Positive feelings facilitate working memory and complex decision making among older adults

Carpenter, Stephanie M.; Peters, Ellen; Västfjäll, Daniel; Isen, Alice M.

doi:10.1080/02699931.2012.698251

Cited by 70 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Consistent with this theory, positive affect is associated with reduced morbidity for a variety of known risk factors (e.g. cardiovascular; chronic stress) for AD (Boehm and Kubzansky, 2012; Pressman and Cohen, 2005; Steptoe et al , 2005), enhanced cognitive functioning (Ashby et al , 1999; Carpenter et al , 2013; Yang et al , 2013), and as our work suggests, relatively higher levels of cerebral glucose metabolism in regions vulnerable to early neuropathological changes. Thus, interventions targeting positive affect could have potential in mitigating pathological processes associated with cognitive and functional decline through increasing flexible and adaptive responses (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Positive affect predicts cerebral glucose metabolism in late middle-aged adults

Nicholas

Hoscheidt

Clark

et al. 2017

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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Positive affect is associated with a number of health benefits; however, few studies have examined the relationship between positive affect and cerebral glucose metabolism, a key energy source for neuronal function and a possible index of brain health. We sought to determine if positive affect was associated with cerebral glucose metabolism in late middle-aged adults (n = 133). Participants completed the positive affect subscale of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale at two time points over a two-year period and underwent 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography scanning. After controlling for age, sex, perceived health status, depressive symptoms, anti-depressant use, family history of Alzheimer’s disease, APOE ε4 status and interval between visits, positive affect was associated with greater cerebral glucose metabolism across para-/limbic, frontal, temporal and parietal regions. Our findings provide evidence that positive affect in late midlife is associated with greater brain health in regions involved in affective processing and also known to be susceptible to early neuropathological processes. The current findings may have implications for interventions aimed at increasing positive affect to attenuate early neuropathological changes in at-risk individuals.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Positive affect predicts cerebral glucose metabolism in late middle-aged adults

Nicholas

Hoscheidt

Clark

et al. 2017

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

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“…For instance, “Interesting” held the most responses in the Positive category. A growing body of literature [15,37,38] now suggests that positive affect can improve individuals' information processing and the quality of their health decision making. Interventions aimed at capturing positive affect and engagement associated with the receipt of PGT could enhance the processing of health information incorporated into interventions and produce greater behavior change and salience.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A New Approach to Assessing Affect and the Emotional Implications of Personal Genomic Testing for Common Disease Risk

O’Neill¹,

Tercyak²,

Baytop

et al. 2015

Public Health Genomics

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Aims: Personal genomic testing (PGT) for common disease risk is becoming increasingly frequent, but little is known about people's array of emotional reactions to learning their genomic risk profiles and the psychological harms/benefits of PGT. We conducted a study of post-PGT affect, including positive, neutral, and negative states that may arise after testing. Methods: A total of 228 healthy adults received PGT for common disease variants and completed a semistructured research interview within 2 weeks of disclosure. The study participants reported how the PGT results made them feel in their own words. Using an iterative coding process, the responses were organized into three broad affective categories: negative, neutral, and positive affect. Results: Neutral affect was the most prevalent response (53.9%), followed by positive affect (26.9%) and negative affect (19.2%). We found no differences by gender, race, or education. Conclusions: While <20% of participants reported negative affect in response to learning their genomic risk profile for common diseases, a majority experienced either neutral or positive emotions. These findings contribute to the growing evidence that PGT does not impose significant psychological harms. Moreover, they point to a need to better link theories and assessments in both emotional and cognitive processing to capitalize on PGT information for healthy behavior change.

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“…Instead, previous research with reinforcement learning has shown that faster reaction times are associated with greater striatal dopamine efficacy (Caldú et al, 2007; Frank et al, 2007b; Niv et al, 2007; Frank et al, 2009), suggesting that this is a dopaminergic effect. Subjective pleasure can have considerable influences on cognitive performance such that even slight mood changes can alter reinforcement learning, and this effect is thought to rely on enhanced dopamine transmission (Carpenter et al, 2013; for a review see Ashby et al, 1999). Consistent with this, we found that higher subjective pleasantness ratings of the neutral music corresponded to faster reaction times (Figures 8B, 9B), demonstrating that even within the neutral musical condition, responses accelerated when subjects enjoyed the music more.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pleasurable music affects reinforcement learning according to the listener

Gold¹,

Frank²,

Bogert³

et al. 2013

Front. Psychol.

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Mounting evidence links the enjoyment of music to brain areas implicated in emotion and the dopaminergic reward system. In particular, dopamine release in the ventral striatum seems to play a major role in the rewarding aspect of music listening. Striatal dopamine also influences reinforcement learning, such that subjects with greater dopamine efficacy learn better to approach rewards while those with lesser dopamine efficacy learn better to avoid punishments. In this study, we explored the practical implications of musical pleasure through its ability to facilitate reinforcement learning via non-pharmacological dopamine elicitation. Subjects from a wide variety of musical backgrounds chose a pleasurable and a neutral piece of music from an experimenter-compiled database, and then listened to one or both of these pieces (according to pseudo-random group assignment) as they performed a reinforcement learning task dependent on dopamine transmission. We assessed musical backgrounds as well as typical listening patterns with the new Helsinki Inventory of Music and Affective Behaviors (HIMAB), and separately investigated behavior for the training and test phases of the learning task. Subjects with more musical experience trained better with neutral music and tested better with pleasurable music, while those with less musical experience exhibited the opposite effect. HIMAB results regarding listening behaviors and subjective music ratings indicate that these effects arose from different listening styles: namely, more affective listening in non-musicians and more analytical listening in musicians. In conclusion, musical pleasure was able to influence task performance, and the shape of this effect depended on group and individual factors. These findings have implications in affective neuroscience, neuroaesthetics, learning, and music therapy.

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Positive feelings facilitate working memory and complex decision making among older adults

Cited by 70 publications

References 23 publications

Positive affect predicts cerebral glucose metabolism in late middle-aged adults

Positive affect predicts cerebral glucose metabolism in late middle-aged adults

A New Approach to Assessing Affect and the Emotional Implications of Personal Genomic Testing for Common Disease Risk

Pleasurable music affects reinforcement learning according to the listener

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