The effect of induced optimism on the optimistic update bias

Not feeling it: lack of robust emotion effects on breadth of attention

Emotional states are believed to broaden or to narrow the focus of attention. However, numerous inconsistent findings call for renewed efforts to understand the conditions under which such effects occur. We conducted a pair of high-powered web experiments. Emotional states were manipulated across valence categories and appraisal dimensions using autobiographical recall (Experiment 1) and emotional images (Experiment 2). Breadth of attention was assessed using the Navon task coupled with induction sensitivity and mouse tracking analyses. We did not find robust evidence for emotional effects on breadth of attention. Negative images led surprisingly to slightly broader attention in Experiment 2, but this may reflect the slow release of cognitive resources from preceding negative stimuli amplifying the global precedence effect. Breadth of attention also had very small positive relationships with goal-congruence appraisal in the first and control appraisal in the second experiment. We also found no evidence for moderation by mood or personality. Taken together, our findings add to the growing list of failures to observe emotional modulation of breadth of attention and call for continued efforts to chart the boundary conditions of these effects.

Biased belief updating in depression

Cognitive approaches to depression have benefitted from recent research on belief updating, examining how new information is used to alter beliefs. This review presents recent advances in understanding various sources of bias in belief updating in depression. Specifically, research has demonstrated that people with depression have difficulty revising negative beliefs in response to novel positive information, whereas belief updating in depression is not related to an enhanced integration of negative information. In terms of mechanisms underlying the deficient processing of positive information, research has shown that people with depression use defensive cognitive strategies to devalue novel positive information. Furthermore, the disregard of novel positive information can be amplified by the presence of state negative affect, and the resulting persistence of negative beliefs in turn perpetuates chronically low mood, contributing to a self-reinforcing negative feedback loop of beliefs and affect. Synthesising previous research, this review proposes a coherent framework of when belief change is likely to occur, and argues that future research also needs to elucidate why people with depression hesitate to abandon negative beliefs. Recent insights from belief updating have not only improved the understanding of the psychopathology of depression, but also have the potential to improve its cognitive-behavioural treatment.

Behavioral and electrophysiological analyses of self-referential neural processing in major depressive disorder

Cognitive theories suggest that patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) constantly negatively evaluate their self-referential information. Unlike Westerners with an independent self, self-representation is strongly influenced by cultural differences; the Chinese self may include others (interdependent self). This study uses a self-referential effect task combined with event-related potentials (ERP), and 34 patients with MDD and 54 healthy controls (HC) were asked to judge whether an adjective was suitable for describing the self, mother, or a public person, followed by an unexpected recognition task. They were required to judge whether a word was presented during the encoding phase. The results reveal that during the encoding phase, for both self- and mother-referential adjectives, patients with MDD endorsed fewer positive adjectives and more negative adjectives than the HCs. During the recognition phase, both groups showed a typical task effect (self = mother > other), while patients recognized more self-referential adjectives than the HCs. ERP data reveal that patients with MDD show larger P2 amplitudes during the encoding stage than healthy individuals. During the recognition phase, negative adjectives evoked larger P2 amplitudes in patients than in HCs under the self-referential condition. These findings shed important light on the information processes that may contribute to our understanding of depression and may offer implications for clinical interventions.

How childhood maltreatment alters perception and cognition - the predictive processing account of borderline personality disorder

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a severe mental disorder, comprised of heterogeneous psychological and neurobiological pathologies. Here, we propose a predictive processing (PP) account of BPD to integrate these seemingly unrelated pathologies. In particular, we argue that the experience of childhood maltreatment, which is highly prevalent in BPD, leaves a developmental legacy with two facets: first, a coarse-grained, alexithymic model of self and others - leading to a rigidity and inflexibility concerning beliefs about self and others. Second, this developmental legacy leads to a loss of confidence or precision afforded beliefs about the consequences of social behavior. This results in an over reliance on sensory evidence and social feedback, with concomitant lability, impulsivity and hypersensitivity. In terms of PP, people with BPD show a distorted belief updating in response to new information with two opposing manifestations: rapid changes in beliefs and a lack of belief updating despite disconfirmatory evidence. This account of distorted information processing has the potential to explain both the instability (of affect, self-image, and interpersonal relationships) and the rigidity (of beliefs about self and others) which is typical of BPD. At the neurobiological level, we propose that enhanced levels of dopamine are associated with the increased integration of negative social feedback, and we also discuss the hypothesis of an impaired inhibitory control of the prefrontal cortex in the processing of negative social information. Our account may provide a new understanding not only of the clinical aspects of BPD, but also a unifying theory of the corresponding neurobiological pathologies. We conclude by outlining some directions for future research on the behavioral, neurobiological, and computational underpinnings of this model, and point to some clinical implications of it.

When Beliefs Face Reality: An Integrative Review of Belief Updating in Mental Health and Illness

Belief updating is a relatively nascent field of research that examines how people adjust their beliefs in light of new evidence. So far, belief updating has been investigated in partly unrelated lines of research from different psychological disciplines. In this article, we aim to integrate these disparate lines of research. After presenting some prominent theoretical frameworks and experimental designs that have been used for the study of belief updating, we review how healthy people and people with mental disorders update their beliefs after receiving new information that supports or challenges their views. Available evidence suggests that both healthy people and people with particular mental disorders are prone to certain biases when updating their beliefs, although the nature of the respective biases varies considerably and depends on several factors. Anomalies in belief updating are discussed in terms of both new insights into the psychopathology of various mental disorders and societal implications, such as irreconcilable political and societal controversies due to the failure to take information into account that disconfirms one’s own view. We conclude by proposing a novel integrative model of belief updating and derive directions for future research.