The Integrative Self: How Self-Reference Integrates Perception and Memory

Sui, Jie; Humphreys, Glyn W.

doi:10.1016/j.tics.2015.08.015

Cited by 405 publications

(441 citation statements)

References 74 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

388

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…This runs counter to the view that exacerbated executive demands on older participants reduce matching performance on other-related stimuli, and thus increase the self-bias effect (cf. Sui & Humphreys, 2015a), but these findings in perceptual matching are consistent with prior studies of the self-referential effect on memory (Gutchess et al, 2010;Gutchess et al, 2007), suggesting maintained effects of self-reference at different stages of processing more generally.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…Notably, activation of ventral brain regions is associated with self processing and attention (respectively in the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex [VMPFC] and the posterior superior temporal sulcus) when self-related stimuli are presented, whereas enhanced activation of a dorsal frontoparietal network is associated with attentional control when participants respond to stimuli related to a stranger. These data indicate that attentional-control processes are recruited more strongly in the latter condition (see Sui & Humphreys, 2015a, for a discussion). Additionally, neuropsychological studies have shown that brain lesion over the VMPFC abolishes self biases in memory, whereas brain damage in the dorsal attentional-control network that spares the VMPFC generates abnormally large biases toward self-related stimuli, due to an exaggerated effect of strong attentional signals (Sui, Enock, Ralph, & Humphreys, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Aging enhances cognitive biases to friends but not the self

Humphreys

2017

Psychon Bull Rev

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We measured changes in self and friend biases in perceptual matching in young and older participants. Participants learned associations between neutral geometric shapes and three personal labels (You, Friend, or Stranger), representing themselves, their named best friend, and a stranger not corresponding to anyone they knew. They then responded whether the shapes and labels matched or mismatched. In addition, participants reported the perceived personal distance between themselves, their best friend, and a stranger. Relative to young participants, older adults showed an increased bias toward matching their friends over strangers, whereas the bias toward the self over friends tended to decrease. Equivalent results occurred for a perceived personal distance measure, and, on measures of perceptual sensitivity with older participants, the personal distance between friends and strangers correlated with the friend bias in matching. These results indicate that the social bias toward a familiar best friend increases with age and modulates perceptual matching.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

mentioning

confidence: 81%

Aging enhances cognitive biases to friends but not the self

Humphreys

2017

Psychon Bull Rev

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This research has established that simply training people to associate self-relevant words (i.e. their own name or the word ''You'') with particular shapes can lead to improved perceptual processing of those shapes (Sui, He, & Humphreys, 2012;Sui & Humphreys, 2015). Similar perceptual effects have also been found when the same items are associated with rewards, suggesting that the effect is due to the greater value people assign themselves compared to others (Sui et al, 2012).…”

Section: Associative Learningmentioning

confidence: 86%

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

Farmer

Maister

2017

Soc Just Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The self is one the most important concepts in social cognition and plays a crucial role in determining questions such as which social groups we view ourselves as belonging to and how we relate to others. In the past decade, the self has also become an important topic within cognitive neuroscience with an explosion in the number of studies seeking to understand how different aspects of the self are represented within the brain. In this paper, we first outline the recent research on the neurocognitive basis of the self and highlight a key distinction between two forms of self-representation. The first is the ''bodily'' self, which is thought to be the basis of subjective experience and is grounded in the processing of sensorimotor signals. The second is the ''conceptual'' self, which develops through our interactions of other and is formed of a rich network of associative and semantic information. We then investigate how both the bodily and conceptual self are related to social cognition with an emphasis on how self-representations are involved in the processing and creation of prejudice. We then highlight new research demonstrating that the bodily and conceptual self are both malleable and that this malleability can be harnessed in order to achieve a reduction in social prejudice. In particular, we will outline strong evidence that modulating people's perceptions of the bodily self can lead to changes in attitudes at the conceptual level. We will highlight a series of studies demonstrating that social attitudes towards various social out-groups (e.g. racial groups) can lead to a reduction in prejudice towards that group. Finally, we seek to place these findings in a broader social context by considering how innovations in virtual reality technology can allow experiences of taking on another's identity are likely to become both more commonplace and more convincing in the future and the various opportunities and risks associated with using such technology to reduce prejudice.

show abstract

“…The cognitive functions (working memory, attention, metacognition, and so forth) and neural circuits (especially prefrontal circuits) that underlie HORs are also required for conscious experiences involving the self, including emotional states involving the self (145,(156)(157)(158)(159)(160)(161)(162) Fig. 3 for HOT).…”

Section: A Modified Higher-order Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

A higher-order theory of emotional consciousness

LeDoux

Brown

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

468

417

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Emotional states of consciousness, or what are typically called emotional feelings, are traditionally viewed as being innately programmed in subcortical areas of the brain, and are often treated as different from cognitive states of consciousness, such as those related to the perception of external stimuli. We argue that conscious experiences, regardless of their content, arise from one system in the brain. In this view, what differs in emotional and nonemotional states are the kinds of inputs that are processed by a general cortical network of cognition, a network essential for conscious experiences. Although subcortical circuits are not directly responsible for conscious feelings, they provide nonconscious inputs that coalesce with other kinds of neural signals in the cognitive assembly of conscious emotional experiences. In building the case for this proposal, we defend a modified version of what is known as the higher-order theory of consciousness.uch progress has been made in conceptualizing consciousness in recent years. This work has focused on the question of how we come to be aware of our sensory world, and has suggested that perceptual consciousness emerges via cognitive processing in cortical circuits that assemble conscious experiences in real-time. Emotional states of consciousness, on the other hand, have traditionally been viewed as involving innately programmed experiences that arise from subcortical circuits.Our thesis is that the brain mechanisms that give rise to conscious emotional feelings are not fundamentally different from those that give rise to perceptual conscious experiences. Both, we propose, involve higher-order representations (HORs) of lowerorder information by cortically based general networks of cognition (GNC). Thus, subcortical circuits are not responsible for feelings, but instead provide lower-order, nonconscious inputs that coalesce with other kinds of neural signals in the cognitive assembly of conscious emotional experiences by cortical circuits (the distinction between cortical and subcortical circuits is defined in SI Appendix, Box 1). Our theory goes beyond traditional higher-order theory (HOT), arguing that self-centered higherorder states are essential for emotional experiences.Emotion, Consciousness, and the Brain Detailed understanding of the emotional brain, and theorizing about it, is largely based on studies that fall under the heading of "fear." We will therefore focus on this body of work in discussing emotional consciousness. In light of this approach, we define "fear" as the conscious feeling one has when in danger. Although our conclusions may not apply equally well to all emotions, we maintain that the lessons from fear provide general principles that can at least be used as a starting point for theorizing about many emotions.The Amygdala Fear Circuit View. Emotions like fear are often said to have been inherited from animal ancestors (1-6). These "basic emotions" are typically proposed to be wired into the brain's limbic system (7). Although the limbic sy...

show abstract

The Integrative Self: How Self-Reference Integrates Perception and Memory

Cited by 405 publications

References 74 publications

Aging enhances cognitive biases to friends but not the self

Aging enhances cognitive biases to friends but not the self

Putting Ourselves in Another’s Skin: Using the Plasticity of Self-Perception to Enhance Empathy and Decrease Prejudice

A higher-order theory of emotional consciousness

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About