Iván Padrón

Action sentences activate sensory motor regions in the brain independently of their status of reality

Some studies have reported that understanding concrete action-related words and sentences elicits activations of motor areas in the brain. The present fMRI study goes one step further by testing whether this is also the case for comprehension of nonfactual statements. Three linguistic structures were used (factuals, counterfactuals, and negations), referring either to actions or, as a control condition, to visual events. The results showed that action sentences elicited stronger activations than visual sentences in the SMA, extending to the primary motor area, as well as in regions generally associated with the planning and understanding of actions (left superior temporal gyrus, left and right supramarginal gyri). Also, we found stronger activations for action sentences than for visual sentences in the extrastriate body area, a region involved in the visual processing of human body movements. These action-related effects occurred not only in factuals but also in negations and counterfactuals, suggesting that brain regions involved in action understanding and planning are activated by default even when the actions are described as hypothetical or as not happening. Moreover, some of these regions overlapped with those activated during the observation of action videos, indicating that the act of understanding action language and that of observing real actions share neural networks. These results support the claim that embodied representations of linguistic meaning are important even in abstract linguistic contexts.

Adolescents’ risky decision-making activates neural networks related to social cognition and cognitive control processes

This study examines by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging the neural mechanisms underlying adolescents’ risk decision-making in social contexts. We hypothesize that the social context could engage brain regions associated with social cognition processes and developmental changes are also expected. Sixty participants (adolescents: 17–18, and young adults: 21–22 years old) read narratives describing typical situations of decision-making in the presence of peers. They were asked to make choices in risky situations (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) or ambiguous situations (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog). Risky as compared to ambiguous scenarios activated bilateral temporoparietal junction (TPJ), bilateral middle temporal gyrus (MTG), right medial prefrontal cortex, and the precuneus bilaterally; i.e., brain regions related to social cognition processes, such as self-reflection and theory of mind (ToM). In addition, brain structures related to cognitive control were active [right anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), bilateral orbitofrontal cortex], whereas no significant clusters were obtained in the reward system (ventral striatum). Choosing the dangerous option involved a further activation of control areas (ACC) and emotional and social cognition areas (temporal pole). Adolescents employed more neural resources than young adults in the right DLPFC and the right TPJ in risk situations. When choosing the dangerous option, young adults showed a further engagement in ToM related regions (bilateral MTG) and in motor control regions related to the planning of actions (pre-supplementary motor area). Finally, the right insula and the right superior temporal gyrus were more activated in women than in men, suggesting more emotional involvement and more intensive modeling of the others’ perspective in the risky conditions. These findings call for more comprehensive developmental accounts of decision-making in social contexts that incorporate the role of emotional and social cognition processes.

Estrategias y metas en la resolución de conflictos cotidianos entre adolescentes, padres y madres

Resumen Se estudia la gestión de los conflictos familiares según el punto de vista del padre, de la madre y del adolescente en 295 familias biparentales. Se pretende comparar las estrategias y metas que se emplean durante su resolución y analizar el valor predictivo de las metas en la elección de las estrategias. Se seleccionaron seis estrategias y cuatro metas aplicadas a seis situaciones hipotéticas. Se observa un acercamiento activo y racional al conflicto, aunque las madres están más orientadas que los padres y los adolescentes a la negociación y hacer ver su postura, mientras que los adolescentes utilizan más las tácticas impositivas, de manejo de emociones negativas o bien ignoran el conflicto. La tríada presenta una gran coherencia en la estructura de metas y estrategias, más evidente en el padre que en la madre y el adolescente. Aparecen tendencias de edad que indican un declinar del control parental a los 16–17 años, no así del control de los adolescentes, mientras que disminuye a estas edades el uso de estrategias negociadoras por ambas partes.

Discurso argumentativo en episodios de conflictos entre padres e hijos adolescentes

Resumen Analizamos el discurso oral en conflictos entre padres e hijos adolescentes desde una perspectiva transactional y evolutiva. Ocho familias fueron grabadas mientras discutían un conflicto. Siguiendo la metodología observational se calculó la frecuencia de ocurrencia y duración de categorías de regulación, de argumentación y emocionales en el discurso del padre, la madre y del hijo y las diferencias según la edad de los adolescentes. Se realizaron análisis secuenciales para detectar la secuencia de las intervenciones de los participantes en la discusión. Según los resultados, padres e hijos elaboran un discurso fundamentalmente argumentativo. La madre incluye elementos de negociación en la adolescencia tardía mientras que el padre elabora un discurso de confrontación. Con la edad, el discurso de los hijos aumenta en complejidad y confrontación, incluyendo argumentos y contraargumentos. La secuencia de interacción en la triada es jerárquica tornándose más democrática hacia el final de la adolescencia.

Electrophysiological Responses to Affective Stimuli in Neglectful Mothers

Results illustrating an atypical neural processing in the early and late differentiation of infant faces have been obtained with neglectful mothers. The present study explores whether a different pattern of response is observed when using non-infant affective pictures. We examined the event-related evoked potentials and induced delta, theta and alpha activity in 14 neglectful mothers and 14 control mothers elicited while categorizing positive, negative and neutral pictures from the International Affective Picture System. Self-reports of anhedonia and empathy were also recorded. Early posterior negativity, P200 and late positive potential components were modulated by the emotional content of pictures in both groups. However, the LPP waveform had a more delayed and more attenuated maximum in neglectful mothers than in control mothers. Oscillatory responses indicated lower power increases for neglectful mothers than for control mothers in delta (1–4 Hz), theta (4–8 Hz) and lower alpha (8–10 Hz) bands at frontal sites, and a more consistent increase for neglectful mothers in theta and lower alpha bands at occipital sites, especially for negative pictures. These findings help us to better understand the limits of emotional insensitivity in neglectful mothers.

Counterfactual Evaluation of Outcomes in Social Risk Decision-Making Situations: The Cognitive Developmental Paradox Revisited.

We report a study that examined the existence of a cognitive developmental paradox in the counterfactual evaluation of decision-making outcomes. According to this paradox adolescents and young adults could be able to apply counterfactual reasoning and, yet, their counterfactual evaluation of outcomes could be biased in a salient socio-emotional context. To this aim, we analyzed the impact of health and social feedback on the counterfactual evaluation of outcomes in a laboratory decision-making task involving short narratives with the presence of peers. Forty risky (e.g., taking or refusing a drug), forty neutral decisions (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog), and emotions felt following positive or negative outcomes were examined in 256 early, mid- and late adolescents, and young adults, evenly distributed. Results showed that emotional ratings to negative outcomes (regret and disappointment) but not to positive outcomes (relief and elation) were attenuated when feedback was provided. Evidence of development of cognitive decision-making capacities did also exist, as the capacity to perform faster emotional ratings and to differentially allocate more resources to the elaboration of emotional ratings when no feedback information was available increased with age. Overall, we interpret these findings as challenging the traditional cognitive developmental assumption that development necessarily proceeds from lesser to greater capacities, reflecting the impact of socio-emotional processes that could bias the counterfactual evaluation of social decision-making outcomes.

Common retrieval processes in producers and comprehenders of spatial information in a non-interactive task

This study explores spatial representations generated by people playing either the producers or the comprehenders role in non-interactive settings, under identical manipulations of the communication modality (pointing vs. verbal directions) and the type of body rotation (physical vs. imagined). Results showed that these manipulations consistently modulated the accessibility of the target locations in similar ways for both producers and comprehenders, indicating a common retrieval process of spatial information in the absence of alignment cues. In both roles, the accessibility pattern to directions obtained when using the pointing gesture was heavily dependent on the rotation type, whereas that was less so when using verbal directions. The results also demonstrated that the differences in the accessibility patterns arise at the response encoding stage (in production) and at the response decoding stage (in comprehension), suggesting a functional parallelism in the response system between the two communication roles. The commonality in the retrieval processes is a genuine phenomenon that should be taken into account when attributing exclusively the phenomenon of spatial alignment to the interactive efforts performed by producers and comprehenders.

Feedback on health status and peer popularity influences social risk decision-making processes in adolescents and young adults

Abstract Cognitive and dual-processes models, involving cognitive and socio-emotional components, for adolescents’ risky behaviour have been proposed. This study tested their predictions by manipulating the presence or absence of feedback about gains and losses in health and peer popularity in a decision-making task with peers. Risky (e.g., taking or refusing a drug) and ambiguous decisions (e.g., eating hamburger or hotdog) were examined in 256 adolescents (aged 13–14; 15–16; 17–18) and young adults (aged 19–20). Participants made more risky choices and required less decision time when receiving feedback about the negative consequences on health and positive consequences on peer popularity. Decision times were comparatively larger for risky than for safe options in late adolescence and young adulthood. Results supported the dual-processes model showing that, though late cognitive changes were observed that could eventually lead to the selection of safe options, feedback gains in peer popularity outweighed unhealthy consequences leading to risky decisions.