Cognitive conflicts in major depression : Between desired change and personal coherence

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposesThe notion of intrapsychic conflict has been present in psychopathology for more than a century within different theoretical orientations. However, internal conflicts have not received enough empirical attention, nor has their importance in depression been fully elaborated. This study is based on the notion of cognitive conflict, understood as implicative dilemma (ID), and on a new way of identifying these conflicts by means of the Repertory Grid Technique. Our aim was to explore the relevance of cognitive conflicts among depressive patientsPeer reviewedFinal Published versio

Depression and identity : Are self-constructions negative or conflictual?

Negative self-views have proved to be a consistent marker of vulnerability for depression. However, recent research has shown that a particular kind of cognitive conflict, implicative dilemma, is highly prevalent in depression. In this study, the relevance of these conflicts is assessed as compared to the cognitive model of depression of a negative view of the self. In so doing, 161 patients with major depression and 110 controls were assessed to explore negative self-construing (self-ideal discrepancy) and conflicts (implicative dilemmas), as well as severity of symptoms. Results showed specificity for the clinical group indicating a pattern of mixed positive and negative self-descriptions with a high rate of conflict. Regression analysis lent support to the conflict hypothesis in relation to clinically relevant indicators such as symptom severity, global functioning. However, self-ideal discrepancy was a stronger predictor of group membership. The findings showed the relevance of cognitive conflicts to compliment the well-consolidated theory of negative self-views. Clinical implications for designing interventions are discussed.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Self-control performance enhances self-control performance at similar tasks.

In this paper we claim that the well-established reduction in self-control performance following prior exertion of self-control (the so-called ego depletion effect) is a consequence of people's adaptation to situational demands. Consistent with this claim that follows from cognitive control theory, we show that (1) self-control performance improves during tasks that are typically used as resource depletion tasks and that (2) typical depletion effects occur only when the nature of the response conflicts in the two subsequent tasks is different. When the nature of the response conflicts in the two subsequent tasks is similar, we found that exerting self-control improves subsequent self-control performance. Implications for the self-control strength model are drawn and avenues for future research are sketched.Claim; Cognitive; Control; Control theory; Demand; Effects; Ego depletion; Implications; Model; Performance; Research; Self-control; Theory;

The role of cognitive failure and alexithymia in marital conflicts of women who apply for divorce

Background and aims: Marital conflicts and subsequent divorce occur due to various factors that one of them is psychological factors. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the role of cognitive failure and alexithymia in marital conflicts of women exposed to divorce. Methods: The current research is a correlation study. 100 women of applying divorce in Shiraz city were selected by convenience sampling and responded to the cognitive failure, alexithymia scale and marital conflict questionnaire. In analyzing the data, stepwise regression analysis was used. Results: The results showed that predictor variables could predict in positive and significant manner marital conflicts of women who exposed for divorce. In the first stage, alexithymia could explain about 23% of the variance of marital conflict and in the next stage, the predicted amount with adding cognitive failure increased to 32 percent (P<0.01). Conclusion: Cognitive failure and alexithymia could be one of the reasons of marital conflicts in women exposed for divorce. So, training skills like these is essential for marriage

Cognitive Science for the Revisionary Metaphysician

Many philosophers insist that the revisionary metaphysician—i.e., the metaphysician who offers a metaphysical theory which conflicts with folk intuitions—bears a special burden to explain why certain folk intuitions are mistaken. I show how evidence from cognitive science can help revisionist discharge this explanatory burden. Focusing on composition and persistence, I argue that empirical evidence indicates that the folk operate with a promiscuous teleomentalist view of composition and persistence. The folk view, I argue, deserves to be debunked. In this way, I take myself to have illustrated one key role cognitive science can play in metaphysics; namely by helping the revisionary metaphysician discharge the explanatory burden of providing a plausible explanation of how the folk have gone wrong

Age of second language acquisition affects nonverbal conflict processing in children : an fMRI study

Background: In their daily communication, bilinguals switch between two languages, a process that involves the selection of a target language and minimization of interference from a nontarget language. Previous studies have uncovered the neural structure in bilinguals and the activation patterns associated with performing verbal conflict tasks. One question that remains, however is whether this extra verbal switching affects brain function during nonverbal conflict tasks. Methods: In this study, we have used fMRI to investigate the impact of bilingualism in children performing two nonverbal tasks involving stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts. Three groups of 8-11-year-old children - bilinguals from birth (2L1), second language learners (L2L), and a control group of monolinguals (1L1) - were scanned while performing a color Simon and a numerical Stroop task. Reaction times and accuracy were logged. Results: Compared to monolingual controls, bilingual children showed higher behavioral congruency effect of these tasks, which is matched by the recruitment of brain regions that are generally used in general cognitive control, language processing or to solve language conflict situations in bilinguals (caudate nucleus, posterior cingulate gyrus, STG, precuneus). Further, the activation of these areas was found to be higher in 2L1 compared to L2L. Conclusion: The coupling of longer reaction times to the recruitment of extra language-related brain areas supports the hypothesis that when dealing with language conflicts the specialization of bilinguals hampers the way they can process with nonverbal conflicts, at least at early stages in life

Mitigation of Conflicts with Automation: Use of Cognitive Countermeasures

Objective: The aim of this study was to empirically assess the efficacy of cognitive countermeasures based on the technique of information removal to enhance human operator attentional disengagement abilities when facing attentional tunneling. Background: Lessons learned from human factors studies suggest that conflict with automation leads to the degradation of operators’ performance by promoting excessive focusing on a single task to the detriment of the supervision of other critical parameters. Method: An experimental setup composed of a real unmanned ground vehicle and a ground station was developed to test the efficiency of the cognitive countermeasures.The scenario (with and without countermeasure) involved an authority conflict between the participants and the robot induced by a battery failure.The effects of the conflict and, in particular, the impact of cognitive countermeasures on the participants’ cognition and arousal were assessed through heart rate measurement and eye tracking techniques. Results: In the control group (i.e., no countermeasure), 8 out of 12 participants experienced attentional tunneling when facing the conflict, leading them to neglect the visual alarms displayed that would have helped them to understand the evolution of the tactical situation. Participants in the countermeasure group showed lower heart rates and enhanced attentional abilities, and 10 out of 11 participants made appropriate decisions. Conclusions: The use of cognitive countermeasures appeared to be an efficient means to mitigate excessive focus issues in the unmanned ground vehicle environment. Applications: The principle of cognitive counter- measures can be applied to a large domain of applications involving human operators interacting with critical systems