Social Value Orientation (SVO) refers to an individual's preference for the division of resou... more Social Value Orientation (SVO) refers to an individual's preference for the division of resources between the self and another person. Since evidence suggests that hormones influence several facets of human social behavior, we asked whether SVO might fluctuate across the female menstrual cycle. Using self-report data obtained in two independent online studies, we show that cooperative preferences, as indexed by SVO, are indeed significantly more prosocial in the early follicular compared to the midluteal phase in naturally ovulating women. Furthermore, when estimating hormonal variations from norm data, we found estradiol, but not progesterone or testosterone, to be a significant predictor of SVO across the menstrual cycle in both studies, with a negative correlation. Our findings provide evidence that the willingness to cooperate varies across the natural female menstrual cycle and highlight the potential of investigating psychological effects of ovarian sex hormones.
Memory illusions--vivid experiences of events that never occurred--could result from inaccuracies... more Memory illusions--vivid experiences of events that never occurred--could result from inaccuracies either in retrieving memories or in initially storing them. In two experiments, people studied lists of associated words that either did or did not induce later illusory (false) memories of associated but nonpresented lure words. The amplitude of the electrical brain activity during study of words (approximately 500-1,300 ms) that were themselves later correctly remembered reliably distinguished list words that led to such illusory memories from those that did not. This encoding difference associated with subsequent illusory memory (referred to as a DIM)--presumably reflecting item-specific encoding differences--is a neural precursor of memory illusions.
The question of how emotions influence recognition memory is of interest not only within basic co... more The question of how emotions influence recognition memory is of interest not only within basic cognitive neuroscience but from clinical and forensic perspectives as well. Emotional stimuli can induce a "recognition bias" such that individuals are more likely to respond "old" to a negative item than to an emotionally neutral item, whether the item is actually old or new. We investigated this bias using event-related brain potential (ERP) measures by comparing the processing of words given "old" responses with accurate recognition of old/new differences. For correctly recognized items, the ERP difference between old items (hits) and new items (correct rejections, CR) was largely unaffected by emotional valence. That is, regardless of emotional valence, the ERP associated with hits was characterized by a widespread positivity between 300 and 700 msec relative to that for CRs. By contrast, the analysis of ERPs to old and new items that were judged "old" (hits and false alarms [FAs], respectively) revealed a differential effect of valence by 300 msec: Neutral items showed a large old/new difference over prefrontal sites, whereas negative items did not. These results are the first clear demonstration of response bias effects on ERPs linked to recognition memory. They are consistent with the idea that frontal cortex areas may be responsible for relaxing the retrieval criterion for negative stimuli so as to ensure that emotional events are not as easily "missed" or forgotten as neutral events.
Schizotypy has been consistently associated with an enhanced capacity for creative thinking, but ... more Schizotypy has been consistently associated with an enhanced capacity for creative thinking, but the specificity of this cognitive advantage is, as yet, unclear. Different facets of creative cognition were assessed in the present study by contrasting groups based on the ...
This study examines the notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia and determines the ... more This study examines the notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia and determines the mediating role of executive dysfunction and symptom severity in this relationship. Patients with chronic schizophrenia (n=28) were assessed on varied facets of creative cognition and standard tests of executive control relative to matched healthy control participants (n=18). Multivariate analyses revealed poorer performance by the patient group across almost all creative and executive function measures, except in the ability to be unconstrained by the influence of restrictive examples. Symptom-based contrasts using partial correlations revealed that differences were most extensive in the presence of thought disorder. Using hierarchical regression analyses, performance on the executive function tasks was found to play a mediatory role on specific aspects of creative cognition. Results are at odds with the popular notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia, but elucidate complex interactions between executive control and certain facets of creative thinking. In particular, performance of the schizophrenia group on measures that tap creativity elements of fluency and relevance were either partially or fully mediated by their performance on the executive control tasks, but this was not true of measures of originality.
Social Value Orientation (SVO) refers to an individual's preference for the division of resou... more Social Value Orientation (SVO) refers to an individual's preference for the division of resources between the self and another person. Since evidence suggests that hormones influence several facets of human social behavior, we asked whether SVO might fluctuate across the female menstrual cycle. Using self-report data obtained in two independent online studies, we show that cooperative preferences, as indexed by SVO, are indeed significantly more prosocial in the early follicular compared to the midluteal phase in naturally ovulating women. Furthermore, when estimating hormonal variations from norm data, we found estradiol, but not progesterone or testosterone, to be a significant predictor of SVO across the menstrual cycle in both studies, with a negative correlation. Our findings provide evidence that the willingness to cooperate varies across the natural female menstrual cycle and highlight the potential of investigating psychological effects of ovarian sex hormones.
Memory illusions--vivid experiences of events that never occurred--could result from inaccuracies... more Memory illusions--vivid experiences of events that never occurred--could result from inaccuracies either in retrieving memories or in initially storing them. In two experiments, people studied lists of associated words that either did or did not induce later illusory (false) memories of associated but nonpresented lure words. The amplitude of the electrical brain activity during study of words (approximately 500-1,300 ms) that were themselves later correctly remembered reliably distinguished list words that led to such illusory memories from those that did not. This encoding difference associated with subsequent illusory memory (referred to as a DIM)--presumably reflecting item-specific encoding differences--is a neural precursor of memory illusions.
The question of how emotions influence recognition memory is of interest not only within basic co... more The question of how emotions influence recognition memory is of interest not only within basic cognitive neuroscience but from clinical and forensic perspectives as well. Emotional stimuli can induce a "recognition bias" such that individuals are more likely to respond "old" to a negative item than to an emotionally neutral item, whether the item is actually old or new. We investigated this bias using event-related brain potential (ERP) measures by comparing the processing of words given "old" responses with accurate recognition of old/new differences. For correctly recognized items, the ERP difference between old items (hits) and new items (correct rejections, CR) was largely unaffected by emotional valence. That is, regardless of emotional valence, the ERP associated with hits was characterized by a widespread positivity between 300 and 700 msec relative to that for CRs. By contrast, the analysis of ERPs to old and new items that were judged "old" (hits and false alarms [FAs], respectively) revealed a differential effect of valence by 300 msec: Neutral items showed a large old/new difference over prefrontal sites, whereas negative items did not. These results are the first clear demonstration of response bias effects on ERPs linked to recognition memory. They are consistent with the idea that frontal cortex areas may be responsible for relaxing the retrieval criterion for negative stimuli so as to ensure that emotional events are not as easily "missed" or forgotten as neutral events.
Schizotypy has been consistently associated with an enhanced capacity for creative thinking, but ... more Schizotypy has been consistently associated with an enhanced capacity for creative thinking, but the specificity of this cognitive advantage is, as yet, unclear. Different facets of creative cognition were assessed in the present study by contrasting groups based on the ...
This study examines the notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia and determines the ... more This study examines the notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia and determines the mediating role of executive dysfunction and symptom severity in this relationship. Patients with chronic schizophrenia (n=28) were assessed on varied facets of creative cognition and standard tests of executive control relative to matched healthy control participants (n=18). Multivariate analyses revealed poorer performance by the patient group across almost all creative and executive function measures, except in the ability to be unconstrained by the influence of restrictive examples. Symptom-based contrasts using partial correlations revealed that differences were most extensive in the presence of thought disorder. Using hierarchical regression analyses, performance on the executive function tasks was found to play a mediatory role on specific aspects of creative cognition. Results are at odds with the popular notion of enhanced creative thinking in schizophrenia, but elucidate complex interactions between executive control and certain facets of creative thinking. In particular, performance of the schizophrenia group on measures that tap creativity elements of fluency and relevance were either partially or fully mediated by their performance on the executive control tasks, but this was not true of measures of originality.
Uploads