The self-bias in working memory: the favorability of self-referential stimuli in resource allocation

Self-representations guide and shape our thoughts and behaviour. People usually exhibit inherent biases in perception, attention, and memory to favour the information associated with themselves over that associated with others. The present study explored the phenomenon of self-bias in working memory (WM), specifically how self-referential processing impacts WM precision. Four precision-based experiments were conducted to assess the recall precision of self-referential items and items associated with other social agents. The findings revealed a robust self-prioritisation effect in WM precision, wherein self-referential items were recalled with greater precision than items associated with other social agents. Additionally, increased precision for self-referential items did not decrease the precision for simultaneously remembered items. This effect was limited by the total amount of WM resources and not influenced by a perceptual distractor. The inherent self-bias in WM can serve as a proxy to access the role self-representation in goal-oriented cognitive processing, providing a means of exploring the interaction between self-reference and high-level cognitive function.

The effectiveness of self: A meta-analysis of using self-referential encoding techniques in education

BACKGROUND

Self-related information is difficult to ignore and forget, which brings valuable implications for educational practice. Self-referential encoding techniques involve integrating self-referencing cues during the processing of learning material. However, the evidence base and effective implementation boundaries for these techniques in teaching and learning remain uncertain due to research variability.

AIMS

The present meta-analysis aims to quantitatively synthesize the results from studies applying self-referential encoding techniques in education.

METHODS

The analysis was based on data from 20 independent samples, including 1082 students from 13 primary studies identified through a systematic literature search.

RESULTS

Results from random effect models show that incorporating self-referential encoding techniques improved learning (g = .40, 95% CI [.18, .62]). Subgroup analysis showed that the valence of learning material serves as a significant boundary condition for this strategy. The students' cohorts, types of learning materials, and research context did not moderate the effect sizes.

CONCLUSIONS

Our results suggest that incorporating self-referential encoding techniques on negative materials shows an aversive effect. Overall, there is a universal benefit to using self-referential encoding techniques as an appropriate design guideline in educational contexts. Implications for teaching practice and future directions are discussed. Further studies are needed to investigate the effectiveness in more diverse educational and teaching situations.

Sensitivity of late ERP old/new effects in source memory to self-referential encoding focus and stimulus emotionality

In episodic memory, the old/new effect, the contrast of the waveforms elicited by the correctly recognized studied items and the correctly rejected novel items, has been broadly concerned. However, the contribution of self-referential encoding to the old/new effect in source memory (i.e., source-SRE), is far from clarification; further, it remains unclear whether the contribution is susceptible to the factor of stimulus emotionality. To address these issues, adopting the event-related potential (ERP) technique, this study applied words of three types of emotional valences (positive, neutral, vs. negative) in the self-focus vs. external-focus encoding tasks. In the course of the test, four ERP old/new effects were identified: (a) the familiarity- and recollection-reflected mid-frontal effect (FN400) and late positive component (LPC) were both independent of source-SRE and stimulus emotionality; (b) the reconstruction-driven late posterior negativity (LPN) exhibited an adverse pattern of source-SRE and was susceptible to the emotional valence by encoding focus; and (c) the right frontal old/new effect (RFE), reflecting post-retrieval process, exhibited a source-SRE in emotional words. These effects provide compelling evidence for the influences of both stimulus valence and encoding focus on SRE in source memory, especially during the late processes. Further directions considering more perspectives are put forward.

A scale-free universal relational information matrix (N-space) reconciles the information problem: N-space as the fabric of reality

Cellular measurement is a crucial faculty in living systems, and exaptations are acknowledged as a significant source of evolutionary innovation. However, the possibility that the origin of biological order is predicated on an exaptation of the measurement of information from the abiotic realm has not been previously explored. To support this hypothesis, the existence of a universal holographic relational information space-time matrix is proposed as a scale-free unification of abiotic and biotic information systems. In this framework, information is a universal property representing the interactions between matter and energy that can be subject to observation. Since observers are also universally distributed, information can be deemed the fundamental fabric of the universe. The novel concept of compartmentalizing this universal N-space information matrix into separate N-space partitions as nodes of informational density defined by Markov blankets and boundaries is introduced, permitting their applicability to both abiotic and biotic systems. Based on these N-space partitions, abiotic systems can derive meaningful information from the conditional settlement of quantum entanglement asymmetries and coherences between separately bounded quantum informational reference frames sufficient to be construed as a form of measurement. These conditional relationships are the precursor of the reiterating nested architecture of the N-space-derived information fields that characterize life and account for biological order. Accordingly, biotic measurement and biological N-space partitioning are exaptations of preexisting information processes within abiotic systems. Abiotic and biotic states thereby reconcile as differing forms of measurement of fundamental universal information. The essential difference between abiotic and biotic states lies within the attributes of the specific observer/detectors, thereby clarifying several contentious aspects of self-referential consciousness.

An Ansatz for Computational Undecidability in RNA Automata

In this ansatz we consider theoretical constructions of RNA polymers into automata, a form of computational structure. The bases for transitions in our automata are plausible RNA enzymes that may perform ligation or cleavage. Limited to these operations, we construct RNA automata of increasing complexity; from the Finite Automaton (RNA-FA) to the Turing machine equivalent 2-stack PDA (RNA-2PDA) and the universal RNA-UPDA. For each automaton we show how the enzymatic reactions match the logical operations of the RNA automaton. A critical theme of the ansatz is the self-reference in RNA automata configurations that exploits the program-data duality but results in computational undecidability. We describe how computational undecidability is exemplified in the self-referential Liar paradox that places a boundary on a logical system, and by construction, any RNA automata. We argue that an expansion of the evolutionary space for RNA-2PDA automata can be interpreted as a hierarchical resolution of computational undecidability by a meta-system (akin to Turing's oracle), in a continual process analogous to Turing's ordinal logics and Post's extensible recursively generated logics. On this basis, we put forward the hypothesis that the resolution of undecidable configurations in RNA automata represent a novelty generation mechanism and propose avenues for future investigation of biological automata.

Integrating mind and body: Investigating differential activation of nodes of the default mode network

BACKGROUND

The default mode network (DMN) is a large-scale brain network tightly correlated with self and self-referential processing, activated by intrinsic tasks and deactivated by externally-directed tasks.

OBJECTIVE

In this study, we aim to investigate the novel approach of default mode activation during progressive muscle relaxation and examine whether differential activation patterns result from the movement of different body parts.

METHODS

We employed neuroimaging to investigate DMN activity during simple body movements, while performing progressive muscle relaxation. We focused on differentiating the neural response between facial movements and movements of other body parts.

RESULTS

Our results show that the movement of different body parts led to deactivation in several DMN nodes, namely the temporal poles, hippocampus, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), and posterior cingulate cortex. However, facial movement induced an inverted and selective positive BOLD pattern in some of these areas precisely. Moreover, areas in the temporal poles selective for face movement showed functional connectivity not only with the hippocampus and mPFC but also with the nucleus accumbens.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings suggest that both conceptual and embodied self-related processes, including body movements during progressive muscle relaxation, may be mapped onto shared brain networks. This could enhance our understanding of how practices like PMR influence DMN activity and potentially offer insights to inform therapeutic strategies that rely on mindful body movements.

Self-referential encoding does not benefit memory for prior remembering across changing contexts

Changes in context across instances of memory retrieval have been shown to impair memory for acts of prior remembering. The present study examined how self-referential encoding influences memory for prior remembering that occurred with or without context change. At encoding, participants processed each target in cue-target word pairs in relation to themselves or another person. During an initial cued-recall test, targets were tested with either the studied cues or semantically related, but previously unseen cues. During a second cued-recall test, all targets were tested with the studied cues, and participants judged whether they remembered retrieving each target during the first test. Regardless of self/other-reference, semantic context change across the two tests impaired memory for prior remembering. Furthermore, the magnitude of this impairment was larger for strongly self-associated vs. other-associated targets. Our findings suggest that self-referential encoding does not benefit memory for prior remembering in the face of contextual change.

Overlapping Functional Representations of Self- and Other-Related Thought are Separable Through Multivoxel Pattern Classification

Self-reflection and thinking about the thoughts and behaviors of others are important skills for humans to function in the social world. These two processes overlap in terms of the component processes involved, and share overlapping functional organizations within the human brain, in particular within the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC). Several functional models have been proposed to explain these two processes, but none has directly explored the extent to which they are distinctly represented within different parts of the brain. This study used multivoxel pattern classification to quantify the separability of self- and other-related thought in the MPFC and expanded this question to the entire brain. Using a large-scale mega-analytic dataset, spanning three separate studies (n = 142), we find that self- and other-related thought can be reliably distinguished above chance within the MPFC, posterior cingulate cortex and temporal lobes. We highlight subcomponents of the ventral MPFC that are particularly important in representing self-related thought, and subcomponents of the orbitofrontal cortex robustly involved in representing other-related thought. Our findings indicate that representations of self- and other-related thought in the human brain are described best by a distributed pattern rather than stark localization or a purely ventral to dorsal linear gradient in the MPFC.

Earth's Complexity Is Non-Computable: The Limits of Scaling Laws, Nonlinearity and Chaos

Current physics commonly qualifies the Earth system as 'complex' because it includes numerous different processes operating over a large range of spatial scales, often modelled as exhibiting non-linear chaotic response dynamics and power scaling laws. This characterization is based on the fundamental assumption that the Earth's complexity could, in principle, be modeled by (surrogated by) a numerical algorithm if enough computing power were granted. Yet, similar numerical algorithms also surrogate different systems having the same processes and dynamics, such as Mars or Jupiter, although being qualitatively different from the Earth system. Here, we argue that understanding the Earth as a complex system requires a consideration of the Gaia hypothesis: the Earth is a complex system because it instantiates life-and therefore an autopoietic, metabolic-repair (M,R) organization-at a planetary scale. This implies that the Earth's complexity has formal equivalence to a self-referential system that inherently is non-algorithmic and, therefore, cannot be surrogated and simulated in a Turing machine. We discuss the consequences of this, with reference to in-silico climate models, tipping points, planetary boundaries, and planetary feedback loops as units of adaptive evolution and selection.

STOP SHOUTING AT ME: The Influence of Case and Self-Referencing on Explicit and Implicit Memory

Evidence suggests that physical changes in word appearance, such as those written in all capital letters, and the use of effective encoding strategies, such as self-referential processing, improves memory. In this study we examined the extent both physical changes in word appearance (case) and encoding strategies engaged at study influence memory as measured by both explicit and implicit memory measures. Participants studied words written in upper and lower case under three encoding conditions (self-reference, semantic control, case judgment), which was followed by an implicit (word stem completion) and then an explicit (item and context) memory test. There were two primary results. First, analyses indicated a case enhancement effect for item memory where words written in upper case were better remembered than lower case, but only when participants were prompted to attend to the case of the word. Importantly, this case enhancement effect came at a cost to context memory for words written in upper case. Second, self-referencing increased explicit memory performance relative to control, but there was no effect on implicit memory. Overall, results suggest an item-context memory trade-off for words written in upper case, highlighting a potential downside to writing in all capital letters, and further, that both physical changes to the appearance of words and differing encoding strategies have a strong influence on explicit, but not implicit memory.

A Difference of Past Self-Evaluation Between College Students With Low and High Socioeconomic Status: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

Socioeconomic status (SES) refers to the social position or class according to their material and non-material social resources. We conducted a study with 60 college students to explore whether SES affects past self-evaluation and used event-related potentials (ERPs) in a self-reference task that required participants to judge whether the trait adjectives (positive or negative) describing themselves 5 years ago were appropriate for them. Behavioral data showed that individuals’ positive past self-evaluations were significantly higher than individuals’ negative past self-evaluations, regardless of high or low SES. Individuals with high SES had significantly higher positive past self-evaluations than those with low SES. ERP data showed that in the low SES group, negative adjectives elicited a marginally greater N400 amplitude than positive adjectives; in the high SES group, negative adjectives elicited a greater late positive potential (LPP) amplitude than positive adjectives. N400 is an index of the accessibility of semantic processing, and a larger N400 amplitude reflects less fluent semantic processing. LPP is an index of continuous attention during late processing; the larger LPP amplitude is elicited, the more attention resources are invested. Our results indicated that compared with college students with low SES, the past self-evaluations of college students with high SES were more positive; college students with high SES paid more attention to negative adjectives. However, college students with low SES were marginally less fluent in processing negative adjectives.

Non-Random Genome Editing and Natural Cellular Engineering in Cognition-Based Evolution

Neo-Darwinism presumes that biological variation is a product of random genetic replication errors and natural selection. Cognition-Based Evolution (CBE) asserts a comprehensive alternative approach to phenotypic variation and the generation of biological novelty. In CBE, evolutionary variation is the product of natural cellular engineering that permits purposive genetic adjustments as cellular problem-solving. CBE upholds that the cornerstone of biology is the intelligent measuring cell. Since all biological information that is available to cells is ambiguous, multicellularity arises from the cellular requirement to maximize the validity of available environmental information. This is best accomplished through collective measurement purposed towards maintaining and optimizing individual cellular states of homeorhesis as dynamic flux that sustains cellular equipoise. The collective action of the multicellular measurement and assessment of information and its collaborative communication is natural cellular engineering. Its yield is linked cellular ecologies and mutualized niche constructions that comprise biofilms and holobionts. In this context, biological variation is the product of collective differential assessment of ambiguous environmental cues by networking intelligent cells. Such concerted action is enabled by non-random natural genomic editing in response to epigenetic impacts and environmental stresses. Random genetic activity can be either constrained or deployed as a 'harnessing of stochasticity'. Therefore, genes are cellular tools. Selection filters cellular solutions to environmental stresses to assure continuous cellular-organismal-environmental complementarity. Since all multicellular eukaryotes are holobionts as vast assemblages of participants of each of the three cellular domains (Prokaryota, Archaea, Eukaryota) and the virome, multicellular variation is necessarily a product of co-engineering among them.

Genetic counselor use of self-involving responses in a clinical setting: A qualitative investigation

Self-involving responses are direct expressions of genetic counselors' here-and-now feelings about/reactions to patients. Strategic, sparing use of self-involving responses may enhance practitioner genuineness, likeability, and trustworthiness, decrease patient anxiety, and increase patient trust and engagement. Conversely, they may threaten patients who are uncomfortable with emotional expression or confuse them about the counselor's intentions. Despite theorized benefits and risks, no study has explored genetic counselor self-involving responses. This study explored whether clinical genetic counselors use self-involving responses with their patients, reasons for doing so, and their perceptions of when and why the responses work well versus poorly. Two-hundred sixty-eight genetic counselors, invited via a National Society of Genetic Counselors e-blast, completed an online screening survey. Eighty-nine percent reported using self-involving responses with patients, and 17 were purposively selected to participate in semi-structured phone interviews. Thematic analysis yielded themes regarding potential benefits, risks, counselor factors and context, and patient factors related to using self-involving responses. Benefits include conveying counselor conditions for facilitating counseling process (e.g., genuineness, building rapport, focusing the session, and encouraging the patient to open-up), and counseling outcomes by validating decision-making. Risks of use include hindering counseling processes and outcomes by misperceiving patient feelings, boundary crossing, and being unduly directive. Factors, both from the counselor and the context of the session, include comfort with the technique, mastery of clinical skills, minimal knowledge of patient emotions, type of counseling session, and counselor practice specialty. Patient factors include prior rapport with the counselor, and patient emotionality and cultural background. Findings underscore the need for training about this technique. Future research could examine patients' perceptions of self-involving statements and differences in self-involvement across practice specialties and counseling modalities.

The Lost Neural Hierarchy of the Autistic Self-Locked-Out of the Mental Self and Its Default-Mode Network

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by a fundamental change in self-awareness including seemingly paradoxical features like increased ego-centeredness and weakened self-referentiality. What is the neural basis of this so-called "self-paradox"? Conducting a meta-analytic review of fMRI rest and task studies, we show that ASD exhibits consistent hypofunction in anterior and posterior midline regions of the default-mode network (DMN) in both rest and task with decreased self-non-self differentiation. Relying on a multilayered nested hierarchical model of self, as recently established (Qin et al. 2020), we propose that ASD subjects cannot access the most upper layer of their self, the DMN-based mental self-they are locked-out of their own DMN and its mental self. This, in turn, results in strong weakening of their self-referentiality with decreases in both self-awareness and self-other distinction. Moreover, this blocks the extension of non-DMN cortical and subcortical regions at the lower layers of the physical self to the DMN-based upper layer of the mental self, including self-other distinction. The ASD subjects remain stuck and restricted to their intero- and exteroceptive selves as manifested in a relative increase in ego-centeredness (as compared to self-referentiality). This amounts to what we describe as "Hierarchical Model of Autistic Self" (HAS), which, characterizing the autistic self in hierarchical and spatiotemporal terms, aligns well with and extends current theories of ASD including predictive coding and weak central coherence.

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Drives the Prioritization of Self-Associated Stimuli in Working Memory

Humans show a pervasive bias for processing self- over other-related information, including in working memory (WM), where people prioritize the maintenance of self- (over other-) associated cues. To elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying this self-bias, we paired a self- versus other-associated spatial WM task with fMRI and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of human participants of both sexes. Maintaining self- (over other-) associated cues resulted in enhanced activity in classic WM regions (frontoparietal cortex), and in superior multivoxel pattern decoding of the cue locations from visual cortex. Moreover, ventromedial PFC (VMPFC) displayed enhanced functional connectivity with WM regions during maintenance of self-associated cues, which predicted individuals' behavioral self-prioritization effects. In a follow-up tDCS experiment, we targeted VMPFC with excitatory (anodal), inhibitory (cathodal), or sham tDCS. Cathodal tDCS eliminated the self-prioritization effect. These findings provide strong converging evidence for a causal role of VMPFC in driving self-prioritization effects in WM and provide a unique window into the interaction between social, self-referential processing and high-level cognitive control processes.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT People have a strong tendency to attend to self-related stimuli, such as their names. This self-bias extends to the automatic prioritization of arbitrarily self-associated stimuli held in working memory. Since working memory is central to high-level cognition, this bias could influence how we make decisions. It is therefore important to understand the underlying brain mechanisms. Here, we used neuroimaging and noninvasive neurostimulation techniques to show that the source of self-bias in working memory is the ventromedial PFC, which modulates activity in frontoparietal brain regions to produce prioritized representations of self-associated stimuli in sensory cortex. This work thus reveals a brain circuit underlying the socially motivated (self-referential) biasing of high-level cognitive processing.

The group-reference effect and soldiers' recognition memory

Previous research has consistently found that the self-reference effect (SRE) is equal to, or stronger than, the group-reference effect (GRE) for memory performance. The military strongly emphasises group identity; this study investigated whether the GRE was stronger than the SRE for soldiers. Soldiers were recruited to participate in Experiments 1 and Experiment 2. Experiment 1 revealed that recognition was better under the group-reference condition than the self-reference condition. Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1, with the exception that the recognition test required participants to use "remember" / "know" / "guess" judgments. The results were consistent with those of Experiment 1, that is, the GRE contributed to better recognition than the SRE, but the difference was statistically significant only for "know" responses. Using a less cohesive group (university students) as participants, Experiment 3 found that the GRE was not superior to the SRE for memory recognition, which indicated that the results of Experiments 1 and 2 were exclusive to soldiers. The findings suggest that soldiers' sense of self might be unique, and that an ingroup sense of self might be dominant for soldiers.

Effect of self-imagination on memory for older adults and aMCI patients

Imagining an event from a personal perspective has been found to be able to enhance memory for words and sentences for healthy younger adults and brain-injured patients. However, little is known about how people with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) respond to self-imagination, in comparison to healthy older adults. In the current study, participants were asked to process a group of objects using either a self-imagination approach or a baseline strategy in which the self was not heavily involved. Self-imagination shows a mnemonic advantage over the control strategy, though this pattern emerged more clearly for healthy older adults. Furthermore, suggestive evidence indicates that cognitive ability supports self-reference benefits for healthy older adults, but not aMCI patients. These findings extended previous research to reveal the effectiveness of self-imagination for older adults using pictorial stimuli and supported the viewpoint that aMCI could qualitatively change the way that cognitive resources are engaged.

Finding relevance in the news: The scale of self-reference

According to both professional journalists and news users, news should be relevant. While a great deal of research that treats relevance as co-constructed starts from the text of news stories, this paper asks how news users explicitly construct the (ir)relevance of particular news reports, taking a language-centered lens to open-ended survey responses. This paper makes a methodological argument in favor of a language-centered approach to open-ended survey data. Given the ubiquity of online surveys in many social science disciplines, the present paper provides an example of how this approach can deepen our understanding of survey responses. We find that news users construct relevance at varying scales, using a number of linguistic strategies of self-reference. Those who said they found the story they saw relevant used pronouns with a different distribution than those who did not, and these differences exceeded chance. In general, those who referred to themselves as members of larger collectivities were more likely to say they found a news story relevant, suggesting that relevance is discursively constructed in part through practices of self-reference.

The Moderating Effects of Self-Referencing and Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal in Anti-Smoking Advertising for Adolescents

The tobacco epidemic is one of the most serious public health issues in the world. Tobacco use starts and becomes established primarily during adolescence, and nearly 9 out of 10 cigarette smokers first tried smoking by age 18, with 99% first trying by age 26. This study employed a 2 (advertising appeal: emotional vs. rational) by 2 (self-referencing: analytical vs. narrative) factorial design in Study 1; and a 2 (relational-interdependent self-construal: high and low) by 3 (social relational cue: self, friend, and family) factorial design in Study 2. The behavior intention of anti-smoking acted as the measured dependent variable. Samples of 192 (Study 1) and 222 (Study 2) were collected from one of the biggest high schools in northern Taiwan. The results showed advertising appeal and self-referencing had a significant interaction effect on behavior intention (p = 0.040). The results also showed rational appealing advertising is suitable for analytical self-referencing (p = 0.022) and emotional appealing advertising is suitable for narrative self-referencing (p = 0.067). However, the social relationship cue and relational-interdependent self-construal had no significant interaction effect on behavior intention, and only relational-interdependent self-construal significantly affected behavior intention (p < 0.001). Regardless of whether the relational-interdependent self-construal is high or low, when the anti-smoking advertising is from the family perspective to persuade adolescents not to smoke, both influence the adolescent more than the other two social relationship cues (self and friend).

Distinct and opposite profiles of connectivity during self-reference task and rest in youth at clinical high risk for psychosis

Self-reference is impaired in psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia, associated with disability, and closely related to characteristic patterns of aberrant brain connectivity. However, at present, it is unclear whether self-reference is impacted in pathogenesis of the disorder. Alterations in connectivity during a self-reference task or resting-state in the psychosis risk (i.e., prodromal) period may yield important clues for biomarker development, as well as for novel treatment targets. This study examined a task-based and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis (n = 22) and healthy control unaffected peers (n = 20). The self-reference task comprised three task conditions where subjects were asked if an adjective was relevant to themselves (self), a designated other individual (other), or to evaluate the word's spelling (letter). Connectivity analyses examined medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), regions commonly found in conjunction analyses of self-reference, during both the self-reference task and rest. In task connectivity analyses, CHR individuals exhibited decreased mPFC-PCC connectivity when compared to controls. In resting-state analyses, CHR participants showed greater mPFC-PCC connectivity. Taken together, results suggest that psychosis-like alterations in mPFC-PCC connectivity is present prior to psychosis onset across both task and rest.

Increased neural sensitivity to self-relevant stimuli in major depressive disorder

The current research examined how individuals with depression process emotional, self-relevant stimuli. Across two studies, individuals with depression and healthy controls read stimuli that varied in self-relevance while EEG data were recorded. We examined the late positive potential (LPP), an ERP component that captures the dynamic allocation of attention to motivationally salient stimuli. In Study 1, participants read single words in a passive-viewing task. Participants viewed negative, positive, or neutral words that were either normative or self-generated. Exploratory analyses indicated that participants with depression exhibited affective modulation of the LPP for self-generated stimuli only (both positive and negative) and not for normative stimuli; healthy controls exhibited similar affective modulation of the LPP for both self-relevant and normative stimuli. In Study 2, using a separate sample and a different task, stimuli were provided within the context of sentence stems referring to the self or other people. Participants with depression were more likely to endorse negative self-referent sentences and reject positive ones compared to healthy controls. Depressed participants also exhibited an increased LPP to negative stimuli compared to positive or neutral stimuli. Together, these two studies suggest that depression is characterized by relatively increased sensitivity to affective self-relevant stimuli, perhaps in the context of a broader reduction in emotional reactivity to stimuli that are not self-relevant. Thus, depression may be characterized by a more nuanced pattern based on the degree of stimulus self-relevance than either a global decrease or increase in reactivity to affective stimuli.

Magnetic-field sensor with self-reference characteristic based on a magnetic fluid and independent plasmonic dual resonances

A magnetic-field sensor with self-reference characteristic based on metal-dielectric-metal (MDM) plasmonic waveguides and a magnetic fluid (MF) is proposed and theoretically investigated. Independent dual resonances are supported by the coupled resonator-waveguide system. The physical mechanisms of dual resonances are analyzed by the temporal coupled-mode theory. The transmission response to an external magnetic field is explored by using the remarkable tunability of the refractive index of the MF. Based on the different dependence of two resonances on the external field, a magnetic-field sensor with self-reference characteristic is achieved. The magnetic-field nanosensor shows an excellent performance with a high sensitivity of 27 pm/Oe, i.e., 270 pm/mT. The proposed sensor takes advantage of the refractive-index tunability of the MF and the compactness of the MDM waveguide structure. This research may open new opportunities to design nanoscale magnetic sensors with good performance.

Automatic Prioritization of Self-Referential Stimuli in Working Memory

People preferentially attend to external stimuli that are related to themselves compared with others. Whether a similar self-reference bias applies to internal representations, such as those maintained in working memory (WM), is presently unknown. We tested this possibility in four experiments, in which participants were first trained to associate social labels (self, friend, stranger) with arbitrary colors and then performed a delayed match-to-sample spatial WM task on color locations. Participants consistently responded fastest to WM probes at locations of self-associated colors (Experiments 1-4). This self-bias was driven not by differential exogenous attention during encoding or retrieval (Experiments 1 and 2) but by internal attentional prioritization of self-related representations during WM maintenance (Experiment 3). Moreover, self-prioritization in WM was nonstrategic, as this bias persisted even under conditions in which it hurt WM performance. These findings document an automatic prioritization of self-referential items in WM, which may form the basis of some egocentric biases in decision making.

My Sadness - Our Happiness: Writing About Positive, Negative, and Neutral Autobiographical Life Events Reveals Linguistic Markers of Self-Positivity and Individual Well-Being

Objective: Narratives of autobiographical events contain rich information about an individual's private experience, his/her deepest thoughts, feelings, and emotions. The present study investigates linguistic markers of emotion expression and subjective well-being in adults during one session of positive, negative, and neutral expressive writing. Participants (N = 28 healthy participants, N = 7 adults with depressive symptoms), all native speakers of German were instructed to write expressively about personally relevant autobiographical life events of negative, positive, and neutral content. Methods: Quantitative text analysis was performed to determine the amount of emotional words, first person pronouns (singular vs. plural), and cognitive function words used in positive, negative, and neutral narratives and to examine the potency of these classes of words as linguistic markers of positivity/negativity, self-reference, and cognitive reappraisal. Additionally, the relationship between expressive writing and subjective well-being was explored by assessing changes in self-reported psychosomatic symptoms and in bodily and emotional awareness immediately after positive, negative, and neutral writing. Results: Regarding healthy participants, negative narratives contained significantly more negative emotional words than positive or neutral narratives. However, negative narratives also contained more positive emotional words compared to negative emotional words in positive narratives. Moreover, negative narratives contained more cognitive function words than positive narratives, suggesting that healthy participants tried to reappraise negative experiences while writing about negative personal life events. Positive narratives were characterized by an increased use of positive words and of pronouns of the first person plural ("we"), supporting a positivity bias and an extension of self-reference from first person singular to plural (we-reference) during positive expressive writing. Similarly, writing about neutral events was characterized by a positivity bias. Although based on descriptive analysis only, preferential use of positive words and cognitive function words in negative narratives was absent in participants reporting depressive symptoms. Positive, negative, and neutral expressive writing was accompanied by differential changes in bodily sensations, emotional awareness, and self-reported psychosomatic symptoms in all participants. Discussion: The findings are discussed with respect to previous research, a self-positivity bias, and a universal positivity bias in language use highlighting the relevance of these biases as markers of subjective well-being.

Rapid Separation of Enantiomeric Impurities in Chiral Molecules by a Self-Referential Weak Measurement System

We propose a self-referential fast detection scheme for a frequency domain weak measurement system for the detection of enantiomeric impurities in chiral molecules. In a transmissive weak measurement system, the optical rotation (OR) is used to modify the pre-selected polarization state and the post-selection polarization state. We obtained the sum and difference of the optical rotations produced by the sample and the standard by rotating the quarter wave plate in the system. Then, we estimate the ratio of chiral molecules to enantiomeric impurities using the ratio of the central wavelength shifts caused by the addition and subtraction states described above. In this paper, our system has an optical resolution of 1.88 × 10⁻⁵°. At the same time, we completed the detection of the ratio of the two substances in the mixture of L-proline and D-proline in different proportions, which proved that our system can quickly detect the content of enantiomeric impurities in chiral molecules.

Determining optimal parameters of the self-referent encoding task: A large-scale examination of self-referent cognition and depression

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Psychological Assessment on Aug 2 2018 (see record 2018-38659-001). In this article, there was an error in how exclusions for one of the three samples were reported, which resulted in inaccurate reporting of how many participants did not have complete data. This error did not change the primary results of the article or the conclusions. However, in the second paragraph of the Participant Attrition and Data Filtering section, the number of exclusions for the adolescent sample should be 301, not 163. As a result, n=408 should read n=270 in the abstract; in paragraph 3 of the Method section; and in the Figure 1 legend. In addition, the correct values for the Adolescents sample reported in Tables 1 and 2 are provided in the erratum.] Although the self-referent encoding task (SRET) is commonly used to measure self-referent cognition in depression, many different SRET metrics can be obtained. The current study used best subsets regression with cross-validation and independent test samples to identify the SRET metrics most reliably associated with depression symptoms in three large samples: a college student sample (n = 572), a sample of adults from Amazon Mechanical Turk (n = 293), and an adolescent sample from a school field study (n = 408). Across all 3 samples, SRET metrics associated most strongly with depression severity included number of words endorsed as self-descriptive and rate of accumulation of information required to decide whether adjectives were self-descriptive (i.e., drift rate). These metrics had strong intratask and split-half reliability and high test-retest reliability across a 1-week period. Recall of SRET stimuli and traditional reaction time (RT) metrics were not robustly associated with depression severity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Reduction of the Self-Reference Effect in Younger and Older Adults

Relating information to the self improves memory. However, this self-reference effect (SRE) is typically studied through explicit self-judgments on individual trials. The current study assessed whether a self-referential mode of thought, induced through a writing task, also induced an SRE on a later task. The study also tested the effects of aging on the SRE, given that a long-lasting mnemonic strategy may be especially relevant for this group. Ninety-two younger adults and 60 older adults were assigned to different writing conditions and then completed an unrelated SRE task. Across younger and older adults, the classic SRE effect was observed in the narrative writing condition, reduced in the semantic self-reference condition, and further reduced in the episodic self-reference condition. These results support the induction of a self-referential mode of thought, but this mode does not enhance memory. The classic SRE effect can be reduced after thinking about the self by reflecting on autobiographical memories. Results argue for a single shared self-referential mechanism that can be accessed through self-focused writing or the classic SRE task.

Inhibition of Information Flow to the Default Mode Network During Self-Reference Versus Reference to Others

The default mode network (DMN), a network centered around the cortical midline, shows deactivation during most cognitive tasks and pronounced resting-state connectivity, but is actively engaged in self-reference and social cognition. It is, however, yet unclear how information reaches the DMN during social cognitive processing. Here, we addressed this question using dynamic causal modeling (DCM) of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired during self-reference (SR) and reference to others (OR). Both conditions engaged the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), most likely reflecting semantic processing. Within the DMN, self-reference preferentially elicited rostral anterior cingulate and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (rACC/vmPFC) activity, whereas OR engaged posterior cingulate and precuneus (PCC/PreCun). DCM revealed that the regulation of information flow to the DMN was primarily inhibitory. Most prominently, SR elicited inhibited information flow from the LIFG to the PCC/PreCun, while OR was associated with suppression of the connectivity from the LIFG to the rACC/vmPFC. These results suggest that task-related DMN activation is enabled by inhibitory down-regulation of task-irrelevant information flow when switching from rest to stimulus-specific processing.

Temporal Dissociation of Neocortical and Hippocampal Contributions to Mental Time Travel Using Intracranial Recordings in Humans

In mental time travel (MTT) one is “traveling” back-and-forth in time, remembering, and imagining events. Despite intensive research regarding memory processes in the hippocampus, it was only recently shown that the hippocampus plays an essential role in encoding the temporal order of events remembered, and therefore plays an important role in MTT. Does it also encode the temporal relations of these events to the remembering self? We asked patients undergoing pre-surgical evaluation with depth electrodes penetrating the temporal lobes bilaterally toward the hippocampus to project themselves in time to a past, future, or present time-point, and then make judgments regarding various events. Classification analysis of intracranial evoked potentials revealed clear temporal dissociation in the left hemisphere between lateral-temporal electrodes, activated at ~100–300 ms, and hippocampal electrodes, activated at ~400–600 ms. This dissociation may suggest a division of labor in the temporal lobe during self-projection in time, hinting toward the different roles of the lateral-temporal cortex and the hippocampus in MTT and the temporal organization of the related events with respect to the experiencing self.

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

Self-referential emotion refers to the process of evaluating emotional stimuli with respect to the self. Processes indicative of a self-positivity bias are reflected in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals at ~400 ms when the task does not require a discrimination of self from other. However, when distinguishing between self-referential and other-referential emotions is required, previous studies have shown inconsistent temporal dynamics of EEG signals in slightly different tasks. Based on the observation of early self–other discrimination, we hypothesized that self would be rapidly activated in the early stage to modulate emotional processing in the late stage during an implicit self-referential emotion. To test this hypothesis, we employed an implicit task in which participants were asked to judge the order of Chinese characters of trait adjectives preceded by a self (“I”) or other pronoun (“He” or “She”). This study aimed to explore the difference of social-related emotional evaluation from self-reference; the other pronoun was not defined to a specific person, rather it referred to the general concept. Sixteen healthy Chinese subjects participated in the experiment. Event-related potentials (ERPs) showed that there were self-other discrimination effects in the N1 (80–110 ms) and P1 (170–200 ms) components in the anterior brain. The emotional valence was discriminated in the later component of N2 (220–250 ms). The interaction between self-reference and emotional valence occurred during the late positive potential (LPP; 400–500 ms). Moreover, there was a positive correlation between response time (RT) and N1 in the self-reference condition based on the positive-negative contrast, suggesting a modulatory effect of the self-positivity bias. The results indicate that self-reference emerges earlier than emotion and then combines with emotional processing in an implicit task. The findings extend the view that the self plays a highly integrated and modulated role in self-referential emotion processing.

Stuttering Thoughts: Negative Self-Referent Thinking Is Less Sensitive to Aversive Outcomes in People with Higher Levels of Depressive Symptoms

Learning theories of depression have proposed that depressive cognitions, such as negative thoughts with reference to oneself, can develop through a reinforcement learning mechanism. This negative self-reference is considered to be positively reinforced by rewarding experiences such as genuine support from others after negative self-disclosure, and negatively reinforced by avoidance of potential aversive situations. The learning account additionally predicts that negative self-reference would be maintained by an inability to adjust one’s behavior when negative self-reference no longer leads to such reward. To test this prediction, we designed an adapted version of the reversal-learning task. In this task, participants were reinforced to choose and engage in either negative or positive self-reference by probabilistic economic reward and punishment. Although participants were initially trained to choose negative self-reference, the stimulus-reward contingencies were reversed to prompt a shift toward positive self-reference (Study 1) and a further shift toward negative self-reference (Study 2). Model-based computational analyses showed that depressive symptoms were associated with a low learning rate of negative self-reference, indicating a high level of reward expectancy for negative self-reference even after the contingency reversal. Furthermore, the difficulty in updating outcome predictions of negative self-reference was significantly associated with the extent to which one possesses negative self-images. These results suggest that difficulty in adjusting action-outcome estimates for negative self-reference increases the chance to be faced with negative aspects of self, which may result in depressive symptoms.

Self-Referential Encoding on Modules of Anticodon Pairs-Roots of the Biological Flow System

The proposal that the genetic code was formed on the basis of (proto)tRNA Dimer-Directed Protein Synthesis is reviewed and updated. The tRNAs paired through the anticodon loops are an indication on the process. Dimers are considered mimics of the ribosomes-structures that hold tRNAs together and facilitate the transferase reaction, and of the translation process-anticodons are at the same time codons for each other. The primitive protein synthesis system gets stabilized when the product peptides are stable and apt to bind the producers therewith establishing a self-stimulating production cycle. The chronology of amino acid encoding starts with Glycine and Serine, indicating the metabolic support of the Glycine-Serine C1-assimilation pathway, which is also consistent with evidence on origins of bioenergetics mechanisms. Since it is not possible to reach for substrates simpler than C1 and compounds in the identified pathway are apt for generating the other central metabolic routes, it is considered that protein synthesis is the beginning and center of a succession of sink-effective mechanisms that drive the formation and evolution of the metabolic flow system. Plasticity and diversification of proteins construct the cellular system following the orientation given by the flow and implementing it. Nucleic acid monomers participate in bioenergetics and the polymers are conservative memory systems for the synthesis of proteins. Protoplasmic fission is the final sink-effective mechanism, part of cell reproduction, guaranteeing that proteins don't accumulate to saturation, which would trigger inhibition.

Self-Reevaluation and Anticipated Regret Did Not Change Attitude, Nor Perceived Distance in an Online Context

Internet-delivered interventions can be effective in changing behavior, but more research is needed on effective elements of behavior change interventions. Moreover, although anonymity is one of the advantages of using an online context, it might also increase the perceived distance between the participant and the intervention. Hence, the current study investigated whether the behavior change methods of self-reevaluation and anticipated regret can be used to narrow the perceived distance and, ultimately, foster attitude change. A 3 × 3 factorial between-persons design with an additional control group was used (N = 466), resulting in a total of 10 conditions (n's ranging from 43 to 49). The first factor manipulated is assessment of self-image; cognitive, affective, or the combination of both. The second factor manipulated is behavioral focus; self-image with behavior, without behavior or both with and without behavior. Post-test measurements were conducted immediately after the manipulation. The key finding of the current study is that the behavior change methods of self-reevaluation and anticipated regret did not have an impact on changes in attitude toward oral contraceptive use, nor on the distance perceived by participants. Despite the null results, the current study contributes to the body of evidence regarding self-reevaluation and anticipated regret, which can be integrated in meta-regressions of experimental studies to advance behavior change theory.

Self-reference in psychosis and depression: a language marker of illness

BACKGROUND

Language use is of increasing interest in the study of mental illness. Analytical approaches range from phenomenological and qualitative to formal computational quantitative methods. Practically, the approach may have utility in predicting clinical outcomes. We harnessed a real-world sample (blog entries) from groups with psychosis, strong beliefs, odd beliefs, illness, mental illness and/or social isolation to validate and extend laboratory findings about lexical differences between psychosis and control subjects.

METHOD

We describe the results of two experiments using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to assess word category frequencies. In experiment 1, we compared word use in psychosis and control subjects in the laboratory (23 per group), and related results to subject symptoms. In experiment 2, we examined lexical patterns in blog entries written by people with psychosis and eight comparison groups. In addition to between-group comparisons, we used factor analysis followed by clustering to discern the contributions of strong belief, odd belief and illness identity to lexical patterns.

RESULTS

Consistent with others' work, we found that first-person pronouns, biological process words and negative emotion words were more frequent in psychosis language. We tested lexical differences between bloggers with psychosis and multiple relevant comparison groups. Clustering analysis revealed that word use frequencies did not group individuals with strong or odd beliefs, but instead grouped individuals with any illness (mental or physical).

CONCLUSIONS

Pairing of laboratory and real-world samples reveals that lexical markers previously identified as specific language changes in depression and psychosis are probably markers of illness in general.

Self-referring DNA and protein: a remark on physical and geometrical aspects

All known life forms are based upon a hierarchy of interwoven feedback loops, operating over a cascade of space, time and energy scales. Among the most basic loops are those connecting DNA and proteins. For example, in genetic networks, DNA genes are expressed as proteins, which may bind near the same genes and thereby control their own expression. In this molecular type of self-reference, information is mapped from the DNA sequence to the protein and back to DNA. There is a variety of dynamic DNA-protein self-reference loops, and the purpose of this remark is to discuss certain geometrical and physical aspects related to the back and forth mapping between DNA and proteins. The mappings are examined as dimensional reductions and expansions between high- and low-dimensional manifolds in molecular spaces. The discussion raises basic questions regarding the nature of DNA and proteins as self-referring matter, which are examined in a simple toy model.

Self-referential schemas and attentional bias predict severity and naturalistic course of depression symptoms

Attentional bias and self-referential schemas have been observed in numerous cross-sectional studies of depressed adults and are theorised to maintain negative mood. However, few longitudinal studies have examined whether maladaptive cognition predicts the course of depressive symptoms. Fifty-seven adults with elevated depression symptoms were assessed for negative attentional bias using a dot-probe task with eye-tracking and self-referential schemas using a self-referent encoding task. Participants subsequently completed five weekly depression symptom assessments. Participants with more negative self-referential schemas had higher baseline depression symptoms (r = .55). However, participants who spent more time attending to negative words showed greater symptom worsening over time (r = .42). The findings for negative self-referential schemas replicate past research, while the findings for negative attention bias represent the first evidence showing that attentional biases predict naturalistic symptom course. This work suggests that negative attention biases maintain depression symptoms and represent an important treatment target for neurocognitive therapeutics.

Improving the Understanding of Psychological Factors Contributing to Horse-Related Accident and Injury: Context, Loss of Focus, Cognitive Errors and Rigidity

While the role of the horse in riding hazards is well recognised, little attention has been paid to the role of specific theoretical psychological processes of humans in contributing to and mitigating risk. The injury, mortality or compensation claim rates for participants in the horse-racing industry, veterinary medicine and equestrian disciplines provide compelling evidence for improving risk mitigation models. There is a paucity of theoretical principles regarding the risk of injury and mortality associated with human-horse interactions. In this paper we introduce and apply the four psychological principles of context, loss of focus, global cognitive style and the application of self as the frame of reference as a potential approach for assessing and managing human-horse risks. When these principles produce errors that are combined with a rigid self-referenced point, it becomes clear how rapidly risk emerges and how other people and animals may repeatedly become at risk over time. Here, with a focus on the thoroughbred racing industry, veterinary practice and equestrian disciplines, we review the merits of contextually applied strategies, an evolving reappraisal of risk, flexibility, and focused specifics of situations that may serve to modify human behaviour and mitigate risk.

You looking at me?: Interpreting social cues in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

Deficits in the perception of social cues are common in schizophrenia and predict functional outcome. While effective communication depends on deciphering both verbal and non-verbal features, work on non-verbal communication in the disorder is scarce.

METHOD

This behavioural study of 29 individuals with schizophrenia and 25 demographically matched controls used silent video-clips to examine gestural identification, its contextual modulation and related metacognitive representations.

RESULTS

In accord with our principal hypothesis, we observed that individuals with schizophrenia exhibited a preserved ability to identify archetypal gestures and did not differentially infer communicative intent from incidental movements. However, patients were more likely than controls to perceive gestures as self-referential when confirmatory evidence was ambiguous. Furthermore, the severity of their current hallucinatory experience inversely predicted their confidence ratings associated with these self-referential judgements.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings suggest a deficit in the contextual refinement of social-cue processing in schizophrenia that is potentially attributable to impaired monitoring of a mirror mechanism underlying intentional judgements, or to an incomplete semantic representation of gestural actions. Non-verbal communication may be improved in patients through psychotherapeutic interventions that include performance and perception of gestures in group interactions.

Self-referencing enhances recollection in both young and older adults

Processing information in relation to the self enhances subsequent item recognition in both young and older adults and further enhances recollection at least in the young. Because older adults experience recollection memory deficits, it is unknown whether self-referencing improves recollection in older adults. We examined recollection benefits from self-referential encoding in older and younger adults and further examined the quality and quantity of episodic details facilitated by self-referencing. We further investigated the influence of valence on recollection, given prior findings of age group differences in emotional memory (i.e., "positivity effects"). Across the two experiments, young and older adults processed positive and negative adjectives either for self-relevance or for semantic meaning. We found that self-referencing, relative to semantic encoding, increased recollection memory in both age groups. In Experiment 1, both groups remembered proportionally more negative than positive items when adjectives were processed semantically; however, when adjectives were processed self-referentially, both groups exhibited evidence of better recollection for the positive items, inconsistent with a positivity effect in aging. In Experiment 2, both groups reported more episodic details associated with recollected items, as measured by a memory characteristic questionnaire, for the self-reference relative to the semantic condition. Overall, these data suggest that self-referencing leads to detail-rich memory representations reflected in higher rates of recollection across age.

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.

Age differences in default and reward networks during processing of personally relevant information

We recently found activity in default mode and reward-related regions during self-relevant tasks in young adults. Here we examine the effect of aging on engagement of the default network (DN) and reward network (RN) during these tasks. Previous studies have shown reduced engagement of the DN and reward areas in older adults, but the influence of age on these circuits during self-relevant tasks has not been examined. The tasks involved judging personality traits about one's self or a well known other person. There were no age differences in reaction time on the tasks but older adults had more positive Self and Other judgments, whereas younger adults had more negative judgments. Both groups had increased DN and RN activity during the self-relevant tasks, relative to non-self tasks, but this increase was reduced in older compared to young adults. Functional connectivity of both networks during the tasks was weaker in the older relative to younger adults. Intrinsic functional connectivity, measured at rest, also was weaker in the older adults in the DN, but not in the RN. These results suggest that, in younger adults, the processing of personally relevant information involves robust activation of and functional connectivity within these two networks, in line with current models that emphasize strong links between the self and reward. The finding that older adults had more positive judgments, but weaker engagement and less consistent functional connectivity in these networks, suggests potential brain mechanisms for the "positivity bias" with aging.

Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference

It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits ('narrative' focus, NF) or momentary experience ('experiential' focus, EF) in both novice participants and those having attended an 8 week course in mindfulness meditation, a program that trains individuals to develop focused attention on the present. In novices, EF yielded focal reductions in self-referential cortical midline regions (medial prefrontal cortex, mPFC) associated with NF. In trained participants, EF resulted in more marked and pervasive reductions in the mPFC, and increased engagement of a right lateralised network, comprising the lateral PFC and viscerosomatic areas such as the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex and inferior parietal lobule. Functional connectivity analyses further demonstrated a strong coupling between the right insula and the mPFC in novices that was uncoupled in the mindfulness group. These results suggest a fundamental neural dissociation between two distinct forms of self-awareness that are habitually integrated but can be dissociated through attentional training: the self across time and in the present moment.