Emotion-cognition Interactions Research Articles

Cognition and Emotion in Extreme Political Action: Individual Differences and Dynamic Interactions

Who is most likely to join and engage in extreme political action? Although traditional theories have focused on situational factors or group identity, an emerging science illustrates that tendencies for extreme political action may also be rooted in individuals’ idiosyncratic cognitive and affective dispositions. This article synthesizes cutting-edge evidence demonstrating that individuals’ cognitive and affective architecture shapes their willingness to support ideological violence. In the cognitive domain, traits such as cognitive rigidity, slow perceptual strategies, and poor executive functions are linked to heightened endorsement for ideological violence. In the emotion domain, characteristics associated with emotional reactivity and impaired emotional regulation, such as sensation seeking and impulsivity, can facilitate readiness for extreme political action. The review homes in on the roles of cognitive rigidity and sensation seeking as traits heightening proclivities for extreme pro-group behavior and recommends that future research should assess cognition-emotion interactions to reveal different subprofiles of political actors. A theoretical framework focused on cognitive and affective information-processing traits—and their interactions—opens up tractable empirical questions and a future research agenda. Identifying subsets of ideologues is an endeavor with potential to inform the design of evidence-based interventions aimed at reducing ideological extremism and fostering social understanding.

A Study in Anxiety of the Dark

A Study in Anxiety of the Dark

The benefits of emotionally salient cues on event-based prospective memory in bipolar patients and schizophrenia patients.

Prospective memory (PM) refers to the ability to remember to carry out a delayed intention in the future. Evidence suggests that emotionally salient cues can enhance PM functions in healthy population, but whether the benefit exists in schizophrenia and bipolar patients remains unclear. This study aimed to examine and compare the potential enhancement effect of emotional PM cues in schizophrenia patients and bipolar patients. Twenty-eight clinically stable schizophrenia participants, 26 euthymic bipolar participants and 29 controls completed a computerized PM task involving PM cues with different types of valences (i.e., positive, neutral and negative). All the three groups showed better PM performance when negative PM cues were presented compared with positive and neutral PM cues. The sizes of the enhancement effects of negative PM cues were large (all Cohen's d ≥ 1.00) and comparable across three groups. Our findings suggested that patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders could benefit from negative PM cues to an extent similar to healthy individuals, thus extended the notion of psychosis continuum to the important area of emotion-cognition interaction.

Disorder- and emotional context-specific neurofunctional alterations during inhibitory control in generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder

Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are highly debilitating and often co-morbid disorders. The disorders exhibit partly overlapping dysregulations on the behavioral and neurofunctional level. The determination of disorder-specific behavioral and neurofunctional dysregulations may therefore promote neuro-mechanistic and diagnostic specificity. In order to determine disorder-specific alterations in the domain of emotion-cognition interactions the present study examined emotional context-specific inhibitory control in treatment-naïve MDD (n = 37) and GAD (n = 35) patients and healthy controls (n = 35). On the behavioral level MDD but not GAD exhibited impaired inhibitory control irrespective of emotional context. On the neural level, MDD-specific attenuated recruitment of inferior/medial parietal, posterior frontal, and mid-cingulate regions during inhibitory control were found during the negative context. GAD exhibited a stronger engagement of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex relative to MDD. Overall the findings from the present study suggest disorder- and emotional context-specific behavioral and neurofunctional inhibitory control dysregulations in major depression and may point to a depression-specific neuropathological and diagnostic marker.

Mutual influence between emotional language and inhibitory control processes. Evidence from an event-related potential study.

There is abundant literature demonstrating that processing emotional stimuli modulates inhibitory control processes. However, the reverse effects, namely, how cognitive inhibition influences the processing of emotional stimuli, have been considerably neglected. This ERP study tries to fill this gap by studying the bidirectional interactions between emotional language and inhibitory processes. To this end, participants read emotional sentences, embedded in a cue-based Go-NoGo task. In Experiment 1, the critical emotional adjective preceded the Go-NoGo visual cue. The ERPs showed a significant reduction in the inhibition-related N2 component in NoGo trials when they were preceded by negative adjectives, compared to positive or neutral adjectives, indicating a priming-like effect on inhibitory control. Consistently, the estimated source of this interaction was the dorsomedial PFC, a region associated with inhibitory and control processes. In Experiment 2, the Go-NoGo cue preceded the emotional adjective, and the ERPs showed a sustained, broadly distributed LPP-like positivity for NoGo negative trials, relative to all the other conditions. In this case, the presetting of an inhibition state modulated the processing of negatively charged words. Together, the two experiments suggest a mutual facilitation between inhibitory control and negative valence, supporting thereby recent integrative theories of cognition-emotion interactions.

Emotions and Cognition in International Criminal Justice: An Exploration from Cognitive Biases to Emotional Intelligence

Core international crimes such as genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are the backbone of international criminal law (ICL) and are also considered the worst atrocities known to mankind. Already with the establishment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) in 1945, questions were raised as to how ICL practitioners; ranging from forensic psychiatrists to judges, are influenced emotionally and cognitively by the context in which they are working. Yet, research on such influences in practitioners' decision making has so far focused primarily on national criminal law and national jurisdictions, while ICL and international jurisdictions remain largely unexplored territory. Given the differences not only in terms of crime gravity, suspects and evidence but also the historical and political contexts, findings from national settings are not necessarily generalizable to ICL and international jurisdictions. The aim of this research is to tentatively explore the emotion-cognition interaction in ICL practitioners’ decision-making processes specifically. While the paper acknowledges that there is a risk of cognitive bias and error which constitutes a threat to the rule of law, it also recognizes e.g. Emotional Intelligence (EI) as a potential promise to the administration of international criminal justice.

Disorder- and Emotional Context-Specific Neurofunctional Alterations During Inhibitory Control in Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder

Background: Major Depressive (MDD) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) are highly debilitating and often co-morbid disorders. The disorders exhibit partly overlapping dysregulations on the behavioral and neurofunctional level, and the determination of disorder-specific alterations may promote neuro-mechanistic and diagnostic specificity. Methods: In order to determine disorder-specific alterations in the domain of emotion-cognition interactions the present study examined emotional context-specific inhibitory control in treatment-naive, first-episode MDD (n = 37) and GAD (n = 35) patients and healthy controls (n = 35) by employing a validated affective go/no-go fMRI paradigm. Findings: On the behavioral level MDD but not GAD patients exhibited impaired inhibitory control irrespective of emotional context. On the neural level, no alterations were observed during the positive context, yet specifically MDD patients demonstrated attenuated recruitment of a broad bilateral network encompassing inferior/medial parietal, posterior frontal, and mid-cingulate regions during inhibitory control in the negative context. GAD patients exhibited a stronger engagement of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex relative to MDD patients and within the GAD group better inhibitory control in negative contexts was associated with higher recruitment of this region. Interpretation: Findings from the present study suggest disorder- and emotional context-specific behavioral and neurofunctional deficits in inhibitory control in MDD in negative emotional contexts and may point to a depression-specific neuropathological and diagnostic marker. In contrast, GAD patients may maintain intact inhibitory performance via compensatory recruitment of prefrontal regulatory regions. Funding Statement: This study was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2018YFA0701400) and Science & Technology Department of Sichuan Province, China (2017JY0031, JD). Declaration of Interests: There are no conflicts of interest. Ethics Approval Statement: The study was approved by the local ethics committee at the UESTC and adhered to the latest revision of the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent and agreement to experimental procedures was obtained from all participants before enrollment.

A Bottom-Up Validation of the IAPS, GAPED, and NAPS Affective Picture Databases: Differential Effects on Behavioral Performance.

The concept of emotion is a complex neural and psychological phenomenon, central to the organization of human social behavior. As the result of subjective experience, emotions involve bottom-up cognitive styles responsible for efficient adaptation of human behavior to the environment based on salient goals. Indeed, bottom-up cognitive processes are mandatory for clarifying emotion-cognition interactions. Accordingly, a huge number of studies and standardized affective stimuli databases have been developed (i.e., International Affective Picture System (IAPS), Geneva Affective Picture Database (GAPED), and Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS)). However, these neither accurately reflect the complex neural system underlying emotional responses nor do they offer a comprehensive framework for researchers. The present article aims to provide an additional bottom-up validation of affective stimuli that are independent from cognitive processing and control mechanisms, related to the implicit relevance and evolutionistic significance of stimuli. A subset of 360 images from the original NAPS, GAPED, and IAPS datasets was selected in order to proportionally cover the whole dimensional affective space. Among these, using a two-step analysis strategy, we identified three clusters (“good performance”, “poor performance”, and “false alarm”) of stimuli with similar cognitive response profiles. Results showed that the three clusters differed in terms of arousal and database membership, but not in terms of valence. The new database, with accompanying ratings and image parameters, allows researchers to select visual stimuli independent from dimensional/discrete-categories, and provides information on the implicit effects triggered by such stimuli.

A Path Toward Explainable AI and Autonomous Adaptive Intelligence: Deep Learning, Adaptive Resonance, and Models of Perception, Emotion, and Action.

Biological neural network models whereby brains make minds help to understand autonomous adaptive intelligence. This article summarizes why the dynamics and emergent properties of such models for perception, cognition, emotion, and action are explainable, and thus amenable to being confidently implemented in large-scale applications. Key to their explainability is how these models combine fast activations, or short-term memory (STM) traces, and learned weights, or long-term memory (LTM) traces. Visual and auditory perceptual models have explainable conscious STM representations of visual surfaces and auditory streams in surface-shroud resonances and stream-shroud resonances, respectively. Deep Learning is often used to classify data. However, Deep Learning can experience catastrophic forgetting: At any stage of learning, an unpredictable part of its memory can collapse. Even if it makes some accurate classifications, they are not explainable and thus cannot be used with confidence. Deep Learning shares these problems with the back propagation algorithm, whose computational problems due to non-local weight transport during mismatch learning were described in the 1980s. Deep Learning became popular after very fast computers and huge online databases became available that enabled new applications despite these problems. Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, algorithms overcome the computational problems of back propagation and Deep Learning. ART is a self-organizing production system that incrementally learns, using arbitrary combinations of unsupervised and supervised learning and only locally computable quantities, to rapidly classify large non-stationary databases without experiencing catastrophic forgetting. ART classifications and predictions are explainable using the attended critical feature patterns in STM on which they build. The LTM adaptive weights of the fuzzy ARTMAP algorithm induce fuzzy IF-THEN rules that explain what feature combinations predict successful outcomes. ART has been successfully used in multiple large-scale real world applications, including remote sensing, medical database prediction, and social media data clustering. Also explainable are the MOTIVATOR model of reinforcement learning and cognitive-emotional interactions, and the VITE, DIRECT, DIVA, and SOVEREIGN models for reaching, speech production, spatial navigation, and autonomous adaptive intelligence. These biological models exemplify complementary computing, and use local laws for match learning and mismatch learning that avoid the problems of Deep Learning.

Interactions between perceptions of fatigue, effort, and affect decrease knee extensor endurance performance following upper body motor activity, independent of changes in neuromuscular function.

Prior exercise has previously been shown to impair subsequent endurance performance in non-activated muscles. Declines in the neuromuscular function and altered perceptual/affective responses offer possible mechanisms through which endurance performance may be limited in these remote muscle groups. We thus conducted two experiments to better understand these performance-limiting mechanisms. In the first experiment, we examined the effect of prior handgrip exercise on the behavioral, perceptual, and affective responses to a sustained, sub-maximal contraction of the knee extensors. In the second experiment, transcranial magnetic stimulation was used to assess the neuromuscular function of the knee extensors before and after the handgrip exercise. The results of the first experiment demonstrated prior handgrip exercise increased the perceptions of effort and reduced affective valence during the subsequent knee extensor endurance exercise. Both effort and affect were associated with endurance performance. Subjective ratings of fatigue were also increased by the preceding handgrip exercise but were not directly related to knee extensor endurance performance. However, perceptions of fatigue were correlated with heightened effort perception and reduced affect during the knee extensor contraction. In the second experiment, prior handgrip exercise did not significantly alter the neuromuscular function of the knee extensors. The findings of the present study indicate that motor performance in the lower limbs following demanding exercise in the upper body appears to be regulated by complex, cognitive-emotional interactions, which may emerge independent of altered neuromuscular function. Subjective fatigue states are implicated in the control of perceptual and affective processes responsible for the regulation of endurance performance.

A model to study orienting responses in zebrafish, and applications towards the emotion-cognition interaction.

Orienting responses (ORs) are whole-organism reflexes that are elicited by innocuous stimuli, and which decrease in magnitude after stimulus repetition. ORs represent relatively simple responses that can be used to study attentional processes, and are modulated by the organism's state, including arousal and activation levels, as well as by emotional processes. Here we describe a simple method to study ORs in zebrafish, a model organism increasingly being used in behavioural neuroscience. After presentation of a static visual stimulus, an OR is elicited, characterized by approaching the stimulus and orienting towards it. After repeated stimulation, OR decreases, suggesting habituation. These responses are qualitatively altered by exposure to a fear-eliciting alarm substance (i.e., derived from the skin of a conspecific), since exposed animals avoid the visual stimulus and orient either away from the stimulus or towards it, but at a distance. The protocol can be used to study orienting responses, as well as the impact of fear and arousal on these reflexes.

Towards the Affective Cognition Approach to Human Performance in Space.

INTRODUCTION: In recent decades, there has been investigation into the effects of microgravity and microgravity-like environments on cognition and emotion separately. Here we highlight the need of focusing on emotion-cognition interactions as a framework for explaining cognitive performance in space. In particular, by referring to the affective cognition hypothesis, the significant interplay between emotional variables and cognitive processing in space is briefly analyzed. Altogether, this approach shows an interesting pattern of data pointing to a dynamic relation that may be sensitive to microgravity. The importance of examining interactions between emotion and cognition for space performance remains fundamental (e.g., stress-related disorders) and deserves further attention. This approach is ultimately interesting considering the potential effects that microgravity may play on human performance during long-term space missions and on return to Earth.Mammarella N. Towards the affective cognition approach to human performance in space. Aerosp Med Hum Perform. 2020; 91(6):532-534.

Musical affect and the emotion–cognition interaction in The Phantom of the Opera

This essay explores how the Broadway musical of The Phantom of the Opera blurs the traditional distinction between cognition and emotion with the use of operatic music and librettos. Over the years, the musical has outshone the novel in its immediacy to exert a direct influence on the audience. The overall popularity of the musical points to the successful use of music supported by visual feast and narration. The general effect of Phantom over the audience also contributes to the problematization of mind-body dualism in affect theory and literary criticism, which also surfaces in cognitive psychology as emotion–cognition interaction. It is self-evident that music constitutes the fundamental unit of musical theatres. Thus, the main analysis dwells on the intertwined relationship between music and affect studies in order to explain the underlying reason why Leroux’s literary work has taken a back seat to Webber’s musical theatre, though the former provides an undeniably rich source for the latter and originally frames the debate on consciousness and the mind-body problem.

The Plot Twist in TV Serial Narratives

AbstractThis article explores the use of the plot twist in screen fictions. This is a largely unexplored area, as interest in this phenomenon has largely focused on the so-called “plot twist movie,” which is an older narrative tradition. In order to explain this aesthetic phenomenon, it draws on the model of surprise originally proposed by the cognitive psychologists Wulf Meyer, Rainer Reisenzein, and Achim Schützwohl. Plot twists are characterized by three distinct but intimately intertwined temporal segments and their corresponding functions, which are explained by this model. The objective of this article is to explore how cognitive-emotional interactions shape the aesthetic viewing experience and to identify how that experience relates to shows’ artistic qualities. Game of Thrones (S01 and S03), Homeland (S01), and Westworld (S01) will be used as test cases. In each of the three plot segments, there are specific processes that distinguish the experience of surprise as an aesthetic phenomenon.

Alterations in Amygdala Connectivity in Internet Addiction Disorder

Recent studies have revealed structural and functional abnormalities in amygdala due to Internet addiction (IA) associated with emotional disturbance. However, the role of amygdala connectivity that is responsible for emotion-cognition interactions is largely unknown in IA. This study aims to explore the amygdala connectivity abnormalities in IA. The functional and structural connectivity of bilateral amygdala were examined using seed-based connectivity analysis, and the structural integrity on white mater tracts passing through amygdala was also examined. Additionally, a correlation analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between brain connectivity and duration of IA. We found that IA subjects had decreased negative functional connectivity (FC) between amygdala and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and had increased negative FC between amygdala and precuneus and superior occipital gyrus (SOG). While IA subjects had decreased positive FC between amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and had increased positive FC between amygdala and thalamus. The FC between left amygdala and right DLPFC had significant correlation with duration of IA. The structural connectivity and integrity between amygdala and ACC were also decreased in IA subjects. These findings indicate that the amygdala connectivity is altered in IA subjects. The altered FC of amygdala-DLPFC is associated with duration of IA.

The Effectiveness of a Training Program Based on Frank Williams' Model in Developing the Divergent Creative Feeling among Students in Jordan

The purpose of this study is to identify the effectiveness of using a training program based on Frank Williams’ model of emotional cognitive interaction in the development of divergent creative feelings among tenth-grade students in King Abdullah II schools for excellence. A semi-experimental curriculum was used on a sample of (40) male and female students, the researchers distributed them randomly into two groups consisted of (20) students each, and they used the Creative Divergent Feeling Scale (LOLEMS), and they developed a program based on the emotional cognitive model. Results indicated the existence of the impact of the training program for the benefit of the experimental group, it also showed no differences due to the gender variable, and the results also showed that there are differences attributed to the parents' educational level variable in favor of the bachelor's degree holders. The study recommended the training of gifted students on the skills involved in the curriculum and the behavior of students in the emotional, cognitive interaction model, which helps them to develop a creative divergence feeling. https://doi.org/10.26803/ijlter.19.1.5

Emotion–Cognition Interactions in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Increased Early Attention Capture and Weakened Attentional Control in Emotional Contexts

BackgroundEmotion dysregulation is a key dimensional trait in psychopathology. It is of particular interest in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) because individual differences in emotion dysregulation predict impairment. Despite growing recognition of its importance, an understanding of emotional functioning in ADHD needs to be better integrated with the well-known nonemotional attentional impairments in the disorder. Here, we assess differences in early, reactive and later, regulatory attention to emotional stimuli, as well as how impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli are affected under different emotional contexts. MethodsIn all, 130 adolescents (nADHD = 61) completed an emotional go/no-go task while 32-channel electroencephalography data were recorded. Reaction time and accuracy were analyzed using the linear ballistic accumulator model. ResultsThe multimethod approach provided convergent evidence of increased early, reactive attention capture and overarousal (faster drift rates, increased P1) by positively valenced stimuli in ADHD, but no differences in later attention to emotional stimuli. Overarousal in positive-valence contexts appeared to exacerbate existing ADHD-related impairments in attentional control to nonemotional stimuli as well (reduced N2 amplitude). In contrast, positive-valence contexts facilitated attentional control to nonemotional stimuli for typically developing adolescents. ConclusionsResults highlight the dynamic interaction of emotion with attentional control in ADHD. Distinguishing reactive and regulatory contributions to emotion dysregulation has been informative for clarifying mechanisms and spurring the development of novel interventions in other disorders. It can be informative in ADHD as well.

Effect of emotions on risk taking, dishonesty and social cognition in college emerging adults

The emotional experience can have different effects on the performance of college emerg-ing adults in risky, moral and empathic contexts decision making. The objective was to compare the performance in risk taking, dishonesty and theory of mind in college emerg-ing adults under different dimensional and discrete emotional states. A sample of 153 students from 18 to 26 years old performed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, the Dots Task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task after being exposed to emotions-inducing film clips. The risky and moral decision making was worse under emotional states of sad-ness and fear, respectively. In addition, greater difficulties in emotional regulation were associated with a worse performance in theory of mind. These results imply an initial contribution to the knowledge of emotion-cognition interactions, relevant aspects for the application of intervention policies in the college student community.

Acute anxiety and autonomic arousal induced by CO2 inhalation impairs prefrontal executive functions in healthy humans

Acute anxiety impacts cognitive performance. Inhalation of air enriched with carbon dioxide (CO2) in healthy humans provides a novel experimental model of generalised anxiety, but has not previously been used to assess cognition. We used inhalation of 7.5% CO2 to induce acute anxiety and autonomic arousal in healthy volunteers during neuropsychological tasks of cognitive flexibility, emotional processing and spatial working memory in a single-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized, crossover, within-subjects study. In Experiment 1 (n = 44), participants made significantly more extra-dimensional shift errors on the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB) Intra-Extra Dimensional Set Shift task under CO2 inhalation compared with ‘normal’ air. Participants also had slower latencies when responding to positive words and made significantly more omission errors for negative words on the CANTAB Affective Go/No-go task. In Experiment 2 (n = 28), participants made significantly more total errors and had poorer heuristic search strategy on the CANTAB Spatial Working Memory task. In both experiments, CO2 inhalation significantly increased negative affect; state anxiety and fear; symptoms of panic; and systolic blood pressure/heart rate. Overall, CO2 inhalation produced robust anxiogenic effects and impaired fronto-executive functions of cognitive flexibility and working memory. Effects on emotional processing suggested a mood-congruent slowing in processing speed in the absence of a negative attentional bias. State-dependent effects of anxiety on cognitive-emotional interactions in the prefrontal cortex warrant further investigation.

Normative Data for Executive Function and Emotion Interaction Assessment in Adolescents from Rural Areas

Abstract Objective The present work is part of the ongoing project of examining the validation and standardization of the Executive Functions and Emotion Assessment for Adolescents with Risk Behaviors (EFEAA) test in the rural areas of Northwest Mexico. The objectives of the present study were (1) to examine the effects of age and risk behavior on emotionally interfered working memory ability, measured as performance on the Emotionally Interfered Working Memory Task (EIWMT) section of the EFEAA in a group of healthy adolescents from rural areas; and (2) to use these results to construct normative data that can be used in clinical practice. Participants and Method A total of 275 adolescents, 14.1 years old, geographically distributed among northwest Mexico were included in the sample. They were individually assessed using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, Risk Behavior Questionnaire, including: sexual risk behavior, impulsiveness, drug, alcohol, and tobacco consumption, unhealthy food intake, and physical inactivity; for measuring emotion-cognition interaction we used the EIWMT. Results Results of this study present a database supported by factors of risk behavior and working memory, which includes: predictors for conduct disorders, drug use, and delinquency, in addition to correlations between the performance of emotionally interfered working memory and risk behaviors associated to health. Percentile and normal distribution tables were generated, demonstrating that there is a high prevalence of risk behavior in rural areas. Conclusions This study demonstrates data related to rural areas in northwest Mexico, a region where adolescents are frequently involved in risk behaviors. Additionally, protective factors are understudied in Mexico-US border cities. Further analyses are needed to find reward delay skills on the studied sample as well as urban area comparisons.