Affective context and its uncertainty drive momentary affective experience.

Affect fluctuates in a moment-to-moment fashion, reflecting the continuous relationship between the individual and the environment. Despite substantial research, there remain important open questions regarding how a stream of sensory input is dynamically represented in experienced affect. Here, approaching affect as a temporally dependent process, we show that momentary affect is shaped by a combination of the affective impact of stimuli (i.e., visual images for the current studies) and previously experienced affect. We also found that this temporal dependency is influenced by uncertainty of the affective context. Participants in each trial viewed sequentially presented images and subsequently reported their affective experience, which was modeled based on images' normative affect ratings and participants' previously reported affect. Study 1 showed that self-reported valence and arousal in a given trial is partly shaped by the affective impact of the given images and previously experienced affect. In Study 2, we manipulated context uncertainty by controlling occurrence probabilities for normatively pleasant and unpleasant images in separate blocks. Increasing context uncertainty (i.e., random occurrence of pleasant and unpleasant images) was associated with increased negative affect. In addition, the relative contribution of the most recent image to experienced pleasantness increased with increasing context uncertainty. Taken together, these findings provide clear behavioral evidence that momentary affect is a temporally dependent and continuous process, which reflects the affective impact of recent input variables and the previous internal state, and that this process is sensitive to the affective context and its uncertainty. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Affective calculus: The construction of affect through information integration over time.

Humans receive a constant stream of input that potentially influence their affective experience. Despite intensive research on affect, it is still largely unknown how various sources of information are integrated into the single, unified affective features that accompany consciousness. Here, we aimed to investigate how a stream of evocative input we receive is dynamically represented in self-reported affect. In 4 experiments, participants viewed a number of sequentially presented images and reported their momentary affective experience on valence and arousal scales. The number and duration of images in a trial varied across studies. In Study 4, we also measured participants' physiological responses while they viewed images. We formulated and compared several models with respect to their capacity to predict self-reported affect based on normative image ratings, physiological measurements, and prior affective experience (measured in the previous trial). Our data best supported a model incorporating a temporally sensitive averaging mechanism for affective integration that assigns higher weights to affectively more potent and recently represented stimuli. Crucially, affective averaging of sensory information and prior affect accounted for distinct contributions to currently experienced affect. Taken together, the current study provides evidence that prior affect and integrated affective impact of stimuli partly shape currently experienced affect. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Brain activity forecasts video engagement in an internet attention market.

The growth of the internet has spawned new "attention markets," in which people devote increasing amounts of time to consuming online content, but the neurobehavioral mechanisms that drive engagement in these markets have yet to be elucidated. We used functional MRI (FMRI) to examine whether individuals' neural responses to videos could predict their choices to start and stop watching videos as well as whether group brain activity could forecast aggregate video view frequency and duration out of sample on the internet (i.e., on youtube.com). Brain activity during video onset predicted individual choice in several regions (i.e., increased activity in the nucleus accumbens [NAcc] and medial prefrontal cortex [MPFC] as well as decreased activity in the anterior insula [AIns]). Group activity during video onset in only a subset of these regions, however, forecasted both aggregate view frequency and duration (i.e., increased NAcc and decreased AIns)-and did so above and beyond conventional measures. These findings extend neuroforecasting theory and tools by revealing that activity in brain regions implicated in anticipatory affect at the onset of video viewing (but not initial choice) can forecast time allocation out of sample in an internet attention market.

Culturally valued facial expressions enhance loan request success.

Why do people share resources with some strangers, but not others? This question becomes increasingly relevant as online platforms that promote lending world-wide proliferate (e.g., www.kiva.org). We predicted that lenders from nations that value excitement and other high-arousal positive states (HAP; e.g., United States) would loan more to borrowers who show excitement in their profile photos because the lenders perceive them to be more affiliative (e.g., trustworthy). As predicted, using naturally occurring Kiva data, lenders from the United States and Canada were more likely to lend money to borrowers (N = 13,500) who showed greater positive arousal (e.g., excitement) than were lenders from East Asian nations (e.g., Taiwan), above and beyond loan features (amount, repayment term; Study 1). In a randomly selected sample of Kiva lenders from 11 nations (N = 658), lenders from nations that valued HAP more were more likely to lend money to borrowers who showed open "excited" versus closed "calm" smiles, above and beyond other socioeconomic and cultural factors (Study 2). Finally, we examined whether cultural differences in lending were related to judgments of affiliation in an experimental study (Study 3, N = 103). Compared with Koreans, European Americans lent more to excited borrowers because they viewed them as more affiliative, regardless of borrowers' race (White, Asian) or sex (male, female). These findings suggest that people use their culture's affective values to decide with whom to share resources, and lend less to borrowers whose emotional expressions do not match those values, regardless of their race or sex. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Neuroforecasting Aggregate Choice.

Advances in brain-imaging design and analysis have allowed investigators to use neural activity to predict individual choice, while emerging Internet markets have opened up new opportunities for forecasting aggregate choice. Here, we review emerging research that bridges these levels of analysis by attempting to use group neural activity to forecast aggregate choice. A survey of initial findings suggests that components of group neural activity might forecast aggregate choice, in some cases even beyond traditional behavioral measures. In addition to demonstrating the plausibility of neuroforecasting, these findings raise the possibility that not all neural processes that predict individual choice forecast aggregate choice to the same degree. We propose that although integrative choice components may confer more consistency within individuals, affective choice components may generalize more broadly across individuals to forecast aggregate choice.

When Brain Beats Behavior: Neuroforecasting Crowdfunding Outcomes.

Although traditional economic and psychological theories imply that individual choice best scales to aggregate choice, primary components of choice reflected in neural activity may support even more generalizable forecasts. Crowdfunding represents a significant and growing platform for funding new and unique projects, causes, and products. To test whether neural activity could forecast market-level crowdfunding outcomes weeks later, 30 human subjects (14 female) decided whether to fund proposed projects described on an Internet crowdfunding website while undergoing scanning with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Although activity in both the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and medial prefrontal cortex predicted individual choices to fund on a trial-to-trial basis in the neuroimaging sample, only NAcc activity generalized to forecast market funding outcomes weeks later on the Internet. Behavioral measures from the neuroimaging sample, however, did not forecast market funding outcomes. This pattern of associations was replicated in a second study. These findings demonstrate that a subset of the neural predictors of individual choice can generalize to forecast market-level crowdfunding outcomes-even better than choice itself.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Forecasting aggregate behavior with individual neural data has proven elusive; even when successful, neural forecasts have not historically supplanted behavioral forecasts. In the current research, we find that neural responses can forecast market-level choice and outperform behavioral measures in a novel Internet crowdfunding context. Targeted as well as model-free analyses convergently indicated that nucleus accumbens activity can support aggregate forecasts. Beyond providing initial evidence for neuropsychological processes implicated in crowdfunding choices, these findings highlight the ability of neural features to forecast aggregate choice, which could inform applications relevant to business and policy.

Neural Affective Mechanisms Predict Market-Level Microlending.

Humans sometimes share with others whom they may never meet or know, in violation of the dictates of pure self-interest. Research has not established which neuropsychological mechanisms support lending decisions, nor whether their influence extends to markets involving significant financial incentives. In two studies, we found that neural affective mechanisms influence the success of requests for microloans. In a large Internet database of microloan requests (N = 13,500), we found that positive affective features of photographs promoted the success of those requests. We then established that neural activity (i.e., in the nucleus accumbens) and self-reported positive arousal in a neuroimaging sample (N = 28) predicted the success of loan requests on the Internet, above and beyond the effects of the neuroimaging sample's own choices (i.e., to lend or not). These findings suggest that elicitation of positive arousal can promote the success of loan requests, both in the laboratory and on the Internet. They also highlight affective neuroscience's potential to probe neuropsychological mechanisms that drive microlending, enhance the effectiveness of loan requests, and forecast market-level behavior.

Neural underpinnings of the identifiable victim effect: affect shifts preferences for giving.

The "identifiable victim effect" refers to peoples' tendency to preferentially give to identified versus anonymous victims of misfortune, and has been proposed to partly depend on affect. By soliciting charitable donations from human subjects during behavioral and neural (i.e., functional magnetic resonance imaging) experiments, we sought to determine whether and how affect might promote the identifiable victim effect. Behaviorally, subjects gave more to orphans depicted by photographs versus silhouettes, and their shift in preferences was mediated by photograph-induced feelings of positive arousal, but not negative arousal. Neurally, while photographs versus silhouettes elicited activity in widespread circuits associated with facial and affective processing, only nucleus accumbens activity predicted and could statistically account for increased donations. Together, these findings suggest that presenting evaluable identifiable information can recruit positive arousal, which then promotes giving. We propose that affect elicited by identifiable stimuli can compel people to give more to strangers, even despite costs to the self.

The effect of choice on the physiology of emotion: an affective startle modulation study.

The affective startle modulation task has been an important measure in understanding physiological aspects of emotion and motivational responses. Research utilizing this method has relied primarily on a 'passive' viewing paradigm, which stands in contrast to everyday life where much of emotion and motivation involves some active choice or agency. The present study investigated the role of choice on the physiology of emotion. Eighty-four participants were randomized into 'choice' (n=44) or 'no-choice' (n=40) groups distinguished by the ability to choose between stimuli. EMG eye blink responses were recorded in both anticipation and stimulus viewing. Results indicated a significant attenuation of the startle magnitude in choice condition trials (relative to no-choice) across all picture categories and probe times. We interpret these findings as an indication that the act of choice may decrease one's defensive response, or conversely, lacking choice may heighten the defensive response. Implications for future research are discussed.

Evidence for an emotion maintenance deficit in schizophrenia.

Research has indicated that people with schizophrenia have deficits in reward representation and goal-directed behavior, which may be related to the maintenance of emotional experiences. Using a laboratory-based study, we investigated whether people with schizophrenia were able to maintain an emotional experience when given explicit instructions to do so. Twenty-eight people with schizophrenia and 19 people without completed a behavioral task judging their emotional experience of pictures held over a three second delay. This emotion maintenance task was compared to a subsequent in-the-moment emotion experience rating of each picture. In addition, all participants completed an analogous brightness experience maintenance and rating task, and patients completed a standardized visual working memory task. Participants with schizophrenia showed normal in-the-moment emotion experience of the emotion pictures; however, they showed decreased performance on emotion maintenance (for both positive and negative emotion) compared to participants without schizophrenia, even after controlling for brightness maintenance. The emotion maintenance deficit was not associated with visual brightness performance nor with performance on the visual working memory task; however, negative emotion maintenance was associated with an interview-based rating of motivation. These findings suggest that some aspects of impaired emotion maintenance in schizophrenia may be related to deficits in motivated behavior.

Cognitive training in schizophrenia: a neuroscience-based approach.

Meta-analytic data from over a decade of research in cognitive remediation, when combined with recent findings from basic and clinical neuroscience, have resulted in a new understanding of the critical elements that can contribute to successful cognitive training approaches for schizophrenia. Some of these elements include: the use of computerized repetitive practice methods, high dosing schedules, a focus on sensory processing, and carefully constrained and individually adapted learning trials. In a preliminary randomized controlled trial of cognitive training exercises based on these principles, we demonstrated significant improvements in working memory, verbal learning and memory, and global cognition in patients with schizophrenia. These cognitive improvements were accompanied by neurobiological findings suggestive of learning-induced cortical plasticity. Future directions for research and essential remaining questions are discussed.

Timing is everything: neural response dynamics during syllable processing and its relation to higher-order cognition in schizophrenia and healthy comparison subjects.

Successful linguistic processing requires efficient encoding of successively-occurring auditory input in a time-constrained manner, especially under noisy conditions. In this study we examined the early neural response dynamics to rapidly-presented successive syllables in schizophrenia participants and healthy comparison subjects, and investigated the effects of noise on these responses. We used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to reveal the time-course of stimulus-locked activity over bilateral auditory cortices during discrimination of syllable pairs that differed either in voice onset time (VOT) or place of articulation (POA), in the presence or absence of noise. We also examined the association of these early neural response patterns to higher-order cognitive functions. The M100 response, arising from auditory cortex and its immediate environs, showed less attenuation to the second syllable in patients with schizophrenia than healthy comparison subjects during VOT-based discrimination in noise. M100 response amplitudes were similar between groups for the first syllable during all three discrimination conditions, and for the second syllable during VOT-based discrimination in quiet and POA-based discrimination in noise. Across subjects, the lack of M100 attenuation to the second syllable during VOT-based discrimination in noise was associated with poorer task accuracy, lower education and IQ, and lower scores on measures of Verbal Learning and Memory and Global Cognition. Because the neural response to the first syllable was not significantly different between groups, nor was a schizophrenia-related difference obtained in all discrimination tasks, early linguistic processing dysfunction in schizophrenia does not appear to be due to general sensory input problems. Rather, data suggest that faulty temporal integration occurs during successive syllable processing when the signal-to-noise ratio is low. Further, the neural mechanism by which the second syllable is suppressed during noise-challenged VOT discrimination appears to be important for higher-order cognition and provides a promising target for neuroscience-guided cognitive training approaches to schizophrenia.

Motivation and its relationship to neurocognition, social cognition, and functional outcome in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: A burgeoning area of research has focused on motivational deficits in schizophrenia, producing hypotheses about the role that motivation plays in the well-known relationship between neurocognition and functional outcome. However, little work has examined the role of motivation in more complex models of outcome that include social cognition, despite our increased understanding of the critical role of social cognition in community functioning in schizophrenia, and despite new basic science findings on the association between social cognitive and reward processing in neural systems in humans. Using path analysis, we directly contrasted whether motivation 1) causally influences known social cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, leading to poor outcome or 2) mediates the relationship between social cognitive deficits and outcome in this illness. METHOD: Ninety one patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder completed interview-based measures of motivation and functional outcome as well as standardized measures of neurocognition and social cognition in a cross-sectional design. RESULTS: In line with recent research, motivation appears to mediate the relationship between neurocognition, social cognition and functional outcome. A model with motivation as a causal factor resulted in poor fit indicating that motivation does not appear to precede neurocognition. CONCLUSIONS: Findings in the present study indicate that motivation plays a significant and mediating role between neurocognition, social cognition, and functional outcome. Potential psychosocial treatment implications are discussed, especially those that emphasize social cognitive and motivational enhancement.

When top-down meets bottom-up: auditory training enhances verbal memory in schizophrenia.

A critical research priority for our field is to develop treatments that enhance cognitive functioning in schizophrenia and thereby attenuate the functional losses associated with the illness. In this article, we describe such a treatment method that is grounded in emerging research on the widespread sensory processing impairments of schizophrenia, as described elsewhere in this special issue. We first present the rationale for this treatment approach, which consists of cognitive training exercises that make use of principles derived from the past 2 decades of basic science research in learning-induced neuroplasticity; these exercises explicitly target not only the higher order or "top-down" processes of cognition but also the content building blocks of accurate and efficient sensory representations to simultaneously achieve "bottom-up" remediation. We then summarize our experience to date and briefly review our behavioral and serum biomarker findings from a randomized controlled trial of this method in outpatients with long-term symptoms of schizophrenia. Finally, we present promising early psychophysiological evidence that supports the hypothesis that this cognitive training method induces changes in aspects of impaired bottom-up sensory processing in schizophrenia. We conclude with the observation that neuroplasticity-based cognitive training brings patients closer to physiological patterns seen in healthy participants, suggesting that it changes the brain in an adaptive manner in schizophrenia.