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The present study investigates the emotional determinants of the phenomenal characteristics of autobiographical memories. A total of 84 participants completed the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ, Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988) after retrieving and orally describing a negative, a positive, and a neutral autobiographical memory. In addition, self-report and physiological measures of emotional state at retrieval were recorded. Results suggest that recall of perceptual, sensory, and semantic elements is better for emotional memories than for neutral ones. This difference is not significant for contextual and temporal aspects, suggesting that emotional memories are more vivid but no more specific than are neutral ones. In addition, positive memories yielded higher MCQ ratings than did negative memories for sensory, temporal, and contextual aspects. Finally, correlations suggest a positive relation between emotional state at retrieval and level of phenomenal detail of retrieved memories. Results are interpreted in terms of multilevel models of emotion and of Conway and Pleydell-Pearce's (2000) model.

To test for a relation between individual differences in personality and neural-processing efficiency, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to assess brain activity within regions associated with cognitive control during a demanding working memory task. Fifty-three participants completed both the self-report behavioral inhibition sensitivity (BIS) and behavioral approach sensitivity (BAS) personality scales and a standard measure of fluid intelligence (Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices). They were then scanned as they performed a three-back working memory task. A mixed blocked/ event-related fMRI design enabled us to identify both sustained and transient neural activity. Higher BAS was negatively related to event-related activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate, the lateral prefrontal cortex, and parietal areas in regions of interest identified in previous work. These relationships were not explained by differences in either behavioral performance or fluid intelligence, consistent with greater neural efficiency. The results reveal the high specificity of the relationships among personality, cognition, and brain activity. The data confirm that affective dimensions of personality are independent of intelligence, yet also suggest that they might be interrelated in subtle ways, because they modulate activity in overlapping brain regions that appear to be critical for task performance.

The relation between emotion intensity and the voluntary activation of personal memories was investigated in 2 experiments. Two hypotheses were compared: the specificity hypothesis, which states that emotion intensity is positively related to the specificity of personal memories, and the strategic inhibition hypothesis, which postulates that specifying past experiences requires the inhibition of emotion. Study 1 showed that priming a specific (vs. overgeneral) access mode to autobiographical memory results in less emotion during a subsequent mental imagery trial. Study 2 replicated Study 1 with a wider array of emotions and a different method of emotion induction (films). Overall, results support the strategic inhibition hypothesis. The notion of specificity is discussed as well as implications for cognitive theories of emotion and their clinical applications.

The study of uncertainty in decision-making is receiving greater attention in the fields of cognitive and computational neuroscience. Several lines of evidence are beginning to elucidate different variants of uncertainty. Particularly, risk, ambiguity, and expected and unexpected forms of uncertainty are well articulated in the literature. In this article we review both empirical and theoretical evidence arguing for the potential distinction between three forms of uncertainty; expected uncertainty, unexpected uncertainty, and volatility. Particular attention will be devoted to exploring the distinction between unexpected uncertainty and volatility which has been less appreciated in the literature. This includes evidence mainly from neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and electrophysiological studies. We further address the possible differentiation of cognitive control mechanisms used to deal with these forms of uncertainty. Finally, we explore whether the dual modes of control theory provides a theoretical framework for understanding the distinction between unexpected uncertainty and volatility.

A growing trend of neuroimaging, behavioral, and computational research has investigated the topic of outcome uncertainty in decision-making. Although evidence to date indicates that humans are very effective in learning to adapt to uncertain situations, the nature of the specific cognitive processes involved in the adaptation to uncertainty are still a matter of debate. In this article, we reviewed evidence suggesting that cognitive control processes are at the heart of uncertainty in decision-making contexts. Available evidence suggests that: (1) There is a strong conceptual overlap between the constructs of uncertainty and cognitive control; (2) There is a remarkable overlap between the neural networks associated with uncertainty and the brain networks subserving cognitive control; (3) The perception and estimation of uncertainty might play a key role in monitoring processes and the evaluation of the “need for control”; (4) Potential interactions between uncertainty and cognitive control might play a significant role in several affective disorders.

The human amygdala has classically been viewed as a brain structure primarily related to emotions and dissociated from higher cognition. We report here findings suggesting that the human amygdala also has a role in supporting working memory (WM), a canonical higher cognitive function. In a first functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study (n ϭ 53), individual differences in amygdala activity predicted behavioral performance in a 3-back WM task. Specifically, higher event-related amygdala amplitude predicted faster response time (RT; r ϭ Ϫ0.64), with no loss of accuracy. This relationship was not contingent on mood state, task content, or personality variables. In a second fMRI study (n ϭ 21), we replicated the key finding (r ϭ Ϫ0.47) and further showed that the correlation between the amygdala and faster RT was specific to a high working memory load condition (3-back) compared with a low working memory load condition (1-back). These results support models of amygdala function that can account for its involvement not only in emotion but also higher cognition.