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Human Brain Mapping Feb 2023As one of the commonly used folk psychological concepts, self-deception has been intensively discussed yet is short of solid ground from cognitive neuroscience....
As one of the commonly used folk psychological concepts, self-deception has been intensively discussed yet is short of solid ground from cognitive neuroscience. Self-deception is a biased cognitive process of information to obtain or maintain a false belief that could be both self-enhancing or self-diminishing. Study 1 (N = 152) captured self-deception by adopting a modified numerical discrimination task that provided cheating opportunities, quantifying errors in predicting future performance (via item-response theory model), and measuring the belief of how good they are at solving the task (i.e., self-efficacy belief). By examining whether self-efficacy belief is based upon actual ability (true belief) or prediction errors (false belief), Study 1 showed that self-deception occurred in the effortless (easier access to answer cues) rather than effortful (harder access to answer cues) cheating opportunity conditions, suggesting high ambiguity in attributions facilitates self-deception. Studies 2 and 3 probed the neural source of self-deception, linking self-deception with the metacognitive process. Both studies replicated behavioral results from Study 1. Study 2 (ERP study; N = 55) found that the amplitude of frontal slow wave significantly differed between participants with positive/self-enhancing and negative/self-diminishing self-deceiving tendencies in incorrect predictions while remaining similar in correct predictions. Study 3 (functional magnetic resonance imaging study; N = 33) identified self-deceiving associated activity in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex and showed that effortless cheating context increased cheating behaviors that further facilitated self-deception. Our findings suggest self-deception is a false belief associated with a distorted metacognitive mental process that requires ambiguity in attributions of behaviors.
Topics: Humans; Metacognition; Deception; Prefrontal Cortex; Cues
PubMed: 36308407
DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26116 -
Progress in Neurobiology Jan 2018Neurocognitive and neurolinguistics theories make explicit statements relating specialized cognitive and linguistic processes to specific brain loci. These linking... (Review)
Review
Neurocognitive and neurolinguistics theories make explicit statements relating specialized cognitive and linguistic processes to specific brain loci. These linking hypotheses are in need of neurobiological justification and explanation. Recent mathematical models of human language mechanisms constrained by fundamental neuroscience principles and established knowledge about comparative neuroanatomy offer explanations for where, when and how language is processed in the human brain. In these models, network structure and connectivity along with action- and perception-induced correlation of neuronal activity co-determine neurocognitive mechanisms. Language learning leads to the formation of action perception circuits (APCs) with specific distributions across cortical areas. Cognitive and linguistic processes such as speech production, comprehension, verbal working memory and prediction are modelled by activity dynamics in these APCs, and combinatorial and communicative-interactive knowledge is organized in the dynamics within, and connections between APCs. The network models and, in particular, the concept of distributionally-specific circuits, can account for some previously not well understood facts about the cortical 'hubs' for semantic processing and the motor system's role in language understanding and speech sound recognition. A review of experimental data evaluates predictions of the APC model and alternative theories, also providing detailed discussion of some seemingly contradictory findings. Throughout, recent disputes about the role of mirror neurons and grounded cognition in language and communication are assessed critically.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Communication; Humans; Mental Processes; Motion Perception; Neural Pathways
PubMed: 28734837
DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2017.07.001 -
Neuron Oct 2016Progress in clinical and affective neuroscience is redefining psychiatric illness as symptomatic expression of cellular/molecular dysfunctions in specific brain... (Review)
Review
Progress in clinical and affective neuroscience is redefining psychiatric illness as symptomatic expression of cellular/molecular dysfunctions in specific brain circuits. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been an exemplar of this progress, with improved understanding of neurobiological systems subserving fear learning, salience detection, and emotion regulation explaining much of its phenomenology and neurobiology. However, many features remain unexplained and a parsimonious model that more fully accounts for symptoms and the core neurobiology remains elusive. Contextual processing is a key modulatory function of hippocampal-prefrontal-thalamic circuitry, allowing organisms to disambiguate cues and derive situation-specific meaning from the world. We propose that dysregulation within this context-processing circuit is at the core of PTSD pathophysiology, accounting for much of its phenomenology and most of its biological findings. Understanding core mechanisms like this, and their underlying neural circuits, will sharpen diagnostic precision and understanding of risk factors, enhancing our ability to develop preventive and "personalized" interventions.
Topics: Animals; Disease Models, Animal; Hippocampus; Humans; Mental Processes; Models, Neurological; Neural Pathways; Prefrontal Cortex; Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic; Thalamus
PubMed: 27710783
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.09.039 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Dec 2022Joint action has increasingly become a key topic to understand the emergence of the human mind. The phenomenon is closely linked to several theoretical concepts, such as... (Review)
Review
Joint action has increasingly become a key topic to understand the emergence of the human mind. The phenomenon is closely linked to several theoretical concepts, such as shared intentionality, which are difficult to operationalize empirically. We therefore employ a paradigm-driven, bottom-up approach, and as such discuss co-representing the partner's and one's own actions as key mechanism for joint action. After embedding co-representation in the broader landscape of related theoretical concepts, we review neurobiological, ontogenetic, and phylogenetic studies, with a focus on whether co-representation and its flexible deployment should be construed as a low- or high-level cognitive process. The empirical findings convergently suggest that co-representation does not require strong inhibitory skills or mentalistic understanding and occurs automatically. Moreover, more cooperative species are better at flexibly suppressing co-representation when required for cooperation success, and frequently rely on cooperation markers, such as mutual gaze. We thus contribute to closing the current gap between theoretical concepts related to joint action research and their empirical investigation, and end by highlighting additional approaches for doing so.
Topics: Humans; Cooperative Behavior; Phylogeny; Biological Evolution; Mental Processes; Health Services Research
PubMed: 36283538
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2022.104924 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Jan 2019Historically, the thalamus has been viewed as little more than a relay, simply transferring information to key players of the cast, the cortex and hippocampus, without... (Review)
Review
Historically, the thalamus has been viewed as little more than a relay, simply transferring information to key players of the cast, the cortex and hippocampus, without providing any unique functional contribution. In recent years, evidence from multiple laboratories researching different thalamic nuclei has contradicted this idea of the thalamus as a passive structure. Dated models of thalamic functions are being pushed aside, revealing a greater and far more complex contribution of the thalamus for cognition. In this article, we show how recent data support novel views of thalamic functions that emphasize integrative roles in cognition, ranging from learning and memory to flexible adaption. We propose that these apparently separate cognitive functions may indeed be supported by a more general role in shaping mental representations. Several features of thalamocortical circuits are consistent with this suggested role, and we highlight how divergent and convergent thalamocortical and corticothalamic pathways may complement each other to support these functions. Furthermore, the role of the thalamus for subcortical integration is highlighted as a key mechanism for maintaining and updating representations. Finally, we discuss future areas of research and stress the importance of incorporating new experimental findings into existing knowledge to continue developing thalamic models. The presence of thalamic pathology in a number of neurological conditions reinforces the need to better understand the role of this region in cognition.
Topics: Animals; Cognition; Humans; Learning; Memory; Mental Processes; Thalamus
PubMed: 30389839
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0479-18.2018 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Jan 2018The role of coordination in cognitive science has been on the rise in recent years, in terms of coordination among neurons, coordination among sensory and motor systems,...
The role of coordination in cognitive science has been on the rise in recent years, in terms of coordination among neurons, coordination among sensory and motor systems, and coordination among individuals. Research has shown that coordination patterns corresponding to cognitive activities depend on the various contexts in which the underlying interactions are situated. The present issue of Topics in Cognitive Science centers on studies of coordination that address the role of context in shaping or interpreting dynamical patterns of human behavior. This introductory article reviews some of the prior literature leading up to current and future research on coordination and context in cognitive science.
Topics: Cognitive Science; Humans; Mental Processes; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 29115065
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12302 -
Cold Spring Harbor Perspectives in... Sep 2015Epilepsy is often associated with cognitive and behavioral impairments that can have profound impact on the quality of life of patients. Although the mechanisms of... (Review)
Review
Epilepsy is often associated with cognitive and behavioral impairments that can have profound impact on the quality of life of patients. Although the mechanisms of cognitive impairment are not completely understood, we make an attempt to describe, from a systems perspective, how information processing is affected in epilepsy disorders. The aim of this review is to (1) define the nature of cognitive deficits associated with epilepsy, (2) review fundamental systems-level mechanisms underlying information processing, and (3) describe how information processing is dysfunctional in epilepsy and investigate the relative contributions of etiology, seizures, and interictal discharges (IDs). We conclude that these mechanisms are likely to be important and deserve more detailed scrutiny in the future.
Topics: Action Potentials; Animals; Brain Diseases; Cognition Disorders; Disease Models, Animal; Epilepsy; Hippocampus; Humans; Memory; Mental Processes; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons
PubMed: 26337111
DOI: 10.1101/cshperspect.a022772 -
International Journal of Law and... 2019A person's capacity to process advice is an important aspect of decision making in the real world. For example, in decisions about treatment, the way patients respond to... (Review)
Review
A person's capacity to process advice is an important aspect of decision making in the real world. For example, in decisions about treatment, the way patients respond to the advice of family, friends and medical professionals may be used (intentionally or otherwise) as a marker of the "use or weigh" requirement of decision-making capacity. Here we explore neuroscientific research on decision-making to identify features of advice-taking that help conceptualize this requirement. We focus on studies of the neural and computational basis of decision-making in laboratory settings. These studies originally investigated simple perceptual decisions about ambiguous stimuli, but have more recently been extended to more complex "value-based" decisions involving the comparison of subjective preferences. Value-based decisions are a useful model system for capacity-related decision-making as they do not have an objectively 'correct' answer and are instead based on subjective preferences. In this context, advice-taking can be seen as a process in which new evidence for one or other option is integrated, leading to altered behaviour or choices. We use this framework to distinguish between different types of advice-taking: private compliance consists of updating one's privately held beliefs based on new evidence, whereas in the case of public compliance, people change their behaviour at a surface level without shifting their privately-held beliefs. Importantly, both types of advice-taking may lead to similar outcomes but rely on different decision processes. We suggest that understanding how multiple mechanisms drive advice-taking holds promise for targeting decision-making support and improving our understanding of the use and weigh requirement in cases of contested capacity.
Topics: Choice Behavior; Cognitive Neuroscience; Compliance; Decision Making; Humans; Judgment; Mental Competency; Metacognition
PubMed: 31785723
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2019.101504 -
Neuroscience Jan 2018The question of what function is served by the cortical column has occupied neuroscientists since its original description some 60years ago. The answer seems tractable... (Review)
Review
The question of what function is served by the cortical column has occupied neuroscientists since its original description some 60years ago. The answer seems tractable in the somatosensory cortex when considering the inputs to the cortical column and the early stages of information processing, but quickly breaks down once the multiplicity of output streams and their sub-circuits are brought into consideration. This article describes the early stages of information processing in the barrel cortex, through generation of the center and surround receptive field components of neurons that subserve integration of multi whisker information, before going on to consider the diversity of properties exhibited by the layer 5 output neurons. The layer 5 regular spiking (RS) neurons differ from intrinsic bursting (IB) neurons in having different input connections, plasticity mechanisms and corticofugal projections. In particular, layer 5 RS cells employ noise reduction and homeostatic plasticity mechanism to preserve and even increase information transfer, while IB cells use more conventional Hebbian mechanisms to achieve a similar outcome. It is proposed that the rodent analog of the dorsal and ventral streams, a division reasonably well established in primate cortex, might provide a further level of organization for RS cell function and hence sub-circuit specialization.
Topics: Animals; Mental Processes; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurons; Somatosensory Cortex
PubMed: 28739527
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2017.07.034 -
Proceedings of the National Academy of... Sep 2021Few questions in science are as controversial as human nature. At stake is whether our basic concepts and emotions are all learned from experience, or whether some are...
Few questions in science are as controversial as human nature. At stake is whether our basic concepts and emotions are all learned from experience, or whether some are innate. Here, I demonstrate that reasoning about innateness is biased by the basic workings of the human mind. Psychological science suggests that newborns possess core concepts of "object" and "number." Laypeople, however, believe that newborns are devoid of such notions but that they can recognize emotions. Moreover, people presume that concepts are learned, whereas emotions (along with sensations and actions) are innate. I trace these beliefs to two tacit psychological principles: intuitive dualism and essentialism. Essentialism guides tacit reasoning about biological inheritance and suggests that innate traits reside in the body; per intuitive dualism, however, the mind seems ethereal, distinct from the body. It thus follows that, in our intuitive psychology, concepts (which people falsely consider as disembodied) must be learned, whereas emotions, sensations, and emotions (which are considered embodied) are likely innate; these predictions are in line with the experimental results. These conclusions do not speak to the question of whether concepts and emotions are innate, but they suggest caution in its scientific evaluation.
Topics: Cognition; Emotions; Human Characteristics; Humans; Intuition; Learning; Mental Processes; Models, Psychological
PubMed: 34556578
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2108274118