b) being characterized by qualitatively different brain structures, and
(c) being associated with qualitatively different types of information processing
(Leibowitz et al. 1982, Weinstein and Wickens 1992, Previc 1998).
Focal vision, which is nearly always foveal, is required for fine detail and pattern recognition (e.g. reading text, identifying small objects). In contrast, ambient vision heavily (but not exclusively) involves peripheral vision, and is used for sensing orientation and ego motion (the direction and speed with which one moves through the environment). When we successfully walk down a corridor while reading a book, we are exploiting the parallel processing or multiple resource capabilities of focal and ambient vision, just as we are when keeping the car moving forward in the centre of the lane (ambient vision) while reading a road sign, glancing at the rear view mirror or recognizing a hazardous object in the middle of the road (focal vision).
Aircraft designers have considered several ways of exploiting ambient vision to provide guidance and alerting information to pilots, while their focal vision is heavily loaded by 166 C. D. Wickens perceiving specific channels of displayed instrument information (Stokes et al. 1990, Liggett et al. 1999) It is appropriate to ask whether the successful time sharing of focal and ambient visual tasks results because ambient vision uses separate resources, or because it uses no resources at all; that is, processing from ambient vision may be said to be 'preattentive' or automated. At the present time, insufficient data exist to answer this question, as few researchers have attempted to examine dual task performance of two ambient tasks. One study (Weinstein and Wickens 1992), however, did suggest that the second (pre-attentive/automatic) explanation offered above may in fact be the more correct one.
[2] Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings, Edited By Stephen Priest, Routledge, 2005
Imagination and Emotion, The Psychology of Imagination, Consciousness and Imagination
P 95
For an objects or any element of an object there is a great difference between being grasped as nothing and being-given-as-absent.
…
For instance, the arabesques of the rug I am viewing are both in part given to my intuition. The legs of the arm chair which stands before the window conceal certain curves, certain designs. But I nevertheless seize these hidden arabesques as existing now, as hidden but not at all as absent. … I grasp what has been given me of their continuation.
…
It is therefore in the way in which I grasp the data that I posit that which is not given as being real. Real by the same right as the data, as that which gives its meaning and its very nature. Likewise the successive tones of a melody are grasped by appropriate retentions as that which makes of the tone now heard exactly what it is. In this sense, to percieve this or that real datum is to percieve it on the foundation of total reality as a whole.”
P96
“If I want to imagine the hidden arabesques, I direct my attention upon them and isolate them, just as I isolate on the foundation of an undifferentiated universe the thing I actually percieve. I cease to grasp them as empty but constituting the sense of the percieved reality, instead I present them to myself, in themselves. But at the moment that I cease to concieve them as continuous present in order to grasp them in themselves, I grasp them as absent. Of course they really exist over there, under the chair , and it is over there that I think of them, but in thinking of them where they are not given to me, I grasp them as nothing for me. Thus the imaginative act is at once constitutive, isolating and annihilating.
16 Mayıs 2012 Çarşamba
Notes from AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF PREFRONTAL CORTEX FUNCTION
My notes from: AN INTEGRATIVE THEORY OF PREFRONTAL CORTEX FUNCTION (41 pages)
Earl K. Miller, Center for Learning and Memory, RIKEN-MIT Neuroscience Research Center and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT.
Jonathan D. Cohen, Center for the Study of Brain, Mind, and Behavior and Department of Psychology, Princeton
Abstract ... cognitive control stems from the active maintenance of patterns of activity in the prefrontal cortex that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals to other brain structures whose net effect is to guide the flow of activity along neural pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task.
INTRODUCTION ...
Simple behaviors can rely on relatively straightforward interactions between the brain’s input and output systems. Animals with fewer than a hundred thousand neurons (in the human brain there are 100 billion or more neurons) can approach food and avoid predators. For animals with larger brains, behavior is more flexible. ...
...
To deal with this multitude of possibilities and to curtail confusion, we have evolved mechanisms that coordinate lower-level sensory and motor processes along a common theme, an internal goal.
...
It is well positioned to coordinate a wide range of neural processes: The PFC is a collection of interconnected neocortical areas that sends and receives projections from virtually all cortical sensory systems, motor systems, and many subcortical structures. ...
The Role of the PFC in Top-Down Control of Behavior
The PFC is not critical for performing simple, automatic behaviors, such as our tendency to automatically orient to an unexpected sound or movement. These behaviors can be innate or they can develop gradually with experience as learning mechanisms potentiate existing pathways or form new ones. These “hardwired” pathways are advantageous because they allow highly familiar behaviors to be executed quickly and automatically (i.e. without demanding attention). However,these behaviors are inflexible, stereotyped reactions elicited by just the right stimulus. They do not generalize well to novel situations, and they take extensive time and experience to develop. These sorts of automatic behaviors can be thought of as relying primarily on “bottom-up” processing; that is, they are determined largely by the nature of the sensory stimuli and well-established neural pathways that connect these with corresponding responses.
By contrast, thePFC is important when “top-down” processing is needed; that is, when behavior must be guided by internal states or intentions. The PFC is critical in situations when the mappings between sensory inputs, thoughts, and actions either are weakly established relative to other existing ones or are rapidly changing. This is when we need to use the “rules of the game,” internal representations of goals and the means to achieve them. Several investigators have argued that this is a cardinal function of the PFC...
...
This illustrates one of the most fundamental aspects of cognitive control and goal-directed behavior: the ability to select a weaker, task-relevant response (or source of information) in the face of competition from an otherwise stronger, but task-irrelevant one. Patients with frontal impairment have difficulty with this task... ...
Overview of the Theory
We assume that the PFC serves a specific function in cognitive control: the active maintenance of patterns of activity that represent goals and the means to achieve them. They provide bias signals throughout much of the rest of the brain, affecting not only visual processes but also other sensory modalities, as well as systems responsible for response execution, memory retrieval, emotional evaluation, etc.
The aggregate effect of these bias signals is to guide the flow of neural activity along pathways that establish the proper mappings between inputs, internal states, and outputs needed to perform a given task. This is especially important whenever stimuli are ambiguous (i.e. they activate more than one input representation), or when multiple responses are possible and the task-appropriate response must compete with stronger alternatives. From this perspective, the constellation of PFC biases...can be viewed as the neural implementation of attentional templates, rules, or goals, depending on the target of their biasing influence.
...
When a behavior meets with success, reinforcement signals augment the corresponding pattern of activity by strengthening connections between the PFC neurons activated by that behavior. This process also strengthens connections between these neurons and those whose activity represents the situation in which the behavior was useful, establishing an association between these circumstances and the PFC pattern that supports the correct behavior.
...
But we believe that this general notion can explain many of the posited functions of the PFC. The biasing influence of PFC feedback signals on sensory systems may mediate its role in directing attention (Stuss &
Benson 1986; Knight 1984, 1997; Banich et al 2000), signals to the motor system may be responsible for response selection and inhibitory control (Fuster 1980, Diamond 1988), and signals to intermediate systems may support short-term (or working) memory (Goldman-Rakic 1987) and guide retrieval from long-term memory (Schachter 1997, Janowsky et al 1989, Gershberg & Shimamura 1995).
Without the PFC, the most frequently used (and thus best established) neural pathways would predominate or, where these don’t exist, behavior would be haphazard. Such impulsive, inappropriate, or disorganized behavior is a hallmark of PFC dysfunction in humans (e.g. Bianchi 1922, Duncan 1986, Luria 1969, Lhermitte 1983, Shallice & Burgess 1996, Stuss & Benson 1986).
Minimal Requirements for a Mechanism of Top-Down Control
There are several critical features of our theory. First, the PFC must provide a source of activity that can exert the required pattern of biasing signals to other structures. We can thus think of PFC function as “active memory in the service of control.” It follows, therefore, that the PFC must maintain its activity robustly against distractions until a goal is achieved, yet also be flexible enough to update its representations when needed. It must also house the appropriate representations, those that can select the neural pathways needed for the task. In sofar as primates are capable of tasks that involve diverse combinations of stimuli, internal states, and responses, representations in the PFC must have access to and be able to influence a similarly wide range of information in other brain regions. That is, PFC representations must have a high capacity for multimodality and integration. Finally, as we can acquire new goals and means, the PFC must also exhibit a high degree of plasticity. Of course, it must be possible to exhibit all these properties without the need to invoke some other mechanism of control to explain them, lest our theory be subject to perennial concerns of a hidden “homunculus.”
...
pattern of deficits following PFC damage as a loss of the ability to acquire and use behavior-guiding rules. ...
...
A GUIDED ACTIVATION THEORY OF PFC FUNCTION ...
A Simple Model of PFC Function ...
Guided Activation as a Mechanism of Cognitive Control
...the role of the PFC is modulatory rather than transmissive. That is, the pathway from input to output does not “run through” the PFC. Instead, the PFC guides activity flow along task-relevant pathways in more posterior and/or subcortical areas.
...
This distinction between modulation vs transmission is consistent with the classic pattern of neuropsychological deficits associated with frontal lobe damage. The components of a complex behavior are usually left intact, but the subject is not able to coordinate them in a task-appropriate way (for example, a patient who, when preparing coffee, first stirred and then added cream). ...
Active Maintenance in the Service of Control...
another critical feature of our theory: the importance of sustained activity as a mechanism of control...
...
executive control involves the active maintenance of a particular type of information: the goals and rules of a task.
...
selective attention and behavioral inhibition are two sides of the same coin: Attention is the effect of biasing competition in favor of task-relevant information, and inhibition is the consequence that this has for the irrelevant information.
...
In particular, we believe that PFC-mediated control is complemented by another form of control dependent on the hippocampal system. The hippocampus is important for binding together information into a memory of a specific episode (Eichenbaum et al 1999, McClelland et al 1995, Squire 1992, Zola-Morgan & Squire 1993). By contrast, we suggest that the PFC, like other neocortical areas, is more important for extracting the regularities across episodes—in the case of the PFC, those corresponding to goals and task rules, rather than episodic memories of actually performing the task. We further posit that the PFC uses “activity-based” control; that is, its ongoing activity specifies the pattern of neural pathways that are currently needed. If PFC activity changes, so does the selected pattern of pathways.
By contrast, the hippocampus may provide a form of “weighted-based” control; it helps consolidate permanent associative links between the pieces of information that define a long-term memory (Cohen & O’Reilly 1996, O’Reilly et al 1999, O’Reilly 2000). To use the railroad metaphor, the hippocampus is responsible for laying down new tracks and the PFC is responsible for flexibly switching between them. As noted below, interactions between the PFC and the hippocampus may provide a basis for understanding prospective forms of control, such as planning.
Updating of PFC Representations
In the real world, cognitive control is highly dynamic...is highly flexible. So long as suitable representations exist within the PFC, activating them can quickly invoke a goal or rule, which can be flexibly switched to others as circumstances demand. That is, it is easier and faster (and perhaps less costly) to switch between existing tracks than it is to lay new ones down.
...
PFC representations are selectively responsive (adaptive) to task-relevant stimuli (Rainer et al 1998b), yet they are resistant to interference (robust) from distractors (Miller et al 1996). Conversely, two hallmarks of damage to the PFC are perseveration (inadequate updating) and increased distractibility (inappropriate updating)
...
Recent modeling work suggests that hierarchical updating and the sequencing of actions may rely on interactions between the PFC and the basal ganglia.
13 Nisan 2012 Cuma
Quotations from "The Prefrontal Cortex: Minireview"
My quotations from: The Prefrontal Cortex: Minireview
Complex Neural Properties for Complex Behavior
Earl K. Miller*
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and The Center for Learning and Memory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
...
The PF cortex is a collection of cortical areas in the most anterior portion of the frontal lobes (Figure 1). It has long been associated with high-level, “executive” processes needed for voluntary goal-directed behavior. Its damage in humans does not produce a single, characteristic deficit. Rather, it results in disturbances in a variety of functions, including attention, memory, response selection, planning, and inhibitory control.
Studies of the neural basis of PF function in monkeys focused primarily on active short-term, or working memory. They have revealed that when a delay is imposed between a visual stimulus and a response based on it, many PF neurons show sustained stimulus-related activity (Goldman-Rakic, 1994; Fuster, 1995). Because sensory inputs are often fleeting, this short-term maintenance may be fundamental to many cognitive functions. However, complex behavior requires more than temporary storage. Relevant sensory inputs need to be selected and integrated with other information common to the goal at hand. Also needed are the executive mechanisms that determine, for example, which stimuli are relevant and should be selected. Much less is known about the neural basis of these higher functions.
...
In many views of cognition, the type of executive control thought to be mediated by the PF cortex is synonymous with attentional selection, that is, the ability to voluntarily focus awareness on certain sensory inputs, thoughts, or actions. Selection is necessary because higher-order cognitive functions are severely limited in capacity. Indeed, at a given moment we are aware of only a small fraction of available sensory information.
Given these capacity limitations, the ability to ignore distractions and select behaviorally relevant information is critical. Evidence that the lateral PF cortex is involved in selection processes comes from a number of studies, including a recent study by Rainer et al. (1998b)
...
Earlier target selection in the PF cortex suggests that the visual cortex may “inherit” target information from the PF cortex. That is, that the PF cortex may be a source of the top-down signals that mediate attentional selection in the visual cortex (Desimone and Duncan.)
Complex behavior, however, depends on more than selecting sensory information. To benefit from past experience, we must be able to select (recall) stored knowledge. Watanabe (1996) demonstrated this ability in PF neurons. He found that when monkeys could predict that a specific reward would appear (e.g., raisins, cabbage, etc.), the activity of many PF neurons reflected that expected reward. This ability to prospectively” code predicted events is thus critical for choosing among response alternatives.
Integration
Sensory processing is highly fragmented. Even within a modality, different stimulus attributes may be separately processed. The primate cortical visual system, for example, is thought to analyze the form and color information to identify a stimulus (i.e., what it is) largely from information about stimulus location (i.e., where it is). An area involved in complex behavior, however, needs to have access to diverse information.
Even actions almost invariably require satisfying multiple, diverse constraints. When I search for my coffee cup, for example, I have in mind not only what it looks like but also where it is likely to be. So, somewhere and somehow, diverse information such as what and where needs to come together. Given its role in organizing behavior and its extensive connections, the PF cortex seems a likely region where integration might be evident, particularly when integration is needed for behavior.
...
Other studies have also found that many PF neurons process both object identity and location.
...
Interconnections between different PF regions (Figure 1) could result in a population of PF neurons with multimodal properties.
Associative Learning, Rules, Context, and Cognitive Control
The complexity of primate behavior is partially attributable to the fact that primates can acquire new goals and manners of achieving them. Not surprisingly, the PF cortex is thought to be central to this ability. Its executive role in brain function has been hypothesized to result from the acquisition and representation of “rules” that guide goal-directed behavior.
Rule learning depends on forming arbitrary associations between disparate, but behaviorally related, information. We learn that “red” means “stop,” for example. The PF cortex seems well positioned to play a role in associative learning. It is interconnected with all sensory systems, with the motor system, and with limbic structures involved in long-term memory and affect; it is truly “association cortex.”
...
Thus, PF activity can reflect stimuli, associated actions, and expected consequences.
...
Cohen and colleagues have suggested how the ability of PF neurons to reflect conjunctions of behaviorally related information might result in mechanisms for executive control. They posit that control emanates from representation of context (Cohen and Servan-Schreiber, 1992). Context is the constellation of task-relevant information needed to guide a given behavior.
...
Top-down signals from the PF cortex are excitatory and represent the to-be-attended item. These signals increase activity of neurons that process the relevant information and, by virtue of the mutual inhibition, suppress activity of neurons processing irrelevant information. Context representations may act in a similar fashion. However, rather than convey only visual attributes, context representations are thought to be multimodal and include information about stimuli, actions, etc., that have become associated through experience. Thus, they can bias motor as well as sensory processing and also allow appropriate actions to be selected and executed.
Conclusions
Recent studies have shown that, consistent with their putative role in the highest level of cognitive function, PF neurons have complex response properties that are highly dependent on, and shaped by, task demands. They selectively process and integrate information needed for a common behavioral goal. Thus, its extensive connections and the ability of its neurons to be modified by experience may allow the PF cortex to play a role in knitting together behaviorally relevant associations, a process needed for acquisition of “rules” that guide goal-directed behavior. This may result in a representation of context, a template of a previously successful configuration of sensory and response-related information that biases processing in other brain regions in favor of task-relevant information. Such complicated and malleable activity would be expected for a region so closely linked with the complexity and flexibility that are the hallmarks of primate behavior.
Complex Neural Properties for Complex Behavior
Earl K. Miller*
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and The Center for Learning and Memory
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
...
The PF cortex is a collection of cortical areas in the most anterior portion of the frontal lobes (Figure 1). It has long been associated with high-level, “executive” processes needed for voluntary goal-directed behavior. Its damage in humans does not produce a single, characteristic deficit. Rather, it results in disturbances in a variety of functions, including attention, memory, response selection, planning, and inhibitory control.
Studies of the neural basis of PF function in monkeys focused primarily on active short-term, or working memory. They have revealed that when a delay is imposed between a visual stimulus and a response based on it, many PF neurons show sustained stimulus-related activity (Goldman-Rakic, 1994; Fuster, 1995). Because sensory inputs are often fleeting, this short-term maintenance may be fundamental to many cognitive functions. However, complex behavior requires more than temporary storage. Relevant sensory inputs need to be selected and integrated with other information common to the goal at hand. Also needed are the executive mechanisms that determine, for example, which stimuli are relevant and should be selected. Much less is known about the neural basis of these higher functions.
...
In many views of cognition, the type of executive control thought to be mediated by the PF cortex is synonymous with attentional selection, that is, the ability to voluntarily focus awareness on certain sensory inputs, thoughts, or actions. Selection is necessary because higher-order cognitive functions are severely limited in capacity. Indeed, at a given moment we are aware of only a small fraction of available sensory information.
Given these capacity limitations, the ability to ignore distractions and select behaviorally relevant information is critical. Evidence that the lateral PF cortex is involved in selection processes comes from a number of studies, including a recent study by Rainer et al. (1998b)
...
Earlier target selection in the PF cortex suggests that the visual cortex may “inherit” target information from the PF cortex. That is, that the PF cortex may be a source of the top-down signals that mediate attentional selection in the visual cortex (Desimone and Duncan.)
Complex behavior, however, depends on more than selecting sensory information. To benefit from past experience, we must be able to select (recall) stored knowledge. Watanabe (1996) demonstrated this ability in PF neurons. He found that when monkeys could predict that a specific reward would appear (e.g., raisins, cabbage, etc.), the activity of many PF neurons reflected that expected reward. This ability to prospectively” code predicted events is thus critical for choosing among response alternatives.
Integration
Sensory processing is highly fragmented. Even within a modality, different stimulus attributes may be separately processed. The primate cortical visual system, for example, is thought to analyze the form and color information to identify a stimulus (i.e., what it is) largely from information about stimulus location (i.e., where it is). An area involved in complex behavior, however, needs to have access to diverse information.
Even actions almost invariably require satisfying multiple, diverse constraints. When I search for my coffee cup, for example, I have in mind not only what it looks like but also where it is likely to be. So, somewhere and somehow, diverse information such as what and where needs to come together. Given its role in organizing behavior and its extensive connections, the PF cortex seems a likely region where integration might be evident, particularly when integration is needed for behavior.
...
Other studies have also found that many PF neurons process both object identity and location.
...
Interconnections between different PF regions (Figure 1) could result in a population of PF neurons with multimodal properties.
Associative Learning, Rules, Context, and Cognitive Control
The complexity of primate behavior is partially attributable to the fact that primates can acquire new goals and manners of achieving them. Not surprisingly, the PF cortex is thought to be central to this ability. Its executive role in brain function has been hypothesized to result from the acquisition and representation of “rules” that guide goal-directed behavior.
Rule learning depends on forming arbitrary associations between disparate, but behaviorally related, information. We learn that “red” means “stop,” for example. The PF cortex seems well positioned to play a role in associative learning. It is interconnected with all sensory systems, with the motor system, and with limbic structures involved in long-term memory and affect; it is truly “association cortex.”
...
Thus, PF activity can reflect stimuli, associated actions, and expected consequences.
...
Cohen and colleagues have suggested how the ability of PF neurons to reflect conjunctions of behaviorally related information might result in mechanisms for executive control. They posit that control emanates from representation of context (Cohen and Servan-Schreiber, 1992). Context is the constellation of task-relevant information needed to guide a given behavior.
...
Top-down signals from the PF cortex are excitatory and represent the to-be-attended item. These signals increase activity of neurons that process the relevant information and, by virtue of the mutual inhibition, suppress activity of neurons processing irrelevant information. Context representations may act in a similar fashion. However, rather than convey only visual attributes, context representations are thought to be multimodal and include information about stimuli, actions, etc., that have become associated through experience. Thus, they can bias motor as well as sensory processing and also allow appropriate actions to be selected and executed.
Conclusions
Recent studies have shown that, consistent with their putative role in the highest level of cognitive function, PF neurons have complex response properties that are highly dependent on, and shaped by, task demands. They selectively process and integrate information needed for a common behavioral goal. Thus, its extensive connections and the ability of its neurons to be modified by experience may allow the PF cortex to play a role in knitting together behaviorally relevant associations, a process needed for acquisition of “rules” that guide goal-directed behavior. This may result in a representation of context, a template of a previously successful configuration of sensory and response-related information that biases processing in other brain regions in favor of task-relevant information. Such complicated and malleable activity would be expected for a region so closely linked with the complexity and flexibility that are the hallmarks of primate behavior.
10 Mart 2012 Cumartesi
Emotion Regulation
My quotations from:
Emotion Regulation: Conceptual Foundations Date: 3/22/06
James J. Gross (Stanford Uni), Ross A Thompson (Uni of California, Davis)
...
Emotion Regulation and Related Processes
...
emotion regulation refers to the heterogeneous set of processes by which emotions are themselves regulated. Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion generative process
Because emotions are multi-componential processes that unfold over time, emotion regulation involves changes in “emotion dynamics” (Thompson, 1990), or the latency, rise time, magnitude, duration, and offset of responses in behavioral, experiential, or physiological domains. Emotion regulation may dampen, intensify, or simply maintain emotion, depending on an individual’s goals. Emotion regulation also may change the degree to which emotion response components cohere as the emotion unfolds, such as when large changes in emotion experience and physiological responding occur in the absence of facial behavior.
One as-yet unresolved issue is whether emotion regulation refers to intrinsic processes (Fred regulates his own emotions: emotion regulation in self), to extrinsic processes (Sally regulates Bob’s emotions: emotion regulation in other), or to both. In general, researchers in the adult literature typically focus on intrinsic processes (Gross, 1998). By contrast, researchers in the developmental literature focus more on extrinsic processes.
Core Features of Emotion Regulation
...
Emotion Regulation and Related Constructs
..., we see emotion regulation as subordinate to the broader construct of affect regulation. Under this broad heading fall all manner of efforts to influence our valenced responses (Westen, 1994).
... affect regulation includes (among other things) four overlapping constructs: (a) coping, (b) emotion regulation, (c) mood regulation, and (d) psychological defenses.
...
Emotion Regulation Strategies
...These five points represent five families of emotion regulation processes: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation (Gross, 1998b).
...the first four emotion regulation families may be considered antecedent-focused, in that they occur before appraisals give rise to full-blown emotional response tendencies, and may be contrasted with response-focused emotion regulation, which occurs after the responses are generated (Gross & Munoz, 1995).
Situation Selection
The most forward-looking approach to emotion regulation is situation selection. This type of emotion regulation involves taking actions that make it more (or less) likely that one will end up in a situation one expects will give rise to desirable (or undesirable) emotions.
Another barrier to effective situation selection is appropriately weighing short-term benefits of emotion regulation versus longer-term costs. For example, a shy person may feel much better in the short term if she avoids social situations. However, this short-term relief may
come at the cost of longer term social isolation.
Situation Modification
Potentially emotion-eliciting situations – such as the approach of the terrifying barber in
the example above – do not inevitably lead to emotional responses. After all, one can always ask to wait until a less frightening barber is free. Such efforts to directly modify the situation so as to alter its emotional impact constitute a potent form of emotion regulation.
Attentional Deployment
Situation selection and situation modification help shape the individual’s situation. However, it also is possible to regulate emotions without actually changing the environment. Situations have many aspects, and attentional deployment refers to how individuals direct their attention within a given situation in order to influence their emotions.
Distraction focuses attention on different aspects of the situation, or moves attention away from the situation altogether, such as when an infant shifts its gaze from the emotioneliciting
stimulus to decrease stimulation (Rothbart, this volume; Stifter & Moyer, 1991).
Distraction also may involve changing internal focus, such as when individuals invoke thoughts or memories that are inconsistent with the undesirable emotional state (Watts, this volume), or when an actor calls to mind an emotional incident in order to portray that emotion convincingly.
Concentration draws attention to emotional features of a situation. Wegner and Bargh (1997) have termed this “controlled starting” of emotion. When attention is repetitively directed to one’s feelings and their consequences, this is referred to as rumination. Ruminating on sad
events leads to longer and more severe depressive symptoms (Just & Alloy, 1997; Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1993).
Cognitive Change
Even after a situation has been selected, modified, and attended to, an emotional response
is by no means a foregone conclusion. Emotion requires that percepts be imbued with meaning and that individuals evaluate their capacity to manage the situation. As described above, appraisal theorists have described the cognitive steps needed to transform a percept into something that elicits emotion. Cognitive change refers to changing how one appraises the situation one is in so as to alter its emotional significance, either by changing how one thinks about the situation or about one’s capacity to manage the demands it poses.
One form of cognitive change that has received particular attention is reappraisal (Gross,
2002; John & Gross, this volume; Ochsner & Gross, this volume). This type of cognitive change involves changing a situation’s meaning in a way that alters its emotional impact. Leading subjects to reappraise negatively valenced films has been shown to result in decreased negative emotion experience.
Response Modulation
In contrast with other emotion regulatory processes, response modulation occurs late in
the emotion generative process, after response tendencies have been initiated. Response
modulation refers to influencing physiological, experiential, or behavioral responding as directly as possible. Attempts at regulating the physiological and experiential aspects of emotion are common.
Another common form of response modulation involves regulating emotion-expressive
behavior (Gross, John, & Richards, in press). A person may wish to regulate expressive behavior for many reasons, ranging from an assessment that it would be best to hide one’s true feelings from another person (e.g., hiding one’s fear when standing up to a bully) to direct prompts from a parent (e.g., in the barbershop example).
Emotion Regulation: Conceptual Foundations Date: 3/22/06
James J. Gross (Stanford Uni), Ross A Thompson (Uni of California, Davis)
...
Emotion Regulation and Related Processes
...
emotion regulation refers to the heterogeneous set of processes by which emotions are themselves regulated. Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion generative process
Because emotions are multi-componential processes that unfold over time, emotion regulation involves changes in “emotion dynamics” (Thompson, 1990), or the latency, rise time, magnitude, duration, and offset of responses in behavioral, experiential, or physiological domains. Emotion regulation may dampen, intensify, or simply maintain emotion, depending on an individual’s goals. Emotion regulation also may change the degree to which emotion response components cohere as the emotion unfolds, such as when large changes in emotion experience and physiological responding occur in the absence of facial behavior.
One as-yet unresolved issue is whether emotion regulation refers to intrinsic processes (Fred regulates his own emotions: emotion regulation in self), to extrinsic processes (Sally regulates Bob’s emotions: emotion regulation in other), or to both. In general, researchers in the adult literature typically focus on intrinsic processes (Gross, 1998). By contrast, researchers in the developmental literature focus more on extrinsic processes.
Core Features of Emotion Regulation
...
Emotion Regulation and Related Constructs
..., we see emotion regulation as subordinate to the broader construct of affect regulation. Under this broad heading fall all manner of efforts to influence our valenced responses (Westen, 1994).
... affect regulation includes (among other things) four overlapping constructs: (a) coping, (b) emotion regulation, (c) mood regulation, and (d) psychological defenses.
...
Emotion Regulation Strategies
...These five points represent five families of emotion regulation processes: situation selection, situation modification, attentional deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation (Gross, 1998b).
...the first four emotion regulation families may be considered antecedent-focused, in that they occur before appraisals give rise to full-blown emotional response tendencies, and may be contrasted with response-focused emotion regulation, which occurs after the responses are generated (Gross & Munoz, 1995).
Situation Selection
The most forward-looking approach to emotion regulation is situation selection. This type of emotion regulation involves taking actions that make it more (or less) likely that one will end up in a situation one expects will give rise to desirable (or undesirable) emotions.
Another barrier to effective situation selection is appropriately weighing short-term benefits of emotion regulation versus longer-term costs. For example, a shy person may feel much better in the short term if she avoids social situations. However, this short-term relief may
come at the cost of longer term social isolation.
Situation Modification
Potentially emotion-eliciting situations – such as the approach of the terrifying barber in
the example above – do not inevitably lead to emotional responses. After all, one can always ask to wait until a less frightening barber is free. Such efforts to directly modify the situation so as to alter its emotional impact constitute a potent form of emotion regulation.
Attentional Deployment
Situation selection and situation modification help shape the individual’s situation. However, it also is possible to regulate emotions without actually changing the environment. Situations have many aspects, and attentional deployment refers to how individuals direct their attention within a given situation in order to influence their emotions.
Distraction focuses attention on different aspects of the situation, or moves attention away from the situation altogether, such as when an infant shifts its gaze from the emotioneliciting
stimulus to decrease stimulation (Rothbart, this volume; Stifter & Moyer, 1991).
Distraction also may involve changing internal focus, such as when individuals invoke thoughts or memories that are inconsistent with the undesirable emotional state (Watts, this volume), or when an actor calls to mind an emotional incident in order to portray that emotion convincingly.
Concentration draws attention to emotional features of a situation. Wegner and Bargh (1997) have termed this “controlled starting” of emotion. When attention is repetitively directed to one’s feelings and their consequences, this is referred to as rumination. Ruminating on sad
events leads to longer and more severe depressive symptoms (Just & Alloy, 1997; Nolen-
Hoeksema, 1993).
Cognitive Change
Even after a situation has been selected, modified, and attended to, an emotional response
is by no means a foregone conclusion. Emotion requires that percepts be imbued with meaning and that individuals evaluate their capacity to manage the situation. As described above, appraisal theorists have described the cognitive steps needed to transform a percept into something that elicits emotion. Cognitive change refers to changing how one appraises the situation one is in so as to alter its emotional significance, either by changing how one thinks about the situation or about one’s capacity to manage the demands it poses.
One form of cognitive change that has received particular attention is reappraisal (Gross,
2002; John & Gross, this volume; Ochsner & Gross, this volume). This type of cognitive change involves changing a situation’s meaning in a way that alters its emotional impact. Leading subjects to reappraise negatively valenced films has been shown to result in decreased negative emotion experience.
Response Modulation
In contrast with other emotion regulatory processes, response modulation occurs late in
the emotion generative process, after response tendencies have been initiated. Response
modulation refers to influencing physiological, experiential, or behavioral responding as directly as possible. Attempts at regulating the physiological and experiential aspects of emotion are common.
Another common form of response modulation involves regulating emotion-expressive
behavior (Gross, John, & Richards, in press). A person may wish to regulate expressive behavior for many reasons, ranging from an assessment that it would be best to hide one’s true feelings from another person (e.g., hiding one’s fear when standing up to a bully) to direct prompts from a parent (e.g., in the barbershop example).
23 Şubat 2012 Perşembe
Ego-control and ego-resiliency
My quotations from:
Ego-control and ego-resiliency: Generalization
of self-report scales based on personality
descriptions from acquaintances,
clinicians, and the self
2004
Tera D. Letzringa,*, Jack Blockb, David C. Fundera
a Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
b University of California, Berkeley, USA
Abstract
Ego-control refers to the inhibition/expression of impulse and ego-resiliency (ER) to the dynamic capacity to contextually modify one_s level of ego-control in response to situational affordances (Block, J., 1950, 2002; Block, J.H., 1951; Block & Block, 1980).
...
1. Introduction
Ego-control (EC) and ego-resiliency (ER) are conceptualized as central personality constructs for understanding motivation, emotion, and behavior (Block, J., 1950, 2002; Block, J.H., 1951; Block & Block, 1980). Broadly conceived and summarily characterized, EC refers to a meta-dimension of impulse inhibition/expression and ER refers to a meta-dimension of the dynamic capacity to contextually modify one’s level of control in response to situational demands and affordances.
Overcontrolled individuals characteristically contain impulse and affect across situations, even when
doing so may not be necessary. On the other hand, undercontrolled individuals characteristically express impulse and affect across situations, even when doing so may be inappropriate. Highly ego-resilient individuals are characteristically able to modify their level of control, either up or down, as may be appropriate or necessary according to the situational context. Individuals with a low level of ego-resiliency are more restricted to the same level of impulse containment or expression regardless of situational demands.
1.1. Ego-control
According to theory developed by Jack and Jeanne Block over several decades, the individual difference dimension of ego-control varies from overcontrol to undercontrol (Block, 2002; Block & Block, 1980). Overcontrolled individuals are conceptualized as relatively inhibited in action and affect-expressiveness to the point of at times being excessively constrained. They have difficulty making decisions, may unnecessarily delay gratification or deny themselves pleasure, are tightly organized,
are insulated from environmental distractions, and are able to continue even repetitive tasks for long periods of time.
At the other extreme, undercontrolled individuals characteristically express affect and impulses relatively immediately and directly even when doing so may be socially or personally inappropriate. They are relatively unable to delay gratification, have fluctuating emotions, and are spontaneous, easily distracted, and relatively unbound by social customs (Block, 2002; Funder & Block, 1989).
The consequences of characteristic overcontrol or undercontrol may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on circumstances. Overcontrol may facilitate disciplined and directed behavior, which can be advantageous in some situations. In other contexts, where delaying gratification and pleasure is unwarranted or psychologically undesirable, overcontrol is likely to be detrimental to personal and often societal fruition.
In parallel, undercontrol can facilitate the expression of warmth, friendliness, and spontaneity, which are likely to be advantageous in promoting intimacy and the enjoyment of life. However, undercontrol can be maladaptive when it leads to erratic, unorganized, or dangerous behavior.
1.2. Ego-resiliency
According to the Blocks_ theorizing, ego-resiliency is the ability to adapt one_s level of control temporarily up or down as circumstances dictate (Block, 2002; Block & Block, 1980). As a result of this adaptive flexibility, individuals with a high level of resiliency are more likely to experience positive affect, and have higher levels of selfconfidence and better psychological adjustment than individuals with a low level of resiliency (Block & Kremen, 1996; Klohnen, 1996). When confronted by stressful circumstances, individuals with a low level of resiliency may act in a stiff and perseverative manner or chaotically and diffusely, and in either case, the resulting behavior is likely to be maladaptive (Block & Kremen, 1996).
Ego-control and ego-resiliency: Generalization
of self-report scales based on personality
descriptions from acquaintances,
clinicians, and the self
2004
Tera D. Letzringa,*, Jack Blockb, David C. Fundera
a Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, USA
b University of California, Berkeley, USA
Abstract
Ego-control refers to the inhibition/expression of impulse and ego-resiliency (ER) to the dynamic capacity to contextually modify one_s level of ego-control in response to situational affordances (Block, J., 1950, 2002; Block, J.H., 1951; Block & Block, 1980).
...
1. Introduction
Ego-control (EC) and ego-resiliency (ER) are conceptualized as central personality constructs for understanding motivation, emotion, and behavior (Block, J., 1950, 2002; Block, J.H., 1951; Block & Block, 1980). Broadly conceived and summarily characterized, EC refers to a meta-dimension of impulse inhibition/expression and ER refers to a meta-dimension of the dynamic capacity to contextually modify one’s level of control in response to situational demands and affordances.
Overcontrolled individuals characteristically contain impulse and affect across situations, even when
doing so may not be necessary. On the other hand, undercontrolled individuals characteristically express impulse and affect across situations, even when doing so may be inappropriate. Highly ego-resilient individuals are characteristically able to modify their level of control, either up or down, as may be appropriate or necessary according to the situational context. Individuals with a low level of ego-resiliency are more restricted to the same level of impulse containment or expression regardless of situational demands.
1.1. Ego-control
According to theory developed by Jack and Jeanne Block over several decades, the individual difference dimension of ego-control varies from overcontrol to undercontrol (Block, 2002; Block & Block, 1980). Overcontrolled individuals are conceptualized as relatively inhibited in action and affect-expressiveness to the point of at times being excessively constrained. They have difficulty making decisions, may unnecessarily delay gratification or deny themselves pleasure, are tightly organized,
are insulated from environmental distractions, and are able to continue even repetitive tasks for long periods of time.
At the other extreme, undercontrolled individuals characteristically express affect and impulses relatively immediately and directly even when doing so may be socially or personally inappropriate. They are relatively unable to delay gratification, have fluctuating emotions, and are spontaneous, easily distracted, and relatively unbound by social customs (Block, 2002; Funder & Block, 1989).
The consequences of characteristic overcontrol or undercontrol may be adaptive or maladaptive depending on circumstances. Overcontrol may facilitate disciplined and directed behavior, which can be advantageous in some situations. In other contexts, where delaying gratification and pleasure is unwarranted or psychologically undesirable, overcontrol is likely to be detrimental to personal and often societal fruition.
In parallel, undercontrol can facilitate the expression of warmth, friendliness, and spontaneity, which are likely to be advantageous in promoting intimacy and the enjoyment of life. However, undercontrol can be maladaptive when it leads to erratic, unorganized, or dangerous behavior.
1.2. Ego-resiliency
According to the Blocks_ theorizing, ego-resiliency is the ability to adapt one_s level of control temporarily up or down as circumstances dictate (Block, 2002; Block & Block, 1980). As a result of this adaptive flexibility, individuals with a high level of resiliency are more likely to experience positive affect, and have higher levels of selfconfidence and better psychological adjustment than individuals with a low level of resiliency (Block & Kremen, 1996; Klohnen, 1996). When confronted by stressful circumstances, individuals with a low level of resiliency may act in a stiff and perseverative manner or chaotically and diffusely, and in either case, the resulting behavior is likely to be maladaptive (Block & Kremen, 1996).
3 Şubat 2012 Cuma
How to Regulate Emotions
The crux of this article from the point of daily application is:
“ Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an emotional stimulus”.
You can find how this is done:
1- One page outline made of quotations from the original article
2- 4 Pages of my notes made of quotations from the original article
3- Original article itself.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex
Amit Etkin1,2, Tobias Egner3 and Raffael Kalisch4
In summary, the pattern of anatomical connectivity supports an important role for the sgACC, pgACC and adACC in interacting with the limbic system, including its effector regions, and for the adACC and pdACC in communicating with other dorsal and lateral frontal areas that are important for top-down forms of regulation [72].
Fear conditioning and extinction in humans
Thus, the dorsal ACC and mPFC seem to function generally in the appraisal and expression of fear or anxiety.
To elucidate how fear is regulated, we next discuss activations associated with extinction of learned fear. In extinction, the CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of reinforcement, leading to the formation of a CS(conditioned stimulus)–no US(unconditioned stimulus) association (or extinction memory) that competes with the original fear memory for control over behavior [28–30]. Hence, extinction induces conflicting appraisals of, and response tendencies to, the CS because it now signals both threat and safety, a situation that requires regulation, as outlined above.
Emotional conflict regulation
The circuitry we find to be specific for regulation of emotional conflict (ventral ACC and mPFC and amygdala) is very similar to that involved in extinction.
Top-down control of emotion
During emotional conflict regulation, emotional processing is spontaneously modulated in the absence of an explicit instruction to regulate emotion. Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an
emotional stimulus. The best-studied strategy for the latter type of regulation is reappraisal, a cognitive technique whereby appraisal of a stimulus is modified to change its ability to elicit an emotional reaction [42]. Reappraisal involves both the initial emotional appraisal process and
the reappraisal process proper, whereby an additional positive appraisal is created that competes with the initial negative emotional appraisal.
These data suggest that controlled top-down regulation, like emotional conflict regulation, uses ventral ACC and mPFC areas to inhibit negative emotional processing in the amygdala, thus dampening task interference.
The ventral ACC and mPFC might thus perform a generic negative emotion inhibitory function that can be recruited by other regions (e.g. dorsal ACC and mPFC and lateral PFC) when there is a need to suppress limbic reactivity [10].
22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222
Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex
Amit Etkin1,2, Tobias Egner3 and Raffael Kalisch4
1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2 Sierra Pacific Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA
3 Department of Psychology & Neuroscience and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
4 Institute for Systems Neuroscience and NeuroImage Nord, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany
Negative emotional stimuli activate a broad network of brain regions, including the medial prefrontal (mPFC) and anterior cingulate (ACC) cortices. An early influential view dichotomized these regions into dorsal–caudal cognitive and ventral–rostral affective subdivisions. In this review, we examine a wealth of recent research on negative emotions in animals and humans, using the example of fear or anxiety, and conclude that, contrary to the traditional dichotomy, both subdivisions make key
contributions to emotional processing. Specifically, dorsal– caudal regions of the ACC and mPFC are involved in appraisal and expression of negative emotion, whereas ventral–rostral portions of the ACC and mPFC have a regulatory role with respect to limbic regions involved in generating emotional responses. Moreover, this new framework is broadly consistent with emerging data on other negative and positive emotions.
...
Glossary
Appraisal: evaluation of the meaning of an internal or external stimulus to the organism. Only stimuli that are appraised as motivationally significant will induce an emotional reaction, and the magnitude, duration and quality of the emotional reaction are a direct result of the appraisal process. Moreover,
appraisal can be automatic and focus on basic affective stimulus dimensions such as novelty, valence or value, or expectation discrepancy, or may be slower and sometimes even require controlled conscious processing, which permits a more sophisticated context-dependent analysis.
Fear conditioning: learning paradigm in which a previously neutral stimulus, termed the conditioned stimulus (CS), is temporally paired with a non-learned aversive stimulus, termed the unconditioned stimulus (US). After pairing, the CS predicts the US and hence elicits a conditioned response (CR). For example, pairing of a tone with a foot shock results in elicitation of fear behavior during
subsequent responses to a non-paired tone.
Extinction: learning process created by repeatedly presenting a CS without pairing with an US (i.e. teaching the animal that the CS no longer predicts the US) after fear conditioning has been established. This results in formation of an extinction memory, which inhibits expression of, but does not erase, the original fear memory.
Reappraisal: specific method for explicit emotion regulation whereby a conscious deliberate effort is engaged to alter the meaning (appraisal) of an emotional stimulus. For example, a picture of a woman crying can be reappraised from a negative meaning to a positive one by favoring an
interpretation that she is crying tears of joy.
Regulation: general process by which conflicting appraisals and response tendencies are arbitrated between to allow selection of a course of action. Typically, regulation is thought to have an element of inhibition and/or enhancement for managing competing appraisals and response tendencies.
...
Box 1. Anatomy of the ACC and mPFC
...
In summary, the pattern of anatomical connectivity supports an important role for the sgACC, pgACC and adACC in interacting with the limbic system, including its effector regions, and for the adACC and pdACC in communicating with other dorsal and lateral frontal areas that are important for top-down forms of regulation [72].
...
Fear conditioning and extinction in humans
The paradigms used in the acquisition and extinction of learned fear are particularly valuable for isolating the neural substrates of fear processing because the anticipatory fear or anxiety triggered by the previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) can be dissociated from the reaction to the aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) per se. This is not possible in studies that, for example, use
aversive images to evoke emotional responses. Furthermore, comparison between fear conditioning and fear extinction facilitates an initial coarse distinction between regions associated with either the appraisal of fear-relevant stimuli and generation of fear responses (fear conditioning), for the inhibitory regulation of these processes (extinction).
...
sympathetic nervous system activity correlates positively primarily with dorsal ACC and mPFC regions and negatively primarily with ventral ACC and mPFC regions, which supports a role for the dorsal ACC and mPFC in fear expression (c).
...
These processes are intermixed with, and supported by, learning processes, namely, acquisition, consolidation and storage of a fear memory (CS–US association), and retrieval of the fear memory on subsequent CS presentations.
...
Thus, the dorsal ACC and mPFC seem to function generally in the appraisal and expression of fear or anxiety.
...
To elucidate how fear is regulated, we next discuss activations associated with extinction of learned fear. In extinction, the CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of reinforcement, leading to the formation of a CS–no US association (or extinction memory) that competes with the original fear memory for control over behavior [28–30]. Hence, extinction induces conflicting appraisals of, and response tendencies to, the CS because it now signals both threat and safety, a situation that requires regulation, as outlined above.
...
Emotional conflict regulation
...
The circuitry we find to be specific for regulation of emotional conflict (ventral ACC and mPFC and amygdala) is very similar to that involved in extinction. ... Much like the relationship between improved emotional conflict regulation and decreased conflict evaluation-related activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC, more successful extinction is associated with decreased CS-driven activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC of humans and rodents [40,41]. Thus, the most parsimonious explanation for these data is that emotional conflict evaluation-related functions involve overlapping neural mechanisms with appraisal and expression of fear, and that regulation of emotional conflict also involves circuitry that overlaps with fear extinction.
...
Top-down control of emotion
During emotional conflict regulation, emotional processing is spontaneously modulated in the absence of an explicit instruction to regulate emotion. Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an
emotional stimulus. The best-studied strategy for the latter type of regulation is reappraisal, a cognitive technique whereby appraisal of a stimulus is modified to change its ability to elicit an emotional reaction [42]. Reappraisal involves both the initial emotional appraisal process and
the reappraisal process proper, whereby an additional positive appraisal is created that competes with the initial negative emotional appraisal. Thus, we would expect reappraisal to involve the dorsal ACC and mPFC regions that we observed to be important for emotional conflict detection (Figure 2a). Consistent with this prediction, a meta-analysis found that reappraisal was reliably associated with activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC (Figure 2b) [43].
This reappraisal meta-analysis, interestingly, did not implicate a consistent role for the ventral ACC and mPFC [43], which suggests that reappraisal does not primarily work by suppressing the processing of an undesired emotional stimulus. Nevertheless, activity in the ventral ACC and mPFC in some instances is negatively correlated with activity in the amygdala in paradigms in which reappraisal resulted in downregulation of amygdalar activity in response to negative pictures [44,45]. ...
These data suggest that controlled top-down regulation, like emotional conflict regulation, uses ventral ACC and mPFC areas to inhibit negative emotional processing in the amygdala, thus dampening task interference. The ventral ACC and mPFC might thus perform a generic negative emotion inhibitory function that can be recruited by other regions (e.g. dorsal ACC and mPFC and lateral PFC) when there is a need to suppress limbic reactivity [10]. This would be a prime example of parsimonious use of a basic emotional circuitry, conserved between rodents and humans (Box 2), for the purpose of higher-level cognitive functions possible only in humans.
...
Amygdala–ACC and –mPFC functional connectivity
...
In addition, during regulation tasks, connectivity was restricted to the ventral ACC and mPFC and was primarily negative (Figure 2d). These data thus lend further support to our proposal of a dorso–ventral separation in terms of negative emotion generation (appraisal and expression) and inhibition (regulation).
...
Integration with other perspectives on ACC and mPFC function and other emotions
Although less developed than the literature on fear and anxiety, studies on other emotions are broadly consistent with our formulation of ACC and mPFC function. On the negative emotion appraisal and expression side, direct experience of pain, or empathy for others experiencing
pain, activates the dorsal ACC and mPFC [49], and lesions of the dACC also serve as treatment for chronic pain [50]. Similarly, increased sensitivity to a range of negative emotions is associated with greater engagement of the dorsal ACC and mPFC, including disgust [51] and rejection [52], and transcranial-magnetic-stimulation-induced disruption of the dmPFC interferes with anger processing [53]. Uncertainty or ambiguity, which can induce anxiety and relates to emotional conflict, leads to activation in the dACC and dmPFC [54].
...
Positive emotion, which can serve to regulate and diminish negative emotion, has been associated in a metaanalysis with activation in the sgACC, vmPFC and pgACC [58]. Extinction of appetitive learning activates the vmPFC [59], much as extinction of learned fear does. The evaluation of positive stimuli and reward is more complicated. For instance, Rushworth and co-workers proposed that the processes carried out by the adACC are mirrored by similar contributions to reinforcement-guided decision-making from the orbitofrontal cortex, with the distinction that the adACC is concerned with computing reinforcement value of actions whereas the orbitofrontal cortex is concerned with gauging the reinforcement values of stimuli [60].
Taken together, these data broadly support our dorsal–ventral distinction along appraisal–expression versus regulation lines, with respect specifically to negative emotion.
...
“ Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an emotional stimulus”.
You can find how this is done:
1- One page outline made of quotations from the original article
2- 4 Pages of my notes made of quotations from the original article
3- Original article itself.
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Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex
Amit Etkin1,2, Tobias Egner3 and Raffael Kalisch4
In summary, the pattern of anatomical connectivity supports an important role for the sgACC, pgACC and adACC in interacting with the limbic system, including its effector regions, and for the adACC and pdACC in communicating with other dorsal and lateral frontal areas that are important for top-down forms of regulation [72].
Fear conditioning and extinction in humans
Thus, the dorsal ACC and mPFC seem to function generally in the appraisal and expression of fear or anxiety.
To elucidate how fear is regulated, we next discuss activations associated with extinction of learned fear. In extinction, the CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of reinforcement, leading to the formation of a CS(conditioned stimulus)–no US(unconditioned stimulus) association (or extinction memory) that competes with the original fear memory for control over behavior [28–30]. Hence, extinction induces conflicting appraisals of, and response tendencies to, the CS because it now signals both threat and safety, a situation that requires regulation, as outlined above.
Emotional conflict regulation
The circuitry we find to be specific for regulation of emotional conflict (ventral ACC and mPFC and amygdala) is very similar to that involved in extinction.
Top-down control of emotion
During emotional conflict regulation, emotional processing is spontaneously modulated in the absence of an explicit instruction to regulate emotion. Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an
emotional stimulus. The best-studied strategy for the latter type of regulation is reappraisal, a cognitive technique whereby appraisal of a stimulus is modified to change its ability to elicit an emotional reaction [42]. Reappraisal involves both the initial emotional appraisal process and
the reappraisal process proper, whereby an additional positive appraisal is created that competes with the initial negative emotional appraisal.
These data suggest that controlled top-down regulation, like emotional conflict regulation, uses ventral ACC and mPFC areas to inhibit negative emotional processing in the amygdala, thus dampening task interference.
The ventral ACC and mPFC might thus perform a generic negative emotion inhibitory function that can be recruited by other regions (e.g. dorsal ACC and mPFC and lateral PFC) when there is a need to suppress limbic reactivity [10].
22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222
Emotional processing in anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex
Amit Etkin1,2, Tobias Egner3 and Raffael Kalisch4
1 Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
2 Sierra Pacific Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System, Palo Alto, CA, USA
3 Department of Psychology & Neuroscience and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
4 Institute for Systems Neuroscience and NeuroImage Nord, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), Hamburg, Germany
Negative emotional stimuli activate a broad network of brain regions, including the medial prefrontal (mPFC) and anterior cingulate (ACC) cortices. An early influential view dichotomized these regions into dorsal–caudal cognitive and ventral–rostral affective subdivisions. In this review, we examine a wealth of recent research on negative emotions in animals and humans, using the example of fear or anxiety, and conclude that, contrary to the traditional dichotomy, both subdivisions make key
contributions to emotional processing. Specifically, dorsal– caudal regions of the ACC and mPFC are involved in appraisal and expression of negative emotion, whereas ventral–rostral portions of the ACC and mPFC have a regulatory role with respect to limbic regions involved in generating emotional responses. Moreover, this new framework is broadly consistent with emerging data on other negative and positive emotions.
...
Glossary
Appraisal: evaluation of the meaning of an internal or external stimulus to the organism. Only stimuli that are appraised as motivationally significant will induce an emotional reaction, and the magnitude, duration and quality of the emotional reaction are a direct result of the appraisal process. Moreover,
appraisal can be automatic and focus on basic affective stimulus dimensions such as novelty, valence or value, or expectation discrepancy, or may be slower and sometimes even require controlled conscious processing, which permits a more sophisticated context-dependent analysis.
Fear conditioning: learning paradigm in which a previously neutral stimulus, termed the conditioned stimulus (CS), is temporally paired with a non-learned aversive stimulus, termed the unconditioned stimulus (US). After pairing, the CS predicts the US and hence elicits a conditioned response (CR). For example, pairing of a tone with a foot shock results in elicitation of fear behavior during
subsequent responses to a non-paired tone.
Extinction: learning process created by repeatedly presenting a CS without pairing with an US (i.e. teaching the animal that the CS no longer predicts the US) after fear conditioning has been established. This results in formation of an extinction memory, which inhibits expression of, but does not erase, the original fear memory.
Reappraisal: specific method for explicit emotion regulation whereby a conscious deliberate effort is engaged to alter the meaning (appraisal) of an emotional stimulus. For example, a picture of a woman crying can be reappraised from a negative meaning to a positive one by favoring an
interpretation that she is crying tears of joy.
Regulation: general process by which conflicting appraisals and response tendencies are arbitrated between to allow selection of a course of action. Typically, regulation is thought to have an element of inhibition and/or enhancement for managing competing appraisals and response tendencies.
...
Box 1. Anatomy of the ACC and mPFC
...
In summary, the pattern of anatomical connectivity supports an important role for the sgACC, pgACC and adACC in interacting with the limbic system, including its effector regions, and for the adACC and pdACC in communicating with other dorsal and lateral frontal areas that are important for top-down forms of regulation [72].
...
Fear conditioning and extinction in humans
The paradigms used in the acquisition and extinction of learned fear are particularly valuable for isolating the neural substrates of fear processing because the anticipatory fear or anxiety triggered by the previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS) can be dissociated from the reaction to the aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) per se. This is not possible in studies that, for example, use
aversive images to evoke emotional responses. Furthermore, comparison between fear conditioning and fear extinction facilitates an initial coarse distinction between regions associated with either the appraisal of fear-relevant stimuli and generation of fear responses (fear conditioning), for the inhibitory regulation of these processes (extinction).
...
sympathetic nervous system activity correlates positively primarily with dorsal ACC and mPFC regions and negatively primarily with ventral ACC and mPFC regions, which supports a role for the dorsal ACC and mPFC in fear expression (c).
...
These processes are intermixed with, and supported by, learning processes, namely, acquisition, consolidation and storage of a fear memory (CS–US association), and retrieval of the fear memory on subsequent CS presentations.
...
Thus, the dorsal ACC and mPFC seem to function generally in the appraisal and expression of fear or anxiety.
...
To elucidate how fear is regulated, we next discuss activations associated with extinction of learned fear. In extinction, the CS is repeatedly presented in the absence of reinforcement, leading to the formation of a CS–no US association (or extinction memory) that competes with the original fear memory for control over behavior [28–30]. Hence, extinction induces conflicting appraisals of, and response tendencies to, the CS because it now signals both threat and safety, a situation that requires regulation, as outlined above.
...
Emotional conflict regulation
...
The circuitry we find to be specific for regulation of emotional conflict (ventral ACC and mPFC and amygdala) is very similar to that involved in extinction. ... Much like the relationship between improved emotional conflict regulation and decreased conflict evaluation-related activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC, more successful extinction is associated with decreased CS-driven activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC of humans and rodents [40,41]. Thus, the most parsimonious explanation for these data is that emotional conflict evaluation-related functions involve overlapping neural mechanisms with appraisal and expression of fear, and that regulation of emotional conflict also involves circuitry that overlaps with fear extinction.
...
Top-down control of emotion
During emotional conflict regulation, emotional processing is spontaneously modulated in the absence of an explicit instruction to regulate emotion. Emotional processing can also be modulated through deliberate and conscious application of top-down executive control over processing of an
emotional stimulus. The best-studied strategy for the latter type of regulation is reappraisal, a cognitive technique whereby appraisal of a stimulus is modified to change its ability to elicit an emotional reaction [42]. Reappraisal involves both the initial emotional appraisal process and
the reappraisal process proper, whereby an additional positive appraisal is created that competes with the initial negative emotional appraisal. Thus, we would expect reappraisal to involve the dorsal ACC and mPFC regions that we observed to be important for emotional conflict detection (Figure 2a). Consistent with this prediction, a meta-analysis found that reappraisal was reliably associated with activation in the dorsal ACC and mPFC (Figure 2b) [43].
This reappraisal meta-analysis, interestingly, did not implicate a consistent role for the ventral ACC and mPFC [43], which suggests that reappraisal does not primarily work by suppressing the processing of an undesired emotional stimulus. Nevertheless, activity in the ventral ACC and mPFC in some instances is negatively correlated with activity in the amygdala in paradigms in which reappraisal resulted in downregulation of amygdalar activity in response to negative pictures [44,45]. ...
These data suggest that controlled top-down regulation, like emotional conflict regulation, uses ventral ACC and mPFC areas to inhibit negative emotional processing in the amygdala, thus dampening task interference. The ventral ACC and mPFC might thus perform a generic negative emotion inhibitory function that can be recruited by other regions (e.g. dorsal ACC and mPFC and lateral PFC) when there is a need to suppress limbic reactivity [10]. This would be a prime example of parsimonious use of a basic emotional circuitry, conserved between rodents and humans (Box 2), for the purpose of higher-level cognitive functions possible only in humans.
...
Amygdala–ACC and –mPFC functional connectivity
...
In addition, during regulation tasks, connectivity was restricted to the ventral ACC and mPFC and was primarily negative (Figure 2d). These data thus lend further support to our proposal of a dorso–ventral separation in terms of negative emotion generation (appraisal and expression) and inhibition (regulation).
...
Integration with other perspectives on ACC and mPFC function and other emotions
Although less developed than the literature on fear and anxiety, studies on other emotions are broadly consistent with our formulation of ACC and mPFC function. On the negative emotion appraisal and expression side, direct experience of pain, or empathy for others experiencing
pain, activates the dorsal ACC and mPFC [49], and lesions of the dACC also serve as treatment for chronic pain [50]. Similarly, increased sensitivity to a range of negative emotions is associated with greater engagement of the dorsal ACC and mPFC, including disgust [51] and rejection [52], and transcranial-magnetic-stimulation-induced disruption of the dmPFC interferes with anger processing [53]. Uncertainty or ambiguity, which can induce anxiety and relates to emotional conflict, leads to activation in the dACC and dmPFC [54].
...
Positive emotion, which can serve to regulate and diminish negative emotion, has been associated in a metaanalysis with activation in the sgACC, vmPFC and pgACC [58]. Extinction of appetitive learning activates the vmPFC [59], much as extinction of learned fear does. The evaluation of positive stimuli and reward is more complicated. For instance, Rushworth and co-workers proposed that the processes carried out by the adACC are mirrored by similar contributions to reinforcement-guided decision-making from the orbitofrontal cortex, with the distinction that the adACC is concerned with computing reinforcement value of actions whereas the orbitofrontal cortex is concerned with gauging the reinforcement values of stimuli [60].
Taken together, these data broadly support our dorsal–ventral distinction along appraisal–expression versus regulation lines, with respect specifically to negative emotion.
...
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