Age-related changes in the impact of valence on self-referential processing in female adolescents and young adults

Do adolescents use choice to learn about their preferences? Development of value refinement and its associations with depressive symptoms in adolescence

Independent decision making requires forming stable estimates of one's preferences. We assessed whether adolescents learn about their preferences through choice deliberation and whether depressive symptoms disrupt this process. Adolescents aged 11-18 (N = 214; participated 2021-22; Female: 53.9%; White/Black/Asian/Mixed/Arab or Latin American: 26/21/19/9/8%) rated multiple activities, chose between pairs of activities and re-rated those activities. As expected, overall, participants uprated chosen and downrated unchosen activities (dz = .20). This value refinement through choice was not evident in younger participants but emerged across adolescence. Contrary to our predictions, depressive symptoms were associated with greater value refinement. Despite this, more depressed adolescents reported lower value certainty and choice confidence. The cognitive processes through which choice deliberation shapes preference develop over adolescence, and are disrupted in depression.

Mine for life: Charting ownership effects in memory from adolescence to old age

This study investigates the self-reference effect (SRE) with an ownership memory task across several age groups, providing the first age exploration of implicit ownership memory biases from adolescence to older adulthood (N = 159). Using a well-established ownership task, participants were required to sort images of grocery items as belonging to themselves or to a fictitious unnamed Other. After sorting and a brief distractor task, participants completed a surprise one-step source memory test. Overall, there was a robust SRE, with greater source memory accuracy for self-owned items. The SRE attenuated with age, such that the magnitude of difference between self and other memory diminished into older adulthood. Importantly, these findings were not due to a deterioration of memory for self-owned items, but rather an increase in memory performance for other-owned items. Linear mixed effects analyses showed self-biases in reaction times, such that self-owned items were identified more rapidly compared with other owned items. Again, age interacted with this effect showing that the responses of older adults were slowed, especially for other-owned items. Several theoretical implications were drawn from these findings, but we suggest that older adults may not experience ownership-related biases to the same degree as younger adults. Consequently, SREs through the lens of mere ownership may attenuate with age.

The role of self-referential and social processing in the relationship between pubertal status and difficulties in mental health and emotion regulation in adolescent girls in the UK

Adolescence is marked by the onset of puberty, which is associated with an increase in mental health difficulties, particularly in girls. Social and self-referential processes also develop during this period: adolescents become more aware of others' perspectives, and judgements about themselves become less favourable. In the current study, data from 119 girls (from London, UK) aged 9-16 years were collected at two-time points (between 2019 and 2021) to investigate the relationship between puberty and difficulties in mental health and emotion regulation, as well as the role of self-referential and social processing in this relationship. Structural equation modelling showed that advanced pubertal status predicted greater mental health and emotion regulation difficulties, including depression and anxiety, rumination and overall difficulties in emotion regulation, and in mental health and behaviour. Advanced pubertal status also predicted greater perspective-taking abilities and negative self-schemas. Exploratory analyses showed that negative self-schemas mediated the relationships between puberty and rumination, overall emotion regulation difficulties, and depression (although these effects were small and would not survive correction for multiple comparisons). The results suggest that advanced pubertal status is associated with higher mental health and emotion regulation problems during adolescence and that negative self-schemas may play a role in this association. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: This study investigates the relationship between puberty, mental health, emotion regulation difficulties, and social and self-referential processing in girls aged 9-16 years. Advanced pubertal status was associated with worse mental health and greater emotion regulation difficulties, better perspective-taking abilities and negative self-schemas. Negative self-schemas may play a role in the relationships between advanced pubertal status and depression, and advanced pubertal status and emotion regulation difficulties, including rumination.

The formation of episodic autobiographical memory is predicted by mental imagery, self-reference, and anticipated details

Introduction

Despite the ecological nature of episodic memory (EM) and the importance of consolidation in its functioning, studies tackling both subjects are still scarce. Therefore, the present study aims at establishing predictions of the future of newly encoded information in EM in an ecological paradigm.

Methods

Participants recorded two personal events per day with a SenseCam portable camera, for 10 days, and characterized the events with different subjective scales (emotional valence and intensity, self-concept and self-relevance, perspective and anticipated details at a month, mental images…). They then performed a surprise free recall at 5 days and 1 month after encoding. Machine learning algorithms were used to predict the future of events (episodic or forgotten) in memory at 1 month.

Results

The best algorithm showed an accuracy of 78%, suggesting that such a prediction is reliably possible. Variables that best differentiated between episodic and forgotten memories at 1 month were mental imagery, self-reference, and prospection (anticipated details) at encoding and the first free recall.

Discussion

These results may establish the basis for the development of episodic autobiographical memory during daily experiences.

Social feedback biases emerge during recall but not prediction and shift across the development of social anxiety

Memory is a reconstructive process that can result in events being recalled as more positive or negative than they actually were. While positive recall biases may contribute to well-being, negative recall biases may promote internalizing symptoms, such as social anxiety. Adolescence is characterized by increased salience of peers and peak incidence of social anxiety. Symptoms often wax and wane before becoming more intractable during adulthood. Open questions remain regarding how and when biases for social feedback are expressed and how individual differences in biases may contribute to social anxiety across development. Two studies used a social feedback and cued response task to assess biases about being liked or disliked when retrieving memories vs. making predictions. Findings revealed a robust positivity bias about memories for social feedback, regardless of whether memories were true or false. Moreover, memory bias was associated with social anxiety in a developmentally sensitive way. Among adults (study 1), more severe symptoms of social anxiety were associated with a negativity bias. During the transition from adolescence to adulthood (study 2), age strengthened the positivity bias in those with less severe symptoms and strengthened the negativity bias in those with more severe symptoms. These patterns of bias were isolated to perceived memory retrieval and did not generalize to predictions about social feedback. These results provide initial support for a model by which schemas may infiltrate perceptions of memory for past, but not predictions of future, social events, shaping susceptibility for social anxiety, particularly during the transition into adulthood.

A neurocognitive model of early onset persistent and desistant antisocial behavior in early adulthood

It remains unclear which functional and neurobiological mechanisms are associated with persistent and desistant antisocial behavior in early adulthood. We reviewed the empirical literature and propose a neurocognitive social information processing model for early onset persistent and desistant antisocial behavior in early adulthood, focusing on how young adults evaluate, act upon, monitor, and learn about their goals and self traits. Based on the reviewed literature, we propose that persistent antisocial behavior is characterized by domain-general impairments in self-relevant and goal-related information processing, regulation, and learning, which is accompanied by altered activity in fronto-limbic brain areas. We propose that desistant antisocial development is associated with more effortful information processing, regulation and learning, that possibly balances self-relevant goals and specific situational characteristics. The proposed framework advances insights by considering individual differences such as psychopathic personality traits, and specific emotional characteristics (e.g., valence of social cues), to further illuminate functional and neural mechanisms underlying heterogenous developmental pathways. Finally, we address important open questions and offer suggestions for future research to improve scientific knowledge on general and context-specific expression and development of antisocial behavior in early adulthood.

Perspective Taking and Memory for Self- and Town-Related Information in Male Adolescents and Young Adults

Adolescence is a sensitive period for categorical self-concept development, which affects the ability to take others' perspectives, which might differ from one's own, and how self-related information is memorized. Little is known about whether these two processes are related in adolescence. The current study recruited 97 male participants aged 11-35 years. Using a self-referential memory task, we found that younger participants were less prone to recognize previously seen town-related adjectives, compared to self-related adjectives. However, this age-related reduction in recognition bias was unrelated to accurate memory performance. Using the Director task to assess perspective taking, we found an age-related decrease in egocentric biases in perspective taking from adolescence to early adulthood (i.e., perspective taking abilities improved with age). However, there was no evidence that these two processes were related. Overall, our findings suggest that male adolescents display parallel but independent age-related changes in self-referential biases in memory and perspective taking.

Sense of self in mind and body: an eLORETA-EEG study

The human brain engages the sense of self through both semantic and somatic self-referential processing (SRP). Alpha and theta oscillations have been found to underlie SRP but have not been compared with respect to semantic and somatic SRP. We recorded electroencephalography (EEG) from 50 participants during focused internal attention on life roles (e.g. "friend") and outer body (e.g. "arms") compared to resting state and an external attention memory task and localized the sources of on-scalp alpha (8-12 Hz) and theta (4-8 Hz) EEG signals with exact low-resolution tomography. Logarithm of F-ratios was calculated to compare differences in alpha and theta power between SRP conditions, resting state, and external attention. Results indicated that compared to resting state, semantic SRP induced lower theta in the frontal cortex and higher theta in the parietal cortex, whereas somatic SRP induced lower alpha in the frontal and insula cortex and higher alpha in the parietal cortex. Furthermore, results indicated that compared to external attention, both semantic and somatic SRP induced higher alpha in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with lateralized patterns based on task condition. Finally, an analysis directly comparing semantic and somatic SRP indicated frontal-parietal and left-right lateralization of SRP in the brain. Our results suggest the alpha and theta oscillations in the frontal, parietal, and the insula cortex may play crucial roles in semantic and somatic SRP.

Spontaneous Thought Characteristics are Differentially Related to Heightened Negative Affect vs. Blunted Positive Affect in Adolescents: An Experience Sampling Study

Background

Mind-wandering has been linked to negative affect and depressive symptoms in adolescents. However, mind-wandering is an extremely broad and heterogenous cognitive construct. Some features of spontaneous thought may be related to increased negative affect, whereas others may improve affect, or have no emotional influence. We used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to investigate the characteristics of spontaneous thoughts in adolescents and their differential relations with moment-to-moment affect.

Method

One-hundred and sixteen adolescents (ages 13-18; Typical Mood (TM) = 58; Low Mood (LM) = 58) completed 5 days (2-3 times/day) of EMA (total 1,037 surveys) assessing current positive and negative affect (PA and NA) and dimensions of spontaneous thought. Multilevel models tested the relation between thought characteristics and affect.

Results

Relative to the TM group, LM adolescents had a higher frequency of mind-wandering (38% vs. 56%) and negatively-valanced thoughts during episodes of mind-wandering (21% vs. 37%). Negatively-valenced, self-referential and past-oriented thoughts were each associated with higher NA, even when controlling for plausible confounds (e.g., engagement in an unpleasant activity or social interaction, depressive symptom severity). In contrast, task-focused and positively-valenced thoughts were uniquely linked to higher PA.

Conclusion

Characteristics of spontaneous thought - including temporal orientation, self-referential quality, and task-relatedness - were differentially related to NA vs. PA in adolescents. If replicated, these findings could inform more nuanced assessments of and targeted interventions for specific dimensions of mind-wandering contributing to high NA vs. blunted PA in teens.

Development of self-referential effect on memory recollection

Information learned in relation to oneself is typically better remembered, termed the self-reference effect (SRE). This study aimed to elucidate the developmental trajectory of the SRE in recollection and source memory from mid-childhood to young adulthood. In 2018-2019 in Baltimore, Maryland, 136 seven- to thirty-year-olds (77 female; approximately 80% White, 15% Asian American, 5% Black) viewed objects on one of two backgrounds and answered a self-referential or semantic question for each. A recognition test probed memory for objects and source details (inherent: question type; peripheral: background image). SRE increased with age for detailed recollection (r = .189), but not familiarity, and extended to inherent source memory. This suggests that self-referencing promotes richer memory in children and develops into young adulthood.