Abstract
The self is a multifaceted phenomenon that integrates information and experience across multiple time scales. How temporal integration on the psychological level of the self is related to temporal integration on the neuronal level remains unclear. To investigate temporal integration on the psychological level, we modified a well‐established self‐matching paradigm by inserting temporal delays. On the neuronal level, we indexed temporal integration in resting‐state EEG by two related measures of scale‐free dynamics, the power law exponent and autocorrelation window. We hypothesized that the previously established self‐prioritization effect, measured as decreased response times or increased accuracy for self‐related stimuli, would change with the insertion of different temporal delays between the paired stimuli, and that these changes would be related to temporal integration on the neuronal level. We found a significant self‐prioritization effect on accuracy in all conditions with delays, indicating stronger temporal integration of self‐related stimuli. Further, we observed a relationship between temporal integration on psychological and neuronal levels: higher degrees of neuronal integration, that is, higher power‐law exponent and longer autocorrelation window, during resting‐state EEG were related to a stronger increase in the self‐prioritization effect across longer temporal delays. We conclude that temporal integration on the neuronal level serves as a template for temporal integration of the self on the psychological level. Temporal integration can thus be conceived as the “common currency” of neuronal and psychological levels of self.
Highlights
| INTRODUCTIONThe “self” is a complex and multifaceted concept which includes a strong temporal dimension (Ersner-Hershfield, Garton, Ballard, Samanez-Larkin, & Knutson, 2009; Ersner-Hershfield, Wimmer, & Knutson, 2008; Northoff, 2017; Wolff et al, 2019)
To test whether the self-prioritization effect (SPE) on accuracy and reaction time (RT) separately changed with the delays, we looked at the interaction effect of the Self and Delay variables in the logistic mixed effects regression model (LogMM) and linear mixed effects regression model (LMM), respectively
We found that one participant was an outlier in both perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) autocorrelation window (ACW) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) ACW, her data are excluded from the results presented in regions of interest (ROIs) PCC pACC Visual cortex Motor cortex Somatosensory cortex
Summary
The “self” is a complex and multifaceted concept which includes a strong temporal dimension (Ersner-Hershfield, Garton, Ballard, Samanez-Larkin, & Knutson, 2009; Ersner-Hershfield, Wimmer, & Knutson, 2008; Northoff, 2017; Wolff et al, 2019). In recent theoretical work it has been proposed that interindividual differences in self-related resting-state activity related are crucial for explaining individual differences in behavioral outcomes (Scalabrini et al, 2018) Based on this and previous empirical research (Huang et al, 2016; Wolff et al, 2019), we hypothesized that interindividual variation in resting-state ACW and PLE in midline regions like pACC and PCC is related to interindividual variation in changes of the SPE over the different temporal delays. We hypothesized that higher degrees of temporal integration on the neuronal level, that is, higher PLE and longer ACW, are related to larger SPEs over the longer temporal delays We hypothesized that this relationship is not related to cognitive function, that is, working memory and learning effects
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