Self-referential Processing Research Articles

Neuronal dynamics of the default mode network and anterior insular cortex: Intrinsic properties and modulation by salient stimuli.

The default mode network (DMN) is critical for self-referential mental processes, and its dysfunction is implicated in many neuropsychiatric disorders. However, the neurophysiological properties and task-based functional organization of the rodent DMN are poorly understood, limiting its translational utility. Here, we combine fiber photometry with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and computational modeling to characterize dynamics of putative rat DMN nodes and their interactions with the anterior insular cortex (AI) of the salience network. Our analysis revealed neuronal activity changes in AI and DMN nodes preceding fMRI-derived DMN activations and cyclical transitions between brain network states. Furthermore, we demonstrate that salient oddball stimuli suppress the DMN and enhance AI neuronal activity and that the AI causally inhibits the retrosplenial cortex, a prominent DMN node. These findings elucidate the neurophysiological foundations of the rodent DMN, its spatiotemporal dynamical properties, and modulation by salient stimuli, paving the way for future translational studies.

Functional connectivity abnormalities of brain networks in obsessive–compulsive disorder: a systematic review

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by cognitive abnormalities encompassing several executive processes. Neuroimaging studies highlight functional abnormalities of executive fronto-parietal network (FPN) and default-mode network (DMN) in OCD patients, as well as of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) more specifically. We aim at assessing the presence of functional connectivity (FC) abnormalities of intrinsic brain networks and PFC in OCD, possibly underlying specific computational impairments and clinical manifestations. A systematic review of resting-state fMRI studies investigating FC was conducted in unmedicated OCD patients by querying three scientific databases (PubMed, Scopus, PsycInfo) up to July 2022 (search terms: “obsessive–compulsive disorder” AND “resting state” AND “fMRI” AND “function* *connect*” AND “task-positive” OR “executive” OR “central executive” OR “executive control” OR “executive-control” OR “cognitive control” OR “attenti*” OR “dorsal attention” OR “ventral attention” OR “frontoparietal” OR “fronto-parietal” OR “default mode” AND “network*” OR “system*”). Collectively, 20 studies were included. A predominantly reduced FC of DMN – often related to increased symptom severity – emerged. Additionally, intra-network FC of FPN was predominantly increased and often positively related to clinical scores. Concerning PFC, a predominant hyper-connectivity of right-sided prefrontal links emerged. Finally, FC of lateral prefrontal areas correlated with specific symptom dimensions. Several sources of heterogeneity in methodology might have affected results in unpredictable ways and were discussed. Such findings might represent endophenotypes of OCD manifestations, possibly reflecting computational impairments and difficulties in engaging in self-referential processes or in disengaging from cognitive control and monitoring processes.

Mapping the self: A network approach for understanding psychological and neural representations of self-concept structure.

How people self-reflect and maintain a coherent sense of self is an important question that spans from early philosophy to modern psychology and neuroscience. Research on the self-concept has not yet developed and tested a formal model of how beliefs about dependency relations amongst traits may influence self-concept coherence. We first develop a network-based approach, which suggests that people's beliefs about trait relationships contribute to how the self-concept is structured (Study 1). This model describes how people maintain positivity and coherence in self-evaluations, and how trait interrelations relate to activation in brain regions involved in self-referential processing and concept representation (Study 2 and Study 3). Results reveal that a network-based property theorized to be important for coherence (i.e., outdegree centrality) is associated with more favorable and consistent self-evaluations and decreased ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) activation. Further, participants higher in self-esteem and lower in depressive symptoms differentiate between higher and lower centrality positive traits more in self-evaluations, reflecting associations between mental health and how people process perceived trait dependencies during self-reflection. Together, our model and findings join individual differences, brain activation, and behavior to present a computational theory of how beliefs about trait relationships contribute to a coherent, interconnected self-concept. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional salience of positive and negative aspects of cannabis use in cannabis use disorder: The development of a novel self-referential processing task using the late positive potential

BackgroundCannabis Use Disorder (CUD) is increasingly prevalent in the United States, while perceived addiction risk and treatment-seeking are declining. Emotional salience of cannabis-use-related problems and benefits likely contribute to motivation to change, but measurement of this process has been limited. The present study sought to validate a novel assessment of emotional appraisal of self-referential cannabis-use-related information across subjective and neurophysiological units of analysis. MethodNon-treatment-seeking individuals with DSM-5 severe CUD (N = 42) completed a task that presented auditory self-referential, personalized cannabis-use-related problem and benefit statements, as well as neutral self-referential statements, during electroencephalography recording. The late positive potential (LPP) was used as a neurophysiological measure of emotional salience. Valence/arousal ratings of each statement, along with their motivational importance in sustaining vs. reducing cannabis use, were also obtained. ResultsAs predicted, valence and arousal ratings significantly differentiated cannabis-use-related problems and benefits from neutral statements. Partially consistent with predictions, the LPP to cannabis-use-related benefits was significantly larger than LPPs to cannabis-use-related problems and neutral statements, which did not differ from each other. Bonferroni-adjusted exploratory correlations revealed that the LPP to cannabis-use-related problems was sensitive to recent cannabis use frequency. ConclusionThese results provide some support for the validity of this novel multi-method assessment of emotional reactivity to personalized cannabis-use-related self-referential information in non-treatment-seeking individuals with severe CUD. The dissociation between subjective and neurophysiological reactivity to self-referential cannabis-related problem statements should be further explored.

Psilocybin and Other Classic Psychedelics in Depression.

Psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin and ketamine are returning to clinical research and intervention across several disorders including the treatment of depression. This chapter focusses on psychedelics that specifically target the 5-HT2A receptor such as psilocybin and DMT. These produce plasma-concentration related psychological effects such as hallucinations and out of body experiences, insightful and emotional breakthroughs as well as mystical-type experiences. When coupled with psychological support, effects can produce a rapid improvement in mood among people with depression that can last for months. In this chapter, we summarise the scientific studies to date that explore the use of psychedelics in depressed individuals, highlighting key clinical, psychological and neuroimaging features of psychedelics that may account for their therapeutic effects. These include alterations in brain entropy that disrupt fixed negative ruminations, a period of post-treatment increased cognitive flexibility, and changes in self-referential psychological processes. Finally, wepropose that the brain mechanisms underlying the therapeutic effect of serotonergic psychedelics might be distinct from those underlying classical serotonin reuptake-blocking antidepressants.

Behavioral and electrophysiological analyses of self-referential neural processing in major depressive disorder.

Cognitive theories suggest that patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) constantly negatively evaluate their self-referential information. Unlike Westerners with an independent self, self-representation is strongly influenced by cultural differences; the Chinese self may include others (interdependent self). This study uses a self-referential effect task combined with event-related potentials (ERP), and 34 patients with MDD and 54 healthy controls (HC) were asked to judge whether an adjective was suitable for describing the self, mother, or a public person, followed by an unexpected recognition task. They were required to judge whether a word was presented during the encoding phase. The results reveal that during the encoding phase, for both self- and mother-referential adjectives, patients with MDD endorsed fewer positive adjectives and more negative adjectives than the HCs. During the recognition phase, both groups showed a typical task effect (self=mother>other), while patients recognized more self-referential adjectives than the HCs. ERP data reveal that patients with MDD show larger P2 amplitudes during the encoding stage than healthy individuals. During the recognition phase, negative adjectives evoked larger P2 amplitudes in patients than in HCs under the self-referential condition. These findings shed important light on the information processes that may contribute to our understanding of depression and may offer implications for clinical interventions.

Computational Modeling of Self-Referential Processing Reveals Domain General Associations with Adolescent Anxiety Symptoms.

What an adolescent thinks about themselves, commonly termed self-referential processing, has significant implications for youth long-term psychological well-being. Self-referential processing plays an important role in anticipatory and reactive processing in social contexts and contributes to symptoms of social anxiety. Previous work examining self-referential processing largely focuses on child and adolescent depression, relying on endorsement and reaction time for positive and negative self-describing adjectives in a self-referential encoding task (SRET). Here, we employ computational methods to interrogate the latent processes underlying choice reaction times to evaluate the fit of several drift-diffusion models of youth SRET performance. A sample of 106 adolescent, aged 12-17 (53% male; Mage = 14.49, SD = 1.70) completed the SRET and self-report measures of anxiety and depression. Our results support the utility of modeling the SRET, where the rate of evidence accumulation (i.e., drift rate) during negative self-referential processing was related to social anxiety above-and-beyond mean task performance. Our regression analyses indicated that youth efficiency in processing of self-referential views was domain general to anxiety, highlighting the importance of assessing both social and physiological anxiety symptoms when predicting SRET performance. The computational modeling results revealed that self-referential views are not uniquely related to depression-related constructs but also facets of anxiety.

Associations between repetitive negative thinking and resting-state network segregation among healthy middle-aged adults.

Repetitive Negative Thinking (RNT) includes negative thoughts about the future and past, and is a risk factor for depression and anxiety. Prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices have been linked to RNT but several regions within large-scale networks are also involved, the efficiency of which depends on their ability to remain segregated. Associations between RNT and system segregation (SyS) of the Anterior Salience Network (ASN), Default Mode Network (DMN) and Executive Control Network (ECN) were explored in healthy middle-aged adults (N = 341), after undergoing resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. Regression analyses were conducted with RNT as outcome variable. Explanatory variables were: SyS, depression, emotional stability, cognitive complaints, age and sex. Analyses indicated that RNT was associated with depression, emotional stability, cognitive complaints, age and segregation of the left ECN (LECN) and ASN. Further, the ventral DMN (vDMN) presented higher connectivity with the ASN and decreased connectivity with the LECN, as a function of RNT. Higher levels of perseverative thinking were related to increased segregation of the LECN and decreased segregation of the ASN. The dissociative connectivity of these networks with the vDMN may partially account for poorer cognitive control and increased self-referential processes characteristic of RNT.

Sense of self in mind and body: an eLORETA-EEG study.

The human brain engages the sense of self through both semantic and somatic self-referential processing (SRP). Alpha and theta oscillations have been found to underlie SRP but have not been compared with respect to semantic and somatic SRP. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from 50 participants during focused internal attention on life roles (e.g. "friend") and outer body (e.g. "arms") compared to resting state and an external attention memory task and localized the sources of on-scalp alpha (8-12 Hz) and theta (4-8 Hz) EEG signals with exact low-resolution tomography. Logarithm of F-ratios was calculated to compare differences in alpha and theta power between SRP conditions, resting state, and external attention. Results indicated that compared to resting state, semantic SRP induced lower theta in the frontal cortex and higher theta in the parietal cortex, whereas somatic SRP induced lower alpha in the frontal and insula cortex and higher alpha in the parietal cortex. Furthermore, results indicated that compared to external attention, both semantic and somatic SRP induced higher alpha in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with lateralized patterns based on task condition. Finally, an analysis directly comparing semantic and somatic SRP indicated frontal-parietal and left-right lateralization of SRP in the brain. Our results suggest the alpha and theta oscillations in the frontal, parietal, and the insula cortex may play crucial roles in semantic and somatic SRP.

They Saw a Debate: Political Polarization Is Associated with Greater Multivariate Neural Synchrony When Viewing the Opposing Candidate Speak.

With rampant polarization in current U.S. politics, it seems as though political partisans with opposing viewpoints are living in parallel realities. Indeed, prior research shows that people's impressions/attitudes toward political candidates are intertwined with their political affiliation. The current study investigated the relationship between political affiliation and intersubject neural synchrony of multivariate patterns of activity during naturalistic viewing of a presidential debate. Before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, 20 individuals varying in political affiliation underwent functional neuroimaging while watching the first debate between candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Pairs of participants with more polarized political affiliations were higher in neural synchrony in a system of brain regions involved in self-referential processing when viewing the opposing candidate speak compared with that candidate's supporters regardless of which extreme of the political spectrum they occupied. Moreover, pairs of political partisans matching in the candidate they supported were higher in neural synchrony when watching the candidate they opposed compared with the one they both supported. These findings suggest that political groups' shared understanding may be driven more by perceptions of outgroups than of their own party/candidates.

Self-reference modulates the perception of visual apparent motion.

Visual apparent motion is a perceptual illusion where sequentially presented static stimuli containing no physically continuous motion are perceived as moving. In the current study, we examined whether and how self-reference, as a typical high-level information processing, could modulate perceptual categorization of the apparent motion in Ternus display, even when self-reference is task-irrelevant. Two frames were consecutively presented, with the first frame consisting of two identical stimuli (e.g., two rectangles) on the leftmost and the middle positions and the second frame consisting of two stimuli on the middle and the rightmost positions. Depending on the inter-stimulus interval (ISI) between the two frames, the display could be perceived as showing Element Motion (EM), with the peripheral stimulus moving from one side to the other while the middle stimulus remains stationary or flashes briefly at the middle position, or Group Motion (GM), with both stimuli appearing to move as a whole. Participants were tested in this configuration and then learned to associate different labels (Self, Friend, Stranger) with geometric shapes (Circle, Rectangle, Triangle). They were tested again in the new configuration. Results showed that after association (vs. before association), participants were more likely to perceive the Ternus display of self-associated shapes as GM, but this effect did not appear for friend-associated or stranger-associated shapes. Self-referential processing spatially "glues" the two stimuli in a frame with the concept of "Self," leading to a more dominant percept of GM.

Neural activity in adults with major depressive disorder differs from that in healthy individuals: A resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Currently, findings regarding resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of major depressive disorder (MDD) are inconsistent. In contrast to the previously used a priori seed-based functional connectivity analyses, this study employed whole-brain exploratory analyses and aimed to explore neural activity patterns in Chinese adults with MDD. Specifically, this study examined the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations within the whole brain and adopted a large-scale brain network template to explore the core dysfunctional brain regions in individuals with MDD. Overall, 32 individuals with MDD and 32 healthy controls were evaluated. Compared to healthy controls, individuals with MDD showed more profound alterations in the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations in the temporolimbic affective circuit (e.g., middle temporal gyrus and parahippocampus) and default mode network (e.g., precuneus and thalamus). Moreover, functional connectivity between the left mid-insula and parietal regions within the sensorimotor network was weaker in individuals with MDD than in healthy controls. In conclusion, the neural characteristics of MDD correspond to cognitive deficits in self-referential processing and emotional processing and are related to a risk of sensory disorders or psychomotor retardation. These findings present neural markers that may be used to identify MDD, contributing to clinical diagnosis.

ALTERATIONS IN FUNCTIONAL CONNECTIVITY: BEING WATCHED AS AN INDICATOR OF STATE ANXIETY

Anxiety increases self-focused attention and rumination. Individuals with anxiety are sensitive to being watched by others, as being watched provokes self-referential processing and induces thoughts regarding others perceptions of oneself. However, whether the neural sensitivity to being watched depends on the level of anxiety remains unclear.We investigated the relationship between anxiety and the neural sensitivity to being watched by others.The anxiety of 25 healthy participants (mean age standard deviation, 23.08 1.71 years; 12 men and 13 women) was evaluated using the Spielberger StateTrait Anxiety Inventory. Resting state electroencephalography data was collected under the alone condition and the condition of being watched by another person. By subtracting the phase lag value between the two conditions, we determined the alterations in participants functional networks when they were being watched. We then found the correlation between the Spielberger StateTrait Anxiety Inventory scores and reactivity of functional connectivity when being watched.The score of state anxiety was significantly correlated with increased phase lag values in the left precuneus, bilateral caudal anterior cingulate cortex, and right rostral middle frontal cortex in the beta band (p< 0.05). We found no significant correlation between the trait anxiety scores and altered phase lag values.Functional connectivity may be involved in the default mode network relevant to self-referential processing and the dorsal attentional network. Our results suggest that self-focused mental processing and sensitivity to being watched by others could be common in people with anxiety, thus expanding the current understanding of the cognitive mechanisms behind anxiety.

Perception of eye contact, self-referential thinking and age.

Increased thinking about one's self has been proposed to widen the gaze cone, that is, the range of gaze deviations that an observer judges as looking directly at them (eye contact). This study investigated the effects of a self-referential thinking manipulation and demographic factors on the gaze cone. In a preregistered experiment (N=200), the self-referential thinking manipulation, as compared to a control manipulation, did not influence the gaze cone, or the use of first-person pronouns in a manipulation check measuring self-referential processing. This may indicate a failure of the manipulation and participants' lack of effort. However, participants' age was significantly correlated with both measures: older people had wider gaze cones and used more self-referring pronouns. A second experiment (N=300) further examined the effect of the manipulation and demographic factors on self-referential processing, and the results were replicated. These findings may reflect age-related self-reference and positivity effects.

Cognitive-affective processes and suicidality in response to repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation for treatment resistant depression

BackgroundRepetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can elicit 45–55 % response rates and may alleviate suicidality symptoms in treatment resistant depression (TRD). Blunted anticipatory reward sensitivity and negatively biased self-referential processing may predict trajectories of depressive and suicidality symptoms in rTMS for TRD and be modulated during treatment. MethodsFifty-five individuals with TRD received four weeks of low-frequency rTMS applied to the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (LFR-rTMS) and were followed until 17 weeks post-baseline. Participants completed behavioral measures of anticipatory reward sensitivity and self-referential processing at baseline and five weeks post-baseline (approximately one-week post-treatment). We examined whether baseline anticipatory reward sensitivity and self-referential processing predicted trajectories of depressive and suicidality symptoms from baseline to follow-up and whether these cognitive-affective variables showed change from baseline to week five. ResultsAnticipatory reward sensitivity and negative self-referential encoding at baseline were associated with higher overall depressive symptoms and suicidality from baseline to 17 weeks post-baseline. At week five, participants self-attributed a higher number of positive traits and a lower number of negative traits and had a lesser tendency to remember negative relative to positive traits they had self-attributed, compared to baseline. LimitationsThe specificity of these results to LFR-rTMS is unknown in the absence of a comparison group, and our relatively small sample size precluded the interpretation of null results. ConclusionsBaseline blunted anticipatory reward sensitivity and negative biases in self-referential processing may be risk factors for higher depressive symptoms and suicidality during and after LFR-rTMS, and LFR-rTMS may modulate self-referential processing.

Self-Referential Processing and Resting-State Functional MRI Connectivity of Cortical Midline Structures in Glioma Patients.

Metacognition has only scarcely been investigated in brain tumor patients. It is unclear if and how the tumor-lesioned brain might be able to maintain an adequate sense-of-self. As cortical midline structures (CMS) are regarded as essential for self-referential mental activity, we investigated resting-state fMRI connectivity (FC) of CMS to the default-mode network (DMN) and to the whole brain, comparing glioma patients and matched controls. Subjects furthermore performed a trait judgement (TJ), a trait recall task (TR), and neuropsychological testing. In the TJ, adjectives had to be ascribed as self- or non-self-describing, assessing the self-serving effect (SSE), a normally observed bias for positive traits. In the TR, the mnemic neglect effect (MNE), a memory advantage for positive traits, was tested. The groups were compared and partial correlations between FC and test metrics were analyzed. Although patients were significantly impaired in terms of verbal memory, groups did not differ in the SSE or the MNE results, showing preserved metacognitive abilities in patients. FC of CMS to the DMN was maintained, but was significantly decreased to whole brain in the patients. FC of the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) to whole brain was correlated with the MNE in patients. Preserving the DMPFC in therapeutic interventions might be relevant for maintaining self-related verbal information processing in the memory domain in glioma patients.

Mindfulness-induced endogenous theta stimulation occasions self-transcendence and inhibits addictive behavior.

Self-regulation is instantiated by theta oscillations (4 to 8 Hz) in neurons of frontal midline brain regions. Frontal midline theta (FMΘ) is inversely associated with default mode network (DMN) activation, which subserves self-referential processing. Addiction involves impaired self-regulation and DMN dysfunction. Mindfulness is an efficacious self-regulatory practice for treating addiction, but little is known about the mechanisms by which mindfulness reduces addictive behavior. In this mechanistic study of long-term opioid users (N = 165), we assessed meditation-induced FMΘ as a mediator of changes in opioid misuse. Relative to a supportive psychotherapy control, participants treated with Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE) exhibited increased FMΘ during a laboratory-based meditation session. FMΘ during meditation was associated with self-transcendent experiences characterized by ego dissolution, nondual awareness, and bliss. MORE’s effects on decreasing opioid misuse were mediated by increased FMΘ. Given the role of aberrant self-referential processing in addiction, mindfulness-induced endogenous theta stimulation might “reset” DMN dysfunction to inhibit addictive behavior.

Disrupted network switching in euthymic bipolar disorder: Working memory and self-referential paradigms

BackgroundPatients with bipolar disorder (BD) frequently suffer from neurocognitive deficits that can persist during periods of clinical stability. Specifically, impairments in executive functioning such as working memory and in self-processing have been identified as the main components of the neurocognitive profile observed in euthymic BD patients. The study of the neurobiological correlates of these state-independent alterations may be a prerequisite to develop reliable biomarkers in BD. MethodsA sample of 27 euthymic BD patients and 25 healthy participants (HC) completed working memory and self-referential functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) tasks. Activation maps obtained for each group and contrast images (i.e., 2-back > 1-back/self > control) were used for comparisons between patients and HC. ResultsEuthymic BD patients, in comparison to HC, showed a higher ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation during working memory, a result driven by the lack of deactivation in BD patients. In addition, euthymic BD patients displayed a greater dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during self-reference processing. LimitationsPharmacotherapy was described but not included as a confounder in our models. Sample size was modest. ConclusionOur findings revealed a lack of deactivation in the anterior default mode network (aDMN) during a working memory task, a finding consistent with prior research in BD patients, but also a higher activation in frontal regions within the central executive network (CEN) during self-processing. These results suggest that an imbalance of neural network dynamics underlying external/internal oriented cognition (the CEN and the aDMN, respectively) may be one of the first reliable biomarkers in euthymic bipolar patients.

Similarity in activity and laterality patterns in the angular gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing.

Long-term memory is arguably one of the key cognitive functions. At the neural level, the lateral parietal cortex and the angular gyrus, particularly in the left hemisphere, exhibit strong activations during autobiographical and episodic memory retrieval. In a separate sub-field, left-lateralized activations of the angular gyrus are also found during self-referential processing, defined as higher activity when a trait term is judged by participants as being related to them vs. related to someone else. The question is whether episodic/autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing effects are related. In the present study, thirty participants participated in the fMRI study with two separate experiments: autobiographical memory retrieval (Experiment 1) and self-referential processing (Experiment 2). In a series of analyses, including the most critical spatial correlation analysis between experiments, we found neural similarity between autobiographical memory retrieval and self-referential processing. Given that self-referential processing was identified in a selective way, the most plausible interpretation of our findings is that self-referential processing might partly explain the activation of the left angular gyrus during autobiographical memory retrieval. Our results are in line with the seminal view of Endel Tulving that the sense of self is a fundamental attribute of long-term memory recollection. However, it should be emphasized that: a) our results do not imply that the left angular gyrus is not involved in the retrieval of episodic memory details; and b) given that our experiment included an autobiographical memory task, generalization of our results to the episodic memory laboratory tasks has yet to be tested.

Self-judgment dissected: A computational modeling analysis of self-referential processing and its relationship to trait mindfulness facets and depression symptoms.

Cognitive theories of depression, and mindfulness theories of well-being, converge on the notion that self-judgment plays a critical role in mental health. However, these theories have rarely been tested via tasks and computational modeling analyses that can disentangle the information processes operative in self-judgments. We applied a drift-diffusion computational model to the self-referential encoding task (SRET) collected before and after an 8-week mindfulness intervention (n = 96). A drift-rate regression parameter representing positive-relative to negative-self-referential judgment strength positively related to mindful awareness and inversely related to depression, both at baseline and over time; however, this parameter did not significantly relate to the interaction between mindful awareness and nonjudgmentalness. At the level of individual depression symptoms, at baseline, a spectrum of symptoms (inversely) correlated with the drift-rate regression parameter, suggesting that many distinct depression symptoms relate to valenced self-judgment between subjects. By contrast, over the intervention, changes in only a smaller subset of anhedonia-related depression symptoms showed substantial relationships with this parameter. Both behavioral and model-derived measures showed modest split-half and test-retest correlations. Results support cognitive theories that implicate self-judgment in depression and mindfulness theories, which imply that mindful awareness should lead to more positive self-views.