Critchley, H

Garfinkel, S

Gould van Praag, C

Pfeifer, G

Leeds Beckett Repository

Gaby Pfeifer1, Sarah Garfinkel 1,2, Cassandra Gould van Praag1, Hugo Critchley1,2 1Clinical Imaging Sciences Centre, Brighton and Sussex Medical School2Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science Feedback from the Heart: emotional learning and memory is controlled by cardiac cycle, interoceptive accuracy and personalityFeedback processing is critical to trial-and-error learning.Here, we examined whether feedback processing during the learning ofemotional face-name pairs was influenced by interoceptive signals concerningthe state of cardiovascular arousal (Garfinkel et al., 2014), with subsequenteffects on retrieval.CARDIOVASCULAR AROUSALStates of cardiovascular arousal (stronger, faster heartbeats) are signalled tothe brain by the activation of arterial baroreceptors (pressure sensors) in thegreat vessels leaving the heart.When the heart contracts to eject blood (at systole), aortic and carotidbaroreceptors fire. Baroreceptors are quiet between heartbeats (at diastole).We hypothesised that auditory feedback delivered at systolewould lead to better learning and/or retrieval of fearful faces (Garfinkel &Critchley, 2016).Participants with high interoceptive sensitivity (an ability to detecttheir own heart beats without manually checking) were expected to showenhanced cardiac timing effects during learning and retrieval (Garfinkel et al.,2013).PERSONALITY and AROUSALExtraversion is characterised by lower levels of cortical arousal at rest thanintroversion (H.J. Eysenck, 1967; Kumari et al., 2004).Neuroticism is linked to heightened autonomic reactivity to emotional stimuli,mediated through heightened activity within the ‘visceral brain’ (Harvey &Hirschmann, 1980; Norris et al., 2007).We hypothesised that feedback processing at specific cardiac timings would be modulated by personality with effects on learning and retrieval.MethodsParticipants (N = 29) engaged in a learning and retrieval task of face-name pairs (fearful, neutral, happy faces).Contact:  g.pfeifer@bsms.ac.uk, www.bsms.ac.ukIntroductionReferencesEysenck, H. J. (1967). The biological basis of personality. Springfield, IL: Thomas.Kumari, V., ffytche, D. H., Williams, S. C. R., & Gray, J. A. (2004). Personality predicts brain responses to cognitive demands. Journal of Neuroscience, 24(47), 10636-10641.Feldman Barrett, L. (2011). Constructing Emotion. Psychological Topics, 20(3), 359 - 380. Garfinkel, S. N., Minati, L., Gray, M. A., Seth, A. K., Dolan, R. J., & Critchley, H. D. (2014). Fear from the Heart: Sensitivity to Fear Stimuli Depends on Individual Heartbeats. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(19), 6573-6582.Garfinkel, S. N., Barrett, A. B., Minati, L., Dolan, R. J., Seth, A. K., & Critchley, H. D. (2013). What the heart forgets: Cardiac timing influences memory for words and is modulated by metacognition and interoceptive sensitivity. Psychophysiology, 50(6), 505-512.Garfinkel, S. N., & Critchley, H. D. (2016). Threat and the Body: How the Heart Supports Fear Processing. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 34-46.Harvey, F., & Hirschmann, R. (1980). The Influence of Extraversion and Neuroticism on Heart-Rate Responses to Aversive Visual-Stimuli. Personality and Individual Differences, 1(1), 97-100.Norris, C. J., Larsen, J. T., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2007). Neuroticism is associated with larger and more prolonged electrodermal responses to emotionally evocative pictures. Psychophysiology, 44(5), 823-826. AcknowledgementsThis work was funded by ERC to HDC. Ethical approval was obtained by the RGEC of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School.ResultsASSOCIATIVE   LEARNINGASSOCIATIVE   RETRIEVALThree-way interaction between emotion, cardiac cycle and interoceptive accuracy,  F[2,54] = 5.52, p = .007.PERSONALITY and AROUSALExtraversion was associated with poorer retrieval accuracy (A) and lower heart rate (B).INTENSITY RATINGSConclusionsNeuroticism was associated with greater retrieval confidence for fear at diastole.Three-way Interaction between emotion, cardiac cycle and neuroticism, F[2,54] = 4.30, p = .018.Three-way interaction between emotion, cardiac cycle and extraversion, F[2,52] = 3.504, p = 0.037, ηp2 = 0.119.We observed combined effects of emotional content and signals of bodily arousal states on learning and memory, in line with constructionist theories of emotion (Feldman-Barrett, 2011). Our results demonstrate that emotional memory is mediated by interoceptive accuracy and personality factors associated with constitutional states of arousal and reactivity.Extraversion was associated with enhanced intensity ratings for fearful faces initially learned at systole.Main effect of emotion showing enhanced recall of neutral relative to fearful faces and happy relative to fearful faces, while the difference in recall between neutral and happy faces was non-significant. Error-bars represent the standard error of the mean. Mean percent Hit-rate for the retrieval of fearful, neutral and happy faces that were initially reinforced at systole and diastole.

Feedback processing during emotional learning is controlled by cardiac cycle, interoceptive accuracy and extraversion.

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Feedback processing during emotional learning is controlled by cardiac cycle, interoceptive accuracy and extraversion.

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