Thomas Goschke

How Positive Affect Modulates Cognitive Control: Reduced Perseveration at the Cost of Increased Distractibility

A fundamental problem that organisms face in a changing environment is how to regulate dynamically the balance between stable maintenance and flexible switching of goals and cognitive sets. The authors show that positive affect plays an important role in the regulation of this stability-flexibility balance. In a cognitive set-switching paradigm, the induction of mild increases in positive affect, as compared with neutral or negative affect, promoted cognitive flexibility and reduced perseveration, but also incurred a cost in terms of increased distractibility. Rather than influencing set switching in an unspecific way, positive affect thus exerted opposite effects on perseveration and distractibility. Results are consistent with neuropsychological models according to which effects of positive affect on cognitive control are mediated by increased dopamine levels in frontal brain areas.

Representation of intentions: persisting activation in memory

In 4 experiments we investigated dynamic properties of representations of intentions. After Ss had memorized 2 texts describing simple activities, they were instructed that they would have to later execute one of the scripts. On an intervening recognition test, words from the to-be-executed script produced faster latencies than did words from a second to-be-memorized script. This intention-superiority effect was obtained even when (a) selective encoding and poststudy imagery or rehearsal of the to-be-executed script was prohibited and (b) subjects expected a final free-recall test for both scripts. In a control condition in which subjects had to observe someone else executing a script, latencies for words from the to-be-observed script did not differ from neutral words

Emotion and Intuition Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on Implicit Judgments of Semantic Coherence

We investigated effects of emotional states on the ability to make intuitive judgments about the semantic coherence of word triads. Participants were presented word triads, consisting of three clue words that either were weakly associated with a common fourth concept (coherent triads) or had no common associate (incoherent triads). In Experiment 1, participants in a neutral mood discriminated coherent and incoherent triads reliably better than chance level even if they did not consciously retrieve the solution word. In Experiment 2, the induction of a positive mood reliably improved intuitive coherence judgments, whereas participants in a negative mood performed at chance level. We conclude that positive mood potentiates spread of activation to weak or remote associates in memory, thereby improving intuitive coherence judgments. By contrast, negative mood appears to restrict spread of activation to close associates and dominant word meanings, thus impairing intuitive coherence judgments.

Dopamine and Cognitive Control: The Influence of Spontaneous Eyeblink Rate and Dopamine Gene Polymorphisms on Perseveration and Distractibility

One fundamental problem of intelligent organisms pursuing goal-directed behavior is how to dynamically regulate the balance between maintenance and flexibility. The authors show that central dopaminergic activity, as indicated by spontaneous eyeblink rate and dopamine gene polymorphisms, plays an important role in the modulation of this balance. Seventy-two young adults were examined. Participants with high blink rates showed increased cognitive flexibility but decreased cognitive stability compared with participants with low blink rates. This pattern of results was even more pronounced for carriers of the DRD4 exon III 4/7 genotype, even though no main effects were found for DRD4 and COMT polymorphisms. Results converge with neuropsychological models that suggest a modulatory role of prefrontal dopaminergic activity for processes of cognitive control.

Explicit and implicit learning of event sequences: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during a serial reaction time (RT) task, where single deviant items seldom (Experiment 1) or frequently (Experiment 2) replaced 1 item of a repeatedly presented 10-item standard sequence. Acquisition of sequence knowledge was reflected in faster RTs for standard as compared with deviant items and in an enhanced negativity (N2 component) of the ERP for deviant items. Effects were larger for participants showing explicit knowledge in their verbal reports and in a recognition test. The lateralized readiness potential indicated that correct responses were activated with shorter latencies after training. For deviant items, participants with explicit knowledge showed an initial activation of the incorrect but expected response. These findings suggest that the acquisition of explicit and implicit knowledge is reflected in different electrophysiological correlates and that sequence learning may involve the anticipatory preparation of responses.

Inflexibly focused under stress: Acute psychosocial stress increases shielding of action goals at the expense of reduced cognitive flexibility with increasing time lag to the stressor

Dynamically adjusting the right amount of goal shielding to varying situational demands is associated with the flexibility of cognitive control, typically linked with pFC functioning. Although stress hormones are found to also bind to prefrontal receptors, the link between stress and cognitive control remains elusive. Based on that, we aimed at investigating effects of acute psychosocial stress on dynamic control adjustments. Forty-eight healthy volunteers were exposed to either a well-established stress induction protocol (the Trier Social Stress Test, TSST) or a standardized control situation before a selective attention (Simon) task involving response conflicts. The individual physiological stress response was monitored by analyzing levels of free cortisol and α-amylase activity in saliva samples showing that the TSST reliably induced an increase of endogenous stress hormone levels. Acute stress did not inevitably impair cognitive functioning, however, as stressed participants showed tonically increased goal shielding (to reduce interference) at the expense of decreased cognitive flexibility. Importantly, as a novel finding in humans, stress effects on cognitive functions were not present immediately after the stress experience but developed gradually over time and, therefore, paralleled the time course of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) stress response. In addition, the total increase of individual cortisol levels reflecting HPA activity, but not the total changes in α-amylase activity associated with sympathetic activity, was reversely related to the amount of cognitive flexibility in the final block of testing. Our study provides evidence for a stress-induced time-dependent decrease of cognitive flexibility that might be related to changes in cortisol levels.

Modulation of the error-related negativity by induction of short-term negative affect

The present study investigates whether performance monitoring and its electrophysiological indices in a choice reaction time task are modulated by affective information presented briefly prior to the critical stimuli. A flanker task known to elicit a sufficient number of performance errors was used and prior to each flanker stimulus a neutral, pleasant or unpleasant picture from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was shown. While behavioral performance to the flanker stimuli was hardly affected by the preceding affective information, the error-related negativity (ERN) of the event-related potential was modulated by affective information: Unpleasant IAPS pictures preceding a performance error led to an increased ERN amplitude compared to trials with neutral and pleasant IAPS pictures. These trial-by-trial modulations of electrophysiological markers of performance monitoring are discussed in terms of the possible influence of affective stimuli on monaminergic neuromodulatory transmitter systems.

The Temporal Dynamics of Voluntary Emotion Regulation

Background Neuroimaging has demonstrated that voluntary emotion regulation is effective in reducing amygdala activation to aversive stimuli during regulation. However, to date little is known about the sustainability of these neural effects once active emotion regulation has been terminated. Methodology/Principal Findings We addressed this issue by means of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy female subjects. We performed an active emotion regulation task using aversive visual scenes (task 1) and a subsequent passive viewing task using the same stimuli (task 2). Here we demonstrate not only a significantly reduced amygdala activation during active regulation but also a sustained regulation effect on the amygdala in the subsequent passive viewing task. This effect was related to an immediate increase of amygdala signal in task 1 once active emotion regulation has been terminated: The larger this peak postregulation signal in the amygdala in task 1, the smaller the sustained regulation effect in task 2. Conclusions/Significance In summary, we found clear evidence that effects of voluntary emotion regulation extend beyond the period of active regulation. These findings are of importance for the understanding of emotion regulation in general, for disorders of emotion regulation and for psychotherapeutic interventions.

Dysfunctions of decision‐making and cognitive control as transdiagnostic mechanisms of mental disorders: advances, gaps, and needs in current research

Disadvantageous decision‐making and impaired volitional control over actions, thoughts, and emotions are characteristics of a wide range of mental disorders such as addiction, eating disorders, depression, and anxiety disorders and may reflect transdiagnostic core mechanisms and possibly vulnerability factors. Elucidating the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms is a precondition for moving from symptom‐based to mechanism‐based disorder classifications and ultimately mechanism‐targeted interventions. However, despite substantial advances in basic research on decision‐making and cognitive control, there are still profound gaps in our current understanding of dysfunctions of these processes in mental disorders. Central unresolved questions are: (i) to which degree such dysfunctions reflect transdiagnostic mechanisms or disorder‐specific patterns of impairment; (ii) how phenotypical features of mental disorders relate to dysfunctional control parameter settings and aberrant interactions between large‐scale brain systems involved in habit and reward‐based learning, performance monitoring, emotion regulation, and cognitive control; (iii) whether cognitive control impairments are consequences or antecedent vulnerability factors of mental disorders; (iv) whether they reflect generalized competence impairments or context‐specific performance failures; (v) whether not only impaired but also chronic over‐control contributes to mental disorders. In the light of these gaps, needs for future research are: (i) an increased focus on basic cognitive‐affective mechanisms underlying decision and control dysfunctions across disorders; (ii) longitudinal‐prospective studies systematically incorporating theory‐driven behavioural tasks and neuroimaging protocols to assess decision‐making and control dysfunctions and aberrant interactions between underlying large‐scale brain systems; (iii) use of latent‐variable models of cognitive control rather than single tasks; (iv) increased focus on the interplay of implicit and explicit cognitive‐affective processes; (v) stronger focus on computational models specifying neurocognitive mechanisms underlying phenotypical expressions of mental disorders. Copyright

Genetic variation of serotonin function and cognitive control

Although it is widely accepted that serotonin plays a pivotal role in the modulation of anxiety- and depression-related personality traits as well as in the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders and depression, the role of serotonin in cognition is less clear. In the present study, we investigated the involvement of serotonin in cognitive behaviors by examining the impact of genetic variation in key regulators of serotonergic neurotransmission on behavioral measures in a cognitive control task. Eighty-five healthy participants performed a cued continuous performance task (the AX Continuous Performance Task [AXCPT]) and were genotyped for polymorphisms in the transcriptional control regions of the tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene (TPH2 G-703T; rs4570625) and the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR). The core result was that individuals lacking the rare TPH2 T allele were not faster than T allele carriers, but committed fewer errors and were less variable in responding. These findings parallel those of a recent study where an enhancement of executive control in individuals without the rare TPH2 T/T genotype was observed. Together with recent evidence that individuals without the T allele exhibit higher scores in anxiety- and depression-related personality traits, our results underscore the role of the TPH2 G-703T polymorphism in the modulation of behavior and raise the intriguing possibility that genetic variants associated with higher negative emotionality may have beneficial effects on some cognitive functions.