From mind to matter: neural correlates of abstract and concrete mindsets

Individual differences and creative ideation: neuromodulatory signatures of mindset and response inhibition

This study addresses the modulatory role of individual mindset in explaining the relationship between response inhibition (RI) and divergent thinking (DT) using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS). Forty undergraduate students (22 male and 18 female), aged between 18 and 23 years (average age = 19 years, SD = 1.48), were recruited. Participants received either anodal tDCS of the right IFG coupled with cathodal tDCS of the left IFG (R + L-; N = 19) or the opposite coupling (R-L+; N = 21). We tested DT performance using the alternative uses task (AUT), measuring participants' fluency, originality, and flexibility in the response production, as well as participants' mindsets. Furthermore, we applied a go-no-go task to examine the role of RI before and after stimulating the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) using tDCS. The results showed that the mindset levels acted as moderators on stimulation conditions and enhanced RI on AUT fluency and flexibility but not originality. Intriguingly, growth mindsets have opposite moderating effects on the change in DT, resulting from the tDCS stimulation of the left and the right IFG, with reduced fluency but enhanced flexibility. Our findings imply that understanding neural modulatory signatures of ideational processes with tDCS strongly benefits from evaluating cognitive status and control functions.

Is theology more of a field than a father is a king? Modelling semantic relatedness in processing literal and metaphorical statements

One major question in the study of metaphors historically is: Are different mechanisms involved in the comprehension of figurative statements versus literal statements? Many studies have addressed this question from a variety of perspectives, with mixed results. Following Harati, Westbury, and Kiaee (Behavior Research Methods, 53, 2214-2225, 2021), we use a computational (word embedding) model of semantics to approach the question in a way that allows for the quantification of the semantic relationship between the two keywords in literal and metaphorical “x is a y” statements. We first demonstrate that almost all literal statements (95.2% of 582 statements we considered) have very high relatedness values. We then show that literality decisions are slower for literal statements with low relatedness and metaphorical statements with high relatedness. We find a similar but smaller effect attributable to the cosine of the vectors representing the two keywords. The fact that the same measurable characteristics allow us to predict which metaphors or literal sentences will have the slowest literality decision times suggests that the same processes underlie the comprehension of both literal and metaphorical statements.

Consciousness Beyond Neural Fields: Expanding the Possibilities of What Has Not Yet Happened

In the field theories in physics, any particular region of the presumed space-time continuum and all interactions between elementary objects therein can be objectively measured and/or accounted for mathematically. Since this does not apply to any of the field theories, or any other neural theory, of consciousness, their explanatory power is limited. As discussed in detail herein, the matter is complicated further by the facts than any scientifically operational definition of consciousness is inevitably partial, and that the phenomenon has no spatial dimensionality. Under the light of insights from research on meditation and expanded consciousness, chronic pain syndrome, healthy aging, and eudaimonic well-being, we may conceive consciousness as a source of potential energy that has no clearly defined spatial dimensionality, but can produce significant changes in others and in the world, observable in terms of changes in time. It is argued that consciousness may have evolved to enable the human species to generate such changes in order to cope with unprecedented and/or unpredictable adversity. Such coping could, ultimately, include the conscious planning of our own extinction when survival on the planet is no longer an acceptable option.

Responsabilidade Ambiental, Distância Psicológica e Consumo Ambiental: Mediação em Estudantes de Contabilidade

RESUMO Objetivo: este estudo teve como objetivo analisar a relação entre a distância psicológica com o consumo ambiental, consubstanciado na intenção de compra e na lealdade a produtos pró-ambientais, mediadas pela responsabilidade ambiental. Métodos: foram analisadas 113 respostas obtidas por meio de uma survey realizada junto aos acadêmicos do curso de Ciências Contábeis utilizando-se da técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais para identificar as relações propostas e o possível efeito mediador existente entre os construtos. Resultados: os resultados ilustram a existência de mediação parcial da responsabilidade ambiental na relação entre distância psicológica com a intensidade de compra e total com a lealdade dos consumidores. A não rejeição da hipótese de pesquisa expõe a importância da análise de elementos psicológicos frente ao comportamento de consumo de produtos pró-ambientais. Conclusões: as contribuições teóricas indicam que a responsabilidade ambiental é capaz de promover o consumo de produtos pró-ambientais. Em termos práticos, cursos de Ciências Contábeis podem incorporar discussões sobre valores éticos socioambientais, expandindo os debates em sala de aula sobre responsabilidade ambiental para além dos aspectos financeiros voltados especificamente para a criação de valor econômico para a organização.

Environmental Responsibility, Psychological Distance, and Environmental Consumption: Mediation in Accounting Students

RESUMO Objetivo: este estudo teve como objetivo analisar a relação entre a distância psicológica com o consumo ambiental, consubstanciado na intenção de compra e na lealdade a produtos pró-ambientais, mediadas pela responsabilidade ambiental. Métodos: foram analisadas 113 respostas obtidas por meio de uma survey realizada junto aos acadêmicos do curso de Ciências Contábeis utilizando-se da técnica de modelagem de equações estruturais para identificar as relações propostas e o possível efeito mediador existente entre os construtos. Resultados: os resultados ilustram a existência de mediação parcial da responsabilidade ambiental na relação entre distância psicológica com a intensidade de compra e total com a lealdade dos consumidores. A não rejeição da hipótese de pesquisa expõe a importância da análise de elementos psicológicos frente ao comportamento de consumo de produtos pró-ambientais. Conclusões: as contribuições teóricas indicam que a responsabilidade ambiental é capaz de promover o consumo de produtos pró-ambientais. Em termos práticos, cursos de Ciências Contábeis podem incorporar discussões sobre valores éticos socioambientais, expandindo os debates em sala de aula sobre responsabilidade ambiental para além dos aspectos financeiros voltados especificamente para a criação de valor econômico para a organização.

Successful simulation requires bridging levels of abstraction

Although many simulations draw upon only one level of abstraction, the process for generating rich simulations requires a dynamic interplay between abstract and concrete knowledge. A complete model of simulation must account for a mind and brain that can bridge the perceptual with the conceptual, the episodic with the semantic, and the concrete with the abstract.

Inter-participant consistency of language-processing networks during abstract thoughts

Human brain imaging typically employs structured and controlled tasks to avoid variable and inconsistent activation patterns. Here we expand this assumption by showing that an extremely open-ended, high-level cognitive task of thinking about an abstract content, loosely defined as "abstract thinking" - leads to highly consistent activation maps. Specifically, we show that activation maps generated during such cognitive process were precisely located relative to borders of well-known networks such as internal speech, visual and motor imagery. The activation patterns allowed decoding the thought condition at >95%. Surprisingly, the activated networks remained the same regardless of changes in thought content. Finally, we found remarkably consistent activation maps across individuals engaged in abstract thinking. This activation bordered, but strictly avoided visual and motor networks. On the other hand, it overlapped with left lateralized language networks. Activation of the default mode network (DMN) during abstract thought was similar to DMN activation during rest. These observations were supported by a quantitative neuronal distance metric analysis. Our results reveal that despite its high level, and varied content nature - abstract thinking activates surprisingly precise and consistent networks in participants' brains.

Neural representations of Groups and Stereotypes using fMRI repetition suppression

Categorizing people in groups and associating them with stereotypical behavior is an integral part of human social understanding and interaction. This study investigates where knowledge on social groups and their stereotypes is represented in the brain. We presented participants with two sentences describing a group member (e.g. the police officer) performing a behavior believed to be stereotypical of the group (e.g. makes an arrest, i.e. authoritative), and asked them to rate the degree to which the behavior was typical of the group. Our critical manipulation was the repetition of this information across the two sentences: Either both the group and the stereotype implied by the behavior was repeated, only the group was repeated, only the stereotype implied by the behavior, or neither. Results showed robust suppression of hemodynamic activation from the first to second sentence in the medial prefrontal cortex in response to the repetition of the stereotype implied in the behavior, but only when groups were different. This finding suggests that the neural representation of stereotypes is located in this area, and this is in line with similar repetition suppression research showing trait representation in this area. A suppression effect for the repetition of groups was observed in the posterior cingulate cortex, regardless of whether stereotypes were repeated or not. This finding suggests that the neural representation of groups is located in this area. Because this location is unexpected, we discuss several suggestions for future research to confirm this finding.

Neurological evidence for the role of construal level in future-directed thought

The ability to mentally represent future events is a significant human psychological achievement. A challenge that people encounter is that they often lack detailed specifics about distant relative to near future events. Construal level theory proposes that people represent distant future events by their abstract and essential features—a process referred to as high-level construal. As events become temporally proximal, people represent events by their increasingly available and reliable concrete and idiosyncratic features—a process referred to as low-level construal. The present fMRI experiment provides direct neural evidence for these assertions. Using the why–how localizer as a measure of construal level, results revealed brain regions associated with both temporal distance and high-level construal (medial prefrontal cortex), as well as temporal proximity and low-level construal (precuneus). We discuss the implications of these findings for the neuroscience of mental time travel and cognitive representation.

The Dorsal Medial Prefrontal Cortex Is Recruited by High Construal of Non-social Stimuli

The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) is part of the mentalizing network, a set of brain regions consistently engaged in inferring mental states. However, its precise function in this network remains unclear. It has recently been proposed that the dmPFC is involved in high-level abstract (i.e., categorical) identification or construction of both social and non-social stimuli, referred to as "high construal." This was based on the observation of greater activation in the dmPFC shared by a high construal social condition (trait inference based on visually presented behavior) and a high construal non-social condition (categorization of visually presented objects) vs. matched low construal conditions (visual description of the same pictures). However, dmPFC activation has been related to task contexts requiring responses based on self-guided generation of mental content or decisions as compared to responses more directly determined by the experimental context (e.g., free vs. rule-governed choice). The previously reported dmPFC activity may reflect differences in task constraint (i.e., the extent to which the task context guided the process) confounded with the construal manipulation. Therefore, in the present study, we manipulated construal level and constraint independently, while participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). As before, participants visually described (low level construal) or categorized (high level construal) pictures of objects. Orthogonal to this, the description or categorization task had to be performed on either one object (low constraint) or on two objects simultaneously (high constraint), limiting the number of possible responses. Statistical analysis revealed common greater activation in both high construal conditions (high and low constraint) than in their low construal counterparts, replicating the influence of construal level on dmPFC activation (greater involvement in high than low construal), but no influence of constraint. In line with previous proposals and earlier work, we suggest that the dmPFC is involved in high-construal abstraction across different domains.

Laughter's influence on the intimacy of self-disclosure

If laughter functions to build relationships between individuals, as current theory suggests, laughter should be linked to interpersonal behaviors that have been shown to be critical to relationship development. Given the importance of disclosing behaviors in facilitating the development of intense social bonds, it is possible that the act of laughing may temporarily influence the laugher's willingness to disclose personal information. We tested this hypothesis experimentally by comparing the characteristics of self-disclosing statements produced by those who had previously watched one of three video clips that differed in the extent to which they elicited laughter and positive affect. The results show that disclosure intimacy is significantly higher after laughter than in the control condition, suggesting that this effect may be due, at least in part, to laughter itself and not simply to a change in positive affect. However, the disclosure intimacy effect was only found for observers' ratings of participants' disclosures and was absent in the participants' own ratings. We suggest that laughter increases people's willingness to disclose, but that they may not necessarily be aware that it is doing so.

The effects of an action's "age-of-acquisition" on action-sentence processing

How does our brain allow us comprehend abstract/symbolic descriptions of human action? Whereas past research suggested that processing action language relies on sensorimotor brain regions, recent work suggests that sensorimotor activation depends on participants' task goals, such that focusing on abstract (vs. concrete) aspects of an action activates "default mode network" (rather than sensorimotor) regions. Following a Piagetian framework, we hypothesized that for actions acquired at an age wherein abstract/symbolic cognition is fully-developed, even when participants focus on the concrete aspects of an action, they should retrieve abstract-symbolic mental representations. In two studies, participants processed the concrete (i.e., "how") and abstract (i.e., "why") aspects of late-acquired and early-acquired actions. Consistent with previous research, focusing on the abstract (vs. concrete) aspects of an action resulted in greater activation in the "default mode network". Importantly, the activation in these regions was higher when processing later-acquired (vs. earlier acquired) actions-also when participants' goal was to focus on the concrete aspects of the action. We discuss the implications of the current findings to research on the involvement of concrete representations in abstract cognition.

Psychological distance modulates the performance of the embodiment effect: Evidence from behavioral and ERP studies

Research on embodied cognition suggests the ubiquity of embodiment effects during interaction with the environment. However, construal level theory (CLT) holds that these effects could be moderated by the psychological distance between self and objects and are attenuated by higher-level mental construal. The current research explored the "action-evaluation" embodiment effect in the evaluation of words located at different spatial distances. Results showed that for "short-distance" words, the response model conflicted with this embodiment effect slower reaction time and induced a larger P2 component than the opposite response model. However, evaluation of "long-distance" words was not significantly influenced by the response model. The results are consistent with CLT and suggest that the action-evaluation embodiment effect influences the coding and execution of evaluating actions, but only for stimuli at close psychological distance locations.

Social cognition and the cerebellum: A meta-analytic connectivity analysis

This meta-analytic connectivity modeling (MACM) study explores the functional connectivity of the cerebellum with the cerebrum in social cognitive processes. In a recent meta-analysis, Van Overwalle, Baetens, Mariën, and Vandekerckhove (2014) documented that the cerebellum is implicated in social processes of "body" reading (mirroring; e.g., understanding other persons' intentions from observing their movements) and "mind" reading (mentalizing, e.g., inferring other persons' beliefs, intentions or personality traits, reconstructing persons' past, future, or hypothetical events). In a recent functional connectivity study, Buckner et al. (2011) offered a novel parcellation of cerebellar topography that substantially overlaps with the cerebellar meta-analytic findings of Van Overwalle et al. (2014). This overlap suggests that the involvement of the cerebellum in social reasoning depends on its functional connectivity with the cerebrum. To test this hypothesis, we explored the meta-analytic co-activations as indices of functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the cerebrum during social cognition. The MACM results confirm substantial and distinct connectivity with respect to the functions of (a) action understanding ("body" reading) and (b) mentalizing ("mind" reading). The consistent and strong connectivity findings of this analysis suggest that cerebellar activity during social judgments reflects distinct mirroring and mentalizing functionality, and that these cerebellar functions are connected with corresponding functional networks in the cerebrum.

The neural basis of conceptualizing the same action at different levels of abstraction

People can conceptualize the same action (e.g. 'riding a bike') at different levels of abstraction (LOA), where higher LOAs specify the abstract motives that explain why the action is performed (e.g. 'getting exercise'), while lower LOAs specify the concrete steps that indicate how the action is performed (e.g. 'gripping handlebars'). Prior neuroimaging studies have shown that why and how questions about actions differentially activate two cortical networks associated with mental-state reasoning and action representation, respectively; however, it remains unknown whether this is due to the differential demands of the questions per se or to the shifts in LOA those questions produce. We conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants judged pairs of action phrases that varied in LOA and that could be framed either as a why question (Why ride a bike? Get exercise.) or a how question (How to get exercise? Ride a bike.). Question framing (why vs how) had no effect on activity in regions of the two networks. Instead, these regions uniquely tracked parametric variation in LOA, both across and within trials. This suggests that the human capacity to understand actions at different LOA is based in the relative activity of two cortical networks.

The dark side of self-focus: brain activity during self-focus in low and high brooders

There are two distinct modes of self-focus: analytical self-focus is abstract, general and evaluative whereas experiential self-focus is concrete, specific and non-evaluative. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the neural bases of these two modes of self-focus in relation with brooding, the maladaptive form of rumination. Forty-one French-speaking right-handed healthy young adults (10 men, mean age ± s.d.: 21.8 ± 2.3 years) engaged in analytical and experiential self-focus triggered by verbal stimuli during fMRI. Brooding was measured with the 22-item Rumination Response Style scale. Individuals with lower brooding scores showed greater activation of the posterior cingulate cortex/precuneus during analytical than experiential self-focus, whereas individuals with higher brooding scores did not. This is consistent with the hypothesis that brooding is associated with less control over the nature of the self-focus engaged. These findings may help to refine our understanding of how rumination promotes depression through maladaptive self-focus.

Dissociation of a trait and a valence representation in the mPFC

A previous functional MRI adaptation study on trait inference indicated that a trait code is located in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), but could not rule out that this adaptation effect is due to the trait's underlying valence. To address this issue, we presented sentences describing positive and negative valences of either a human trait or object characteristic, and manipulated whether the human trait or object characteristic was repeated or not, either with the same or opposite valance. In two trait conditions, a behavioral trait-implying sentence was preceded by a prime sentence that implied the same or the opposite trait. The results confirmed the earlier finding of robust trait adaptation from prime to target in the vmPFC, and also found adaptation in the precuneus and right mid-occipital cortex. In contrast, no valence adaptation was found in two novel object conditions, in which the target sentence again implied a positive or negative trait, but was preceded by a prime sentence that described an object with the same or the opposite valence. Together with the previous study, this indicates that a specific trait code, but not a generalized valence code, is represented in the vmPFC.