People maintain systems of beliefs that provide them with a sense of belongingness, control, identity, and meaning, more generally. Recent research shows that when these beliefs are threatened a syndrome of negatively valenced arousal is evoked that motivates people to seek comfort in their ideologies or other personally valued beliefs. In this paper we will provide an overview of this process and discuss areas for future research. Beginning with the neural foundations of meaning violations, we review findings that show the (...) anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is responsible for detecting inconsistencies, and importantly, that this is experienced as aversive. Next, we evaluate the evidential support for a psychophysiological arousal response as measured by cardiography and skin conductance. We discuss how current theorizing proposes that subsequent behavioral approach ameliorates the negative arousal and serves as an effective, well-adapted coping response, but we also aim to further integrate this process in the existing threat-compensation literature. Finally, we speculate on whether approach motivation is likely to result when one feels capable of handling the threat, thereby incorporating the biopsychosocial model that distinguishes between challenge and threat into the motivational threat-response literature. We believe the current literature on threat and meaning has much to offer and we aim to provide new incentives for further development. (shrink)

Identification of factors that predict recurrent antisocial behavior is integral to the social sciences, criminal justice procedures, and the effective treatment of high-risk individuals. Here we show that error-related brain activity elicited during performance of an in- hibitory task prospectively predicted subsequent rearrest among adult offenders within 4 y of release (N =96). The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding (...) constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior. (shrink)

Why does performing certain tasks cause the aversive experience of mental effort and concomitant deterioration in task performance? One explanation posits a physical resource that is depleted over time. We propose an alternative explanation that centers on mental representations of the costs and benefits associated with task performance. Specifically, certain computational mechanisms, especially those associated with executive function, can be deployed for only a limited number of simultaneous tasks at any given moment. Consequently, the deployment of these computational mechanisms carries (...) an opportunity cost – that is, the next-best use to which these systems might be put. We argue that the phenomenology of effort can be understood as the felt output of these cost/benefit computations. In turn, the subjective experience of effort motivates reduced deployment of these computational mechanisms in the service of the present task. These opportunity cost representations, then, together with other cost/benefit calculations, determine effort expended and, everything else equal, result in performance reductions. In making our case for this position, we review alternative explanations for both the phenomenology of effort associated with these tasks and for performance reductions over time. Likewise, we review the broad range of relevant empirical results from across sub-disciplines, especially psychology and neuroscience. We hope that our proposal will help to build links among the diverse fields that have been addressing similar questions from different perspectives, and we emphasize ways in which alternative models might be empirically distinguished. (shrink)

People tend to perceive ongoing continuous activity as series of discrete events. This partitioning of continuous activity may occur, in part, because events correspond to dynamic patterns that have recurred across different contexts. Recurring patterns may lead to reliable sequential dependencies in observers' experiences, which then can be used to guide perception. The current set of simulations investigated whether this statistical structure within events can be used 1) to develop stable internal representations that facilitate perception and 2) to learn when (...) to update such representations in a self-organizing manner. These simulations demonstrate that experience with recurring patterns enables a system to accurately predict upcoming stimuli within an event, to identify boundaries between such events based on transient increases in prediction error, and to use such boundaries to improve prediction about subsequent activities. (shrink)

The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) has been the subject of intense interest as a locus of cognitive control. Several computational models have been proposed to account for a range of effects, including error detection, conflict monitoring, error likelihood prediction, and numerous other effects observed with single-unit neurophysiology, fMRI, and lesion studies. Here, we review the state of computational models of cognitive control and offer a new theoretical synthesis of the mPFC as signaling response–outcome predictions. This new synthesis has two interacting (...) components. The first component learns to predict the various possible outcomes of a planned action, and the second component detects discrepancies between the actual and intended responses; the detected discrepancies in turn update the outcome predictions. This single construct is consistent with a wide array of performance monitoring effects in mPFC and suggests a unifying account of the cognitive role of medial PFC in performance monitoring. (shrink)

4Es approaches to cognition draw an unconventional picture of cognitive processes and of the mind. Instead of conceiving of cognition as a process that always takes place within the boundaries of the skull and the skin, these approaches hold that cognition is a situated process that often extends beyond human agents’ physical boundaries. In particular, supporters of the extended mind theory and of the enactive approach claim that embodied action in a perceptually complex environment is constitutive of cognitive processes, and (...) thus of the mind. (Chapter 1). Although both draw an extended picture of cognition and of the mind, supporters of the extended mind and supporters of the enactive approach disagree on the value of internal representations in perceptually-guided action. The extended mind theory holds that we need to posit internal action-oriented representations (AORs). AORs are valuable -the argument goes- because they account for action-selection, action-control, and for the prediction of incoming perceptual information. Advocates of the enactive approach to cognition, instead, argue against AORs. Firstly, they argue that AORs do not fulfill the necessary conditions for the identification of representational entities. Therefore, that of AOR is an ill-conceived epistemic construct. Secondly, they argue that AORs are expressive of an internalist prejudice, which makes the extended mind theory weaker than it should be from an explanatory and metaphysical point of view. I endorse both these arguments advanced by supporters of the enactive approach. Moreover, through a semiotic analysis of the construct and of the workings of AORs, I show that AORs are not active at all. Hence, I argue that AORs do not do the job they are supposed to do: extending the mind’s boundaries by explaining our perceptual relation with the world as an active, embodied, and world-involving process. Therefore, I suggest that the construct of AOR ought to be dismissed - at least in current projects in 4Es cognition (Chapter 2). I argue that similar arguments apply to recent attempts to make predictive processing accounts of perceptually-guided action more aligned with 4Es approaches to cognitive science by appealing to predictive internal models of our perceptual world. I thus propose an alternative explanation of the key features of perceptually-guided action that AORs and these internal models are supposed to be grasp. Action-control, action-selection, and the anticipatory aspects of action-perception loops can be explained by appealing to embodied actions in a field of relevant affordances, which are perceived as such based on the agent’s motor skills and motives. Furthermore, I suggest that, by combining the enactive approach to cognition with an analysis of the indexical features of our perceptual environment, we can explain perceptually-guided action in a way that truly accounts for our minds as entities that often extend beyond our skulls and skin. And we can do so without holding onto spooking entities like AORs and internal predictive models. (Chapter 3). (shrink)

Reinforcement learning relies on the reward prediction error (RPE) signals conveyed by the midbrain dopamine system. Previous studies showed that dopamine plays an important role in both positive and negative reinforcement. However, whether various reinforcement processes will induce distinct learning signals is still unclear. In a probabilistic learning task, we examined RPE signals in different reinforcement types using an electrophysiology index, namely, the feedback-related negativity (FRN). Ninety-four participants were randomly assigned into four groups: base (no money incentive), positive reinforcement (presentation (...) of money rewards), negative reinforcement (removal of money losses), and combined reinforcement (money rewards and removal of money losses) groups. In addition, in order to evaluate the engagement of emotional activity in the different reinforcement processes, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form (PANAS-X) scales were applied before and after the experiment to detect the emotional changes. The results showed that there was no difference between groups in the dopamine-related learning bias. However, compared to the other three groups, negative reinforcement elicited smaller FRN (the difference-wave measure) during the learning, stronger positive affect and joviality, and less fatigue after the learning, in which the difference between the negative and positive reinforcement groups was smaller. The results indicated that pure avoidance motivation may induce distinct emotional fluctuations, which influence the feedback processing. (shrink)

In their innovative study, Inzlicht and Al-Khindi (2012) demonstrated that participants who were allowed to misattribute their arousal and negative affect induced by errors to a placebo beverage had a reduced error-related negativity (ERN/Ne) compared to controls not being allowed to misattribute their arousal following errors. These results contribute to the ongoing debate that affect and motivation are interwoven with the cognitive processing of errors. Evidence that the misattribution of negative affect modulates the ERN/Ne is essential for understanding the mechanisms (...) behind ERN/Ne. Therefore, and because of the growing debate on reproducibility of empirical findings, we aimed at replicating the misattribution effects on the ERN/Ne in a go/nogo task. Students were randomly assigned to a misattribution group (n = 48) or a control group (n = 51). Participants of the misattribution group consumed a beverage said to have side effects that would increase their physiological arousal, so that they could misattribute the negative affect induced by errors to the beverage. Participants of the control group correctly believed that the beverage had no side effects. As Inzlicht and Al-Khindi (2012), we did not observe performance differences between both groups. However, ERN/Ne differences between misattribution and control group could not be replicated, although the statistical power of the replication study was high. Evidence regarding the replication of performance and the non-replication of ERN/Ne findings was confirmed by Bayesian statistics. (shrink)

In this thesis, I will defend a new kind of compatibilist account of free action, indirect conscious control compatibilism (or indirect compatibilism for short), and argue that some of our actions are free according to it. My argument has three components, and involves the development of a brand new tool for experimental philosophy, and the use of cognitive neuroscience. The first component of the argument shows that compatibilism (of some kind) is a conceptual truth. Contrary to the current orthodoxy in (...) the free will literature, which is that our concept of free will is an incompatibilist concept - a concept according to which we have free will only if determinism is false - I will show that our concept of free will is in fact a compatibilist concept - a concept according to which we can have free will even if determinism is true - and I do so using a new experimental philosophy methodology inspired by two-dimensional semantics. -/- Of course, even if our concept of free will is a compatibilist concept, this does not mean that there are any free actions in the world: the current empirical evidence from the brain sciences appears to show that there might be no, or very few, free actions in the world, even on many compatibilist understandings of what it would take for there to be free will. The second component of the argument addresses this concern by extending our understanding of compatibilism. Agents act freely either when their actions are caused by compatibilistically acceptable psychological processes, or are indirectly caused by those same processes. Hence the name of my account: indirect compatibilism. -/- The final component of the argument defends my new account against some interesting objections and provides evidence from cognitive neuroscience that some of our actions count as free by the lights of indirect compatibilism. (shrink)

Animals routinely adapt to changes in the environment in order to survive. Though reinforcement learning may play a role in such adaptation, it is not clear that it is the only mechanism involved, as it is not well suited to producing rapid, relatively immediate changes in strategies in response to environmental changes. This research proposes that counterfactual reasoning might be an additional mechanism that facilitates change detection. An experiment is conducted in which a task state changes over time and the (...) participants had to detect the changes in order to perform well and gain monetary rewards. A cognitive model is constructed that incorporates reinforcement learning with counterfactual reasoning to help quickly adjust the utility of task strategies in response to changes. The results show that the model can accurately explain human data and that counterfactual reasoning is key to reproducing the various effects observed in this change detection paradigm. (shrink)

The results are interpreted in terms of a deficit in initial rule learning and subsequent generalization of these rules to new stimuli. Negative feedback is adequately processed at a neural level but this information is not used to improve behaviour on subsequent trials. As learning is degraded, the process of error detection at the moment of the actual response is diminished. Therefore, the current study demonstrates that disturbed error-monitoring processes play a central role in the often reported learning deficits in (...) individuals with PP. (shrink)

Cognitive control has long been one of the most active areas of computational modeling work in cognitive science. The focus on computational models as a medium for specifying and developing theory predates the PDP books, and cognitive control was not one of the areas on which they focused. However, the framework they provided has injected work on cognitive control with new energy and new ideas. On the occasion of the books' anniversary, we review computational modeling in the study of cognitive (...) control, with a focus on the influence that the PDP approach has brought to bear in this area. Rather than providing a comprehensive review, we offer a framework for thinking about past and future modeling efforts in this domain. We define control in terms of the optimal parameterization of task processing. From this vantage point, the development of control systems in the brain can be seen as responding to the structure of naturalistic tasks, through the filter of the brain systems with which control directly interfaces. This perspective lays open a set of fascinating but difficult research questions, which together define an important frontier for future computational research. (shrink)

The target article highlights the role of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in conflict monitoring, but ACC function may be better understood in terms of the hierarchical organization of behavior. This proposal suggests that the ACC selects extended goal-directed actions according to their learned costs and benefits and executes those behaviors subject to depleting resources.

Previous studies have examined the outcome evaluation related to the self and other, and recent research has explored the outcome evaluation of the self and other with pro-social implications. However, the evaluation processing of outcomes in the group in need remains unclear. This study has examined the neural mechanisms of evaluative processing by gambling for the self and charity, respectively. At the behavioral level, when participants make decisions for themselves, they made riskier decisions following the gain than loss in small (...) outcomes and engage in more risky behaviors following the loss than gain in large outcomes. However, magnitude and valence did not affect the next risky behavior when participants made decisions for the charity. At the neurophysiological level, the results found that the FRN was larger for the charity outcome than for the self-outcome. For FRN, the valence difference of small outcomes was smaller than that of large outcomes. The P3 response was larger for the self-outcome than for the charity outcome. Meanwhile, compared with the small outcome, the self-charity discrepancies have a significant difference in large outcomes. In addition, the FRN amplitude for self in large outcomes was negatively correlated with the upcoming risky choices, regardless of outcome valence. The behavioral results suggest that people are more likely to optimize strategies for themselves than for the charity. The ERP findings indicated that people focus more on charity outcome than self-outcome in the early stage. In the middle and late stages, people turn attention to their outcomes, and the difference between self’s and charity’s outcome varies with the magnitude. Specifically, it is only in large outcomes that people engage more emotional attention or motivation in their outcomes, but self and charity outcomes had a similar emotional engagement in small outcomes. (shrink)

The unwillingness of college students to use recycled water has become a key barrier to sewage recycling on campus, and it is critical to strengthen their inclination to do so. This paper used college students in Xi’an as a case study and adopted event-related potential technology to explore the effect of social norms on the willingness to use recycled water and the neural mechanism of cognitive processing. The results suggested the following: The existence of social norms might influence college students’ (...) willingness to use recycled water. When individuals’ willingness to use recycled water is lower than the social norm, there is a bigger feedback-related negative amplitude. College students pay more attention to social norms in groups with closer social distance. These findings can be used to provide a scientific basis for persuading the public to use recycled water from the perspective of the social norm to drive public acceptability. (shrink)

Several authors assume that evaluative conditioning (EC) relies on high-level propositional thinking. In contrast, the dual-process perspective proposes two processing pathways, one associative and the other propositional, contributing to EC. Dual-process theorists argue that attitudinal ambiguity resulting from these two pathways’ conflicting evaluations demonstrate the involvement of both automatic and controlled processes in EC. Previously, we suggested that amplitude variations of error-related negativity and error-positivity, two well-researched event-related potentials of performance monitoring, allow for the detection of attitudinal ambiguity at the (...) neural level. The present study utilises self-reported evaluation, categorisation performance, and neural correlates of performance monitoring to explore associative-propositional ambiguity during social attitude formation. Our results show that compared to associative-propositional harmony, attitudinal ambiguity correlates with more neutral subjective evaluations, longer response times, increased error commission, and diminished error-related negativity amplitudes. While our findings align with dual-process models, we aim to offer a propositional interpretation. We discuss dual-process theories in the context of evolutionary psychology, suggesting that associative processes may only represent a small piece of the EC puzzle. (shrink)

The ERN-Ne of the event-related potential indicates error monitoring. Even though enlarged ERN-Ne amplitudes have often been related to higher anxiety scores, a recent meta-analysis provided very small effect sizes for the association of trait-anxiety with the ERN-Ne. Conditions modulating this association were investigated in the present study: The generality of the trait-anxiety factor, gender, and experimental conditions, i.e., worry induction and error aversiveness. Participants completed a flanker task. Worries were induced before the task by giving participants a bogus feedback (...) claiming their responses were slower than the average responses of participants, whereas other participants got the feedback that they responded as fast as other participants. Aversiveness of errors was varied by playing sinus tones after too slow responses in one part of the task and aversive screams after too slow responses in another part. Increased ERN-Ne amplitudes of response time errors occurred for individuals higher on trait-anxiety in the condition with induced worries and screams. A multiple group model for women and men indicated that women are more sensitive to conditions altering the association of trait-anxiety with the ERN-Ne. (shrink)

ABSTRACTNegative emotion influences cognitive control, and more specifically conflict adaptation. However, discrepant results have often been reported in the literature. In this study, we broke down negative emotion into integral and incidental components using a modern motivation-based framework, and assessed whether the former could change conflict adaptation. In the first experiment, we manipulated the duration of the inter-trial-interval to assess the actual time-scale of this effect. Integral negative emotion was induced by using loss-related feedback contingent on task performance, and measured (...) at the subjective and physiological levels. Results showed that conflict-driven adaptive control was enhanced when integral negative emotion was elicited, compared to a control condition without changes in defensive motivation. Importantly, this effect was only found when a short, as opposed to long ITI was used, suggesting that it had a short time scale. In the second experiment, we controlled for effe... (shrink)

Reinforcement learning (RL) models of decision-making cannot account for human decisions in the absence of prior reward or punishment. We propose a mechanism for choosing among available options based on goal-option association strengths, where association strengths between objects represent previously experienced object proximity. The proposed mechanism, Goal-Proximity Decision-making (GPD), is implemented within the ACT-R cognitive framework. GPD is found to be more efficient than RL in three maze-navigation simulations. GPD advantages over RL seem to grow as task difficulty is increased. (...) An experiment is presented where participants are asked to make choices in the absence of prior reward. GPD captures human performance in this experiment better than RL. (shrink)