Shared Mechanisms May Support Mnemonic Benefits from Self-Referencing and Emotion

Gutchess, Angela H.; Kensinger, Elizabeth A.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2018.05.001

Cited by 23 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 145 publications

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“…Here, we offer two possible explanations. First, some of those studies had used tasks that heavily depend on memory processes, such as autobiographical memory (e.g., Gutchess & Kensinger, 2018). The label–shape matching task used in this study, however, was largely a perceptual task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prioritised self-referential processing is modulated by emotional arousal

Qian

Wang

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Stimuli related to the self are processed more efficiently in a variety of cognitive tasks. Recent studies have shown that this self-referential processing bias is modulated by emotion. However, a clear understanding of how emotional valence and arousal affect self-referential processing is still lacking. With a label–shape matching task, Experiment 1 measured a self-prioritisation effect in four different mood states. The results revealed stronger self-prioritisation effects in moods with higher arousal levels and a reliable correlation between the self-prioritisation effect and the arousal level reported by the participants; however, the effect of emotional valence was not statistically reliable. Experiment 2 further showed that alerting cues, known to raise arousal level, effectively increased the self-prioritisation effect in the same label–shape matching task. Experiment 3 clarified that alerting cues do not affect reward processing in a similar label–shape matching task, suggesting that arousal may selectively modulate self-referential processing. These observations provide clear evidence that emotional arousal modulates self-referential processing.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prioritised self-referential processing is modulated by emotional arousal

Qian

Wang

et al. 2019

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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“…The richness of SRE may be diminished in older, relative to younger adults 64 , and such decline has been associated with changes in medial prefrontal and precuneus functions 65 , 66 . Other reports, however, have concluded that self-referential memory processes remain intact in healthy aging 67 , and then even in relationship to declines an older adult may suffer in other measures of high-fidelity LTM 68 . This possibility is attributed to the interpretation that SRE may depend as much on associative memory processing in cortex as on hippocampal function 69 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Virtual reality video game improves high-fidelity memory in older adults

Wais

Arioli

Anguera-Singla

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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Therapeutic interventions have not yet been shown to demonstrate restorative effects for declining long-term memory (LTM) that affects many healthy older adults. We developed a virtual reality (VR) spatial wayfinding game (Labyrinth-VR) as a cognitive intervention with the hypothesis that it could improve detailed, high-fidelity LTM capability. Spatial navigation tasks have been used as a means to achieve environmental enrichment via exposure to and learning about novel and complex information. Engagement has been shown to enhance learning and has been linked to the vitality of the LTM system in the brain. In the current study, 48 older adults (mean age 68.7 ± 6.4 years) with average cognitive abilities for their age were randomly assigned to 12 h of computer game play over four weeks in either the Labyrinth-VR or placebo control game arms. Promptly before and after each participant’s treatment regimen, high-fidelity LTM outcome measures were tested to assess mnemonic discrimination and other memory measures. The results showed a post-treatment gain in high-fidelity LTM capability for the Labyrinth-VR arm, relative to placebo, which reached the levels attained by younger adults in another experiment. This novel finding demonstrates generalization of benefits from the VR wayfinding game to important, and untrained, LTM capabilities. These cognitive results are discussed in the light of relevant research for hippocampal-dependent memory functions.

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“…Recently emerging literature have revealed overlapping neural effects of self-relevance and positive emotions, suggesting that these two effects may be inherently related [ 13 , 22 , 24 , 27 , 28 ]. In the present study, we developed this line of inquiry and tested the neural underpinning of self and emotion biases generated by a common experimental procedure [ 29 , 30 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the absence of the differences between self and positive emotion is unlikely to result from the lack of these effects per se. One possible explanation may reflect an overlapping effect of self and positive emotion in the MPFC and, particularly, in its the ventral part—the well-known region for its contribution in self-referential processing, emotion regulation, and social cognition [ 13 , 39 , 63 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent trends in cognitive sciences parallel stimulus encoding mechanisms in terms of self-referential and emotion benefits on the facilitation of cognitive processes [ 13 ]. This work suggested a substantial overlap between different processing stages of self-referential and emotion information and proposed the MPFC as one of the neural signatures of the shared mechanisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Self-Positivity or Self-Negativity as a Function of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

Yankouskaya

2021

Brain Sciences

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Self and emotions are key motivational factors of a person strivings for health and well-being. Understanding neural mechanisms supporting the relationship between these factors bear far-reaching implications for mental health disorders. Recent work indicates a substantial overlap between self-relevant and emotion information processing and has proposed the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) as one shared neural signature. However, the precise cognitive and neural mechanisms represented by the MPFC in investigations of self- and emotion-related processing are largely unknown. Here we examined whether the neural underpinnings of self-related processing in the MPFC link to positive or negative emotions. We collected fMRI data to test the distinct and shared neural circuits of self- and emotion-related processing while participants performed personal (self, friend, or stranger) and emotion (happy, sad, or neutral) associative matching tasks. By exploiting tight control over the factors that determine the effects of self-relevance and emotions (positive: Happy vs. neutral; negative: Sad vs. neutral), our univariate analysis revealed that the ventral part of the MPFC (vmPFC), which has established involvement in self-prioritisation effects, was not recruited in the negative emotion prioritisation effect. In contrast, there were no differences in brain activity between the effects of positive emotion- and self-prioritisation. These results were replicated by both region of interest (ROI)-based analysis in the vmPFC and the seed- to voxel functional connectivity analysis between the MPFC and the rest of the brain. The results suggest that the prioritisation effects for self and positive emotions are tightly linked together, and the MPFC plays a large role in discriminating between positive and negative emotions in relation to self-relevance.

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Shared Mechanisms May Support Mnemonic Benefits from Self-Referencing and Emotion

Cited by 23 publications

References 145 publications

Prioritised self-referential processing is modulated by emotional arousal

Prioritised self-referential processing is modulated by emotional arousal

Virtual reality video game improves high-fidelity memory in older adults

Self-Positivity or Self-Negativity as a Function of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex

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