Negative mood disrupts self- and reward-biases in perceptual matching

Positive affect modulates memory by regulating the influence of reward prediction errors

How our decisions impact our memories is not well understood. Reward prediction errors (RPEs), the difference between expected and obtained reward, help us learn to make optimal decisions-providing a signal that may influence subsequent memory. To measure this influence and how it might go awry in mood disorders, we recruited a large cohort of human participants to perform a decision-making task in which perceptually memorable stimuli were associated with probabilistic rewards, followed by a recognition test for those stimuli. Computational modeling revealed that positive RPEs enhanced both the accuracy of memory and the temporal efficiency of memory search, beyond the contribution of perceptual information. Critically, positive affect upregulated the beneficial effect of RPEs on memory. These findings demonstrate how affect selectively regulates the impact of RPEs on memory, providing a computational mechanism for biased memory in mood disorders.

To see or not to see: the parallel processing of self-relevance and facial expressions

The self, like the concept of central "gravity", facilitates the processing of information that is directly relevant to the self. This phenomenon is known as the self-prioritization effect. However, it remains unclear whether the self-prioritization effect extends to the processing of emotional facial expressions. To fill this gap, we used a self-association paradigm to investigate the impact of self-relevance on the recognition of emotional facial expressions while controlling for confounding factors such as familiarity and overlearning. Using a large and diverse sample, we replicated the effect of self-relevance on face processing but found no evidence for a modulation of self-relevance on facial emotion recognition. We propose two potential theoretical explanations to account for these findings and emphasize that further research with different experimental designs and a multitasks measurement approach is needed to understand this mechanism fully. Overall, our study contributes to the literature on the parallel cognitive processing of self-relevance and facial emotion recognition, with implications for both social and cognitive psychology.

Learning about me and you: Only deterministic stimulus associations elicit self-prioritization

Self-relevant material has been shown to be prioritized over stimuli relating to others (e.g., friend, stranger), generating benefits in attention, memory, and decision-making. What is not yet understood, however, is whether the conditions under which self-related knowledge is acquired impacts the emergence of self-bias. To address this matter, here we used an associative-learning paradigm in combination with a stimulus-classification task to explore the effects of different learning experiences (i.e., deterministic vs. probabilistic) on self-prioritization. The results revealed an effect of prior learning on task performance, with self-prioritization only emerging when participants acquired target-related associations (i.e., self vs. friend) under conditions of certainty (vs. uncertainty). A further computational (i.e., drift diffusion model) analysis indicated that differences in the efficiency of stimulus processing (i.e., rate of information uptake) underpinned this self-prioritization effect. The implications of these findings for accounts of self-function are considered.

Accentuate the positive: Evidence that context dependent self-reference drives self-bias

There is abundant evidence of a self-bias in cognition, with prioritised processing of information that is self-relevant. There is also abundant evidence of a positivity-bias in cognition, with prioritised processing of information that is positively valenced (e.g., positive emotional expressions, rewards). While the effects of self-bias and positivity-bias have been well documented in isolation, they have seldom been examined in parallel, so it is unclear whether one or other of these stimulus classes is prioritised or whether they interact. Addressing this gap, the current research aimed to establish the relative primacy of self-bias and positivity-bias using a classification task that paired self-relevant information with emotional expressions (i.e., Expt. 1) or reward information (i.e., Expt. 2). When the self was paired with relatively more positive information (i.e., smiling faces or high reward) we found evidence of a self-bias but no evidence of a positivity-bias. Whereas when the self was paired with relatively less positive information (i.e., neutral faces or low reward) we found evidence of a positivity-bias but no evidence of a self-bias. These results suggest the relative primacy of prioritised processing is flexible, context dependent and might be caused by a drive towards self-enhancement and the self-positivity bias.

Self-Prioritization Reconsidered: Scrutinizing Three Claims

Such is the power of self-relevance, it has been argued that even arbitrary stimuli (e.g., shapes, lines, colors) with no prior personal connection are privileged during information processing following their association with the self (i.e., self-prioritization). This prioritization effect, moreover, is deemed to be stimulus driven (i.e., automatic), grounded in perception, and supported by specialized processing operations. Here, however, we scrutinize these claims and challenge this viewpoint. Although self-relevance unquestionably influences information processing, we contend that, at least at present, there is limited evidence to suggest that the prioritization of arbitrary self-related stimuli is compulsory, penetrates perception, and is underpinned by activity in a dedicated neural network. Rather, self-prioritization appears to be a task-dependent product of ordinary cognitive processes.

Brain State Relays Self-Processing and Heartbeat-Evoked Cortical Responses

The self has been proposed to be grounded in interoceptive processing, with heartbeat-evoked cortical activity as a neurophysiological marker of this processing. However, inconsistent findings have been reported on the relationship between heartbeat-evoked cortical responses and self-processing (including exteroceptive- and mental-self-processing). In this review, we examine previous research on the association between self-processing and heartbeat-evoked cortical responses and highlight the divergent temporal-spatial characteristics and brain regions involved. We propose that the brain state relays the interaction between self-processing and heartbeat-evoked cortical responses and thus accounts for the inconsistency. The brain state, spontaneous brain activity which highly and continuously changes in a nonrandom way, serves as the foundation upon which the brain functions and was proposed as a point in an extremely high-dimensional space. To elucidate our assumption, we provide reviews on the interactions between dimensions of brain state with both self-processing and heartbeat-evoked cortical responses. These interactions suggest the relay of self-processing and heartbeat-evoked cortical responses by brain state. Finally, we discuss possible approaches to investigate whether and how the brain state impacts the self-heart interaction.

The relationship between self, value-based reward, and emotion prioritisation effects

People show systematic biases in perception, memory, attention, and decision-making to prioritise information related to self, reward, and positive emotion. A long-standing set of experimental findings points towards putative common properties of these effects. However, the relationship between them remains largely unknown. Here, we addressed this question by assessing and linking these prioritisation effects generated by a common associative matching procedure in three experiments. Self, reward, and positive emotion prioritisation effects were assessed using cluster and shift function analyses to explore and test associations between these effects across individuals. Cluster analysis revealed two distinct patterns of the relationship between the biases. Individuals with faster responses showed a smaller reward and linear positive association between reward and emotion biases. Individuals with slower responses demonstrated a large reward and no association between reward and emotion biases. No evidence of the relationship between self and value-based reward or positive emotion prioritisation effects was found among the clusters. A shift function indicated a partial dominance of high-reward over low-reward distributions at later processing stages in participants with slower but not faster responses. Full stochastic dominance of self-relevance over others and positive over neutral emotion was pertinent to each subgroup of participants. Our findings suggest the independent origin of the self-prioritisation effect. In contrast, commonalities in cognitive mechanisms supporting value-based reward and positive emotion processing are subject to individual differences. These findings add important evidence to a steadily growing research base about the relationship between basic behavioural drivers.

Self-processing in relation to emotion and reward processing in depression

BACKGROUND

Depression is characterised by a heightened self-focus, which is believed to be associated with differences in emotion and reward processing. However, the precise relationship between these cognitive domains is not well understood. We examined the role of self-reference in emotion and reward processing, separately and in combination, in relation to depression.

METHODS

Adults experiencing varying levels of depression (n = 144) completed self-report depression measures (PHQ-9, BDI-II). We measured self, emotion and reward processing, separately and in combination, using three cognitive tasks.

RESULTS

When self-processing was measured independently of emotion and reward, in a simple associative learning task, there was little association with depression. However, when self and emotion processing occurred in combination in a self-esteem go/no-go task, depression was associated with an increased positive other bias [b = 3.51, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.24-5.79]. When the self was processed in relation to emotion and reward, in a social evaluation learning task, depression was associated with reduced positive self-biases (b = 0.11, 95% CI 0.05-0.17).

CONCLUSIONS

Depression was associated with enhanced positive implicit associations with others, and reduced positive learning about the self, culminating in reduced self-favouring biases. However, when self, emotion and reward processing occurred independently there was little evidence of an association with depression. Treatments targeting reduced positive self-biases may provide more sensitive targets for therapeutic intervention and potential biomarkers of treatment responses, allowing the development of more effective interventions.

On screen experiment showed that becoming a parent for the first time shifted people's priorities from themselves to their infant at 1 year of age

AIM

This study used a screen-based perceptual matching task to see how non-parents, people trying to get pregnant, and those who had given birth prioritised shapes and labels relating to self or infant conditions.

METHODS

The study took place at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark from December 2016 to November 2021. Recruitment methods included family planning clinics, social media, online recruitment systems and local bulletin boards. The modified perceptual matching task linked five shapes to five labels, including self and infant.

RESULTS

We found that 67 males and females with a mean age of 24.4 ± 3 years, who had no plans to become parents in the near future, reacted faster and more accurately to self-shapes and labels (p < 0.001), which validated the experiment. The 56 participants aged 27.1 ± 4.4 years who were actively trying to become parents showed no statistically significant prioritisation. A subset of 21 participants aged 28.7 ± 4.4 years showed faster response times to infant than self-shapes and labels 1 year after giving birth (p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Healthy first-time parents showed faster reactions to infant than self-conditions 1 year after giving birth, in contrast to the other two groups.

Depression screening using a non-verbal self-association task: A machine-learning based pilot study

BACKGROUND

Effective screening is important to combat the raising burden of depression and opens a critical time window for early intervention. Clinical use of non-verbal depression screening is nascent, yet a promising and viable candidate to supplement verbal screening. Differential self- and emotion-processing in depression patients were previously reported by non-verbal behavioural assessments, corroborated by neuroimaging findings of distinct neuroanatomical markers. Thus non-verbal validated brain-behaviour based self-emotion-related assessment data reflect physiological differences and may support individual level screening of depression.

METHODS

In this pilot study (n = 84) we collected two longitudinal sessions of behavioural assessment data in a laboratory setting. Depression was assessed using Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), to explore optimal screening methods with machine-learning, and to establish the validity of adapting a novel behavioural assessment focusing on self and emotions for depression screening.

RESULTS

The best machine-learning model achieved high performance in depression screening, 10-Fold cross-validation (CV) Area Under the receiver operating characteristic Curve (AUC) of 0.90 and balanced accuracy of 0.81, using a Gradient Boosting algorithm. Prospective prediction using a model trained with session 1 data to predict session 2 depression status achieved a 10-Fold CV AUC of 0.77 and balanced accuracy of 0.66. We also identified interpretable behavioural signatures for depression patients based on the best model.

CONCLUSION

The study supports the utility of using behavioural data as a viable and cost-effective solution for depression screening, with a potential wide range of applications in clinical settings.

The (Gami)fictional Ego-Center: Projecting the Location of the Self Into an Avatar

A rich body of research suggests that self-associated stimuli are preferentially processed and therefore responses to such stimuli are typically faster and more accurate. In addition, people have an understanding of what they consider their “Self” and where it is located, namely near the head and upper torso—further boosting the processing of self-related stimuli if they are presented near the felt location of the self. We were interested in whether the same mechanism can be found when people transfer their “Self” into a static avatar. We investigated this in two studies with N = 33 and N = 39 young, healthy adults, respectively. Taken together, the results showed that (i) people indeed show enhanced processing for self-avatar-related stimuli and (ii) that self-associations are stronger if the to-be-associated stimuli are closer to the avatar’s upper torso—suggesting some kind of a projected location of the self in the avatar. This implies that attention is not equally distributed across the avatar. Beyond a theoretical level, this also has implications for practical use. For example, digital games opting for a non-traditional user interface where information is displayed on or in the direct vicinity of the character should take this effect into account when choosing which information to present where (i.e., present the most crucial piece of information close to the self-center of the avatar).

Levels of Self-representation and Their Sociocognitive Correlates in Late-Diagnosed Autistic Adults

The cognitive representation of oneself is central to other sociocognitive processes, including relations with others. It is reflected in faster, more accurate processing of self-relevant information, a "self-prioritisation effect" (SPE) which is inconsistent across studies in autism. Across two tasks with autistic and non-autistic participants, we explored the SPE and its relationship to autistic traits, mentalizing ability and loneliness. A SPE was intact in both groups, but together the two tasks suggested a reduced tendency of late-diagnosed autistic participants to differentiate between familiar and unfamiliar others and greater ease disengaging from the self-concept. Correlations too revealed a complex picture, which we attempt to explore and disentangle with reference to the inconsistency across self-processing studies in autism, highlighting implications for future research.

How selves differ within and across cognitive domains: self-prioritisation, self-concept, and psychiatric traits

Background

How we build and maintain representations of ourselves involves both explicit features which are consciously accessible on reflection and implicit processes which are not, such as attentional biases. Understanding relations between different ways of measuring self-cognition both within and across such cognitive domains is important for understanding how selves may differ from one another, and whether self-cognition is best understood as largely uni-dimensional or more multi-dimensional. Further, uncovering this structure should inform research around how self-cognition relates to psychiatric and psychological conditions. This study explores the relations between different constructs of self-cognition and how variability within them relates to psychiatric traits.

Methods

Our final dataset includes within-subject (n = 288, general population) measures of explicit self-concept (using both the Self Concept Clarity Scale and Self Concept and Identity Measure), implicit self-prioritisation in a shape-label matching task (for both reaction time and sensitivity) and measurement of traits for five psychiatric conditions (autism, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, depression and anxiety). We first test whether self-cognitive measures within and across domains are correlated within individuals. We then test whether these dimensions of self-cognition support a binary distinction between psychiatric conditions that either are or are not characterised in terms of self, or whether they support self-cognition as transdiagnostically predictive of the traits associated with psychiatric conditions. To do this we run a series of planned correlations, regressions, and direct correlation comparison statistics.

Results

Results show that implicit self-prioritisation measures were not correlated with the explicit self-concept measures nor the psychiatric trait measures. In contrast, all the psychiatric traits scores were predicted, to varying degrees, by poorer explicit self-concept quality. Specifically, borderline personality disorder traits were significantly more strongly associated with composite explicit self-concept measures than any of depression, anxiety, or autism traits scores were.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that selves can differ considerably, along different cognitive dimensions. Further, our results show that self-cognition may be a promising feature to include in future dimensional characterisations of psychiatric conditions, but care should be taken to choose relevant self-cognitive domains.

The roles of the LpSTS and DLPFC in self-prioritization: A transcranial magnetic stimulation study

The Self‐Attention Network (SAN) has been proposed to describe the underlying neural mechanism of the self‐prioritization effect, yet the roles of the key nodes in the SAN—the left posterior superior temporal sulcus (LpSTS) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)—still need to be clarified. One hundred and nine participants were randomly assigned into the LpSTS group, the DLPFC group, or the sham group. We used the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technique to selectively disrupt the functions of the corresponding targeted region, and observed its impacts on self‐prioritization effect based on the difference between the performance of the self‐matching task before and after the targeted stimulation. We analyzed both model‐free performance measures and HDDM‐based performance measures for the self‐matching task. The results showed that the inhibition of LpSTS could lead to reduced performance in processing self‐related stimuli, which establishes a causal role for the LpSTS in self‐related processing and provide direct evidence to support the SAN framework. However, the results of the DLPFC group from HDDM analysis were distinct from the results based on response efficiency. Our investigation further the understanding of the differentiated roles of key nodes in the SAN in supporting the self‐salience in information processing.

Judging me and you: Task design modulates self-prioritization

An extensive literature has revealed the benefits of self-relevance during stimulus processing. Compared to material associated with other persons (e.g., friend, mother), self-relevant information elicits faster and more accurate responses (i.e., the self-prioritization effect). Probing the boundary conditions of this effect, recent research has sought to identify whether the advantages of self-relevance can be attenuated (or even eliminated) under certain circumstances. Continuing in this tradition, here we explored the extent to which basic aspects of the task design modulate self-prioritization. The results of two experiments demonstrated just such an effect. During both simultaneous (i.e., Expt. 1) and sequential (i.e., Expt. 2) versions of a standard shape-label matching task, self-prioritization was reduced when stimulus presentation was blocked (i.e., self- or friend-relevant items) compared to intermixed (i.e., self- and friend-relevant items). These findings highlight both the persistence of self-prioritization and its sensitivity to task-related variation.

A Combined Effect of Self and Reward: Relationship of Self- and Reward-Bias on Associative Learning

Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals process information related to themselves or a high reward quickly and have referred to this as self-bias or reward-bias. However, no previous study has presented self- and reward-bias simultaneously. The present study investigated perceptual processing using the associated learning paradigm when both self and reward were prioritized (condition of double salience) as well as when only self or reward was prioritized (condition of single salience). The present study established these two conditions by manipulating self-relevance (self vs. stranger in Experiment 1; self vs. friend in Experiment 2). The results showed that (1) when the self was pitted against a stranger and received a high or low reward, perceptual processing of the participants mainly involved self-bias (Experiment 1); (2) when the self was pitted against a friend, perceptual processing involved both self-bias and reward-bias (Experiment 2). The study revealed a complex relationship between self- and reward-bias, which depends on the degree of affinity between oneself and others.

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

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.

Effect of acute citalopram on self-referential emotional processing and social cognition in healthy volunteers

BACKGROUND

Depression is characterised by negative views of the self. Antidepressant treatment may remediate negative self-schema through increasing processing of positive information about the self. Changes in affective processing during social interactions may increase expression of prosocial behaviours, improving interpersonal communications.

AIMS

To examine whether acute administration of citalopram is associated with an increase in positive affective learning biases about the self and prosocial behaviour.

METHOD

Healthy volunteers (n = 41) were randomised to either an acute 20 mg dose of citalopram or matched placebo in a between-subjects double-blind design. Participants completed computer-based cognitive tasks designed to measure referential affective processing, social cognition and expression of prosocial behaviours.

RESULTS

Participants administered citalopram made more cooperative choices than those administered placebo in a prisoner's dilemma task (β = 20%, 95% CI: 2%, 37%). Exploratory analyses indicated that participants administered citalopram showed a positive bias when learning social evaluations about a friend (β = 4.06, 95% CI: 0.88, 7.24), but not about the self or a stranger. Similarly, exploratory analyses found evidence of increased recall of positive words and reduced recall of negative words about others (β = 2.41, 95% CI: 0.89, 3.93), but not the self, in the citalopram group.

CONCLUSIONS

Participants administered citalopram showed greater prosocial behaviours, increased positive recall and increased positive learning of social evaluations towards others. The increase in positive affective bias and prosocial behaviours towards others may, at least partially, be a mechanism of antidepressant effect. However, we found no evidence that citalopram influenced self-referential processing.

Self-referential processing and emotion context insensitivity in major depressive disorder

We examined whether differential self-perception influences the salience of emotional stimuli in depressive disorders, using a perceptual matching task in which geometric shapes were arbitrarily assigned to the self and an unknown other. Participants associated shapes with personal labels (e.g. "self" or "other"). Each geometric shape additionally contained a happy, sad or neutral line drawing of a face. Participants then judged whether shape-label pairs were as originally shown or re-paired, whilst facial emotion was task-irrelevant. The results showed biased responses to self-relevant stimuli compared to other-relevant stimuli, regardless of facial emotion, for both control and depressed participants. This was reflected in sensitivity (d') and drift rate (v) measures, suggesting that self-bias and a bias towards emotion may reflect different underlying processes. We further computed bias scores by subtracting the "neutral" value of each measure (acting as baseline) from the "happy" and "sad" values of each measure, indexing an "emotional bias" (EB) score for "self" and "other" separately. Compared to control participants, depressed participants exhibited reduced "happy" and "sad" emotional biases, regardless of the self-relevance of stimuli. This finding indicates that depressed participants may exhibit generalised Emotion Context Insensitivity (ECI), characterised by hyopoattention to both positive and negative information, at short stimulus presentations. The implications of this are discussed.

Good Me Bad Me: Prioritization of the Good-Self During Perceptual Decision-Making

People display systematic priorities to self-related stimuli. As the self is not a unified entity, however, it remains unclear which aspects of the self are crucial to producing this stimulus prioritization. To explore this issue, we manipulated the valence of the self-concept (good me vs. bad me) — a core identity-based facet of the self — using a standard shape-label association task in which participants initially learned the associations (e.g., circle/good-self, triangle/good-other, diamond/bad-self, square/bad-other), after which they completed shape-label matching and shape-categorization tasks, such that attention was directed to different aspects of the stimuli (i.e., self-relevance and valence). The results revealed that responses were more efficient to the good-self shape (vs. other shapes), regardless of the task that was undertaken. A hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) analysis indicated that this good-self prioritization effect was underpinned by differences in the rate of information uptake. These findings demonstrate that activation of the good-self representation exclusively facilitates perceptual decision-making, thereby furthering understanding of the self-prioritization effect.

A Developmental Study of the Self-Prioritization Effect in Children Between 6 and 10 Years of Age

Self-biases are well described in adults but remain poorly understood in children. Here, we investigated in 6-10 year-old children (N = 132) the self-prioritization effect (SPE), a self-bias which reflects, in adults, the perceptual advantage for stimuli arbitrarily associated with the self as compared to those associated with other persons. We designed a child-friendly adaptation of a paradigm originally introduced in adults by Sui, He, and Humphreys (2012) in order to test whether the SPE also occurs in children and if so, to determine its evolution with age. A robust SPE was obtained from the age of 6, and this effect was similar-sized in our four age groups. These findings are discussed with reference to the development of the self during childhood.

Prioritised self-referential processing is modulated by emotional arousal

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.

The effect of emotional and self-referential contexts on ERP responses towards surprised faces

The perception of surprised faces is demonstrably modulated by emotional context. However, the influence of self-relevance and its interaction with emotional context have not been explored. The present study investigated the effects of contextual valence and self-reference on the perception of surprised faces. Our results revealed that faces in a negative context elicited a larger N170 than those in a neutral context. The EPN was affected by the interaction between contextual valence and self-reference, with larger amplitudes for faces in self-related positive contexts and sender-related negative contexts. Additionally, LPP amplitudes were enhanced for faces in negative contexts relative to neutral and positive contexts, as well as for self-related contexts in comparison to sender-related contexts. Together, these findings help to elucidate the psychophysiological mechanisms underlying the effects of emotional and self-referential contexts on the perception of surprised faces, which are characterized by distinctive ERPs.

Habit and Identity: Behavioral, Cognitive, Affective, and Motivational Facets of an Integrated Self

Two studies investigated associations between habits and identity, in particular what people consider as their “true self.” Habit-identity associations were assessed by within-participant correlations between self-reported habit and associated true self ratings of 80 behaviors. The behaviors were instantiations of 10 basic values. In Study 1, significant correlations were observed between individual differences in the strength of habit-identity associations, measures of cognitive self-integration (prioritizing self-relevant information), self-esteem, and an orientation toward an ideal self. Study 2 further tested the assumption that habits are associated with identity if these relate to important goals or values. An experimental manipulation of value affirmation demonstrated that, compared to a control condition, habit-identity associations were stronger if participants explicitly generated the habit and true self ratings while indicating which values the behaviors would serve. Taken together, the results suggest that habits may serve to define who we are, in particular when these are considered in the context of self-related goals or central values. When habits relate to feelings of identity this comes with stronger cognitive self-integration, higher self-esteem, and a striving toward an ideal self. Linking habits to identity may sustain newly formed behaviors and may thus lead to more effective behavior change interventions.

Preliminary Evidence of a Missing Self Bias in Face Perception for Individuals with Dissociative Identity Disorder

Failing to recognize one's mirror image can signal an abnormality in one's sense of self. In dissociative identity disorder (DID), individuals often report that their mirror image can feel unfamiliar or distorted. They also experience some of their own thoughts, emotions, and bodily sensations as if they are nonautobiographical and sometimes as if instead, they belong to someone else. To assess these experiences, we designed a novel backwards masking paradigm in which participants were covertly shown their own face, masked by a stranger's face. Participants rated feelings of familiarity associated with the strangers' faces. 21 control participants without trauma-generated dissociation rated masks, which were covertly preceded by their own face, as more familiar compared to masks preceded by a stranger's face. In contrast, across two samples, 28 individuals with DID and similar clinical presentations (DSM-IV Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified type 1) did not show increased familiarity ratings to their own masked face. However, their familiarity ratings interacted with self-reported identity state integration. Individuals with higher levels of identity state integration had response patterns similar to control participants. These data provide empirical evidence of aberrant self-referential processing in DID/DDNOS and suggest this is restored with identity state integration.

The ubiquitous self: what the properties of self-bias tell us about the self

People show systematic biases in perception, memory, and attention to favor information related to themselves over information related to other people. Researchers have examined these biases in order to throw light on the nature of the self. We review this evidence in memory, face recognition, and simple perceptual matching tasks through objective measures of self-biases. We argue that the self serves as a stable anchor across different forms of judgment and that referring a stimulus to ourselves enhances the binding of stimulus features at different stages of processing (e.g., in perception and in memory) and also the binding between processing stages. There is neural evidence that self-biases reflect an underlying neural network that interacts with but is independent of attentional control networks in the brain, and that damage to the self-related network disrupts the bias effects. We discuss the implications for understanding the nature of the self.