Brain systems underlying the affective and social monitoring of actions: An integrative review

Abstract

(max 170 words)Action monitoring allows the swift detection of conflicts, errors, and the rapid evaluation of outcomes. These processes are crucial for learning, adaptive behavior, and for the regulation of cognitive control. Our review discusses neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies that have explored the contribution of emotional and social factors during action monitoring. Metaanalytic brain activation maps demonstrate reliable overlap of error monitoring, emotional, and social processes in the dorsal mediofrontal cortex (dMFC), lateral prefrontal areas, and anterior insula (AI). Cumulating evidence suggests that action monitoring is modulated by trait anxiety and negative affect, and that activity of the dMFC and the amygdala during action monitoring might contribute to the 'affective tagging' of actions along a valence dimension. The role of AI in action monitoring may be the integration of outcome information with self-agency and social context factors, thereby generating more complex situation-specific and conscious emotional feeling states. Our review suggests that action-monitoring processes operate at multiple levels in the human brain, and are shaped by dynamic interactions with affective and social processes.Keywords: Anterior insula; dorsal cingulate cortex; mediofrontal cortex; amygdala; error monitoring; ERN; feedback processing; social cognition; emotions; cognitive control; emotioncognition interactions; meta-analysis 3 Overview and motivationIn order to adapt their behavior, to detect and learn from errors, and ultimately to increase their chances of survival, humans and other animals have to monitor their actions (Rabbitt, 1966). Flexible regulation of behavior requires its constant evaluation in terms of performance and outcomes, as well as in terms of costs and future consequences. Action and error monitoring have been studied for several decades in psychology and neuroscience (for previous reviews see (Etkin et al., 2011;Moser et al., 2013;Pessoa, 2008;Proudfit et al., 2013;Shackman et al., 2011;Shenhav et al., 2013), we propose that error and action monitoring is an intrinsically affective and social process. However, we show that meta-analytic activation maps support overlapping brain responses to error processing, emotional, and social information processing not only in dMFC, but also in several other brain regions, including anterior insula and lateral prefrontal cortex.Further, recent intracranial electrophysiological recordings showed error-related activity in the amygdala, suggesting this limbic region may contribute to affective responses to errors and negative action outcomes. In the closing part, we outline an integrative framework for 4 understanding the brain systems underlying affective and social interactions with action monitoring, which may be crucial to foster behavioral control in real life.

The emotive nature of conflict monitoring in the medial prefrontal cortex

“…In the present context, conflict monitoring signals have been observed in several brain regions classically implicated in emotion, such as the amygdala (Koban & Pourtois, 2014;Pourtois et al, 2010) and The Emotive Nature of Conflict 16 anterior insula (Klein et al, 2007;Ullsperger, Harsay, Wessel, & Ridderinkhof, 2010).…”

“…Rather than assuming that the brain "knows" when to exert control, these models specify the processes that detect the The Emotive Nature of Conflict 8 fluctuating need for control in mathematically tractable terms (Danielmeier, Wessel, Steinhauser, & Ullpserger, 2009;Yeung et al, 2004). In parallel to these accounts, however, affective neuroscience has revealed that conflict elicits many of the hallmark features of emotion, including valence judgements, physiological arousal, and subjective emotional experiences (Dreisbach & Fisher, 2015;Etkin, Egner, & Kalisch, 2012;Inzlicht, Bartholow, & Hirsh, 2015;Koban & Pourtois, 2014;Pessoa, 2009;Shackman et al, 2011), proposing a degree of integration between control and emotion that is virtually ignored by computational accounts.…”

“…Affective neuroscience has taken strides towards addressing some questions in regard to the functional significance of these brain regions in control (see Ullsperger, Harasay, Wessel, & Ridderinkhof, 2012;Koban and Pourtois, 2014 for discussions regarding the role of the insula and amygdala). In what follows, we focus specifically on conflict monitoring signals in the aMCC and related electrical brain activity.…”

Evaluative priming reveals dissociable effects of cognitive versus physiological anxiety on action monitoring.

“…More recently, a series of studies by Pourtois (2012, 2013) went beyond earlier findings by showing that dedicated internal monitoring systems enable individuals to rapidly tag 6 tension elicited by clear and current threats. Noteworthy, Moser et al (2013) provided evidence for an association between anxious apprehension (worry) and an enhanced ERN component, with no such link found with anxious arousal, suggesting that worry (but not arousal) might actually play a predominant role in abnormal early error monitoring processes typically observed in high anxious individuals Koban & Pourtois, 2014). An older dominant model accounting for modulatory effects of anxiety on cognition stated that worry might reflect the occupation (or hijacking) of resources that would otherwise be allocated to the control of attention (M. W. Eysenck, 1979).…”

Covert digital manipulation of vocal emotion alter speakers’ emotional states in a congruent direction

“…This kind of blurring of the traditional (antagonistic) boundaries between emotional and cognitive processes has gained more and more influence in the behavioral and neural sciences (3,4). For example, a recent overview of neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies shows a substantial overlap of error monitoring and emotional processes in the dorsal mediofrontal cortex, lateral prefrontal areas, and anterior insula (5,6). A consequence of this emerging integrative view is that emotional states and signals should be monitored in the same way as other intentional actions.…”