Self-Reference Emerges Earlier than Emotion during an Implicit Self-Referential Emotion Processing Task: Event-Related Potential Evidence

Demystifying authenticity: Behavioral and neurophysiological signatures of self-positivity for authentic and presented selves

Authenticity has captivated scholars. But what is it? An emerging view considers it exaggerated favorability (self-enhancement), whereas traditional views regard it as self-accuracy and self-consistency. We tested these theoretical views by contrasting the authentic self with the presented self, a highly desirable representation. Behaviorally, participants ascribed less positivity to the authentic self: They endorsed more negative traits and were faster to admit having them; also, they endorsed fewer positive traits and were slower to admit having them. Neurally, participants manifested preferential processing of threatening information (P1), followed by preferential processing of favorable information (N170), about the presented self (than authentic self), indicating its brittleness. At a later stage (LPP), participants engaged in more elaborate processing of threatening and favorable information about the authentic self, indicating its subjective importance. Authenticity, albeit mostly positive, allows room for negativity.

Emotional Evaluations from Partners and Opponents Differentially Influence the Perception of Ambiguous Faces

The influence of contextual valence and interpersonal distance on facial expression perception remains unclear despite their significant role in shaping social perceptions. In this event-related potential (ERP) study, we investigated the temporal dynamics underlying the processing of surprised faces across different interpersonal distances (partner, opponent, or stranger) and contextual valence (positive, neutral, or negative) contexts. Thirty-five participants rated the valence of surprised faces. An advanced mass univariate statistical approach was utilized to analyze the ERP data. Behaviorally, surprised faces in partner-related negative contexts were rated more negatively than those in opponent- and stranger-related contexts. The ERP results revealed an increased P1 amplitude for surprised faces in negative relative to neutral contexts. Both the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potentials (LPP) were also modulated by contextual valence, with larger amplitudes for faces in positive relative to neutral and negative contexts. Additionally, when compared to stranger-related contexts, faces in partner-related contexts exhibited enhanced P1 and EPN responses, while those in opponent-related contexts showed amplified LPP responses. Taken together, these findings elucidate the modulation of intricate social contexts on the perception and interpretation of ambiguous facial expressions, thereby enhancing our understanding of nonverbal communication and emotional cognition.

An EPR study of the cognitive processes underlying the impact of self-relevant information on emotional word processing

Using the event-related potentials (ERPs) technique, this study successively presented names (in either a supra- or subthreshold manner) and emotional words to examine how self-relevant cue (self-name) affects emotional word processing in word class judgment task (to determine whether an emotional word is a noun or adjective) and valence judgment task (to determine whether an emotional word is positive or negative). At the suprathreshold condition, self-relevant positive words elicited a more significant Early posterior negativity (EPN) than negative words only in the valence judgment task. In contrast, at the subthreshold condition, self-relevant negative words elicited an enhanced Late positive potential (LPP) than positive words only in the word class judgment task. These results indicate that self-relevant cue affects emotional word processing at both suprathreshold and subthreshold conditions; nevertheless, the effect manifests as self-positive bias at the suprathreshold condition and self-negative bias at the subthreshold condition. The experimental task modulates these dynamics.

High media multitasking habit influences self-referential emotional memory

Previous research (Ophir et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 106(37):15583-15587, 10.1073/pnas.0903620106, 2009; Uncapher and Wagner in Proc Natl Acad Sci 115(40):9889-9896, 10.1073/pnas.1611612115, 2018; Wiradhany and Koerts in Media Psychol 24(2):276-303, 10.1080/15213269.2019.1685393, 2021) suggested that different groups (high, low, and moderate) of habitual media multitaskers process information differently. Most of these studies focused on comprehending the cognitive differences among them. But there is considerably less information on their differences in processing emotional stimuli. In this article, using self-referential emotional stimuli ('positive/likeable' and 'negative/dislikeable' words), we aim to examine whether there is any difference in the self-referential emotional memory among different groups of media multitaskers (HMM, MMM, and LMM) using a recall and recognition paradigm. We also investigate whether HMM, MMM, and LMM vary in an emotional categorization task. A total of 120 students (mean age = 20.9 years; males = 84) voluntarily participated and self-reported their preferences for media multitasking using a questionnaire (Ophir et al. 2009). A total of 50 self-referenced words (positive/likeable and negative/dislikeable) were presented to them on a computerized screen for an emotional categorization task. Afterward, they performed a surprise free recall and a recognition task of the same words. Results suggested that HMM were faster in liking 'positive/likeable' words over 'negative/dislikeable' words in emotional categorization tasks in comparison with LMM and MMM. HMM and MMM performed poorly in both the recall and recognition of 'positive/likeable' emotional words compared to LMM. No significant difference was observed in recall and recognition between HMM and MMM. The three groups did not differ significantly in the recall and recognition tasks related to 'negative/dislikeable' emotional words. These findings help understand the differences in processing self-related emotional stimuli among different groups of media multitaskers.

Muscle synergy structure and gait patterns in children with spastic cerebral palsy

AIM

To determine if muscle synergy structure (activations and weights) differs between gait patterns in children with spastic cerebral palsy (CP).

METHOD

In this cross-sectional study, we classified 188 children with unilateral (n=82) or bilateral (n=106) spastic CP (mean age: 9y 5mo, SD: 4y 3mo, range: 3y 9mo-17y 7mo; 75 females; Gross Motor Function Classification System [GMFCS] level I: 106, GMFCS level II: 55, GMFCS level III: 27) into a minor deviations (n=34), drop foot (n=16), genu recurvatum (n=26), apparent equinus (n=53), crouch (n=39), and jump gait pattern (n=20). Surface electromyography recordings from eight lower limb muscles of the most affected side were used to calculate synergies with weighted non-negative matrix factorization. We compared synergy activations and weights between the patterns.

RESULTS

Synergy structure was similar between gait patterns, although weights differed in the more impaired children (crouch and jump gait) when compared to the other patterns. Variability in synergy structure between participants was high.

INTERPRETATION

The similarity in synergy structure between gait patterns suggests a generic motor control strategy to compensate for the brain lesion. However, the differences in weights and high variability between participants indicate that this generic motor control strategy might be individualized and dependent on impairment level.

Does Implicit Self-Reference Effect Occur by the Instantaneous Own-Name?

Self-reference effect (SRE) is defined as better recall or recognition performance when the materials that are memorized refer to the self. The SRE paradigm usually requires participants to explicitly refer items to themselves, but some researchers have found that the SRE also can occur for implicitly self-referenced items. Few studies though have investigated the effect of self-related stimuli without awareness. In this study, we presented self-related (participants’ names) or other (other’s names or nouns) stimuli for a very short time between masks and then explicitly presented subsequent trait adjectives to participants. Recognition performance showed no significant differences between the own-name and the other two conditions in Experiment 1 that had random-order conditions. On the other hand, the result of Experiment 2 that had block-order conditions and greater prime stimuli suggests that SRE can occur as a result of the instantaneous stimulus: Subjects who showed better memory performance also had relatively high recognition of the trait adjectives that they viewed after their instantaneously presented own-name. This effect would show that self-representation can be activated by self-related stimuli without awareness and that subsequent items are unconsciously referenced to that self-representation.

Interactions of Emotion and Self-reference in Source Memory: An ERP Study

The way emotional information is encoded (e.g., deciding whether it is self-related or not) has been found to affect source memory. However, few studies have addressed how the emotional quality and self-referential properties of a stimulus interactively modulate brain responses during stimulus encoding and source memory recognition. In the current study, 22 participants completed five study-test cycles with negative, neutral, and positive words encoded in self-referential versus non-self-referential conditions, while event-related potentials of the electroencephalogram were recorded. An advantage of self-referential processing in source memory performance, reflected in increased recognition accuracy, was shown for neutral and positive words. At the electrophysiological level, self-referential words elicited increased amplitudes in later processing stages during encoding (700-1,200 ms) and were associated with the emergence of old/new effects in the 300-500 ms latency window linked to familiarity effects. In the 500-800 ms latency window, old/new effects emerged for all valence conditions except for negative words studied in the non-self-referential condition. Negative self-referential words also elicited a greater mobilization of post-retrieval monitoring processes, reflected in an enhanced mean amplitude in the 800-1,200 ms latency window. Together, the current findings suggest that valence and self-reference interactively modulate source memory. Specifically, negative self-related information is more likely to interfere with the recollection of source memory features.

Evidence for self-positivity bias in a subliminal self-cue: An event-related potential study

Previous studies studies indicate that individuals tend to integrate positive information into their self-concept. However, whether such self-positivity bias would still be observed without an explicit self-related cue is unknown. In the present study, 29 participants were asked to evaluate a series of positive and negative trait adjectives, after the participants were presented with their own name or another name subliminally. During the task, their electroencephalograms were recorded. The results showed participants responded faster to positive traits than to negative traits in the self-name cue conditions. In addition, both the latencies and the amplitudes of the N400 showed significant interaction between name-cue and valence in N400 (240-440 ms) amplitudes. The earlier N400 latencies and smaller N400 amplitudes were associated with positive traits in the self-name cue. These results suggested that the self-positivity bias can also be observed in a subliminally presenting self-cue, indicating the robustness of self-positivity bias.

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.

The glass is half empty: Negative self-appraisal bias and attenuated neural response to positive self-judgment in adolescence

Substantial changes in cognitive-affective self-referential processing occur during adolescence. We studied the behavioral and ERP correlates of self-evaluation in healthy male and female adolescents aged 12-17 (N = 109). Participants completed assessments of depression symptoms and puberty as well as a self-referential encoding task while 128-channel high-density EEG data were collected. Depression symptom severity was associated with increased endorsement of negative words and longer reaction times. In an extreme group analysis, a negative appraisal-bias subsample (n = 28) displayed decreased frontal P2 amplitudes to both positive and negative word stimuli, reflecting reduced early attentional processing and emotional salience. Compared to the positive appraisal-bias subsample (n = 27), the negative appraisal-bias subsample showed reduced LPP to positive words but not negative words, suggesting attenuated sustained processing of positive self-relevant stimuli. Findings are discussed in terms of neural processes associated with ERPs during negative versus positive self-appraisal bias, and developmental implications.

The Impact of Self-Relevance on Preschool Children's Sharing

This study was designed to investigate the impact of self-relevance between preschool children and recipients on children's sharing behavior in dictator games using a forced-choice resource distribution paradigm. Experiment 1: A total of 75 children aged 3-6 years were evaluated in a first-party situation in which they were distributed as recipients and dictators and shared resources with distracting recipients with different extents of self-relevance under three different payoff structures, including non-costly, costly, and envy structures. Children could choose between a sharing option and a non-sharing option. The results showed that, in a first-party situation, children aged 3-6 years old typically share more resources with highly self-relevant recipients (friends) than with moderately self-relevant recipients (acquaintances) and lowly self-relevant recipients (strangers) and that they share more resources with moderately self-relevant recipients (acquaintances) than lowly self-relevant recipients (strangers). Experiment 2: A total of 62 children aged 3-6 years old were evaluated in a third-party situation in which they were distributed not as recipients but only dictators, making decisions between the options of sharing more or sharing less with distracting recipients who had different extents of self-relevance under three different payoff structures, such as non-bias, high self-bias, and low self-bias. The results showed that, in a third-party situation, children typically share in a similar manner to that of Experiment 1, meaning that children display selective generosity and that the self-relevance between the children and recipients played a key role. Across age groups, this study of preschool children (total N = 137) demonstrates a degree of effect of self-relevance on preschool children's sharing in first-party and third-party situations, with highly self-relevant recipients receiving a more preferential share in the dictator game than those with low self-relevance, although this effect was stronger in the older preschool children.

Shared Mechanisms May Support Mnemonic Benefits from Self-Referencing and Emotion

The literatures on episodic memory for self-referential and emotional information have proceeded relatively independently, and most studies examining the effects of age on these memory processes have been interpreted within domain-specific frameworks. However, there is increasing evidence for shared mechanisms that contribute to episodic memory benefits in these two domains. We review this evidence and propose a model that incorporates overlapping as well as domain-specific contributions to episodic memory encoding of self-referential and emotional material. We discuss the implications for understanding the relatively intact memory of older adults for these classes of stimuli, and conclude with suggestions for future research to test key tenets and extensions of this shared-process model.