Self-reference is a fast-acting automatic mechanism on emotional word processing: evidence from a masked priming affective categorisation task

Causal Roles of Ventral and Dorsal Neural Systems for Automatic and Control Self-Reference Processing: A Function Lesion Mapping Study

Background: Humans perceive and interpret the world through the lens of self-reference processes, typically facilitating enhanced performance for the task at hand. However, this research has predominantly emphasized the automatic facet of self-reference processing, overlooking how it interacts with control processes affecting everyday situations. Methods: We investigated this relationship between automatic and control self-reference processing in neuropsychological patients performing self-face perception tasks and the Birmingham frontal task measuring executive functions. Results: Principal component analysis across tasks revealed two components: one loaded on familiarity/orientation judgments reflecting automatic self-reference processing, and the other linked to the cross task and executive function indicating control processing requirements. Voxel-based morphometry and track-wise lesion-mapping analyses showed that impairments in automatic self-reference were associated with reduced grey matter in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and right inferior temporal gyrus, and white matter damage in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Deficits in executive control were linked to reduced grey matter in the bilateral inferior parietal lobule and left anterior insula, and white matter disconnections in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and arcuate fasciculus. Conclusions: The causal evidence suggests that automatic and control facets of self-reference processes are subserved by distinct yet integrated ventral prefrontal-temporal and dorsal frontal-parietal networks, respectively.

Self-prioritization is supported by interactions between large-scale brain networks

Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has provided solid evidence that the default-mode network (DMN) is implicated in self-referential processing. The functional connectivity of the DMN has also been observed in tasks where self-referential processing leads to self-prioritization (SPE) in perception and decision-making. However, we are less certain about whether (i) SPE solely depends on the interplay within parts of the DMN or is driven by multiple brain networks; and (ii) whether SPE is associated with a unique component of interconnected networks or can be explained by related effects such as emotion prioritization. We addressed these questions by identifying and comparing topological clusters of networks involved in self-and emotion prioritization effects generated in an associative-matching task. Using network-based statistics, we found that SPE controlled by emotion is supported by a unique component of interacting networks, including the medial prefrontal part of the DMN (MPFC), Frontoparietal network (FPN) and insular Salience network (SN). This component emerged as a result of a focal effect confined to few connections, indicating that interaction between DMN, FPC and SN is critical to cognitive operations for the SPE. This result was validated on a separate data set. In contrast, prioritization of happy emotion was associated with a component formed by interactions between the rostral prefrontal part of SN, posterior parietal part of FPN and the MPFC, while sad emotion reveals a cluster of the DMN, Dorsal Attention Network (DAN) and Visual Medial Network (VMN). We discussed theoretical and methodological aspects of these findings within the more general domain of social cognition.

The effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing in different tasks: Evidence from late Chinese-English bilinguals

Although it has been well established that emotional content influences language comprehension, the effects of emotionality on L2 (second language: English) word processing require further clarification. Notably, most previous studies unsystematically mixed words of different lexical categories, although they often showed processing differences. Here, using the same set of tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words across three lexical categories (i.e., nouns, verbs, adjectives), we examined the effects of emotionality and lexical category on L2 word processing by conducting three experiments. In these experiments, three groups of late Chinese-English bilinguals performed three tasks: the emotional Stroop task (Experiment 1), the lexical decision task (Experiment 2), and the emotional categorisation task (Experiment 3), respectively. Overall, our data suggested that emotionality and lexical category exerted no influence on L2 word processing in the emotional Stroop task, but acted interactively to influence it in the other two tasks. The results evidenced that the processing of L2 emotional words was sensitive to task type. Therefore, we conclude that future research on L2 word processing should fully consider the emotionality, lexical category, and task type.

Gradual positive and negative affect induction: The effect of verbalizing affective content

In this paper, we study the effect of verbalizing affective pictures on affective state and language production. Individuals describe (Study I: Spoken Descriptions of Pictures) or passively view (Study II: Passively Viewing Pictures) 40 pictures for the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) that gradually increase from neutral to either positive or negative content. We expected that both methods would result in successful affect induction, and that the effect would be stronger for verbally describing pictures than for passively viewing them. Results indicate that speakers indeed felt more negative after describing negative pictures, but that describing positive (compared to neutral) pictures did not result in a more positive state. Contrary to our hypothesis, no differences were found between describing and passively viewing the pictures. Furthermore, we analysed the verbal picture descriptions produced by participants on various dimensions. Results indicate that positive and negative pictures were indeed described with increasingly more affective language in the expected directions. In addition to informing our understanding of the relationship between (spoken) language production and affect, these results also potentially pave the way for a new method of affect induction that uses free expression.