Affect Consciousness Research Articles

Patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome respond to the pain cries of other people

Recent publications show that using imagery instructions, brain activation patterns indicating consciousness can be found in approximately 10% of patients with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome (UWS; previously called vegetative state). It is possible, however, that patients who cannot follow instructions (because of limited memory/attention capacities, for example) are nevertheless conscious and retain emotional abilities to feel pain and pleasure. The aim of this study was to assess residual affective consciousness in a specific network of brain structures, the so-called pain matrix (PM) of the brain. We examined 44 carefully diagnosed UWS patients at 2 imaging centers. fMRI was used to investigate the brain hemodynamic responses to (a) imagery instructions, and (b) pain cries as opposed to neutral human vocalizations. In line with the data of other groups, consistent responses to imagery instructions were obtained in 5 patients. In contrast, the PM was activated by pain cries in 24 patients. The PM consists of a sensory subsystem, which underlies pain sensation, and an affective subsystem, which underlies the characteristic aversive emotional tone of pain. The former was activated in 34% of patients, the latter in 30% of patients. Although there is debate about whether patients with UWS can perceive their own pain, our data indicate that many of them respond to the signals of pain in others. One can speculate that "affective consciousness" can remain even in patients with very severe brain damage who have no capacity for cognition.

Emotion in Eating Disorders

In contrast to the interest that has been shown in understanding and treatment of the behaviours, physical consequences and thoughts, emotions have been somewhat neglected. Perhaps, this neglect mirrors the emotional avoidance and attachment difficulties that are characteristic of people with eating disorders and that can distort introspection and self-report. Figure 1 is a schematic representation of the emotional brain based on Panksepp’s model (Panksepp, 2011) of three interacting processes. The primary process lies within the evolutionary oldest parts of the brain and represents the affective consciousness from sensory, homeostatic and emotional inputs. The secondary process involves learning and memory that contribute to emotional habits. Finally, there is the tertiary process of cognitive control. How does what we know about eating disorder fit within this model? I selectively look at the literature in order to set the scene for the papers in this edition that follow. Eating disorders may result from abnormal functioning in each of these three processes. First, there appears to be enhanced sensitivity to punishment in the primary process whereas the response to reward is attenuated in anorexia nervosa and exaggerated in bulimic disorders (Harrison, Treasure, & Smillie, 2011). Anxiety, internalising traits and threat sensitivity can emerge before the onset of the eating disorder (Adambegan et al., 2012) in particular social anxiety (Swinbourne et al., 2012). These traits are also seen in family members (Lilenfeld et al., 1998), which suggest that theymay in part be genetically or epigenetically determined. Anomalies in the secondary process may arise from particular experiences that account for how and why negative emotional reactions to food weight and social stimuli are learned (Treasure, Cardi and Kan, 2012; Treasure, Corfield, & Cardi, 2012). Many eating disorder behaviours represent cognitive control of the tertiary system. Functional differences in the dorsal cognitive system (dorsal caudate, hippocampus, parietal dorsolateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate) are present in both the ill and recovered state in anorexia nervosa (Wagner et al., 2007; Zastrow et al., 2009). These are associated with altered dopamine and serotonin function (Bailer & Kaye, 2011). In this edition, anomalies between the top down control and the experiential bottom level in eating disorders are described. Emotional inhibition suggestive of high levels of control are reported in anorexia nervosa (Claes et al., 2012; Davies, Swan,

Is low affect consciousness related to the severity of psychopathology? A cross-sectional study of patients with avoidant and borderline personality disorder

ObjectiveThis study examined the relationships between affect consciousness (AC) and symptom distress, interpersonal problems, low self-esteem, and the number of PD traits in patients with avoidant personality disorder (APD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD). MethodWithin the setting of a treatment trial, 52 patients with APD or BPD were examined with structured interviews and self-report questionnaires before treatment and at 3-year follow-up. The evaluations included the Affect Consciousness Interview, the SCID-II interview, the Symptom Checklist 90-R, the Circumplex of Interpersonal Problems, and the Index of Self-esteem. A low global level of AC was expected to be associated with the severity of psychopathology; a low AC for interest, joy, and tenderness was expected to be associated with social detachment; and a low AC for anger, contempt, and disgust was expected to be associated with nonassertiveness. ResultsA low AC was associated with interpersonal problems and low self-esteem, but not symptom distress or the number of fulfilled SCID-II criteria. Despite a significant reduction in the psychopathology based on most clinical variables, the associations measured at baseline were maintained after 3years. Examination of specific affect categories showed a pattern of convergent and discriminative relationships with different types of interpersonal problems. A low AC for pleasant affects was specifically related to communion problems, like cold, detached behavior, both at baseline and follow-up. In contrast, a low AC for self-boundary affects was specifically related to agency problems, like non-assertiveness, at follow-up. ConclusionOur results showed that a low AC was associated with central domains of psychopathology in patients with PDs. This suggested that AC would be an important focus for treatment and further research in PDs. Future studies are needed to examine how AC is related to various forms of personality pathology.

Affect Consciousness and Adult Attachment

The concept of affect consciousness refers to the ability to perceive, reflect upon, express and respond to one’s own or other individuals’ affective experiences. The aim of this study was to investigate how affect consciousness and adult attachment are related. Three clinical groups (eating disorders, relational problems, and stress-related problems), and one non-clinical group (total N = 82) completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire and were interviewed using the Affect Consciousness Interview—Self/Other. Results showed associations between high affect consciousness and secure attachment, and between low affect consciousness and insecure attachment. Moreover, attachment style was predicted by consciousness about others’ and own affects in general, and specifically by consciousness about others’ anger and guilt, and by own joy. Affect consciousness as a potential dimension or moderator of attachment merits further investigation.

Out of sight but not out of mind: Unseen affective faces influence evaluations and social impressions.

Using Continuous Flash Suppression (CFS), we demonstrated in four experiments that affective information extracted from unseen faces influences both affective and personality judgments of neutral faces. In four experiments, participants judged neutral faces as more pleasant or unpleasant (Studies 1 and 2) or as more or less trustworthy, likable, and attractive (Study 3) or as more or less competent or interpersonally warm (Study 4) when paired with unseen smiling or scowling faces compared to when paired with unseen neutral faces. These findings suggest that affective influences are a normal part of everyday experience and provide evidence for the affective foundations consciousness. Affective misattribution arises even when affective changes occur after a neutral stimulus is presented, demonstrating that these affective influences cannot be explained as a simple semantic priming effect. These findings have implications for understanding the constructive nature of experience, as well as the role of affect in social impressions.

Empathy, Connectedness and Organisation

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organising mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organisational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organise and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy enhances connectedness which results in sharing the quantum field of coherence where there is little separation between self and other. This means living beyond self-interest in a coherent world based upon interdependent wholeness rather than atomization and separation. Empathy allows us to find that state of coherent connectedness.

Assessment of Affect Integration: Validation of the Affect Consciousness Construct

Affect integration, or the capacity to utilize the motivational and signal properties of affect for personal adjustment, is assumed to be an important aspect of psychological health and functioning. Affect integration has been operationalized through the affect consciousness (AC) construct as degrees of awareness, tolerance, nonverbal expression, and conceptual expression of nine discrete affects. A semistructured Affect Consciousness Interview (ACI) and separate Affect Consciousness Scales (ACSs) have been developed to specifically assess these aspects of affect integration. This study explored the construct validity of AC in a Norwegian clinical sample including estimates of reliability and assessment of structure by factor analyses. External validity issues were addressed by examining the relationships between scores on the ACSs and self-rated symptom- and interpersonal problem measures as well as independent, observer-based ratings of personality disorder criteria and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM–IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994).

Affect consciousness and eating disorders. Short term stability and subgroup characteristics

The aim of the study was to analyse differences in observer rated affect consciousness (AC) between subgroups of patients diagnosed with eating disorders (N = 44; 30 with anorexia nervosa and 14 with bulimia nervosa), and a non-clinical group (N = 40). Another aim was to study the short-term stability of AC over 10-11 weeks of treatment and its relation to self-reported eating pathology and general psychopathology. A moderate short-term stability of AC was found but the levels were not correlated with eating pathology or psychopathology. No differences between the two diagnostic categories were found, but the eating disorder group as whole had significantly lower AC compared with a non-eating disorder reference group. AC seems to be a moderately stable ability that differentiates patients diagnosed with eating disorders from a non-clinical population. However, AC is not related to symptoms of eating disorder or general psychiatric symptoms in this group of patients.

EMPATHY, CONNECTEDNESS AND ORGANIZATION

In this paper, we conceptually explore the role of empathy as a connectedness organizing mechanism. We expand ideas underlying positive organizational scholarship and examine leading-edge studies from neuroscience and quantum physics that give support to our claims. The perspective we propose has profound implications regarding how we organize and how we manage. First, we argue that empathy enhances connectedness through the unconscious sharing of neuro-pathways that dissolves the barriers between self and other. This sharing encourages the integration of affective and cognitive consciousness which facilitates the ability to find common ground for solution-building. Second, empathy enhances connectedness through altruistic action. In giving to others, feelings of joy and harmony are activated. This in turn allows personal freedom to be enriched and transcendence from the rational ego-self is reduced to develop a more expansive, integrated and enlightened state underlying connectedness. Finally, empathy en...

Affective consciousness in animals: perspectives on dimensional and primary process emotion approaches

Behaviourists have long neglected experiential states in animals because of inadequate experimental approaches. As [Tinbergen (1951)][1] highlighted in his classic Study of Instinct (1951, p. 4): ‘Because subjective phenomena cannot be observed objectively in animals, it is idle to claim or deny

BOOK REVIEW: "Emotion and Consciousness" by Lisa Feldman Barrett, Paula Niedenthal and Piotr Winkielman

This compendium provides a timely and excellent summary of current theories and supporting data regarding the relationship between emotion and focusing in particular on the issue of which components of affective processing can be unconscious. A number of prominent emotion researchers have contributed chapters, addressing emotions from both psychological (cognitive, social, animal behaviorist) and neuroscience perspectives. The introduction provides a good integrative summary of the individual chapters, and introduces the three questions posed to all of the contributors, regarding definitions of consciousness, awareness, and the extent to which each theory presented addresses the issue of conscious versus unconscious emotions. These questions help provide a more integrated treatment of the subject than is frequently seen in similar compendia. In addition, the individual contributors often provide extensive references to other chapters, which further contributes to a more cohesive treatment of the subject. In this review I provide a brief summary of the individual chapters, and then discuss several recurring themes; specifically: embodied emotions, the issue of reification of emotion and its consequences, the relationship between affective processes and consciousness; and an assessment of the book's usefulness for computational modeling of emotion and consciousness.

Remembering Home: Rediscovering the Self in Dementiaby Habib Chaudhury. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, 144 pp., $40.00.

Remembering Home: Rediscovering the Self in Dementiaby Habib Chaudhury. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008, 144 pp., $40.00.

PSYCHOPATHY AND A MODEL FOR DISTURBED AFFECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS

This article deals with the interaction of emotion and consciousness. It focuses on the perception of fearful stimuli and how such a perception can have implications for psychopathy. Amygdala has been found to be lesioned in the disorder and this compromise of integrity leads to deficits in fear perception, moral socialization and curtailing of aggression. This in turn leads to deficits in adaptive behavior as amygdala is responsible for influencing motor and perceptual responses in response to a fearful stimulus. Amygdala also plays an important role in bringing a fearful stimulus, detected at the attentional periphery, to the focus of attention and awareness so that it can receive enhanced processing which is found to be deficient in psychopathy. This role is supported by its connectivity to different cortical and subcortical areas. Hence this article provides an emphasis on the disturbed affective consciousness of psychopathy and its role in adaptive behavior deficits.

Consciousness about own and others’ affects: A study of the validity of a revised version of the Affect Consciousness Interview

This study presents a modified version of the affect consciousness interview (Monsen, Eilertsen, Melgård & Odegård, 1996), intended to capture the individual's affective consciousness. The aim of the modified version - The Affect Consciousness Interview - Revised (ACI-R) - is to measure consciousness about own and others' affects. Three groups of patients (with eating disorder, relational and social problems or stress-related problems), and one non-clinical group were included in the study (N= 95). The results indicated that it was possible to achieve adequate interrater reliability, that the scores correlated meaningfully with other measures of mental functioning, and that the interview discriminated between different clinical groups and non-clinical participants. In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that the ACI-R is a promising instrument and that it should be explored further in order to study the organization of self-experiences and the ability to be emotionally present in interactions with others.

The framework for disturbed affective consciousness in autism

The current article explores the implication of the interaction of emotion and consciousness for autism. The framework that is proposed for the disorder explains that the compromised functional integrity of the amygdala is the root cause of disturbed affective consciousness. Amygdala, with its connections to various cortical and subcortical regions, helps detect a fearful facial expression at the attentional periphery and make it the focus of attention and awareness for enhanced processing. The conscious life of autistics with respect to affective objects can thus be very different from that of normal people, which leads them to perceive the world differently. They process fearful stimuli the way normal controls perceive common objects by activating areas responsible for feature based analysis rather than the amygdala and other connected areas. Conscious perception of such stimuli is important for appropriate development of emotion concepts, something that autistics lack, thus leading to impairment in the awareness of one's own emotions especially within the negative spectrum with a prominent position for fearful stimuli. Thus the interaction of emotion with consciousness is ripe for investigation and can help to throw light on the mental life of autistics.

Consciousness and the social mind

Phenomenal consciousness and social cognition are interlocking capacities, but the relations between them have yet to be systematically investigated. In this paper, I begin to develop a theoretical and empirical framework for such an investigation. I begin by describing the phenomenon known as social pain: the affect associated with the perception of actual or potential damage to one’s interpersonal relations. I then adduce a related phenomenon known as affective contagion: the tendency for emotions, moods, and other affective states to spread from person to person in social contexts. Experimental studies of these two phenomena suggest that affective consciousness depends on perception of the social world in much the same way that it depends on perception of the body – in short, that consciousness is ‘socially embodied’. In the second part of the paper I argue that the distinctive sociality of our species, especially its moral dimension, rests heavily on our ability to represent the conscious states of others. In closing, I put these ideas together and show how they point to a circular causal-mechanistic nexus between consciousness and social mindedness.

Raw feeling: A model for affective consciousness

Seeking to unlock the secrets of consciousness, neuroscientists have been studying neural correlates of sensory awareness, such as meaningless randomly moving dots. But in the natural world of species' survival, “raw feelings” mediate conscious adaptive responses. Merker connects the brainstem with vigilance, orientating, and emotional consciousness. However, depending on the brain's phylogenetic level, raw feeling takes particular forms.

The Neuroscience of Pleasure. Focus on “Ventral Pallidum Firing Codes Hedonic Reward: When a Bad Taste Turns Good”

For more than 2,000 years, philosophers have struggled to define, let alone explain, pleasure or hedonics. With contemporary animal models and techniques, scientists now have the ability to provide a comprehensive description of this affective state by examining its neural underpinnings. In this issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology (p. 2399 –2409), Tindell and colleagues use an elegant, reductionist approach to take a profound step in defining these neural foundations (Tindell 2006). The authors control for various elements of reward that historically have confounded researchers ambitious enough to attempt to study such an intangible topic. Specifically, Tindell and colleagues establish a role for ventral pallidum (VP) neurons in encoding hedonics. The authors infused an unpalatable concentration of saline into the oral cavities of rats while recording the extracellular electrophysiological activity of single VP neurons. Aversive orofacial reactions to the unpalatable taste were simultaneously measured. Three days later, rats were made sodium deplete and retested. In a sodium-depleted state, these rats now exhibited a behavioral switch from aversive taste reactivity to appetitive taste reactivity coincident with increased VP activity to the infusion of saline (similar to responses for a palatable sucrose solution). The clever implicit controls indicate that the altered electrophysiological activity encodes a hedonic shift rather than alterations in motivated behavior or sensory coding.

Affect consciousness or mentalization? A comparison of two concepts with regard to affect development and affect regulation

Affect consciousness refers to the ability to adequately perceive, reflect upon and express affect. The concept is used in clinical work with adults, but lacks an equivalent for children's experience of affect. This paper examines the developmental prerequisites for affect consciousness, as well as the concept's applicability to work with children. The main focus is on the development of affect regulation throughout the first 6 years of life. Special emphasis is put on the role of attachment and the unfolding of mentalization ability in this development. The role of play as an organizing factor for affective experience is discussed. Observation of play is highlighted as a strong indicator of affect consciousness in children.

Panksepp’s common sense view of affective neuroscience is not the commonsense view in large areas of neuroscience

Jaak Panksepp’s article ‘Affective Consciousness: Core Emotional Feelings in Animals and Humans’ is a excellent review and summary by a leading empirical contributor whose work for many years has been running counter to reigning behavioristic premises in neuroscience. It may unfortunately be true that he could not get this review published in many neuroscience journals because it attacks too many sacred (behavioristic) cows. Panksepp has given readers of Consciousness and Cognition a nicely condensed summary of much of his classic 1998 textbook, Affective Neuroscience. I’m reasonably confident that future neuroscience students will look on that textbook as one of the seminal publications on the subject of emotion and the brain, much as we might now look back on Luria’s Higher Cortical Functions in Man, or Paul MacLean’s classic work, The Triune Brain. There is probably little that I can add to his elegant presentation of the basic affective neuroscience findings, but I would like to highlight a few key issues for the reader.