Neural Perspectives on Emotion: Impact on Perception, Attention, and Memory

Stanley, Damian; Ferneyhough, Emma; Phelps, Elizabeth A.

doi:10.1002/9780470478509.neubb002042

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 85 publications

(92 reference statements)

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“…In contrast, emotionally arousing stimuli activate the amygdala, a gray matter structure on the medial face of the temporal lobe ( 10 – 13 ). Emotional stimuli appear to enjoy preferential processing ( 13 – 16 ), presumably because of the importance of the information they convey on the environment ( 17 , 18 ). However, this also means that they constitute a challenge for attentional control processes when emotion is a source of interference, as shown in studies where emotional stimuli used as distractors and executive control are pitted against each other [for reviews, see Ref.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation in the Ventral Prefrontal Cortex and the Encoding of Subjective Value and Economic Utility

Viviani

2014

Front. Psychiatry

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In many studies of the interaction between cognitive control and emotion, the orbitofrontal cortex/ventromedial prefrontal cortex (mOFC/vmPFC) has been associated with an inhibitory function on limbic areas activated by emotionally arousing stimuli, such as the amygdala. This has led to the hypothesis of an inhibitory or regulatory role of mOFC/vmPFC. In studies of cognition and executive function, however, this area is deactivated by focused effort, raising the issue of the nature of the putative regulatory process associated with mOFC/vmPFC. This issue is here revisited in light of findings in the neuroeconomics field demonstrating the importance of mOFC/vmPFC to encoding the subjective value of stimuli or their economic utility. Many studies show that mOFC/vmPFC activity may affect response by activating personal preferences, instead of resorting to effortful control mechanisms typically associated with emotion regulation. Based on these findings, I argue that a simple automatic/controlled dichotomy is insufficient to describe the data on emotion and control of response adequately. Instead, I argue that the notion of subjective value from neuroeconomics studies and the notion of attentional orienting may play key roles in integrating emotion and cognition. mOFC/vmPFC may work together with the inferior parietal lobe, the cortical region associated with attentional orienting, to convey information about motivational priorities and facilitate processing of inputs that are behaviorally relevant. I also suggest that the dominant mode of function of this ventral network may be a distinct type of process with intermediate properties between the automatic and the controlled, and which may co-operate with effortful control processes in order to steer response.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation in the Ventral Prefrontal Cortex and the Encoding of Subjective Value and Economic Utility

Viviani

2014

Front. Psychiatry

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“…This account is consistent within biased competition theories of attention (Desimone and Duncan, 1995 ; Miller and Cohen, 2001 ). Emotionally arousing stimuli in bottom-up perceptual channels may be viewed as particularly effective in competing for access to short-term memory (Vuilleumier, 2005 ; Stanley et al, 2009 ), requiring strong bias by top-down processes to maintain cognitive control. Accordingly, emotion dysregulation may be seen as arising from increased reactivity to emotional stimuli (mapped to increased activation of structures such as the amygdala) or from the failure to down-regulate emotional representations through the biasing activity of prefrontal areas involved in voluntary cognitive control (Posner and Rothbart, 1998 ; Phillips et al, 2003a , b ; DeRubeis et al, 2008 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotion regulation, attention to emotion, and the ventral attentional network

Viviani

2013

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

113

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Accounts of the effect of emotional information on behavioral response and current models of emotion regulation are based on two opposed but interacting processes: automatic bottom-up processes (triggered by emotionally arousing stimuli) and top-down control processes (mapped to prefrontal cortical areas). Data on the existence of a third attentional network operating without recourse to limited-capacity processes but influencing response raise the issue of how it is integrated in emotion regulation. We summarize here data from attention to emotion, voluntary emotion regulation, and on the origin of biases against negative content suggesting that the ventral network is modulated by exposure to emotional stimuli when the task does not constrain the handling of emotional content. In the parietal lobes, preferential activation of ventral areas associated with “bottom-up” attention by ventral network theorists is strongest in studies of cognitive reappraisal. In conditions when no explicit instruction is given to change one's response to emotional stimuli, control of emotionally arousing stimuli is observed without concomitant activation of the dorsal attentional network, replaced by a shift of activation toward ventral areas. In contrast, in studies where emotional stimuli are placed in the role of distracter, the observed deactivation of these ventral semantic association areas is consistent with the existence of proactive control on the role emotional representations are allowed to take in generating response. It is here argued that attentional orienting mechanisms located in the ventral network constitute an intermediate kind of process, with features only partially in common with effortful and automatic processes, which plays an important role in handling emotion by conveying the influence of semantic networks, with which the ventral network is co-localized. Current neuroimaging work in emotion regulation has neglected this system by focusing on a bottom-up/top-down dichotomy of attentional control.

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Emotion regulation reduces loss aversion and decreases amygdala responses to losses

Sokol‐Hessner

Camerer

Phelps

2012

Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience

243

241

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Emotion regulation strategies can alter behavioral and physiological responses to emotional stimuli and the neural correlates of those responses in regions such as the amygdala or striatum. The current study investigates the brain systems engaged when using an emotion regulation technique during financial decisions. In decision making, regulating emotion with reappraisal-focused strategies that encourage taking a different perspective has been shown to reduce loss aversion as observed both in choices and in the relative arousal responses to actual loss and gain outcomes. In the current study, we find using fMRI that behavioral loss aversion correlates with amygdala activity in response to losses relative to gains. Success in regulating loss aversion also correlates with the reduction in amygdala responses to losses but not to gains. Furthermore, across both decisions and outcomes, we find the reappraisal strategy increases baseline activity in dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the striatum. The similarity of the neural circuitry observed to that seen in emotion regulation, despite divergent tasks, serves as further evidence for a role of emotion in decision making, and for the power of reappraisal to change assessments of value and thereby choices.

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Neural Perspectives on Emotion: Impact on Perception, Attention, and Memory

Cited by 4 publications

References 85 publications

Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation in the Ventral Prefrontal Cortex and the Encoding of Subjective Value and Economic Utility

Neural Correlates of Emotion Regulation in the Ventral Prefrontal Cortex and the Encoding of Subjective Value and Economic Utility

Emotion regulation, attention to emotion, and the ventral attentional network

Emotion regulation reduces loss aversion and decreases amygdala responses to losses

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