Focused Attention vs. Open Monitoring: An Event-Related Potential Study of Emotion Regulation by Two Distinct Forms of Mindfulness Meditation

This study investigated the effects of two novel forms of 8-week mindfulness meditation training, focused attention (FA) and open monitoring (OM), relative to an established training, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), on early emotional reactivity to negative emotional images as assessed by electroencephalography (EEG). Data on the late-positive potential (LPP) were analyzed to address whether the three mindfulness interventions attenuated the LPP from pre- to post-intervention, and if significant differences existed between groups in LPP at post-intervention. Rather than an attenuation, results indicated an average increase in LPP amplitude from pre- to post-intervention. No significant differences were found in the LPP between the training conditions at post-intervention. These results provide preliminary evidence that mindfulness training in novice practitioners may heighten initial emotional reactivity. Further, well-designed research is needed to examine a wider range of neural responses to better understand emotion regulation process effects of different forms of mindfulness training

Anxiety and attention to threat: cognitive mechanisms and treatment with attention bias modification

Anxiety disorders are common and difficult to treat. Some cognitive models of anxiety propose that attention bias to threat causes and maintains anxiety. This view led to the development of a computer-delivered treatment: attention bias modification (ABM) which predominantly trains attention avoidance of threat. However, meta-analyses indicate disappointing effectiveness of ABM-threat-avoidance training in reducing anxiety. This article considers how ABM may be improved, based on a review of key ideas from models of anxiety, attention and cognitive control. These are combined into an integrative framework of cognitive functions which support automatic threat evaluation/detection and goal-directed thought and action, which reciprocally influence each other. It considers roles of bottom-up and top-down processes involved in threat-evaluation, orienting and inhibitory control in different manifestations of attention bias (initial orienting, attention maintenance, threat avoidance, threat-distractor interference) and different ABM methods (e.g., ABM-threat-avoidance, ABM-positive-search). The framework has implications for computer-delivered treatments for anxiety. ABM methods which encourage active goal-focused attention-search for positive/nonthreat information and flexible cognitive control across multiple processes (particularly inhibitory control, which supports a positive goal-engagement mode over processing of minor threat cues) may prove more effective in reducing anxiety than ABM-threat-avoidance training which targets a specific bias in spatial orienting to threat

When emotions matter: focusing on emotion improves working memory updating in older adults

Research indicates that emotion can affect the ability to monitor and replace content in working memory, an executive function that is usually referred to as updating. However, it is less clear if the effects of emotion on updating vary with its relevance for the task and with age. Here, 25 younger (20–34 years of age) and 25 older adults (63–80 years of age) performed a 1-back and a 2-back task, in which they responded to younger, middle-aged, and older faces showing neutral, happy or angry expressions. The relevance of emotion for the task was manipulated through instructions to make match/non-match judgments based on the emotion (i.e., emotion was task-relevant) or the age (i.e., emotion was task-irrelevant) of the face. It was found that only older adults updated emotional faces more readily compared to neutral faces as evidenced by faster RTs on non-match trials. This emotion benefit was observed under low-load conditions (1-back task) but not under high-load conditions (2-back task) and only if emotion was task-relevant. In contrast, task-irrelevant emotion did not impair updating performance in either age group. These findings suggest that older adults can benefit from task-relevant emotional information to a greater extent than younger adults when sufficient cognitive resources are available. They also highlight that emotional processing can buffer age-related decline in WM tasks that require not only maintenance but also manipulation of material

Positive emotion broadens attention focus through decreased position-specific spatial encoding in early visual cortex: evidence from ERPs

Recent evidence has suggested that not only stimulus-specific attributes or top-down expectations can modulate attention selection processes, but also the actual mood state of the participant. In this study, we tested the prediction that the induction of positive mood can dynamically influence attention allocation and, in turn, modulate early stimulus sensory processing in primary visual cortex (V1). High-density visual event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a demanding task at fixation and were presented with peripheral irrelevant visual textures, whose position was systematically varied in the upper visual field (close, medium, or far relative to fixation). Either a neutral or a positive mood was reliably induced and maintained throughout the experimental session. The ERP results showed that the earliest retinotopic component following stimulus onset (C1) strongly varied in topography as a function of the position of the peripheral distractor, in agreement with a near-far spatial gradient. However, this effect was altered for participants in a positive relative to a neutral mood. On the contrary, positive mood did not modulate attention allocation for the central (task-relevant) stimuli, as reflected by the P300 component. We ran a control behavioral experiment confirming that positive emotion selectively impaired attention allocation to the peripheral distractors. These results suggest a mood-dependent tuning of position-specific encoding in V1 rapidly following stimulus onset. We discuss these results against the dominant broaden-and-build theory

Neural Dynamics of Autistic Behaviors: Cognitive, Emotional, and Timing Substrates

What brain mechanisms underlie autism and how do they give rise to autistic behavioral symptoms? This article describes a neural model, called the iSTART model, which proposes how cognitive, emotional, timing, and motor processes may interact together to create and perpetuate autistic symptoms. These model processes were originally developed to explain data concerning how the brain controls normal behaviors. The iSTART model shows how autistic behavioral symptoms may arise from prescribed breakdowns in these brain processes.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-01-1-0397); Office of Naval Research (N00014-01-1-0624

Attentional Boosting Effect in Perceived Trustworthiness

This thesis sought to explore whether attention could influence trustworthiness evaluation of faces in a cardiac-gated manner. The attentional boosting effect describes a facilitated processing of visual stimuli that are presented concurrently with target stimuli. Furthermore, fearful faces presented during the systolic phase of the cardiac cycle are detected more easily and rated as more intense relative to those presented during the diastolic phase. There has been little work regarding the influence of attention (i.e. attending or ignoring a stimuli) on emotional valence embedded within the context of cardiac timing. This study examined how attention may modulate trustworthiness in face evaluation and whether this effect differs depending on the natural phasic pattern of the cardiac cycle. Participants performed a letter detection task, in which computer-generated face stimuli varying on three trust levels (low, neutral, high) obtained from the Social Perception Lab at Princeton University were concurrently presented with a target or distractor letter. The face-letter paired stimuli were time-locked to coincide with the systolic or diastolic phase of the participant’s individual heartbeat, followed by a subjective rating task of the preceding face. Results showed that while cardiac timing did not seem to influence subjective rating, faces that were paired with target letters were overall rated as more trustworthy than faces paired with distractor letters. This effect was significantly greater in neutral relative to low-trust faces, suggesting that simultaneously attending to an unrelated target letter added, rather than enhanced, positive valence to an intrinsically neutral face. A follow-up study was then conducted to determine whether the attentional manipulation was affecting perceptual salience rather than facial trustworthiness. The study used faces from the same database as the aforementioned experiment, again time-locked to systolic and diastolic phases. A short-term memory task was added to follow the target detection task, in which participants assessed whether a second face that was presented was the same or different from the immediately preceding face. Results indicated that neither attention nor cardiac cycle significantly affected participants’ performance in the short-term memory task. Our studies provide initial support for an attentional boosting effect in trustworthiness of faces, whereby attending to an unrelated target could generate positive valence that is not inherently present in a background face