Punishment-related memory-guided attention: Neural dynamics of perceptual modulation

Remembering the outcomes of past experiences allows us to generate future expectations and shape selection in the long-term. A growing number of studies has shown that learned positive reward values impact spatial memory-based attentional biases on perception. However, whether memory-driven attentional biases extend to punishment-related values has received comparatively less attention. Here, we manipulated whether recent spatial contextual memories became associated with successful avoidance of punishment (potential monetary loss). Behavioural and electrophysiological measures were collected from 27 participants during a subsequent memory-based attention task, in which we tested for the effect of punishment avoidance associations. Punishment avoidance significantly amplified effects of spatial contextual memories on visual search processes within natural scenes. Compared to non-associated scenes, contextual memories paired with punishment avoidance lead to faster responses to targets presented at remembered locations. Event-related potentials elicited by target stimuli revealed that acquired motivational value of specific spatial locations, by virtue of their association with past avoidance of punishment, dynamically affected neural signatures of early visual processing (indexed by larger P1 and earlier N1 potentials) and target selection (as indicated by reduced N2pc potentials). The present results extend our understanding of how memory, attention, and punishment-related mechanisms interact to optimize perceptual decision in real world environmentsThis research was supported by a Project Grant to S.D. from the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria, Xunta de Galicia, Spain (EM2012/017). S.S-S was supported by a grant for predoctoral contracts from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain (BES-2016-076298). A.C.N. is supported by Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator Award, United Kingdom (104571/Z/14/Z)S

Individual Differences in Need for Cognition and Decision-Making Competence among Leaders

When making decisions, people sometimes deviate from normative standards. While such deviations may appear to be alarmingly common, examining individual differences may reveal a more nuanced picture. Specifically, the personality factor of need for cognition (i.e., the extent to which people engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activities; Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) may moderate decision makers’ susceptibility to bias, as could personality factors associated with being a leader. As part of a large-scale assessment of high-level leaders, participants completed a battery of decision-making competence and personality scales. Leaders who scored higher on need for cognition performed better on two of four components of a decision-making competence measure: framing and honoring sunk costs. In addition, the leader sample performed better than published controls. Thus, both individual differences in need for cognition and leadership experience moderate susceptibility to decision biases. Implications for broader theories of individual differences and bias are discussed

The CogBIAS longitudinal study protocol: cognitive and genetic factors influencing psychological functioning in adolescence.

BACKGROUND: Optimal psychological development is dependent upon a complex interplay between individual and situational factors. Investigating the development of these factors in adolescence will help to improve understanding of emotional vulnerability and resilience. The CogBIAS longitudinal study (CogBIAS-L-S) aims to combine cognitive and genetic approaches to investigate risk and protective factors associated with the development of mood and impulsivity-related outcomes in an adolescent sample. METHODS: CogBIAS-L-S is a three-wave longitudinal study of typically developing adolescents conducted over 4 years, with data collection at age 12, 14 and 16. At each wave participants will undergo multiple assessments including a range of selective cognitive processing tasks (e.g. attention bias, interpretation bias, memory bias) and psychological self-report measures (e.g. anxiety, depression, resilience). Saliva samples will also be collected at the baseline assessment for genetic analyses. Multilevel statistical analyses will be performed to investigate the developmental trajectory of cognitive biases on psychological functioning, as well as the influence of genetic moderation on these relationships. DISCUSSION: CogBIAS-L-S represents the first longitudinal study to assess multiple cognitive biases across adolescent development and the largest study of its kind to collect genetic data. It therefore provides a unique opportunity to understand how genes and the environment influence the development and maintenance of cognitive biases and provide insight into risk and protective factors that may be key targets for intervention.This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC grant agreement no: [324176]

Self-positivity or self-negativity as a function of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Self and emotions are key motivational factors of a person’s strivings for health and well-being. Understanding neural mechanisms supporting the relationship between these factors bears far-reaching implications for mental health disorders. Recent work indicates a substantial overlap between processing of self-relevant and emotion information and proposed the MPFC as one of the neural signatures of the shared mechanisms. However, the precise cognitive and neural mechanisms represented by the MPFC are largely unknown. Here we addressed the question whether the neural underpinnings of self-related processing in the MPFC reflect positive or negative emotions. To test the distinct and shared neural circuits of self- and emotional-related processing, we collected fMRI data while participants performed personal and emotion associative matching tasks. By exploiting tight control over the factors that determine the effects of self-relevance and emotions, we contrasted these effects across the whole brain. We also assessed a seed-to voxel functional connectivity between the MPFC and the rest of the brain while accounting for the magnitude of self and emotions prioritization effects at the behavioural level. our univariate analysis revealed no differences in brain activation between the effects of self- and positive emotion-prioritization. Our results indicate that the ventral part of the MPFC which has established involvement in self-prioritization effects was not recruited in the negative emotion prioritization effect. In contrast, we found overlapping effects between self- and positive emotion prioritization. The results suggest that the prioritization effects for self and positive emotions are tightly linked together and the MPFC plays a large role in discriminating between positive and negative emotions in relation to self-relevance

Identifying neural mechanisms and behavioral effects of anxiety on attentional capture

Attention research has long investigated the mechanisms by which sensory information is selectively filtered for neural representation. Models for visual selective attention initially formed a theoretical dichotomy in which goal-oriented or salience-driven mechanisms were argued as the predominant modes for attentional selection. However, this theoretical dichotomy was challenged when new experimental findings could not be reduced to goal-oriented or salience-driven mechanisms. These results were grouped into a new component of attentional control by an experience-driven mechanism and expanded models of selective attention into a theoretical trichotomy under the third label selection history. In the context of attention research, threat has been investigated primarily by measuring rapid orienting towards threatening stimuli. Individuals with elevated state anxiety measured via self-report demonstrate increased attentional orienting towards threatening stimuli and enhanced attentional capture by physically salient stimuli. However, such findings are limited to attentional mechanisms toward the threatening nature of a stimulus and do not extend to more systemic changes in attentional control when the observer is in a threatened state. It is yet unknown whether elevated state anxiety globally modulates attentional capture through a core mechanism or whether such changes in observer state uniquely modulate different modes of attentional control. Furthermore, the mechanism by which threatening stimuli are afforded greater attentional priority in individuals with elevated state anxiety is still unclear. In this dissertation, I investigate how attentional priority can be modulated by changing the state of an individual by experimentally inducing anxiety through the Threat of Shock (ToS) paradigm. I first present a series of behavior experiments that investigate how unpredictable threat modulates the three predominant mechanisms of attentional selection: attentional capture by reward history (selection history), color (salience-driven), and strategic goals. Then, I present a neuroimaging experiment that investigates how the neural mechanisms of processing threat interacts with mechanisms of attentional selection by previously-reward associated stimuli. I conclude by expanding on the core findings of this dissertation and its implications concerning how changes in observer state modulates attentional control and how the identified mechanisms can be expanded to inform our understanding of attentional biases toward threatening stimuli

Effect of reward contingencies on multiple-target visual search

It has long been known that human beings’ search behaviour is influenced by different mechanisms of control of attention: we can voluntarily pay attention, according to the context-specific goals, or we can involuntarily direct it, guided by the physical conspicuity of perceptual objects. Recent evidence suggests that pairing target stimuli with reward can modulate the way in which we voluntarily deploy our attention. In this thesis, the explored line of research focuses on the effects of reward, specifically a monetary reward: neutral stimuli are imbued with value via associative learning, through a training phase. This work aims to investigate if these stimuli will be able to capture attention in a subsequent foraging task. This mechanism, known as value-driven attentional capture, has never been investigated in a foraging context, but only in a classical visual search one: will it be able to influence the search behaviour when the targets are multiple