scholarly journals Positive moods are all alike? Differential affect amplification effects of ‘elated’ versus ‘calm’ mental im-agery in young adults reporting hypomanic-like experiences

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caterina Vannucci ◽  
Michael Bonsall ◽  
Martina Di Simplicio ◽  
Aimee McMullan ◽  
Emily A Holmes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Positive Mood ◽  
Experimental Session ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Positive Emotionality ◽  
Imagery Condition ◽  
Effect Analysis ◽  
Over Time

Positive mood amplification is a hallmark of the bipolar disorder spectrum (BPDS). We need bet-ter understanding of cognitive mechanisms leading to such elevated mood. Generation of vivid, emo-tionally compelling mental imagery is proposed to act as an ‘emotional amplifier’ in BPDS.We used a positive mental imagery generation paradigm to manipulate affect in a subclinical BPDS-relevant sample reporting high (n=31) vs. low (n=30) hypomanic-like experiences on the Mood Dis-order Questionnaire (MDQ). Participants were randomized to an ‘elated’ or ‘calm’ mental imagery condi-tion, rating their momentary affect four times across the experimental session. We hypothesized greater affect increase in the high (vs. low) MDQ group assigned to the elated (vs. calm) imagery generation condition. We further hypothesized that this change would be driven by increases in the types of affect typically associated with (hypo)mania, i.e., suggestive of high activity lev-els.Mixed model and time-series analysis showed that for the high MDQ group, affect increased steeply and in a sustained manner over time in the ‘elated’ imagery condition, and more shallowly in ‘calm’. The low-MDQ group did not show this amplification effect. Analysis of affect clusters showed high-MDQ mood amplification in the ‘elated’ imagery condition was most pronounced for active affective states. This experimental model of BPDS-relevant mood amplification shows evidence that positive men-tal imagery drives changes in affect in the high MDQ group in a targeted manner. Findings inform cogni-tive mechanisms of mood amplification, and spotlight prevention strategies targeting elated imagery, while potentially retaining calm imagery to preserve adaptive positive emotionality.

Weekly Exercise Consistently Reinstates Positive Mood

1998 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 271-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Steinberg ◽  
Briony R. Nicholls ◽  
Elizabeth A. Sykes ◽  
N. LeBoutillier ◽  
Nerina Ramlakhan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Physical Exercise ◽  
Negative Mood ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Positive Mood ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Single Bout ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Exercise Class ◽  
Negative Feelings ◽  
Over Time

Mood improvement immediately after a single bout of exercise is well documented, but less is known about successive and longer term effects. In a “real-life” field investigation, four kinds of exercise class (Beginners, Advanced, Body Funk and Callanetics) met once a week for up to 7 weeks. Before and after each class the members assessed how they felt by completing a questionnaire listing equal numbers of “positive” and “negative” mood words. Subjects who had attended at least five times were included in the analysis, which led to groups consisting of 18, 20, 16, and 16 subjects, respectively. All four kinds of exercise significantly increased positive and decreased negative feelings, and this result was surprisingly consistent in successive weeks. However, exercise seemed to have a much greater effect on positive than on negative moods. The favorable moods induced by each class seemed to have worn off by the following week, to be reinstated by the class itself. In the Callanetics class, positive mood also improved significantly over time. The Callanetics class involved “slower,” more demanding exercises, not always done to music. The Callanetics and Advanced classes also showed significantly greater preexercise negative moods in the first three sessions. However, these differences disappeared following exercise. Possibly, these two groups had become more “tolerant” to the mood-enhancing effects of physical exercise; this may be in part have been due to “exercise addiction.”

scholarly journals Associative Imagery as a Strategy to Improve Destination Memory in Younger and Older Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 361-362
Author(s):  
Tara Johnson ◽  
Katie Stanko ◽  
Susan Jefferson
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Source Monitoring ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Grocery Store ◽  
Control Group ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Imagery Condition ◽  
Destination Memory ◽  
Shared Information

Abstract Destination memory errors (inability to remember to whom information was shared) affects all ages, but older adults are particularly vulnerable due to poor source monitoring. Individuals may assume information was already shared when it was not or repeat previously shared information. The current study explored two mental imagery strategies (vivid imagery, visualizing context) to improve destination memory. Using a software program, younger and older adults told randomly generated facts to random celebrity faces. Participants were unaware of the upcoming memory tests. The control group did not use a strategy. The imagery group used vivid imagery to connect the fact and face (e.g., visualize Oprah on a dime to remember Oprah was told that dimes have 118 ridges). The context group visualized a provided context (e.g., grocery store) when telling a fact to a face. Assessments of performance on item memory (facts, faces) as well as destination memory (face-fact pairings) were counterbalanced. Results indicated an associative memory deficit among older adults, which was driven by a higher rate of false alarms. However, across all adults, the vivid imagery condition was more accurate than the control condition, and they demonstrated fewer false alarms. These findings suggest that older adults can use mental imagery to reduce false alarms and improve destination memory performance. Implications include reducing age stereotypes, improving conversations, and decreasing potentially dangerous situations (e.g., withholding important health information thinking it already was shared with a doctor).

Buckets of steam and left-handed hammers. The fool’s errand as a signal of epistemic and coalitional dominance

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Radu Umbres
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Left Handed ◽  
Epistemic Vigilance ◽  
Epistemic Asymmetry ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Strategic Signaling

In various professional groups, experts send rookies on absurd tasks as a prank. The fool’s errand appears in factories and hospitals, in elite schools and scout camps, among soldiers, sailors, and airmen. Why are newcomers deceived and humiliated and why are fool’s errands similar in structure despite various contexts and remarkably persistent over time? Here I propose that the cultural success of this social institution and its recurrent features across history and cultures are based on evolved cognitive mechanisms activated by apprenticeship as social learning and group induction. I will show that evolved mechanisms of epistemic vigilance explain how novices are reliably deceived by experts using opaque statements erroneously perceived as pedagogical. Furthermore, evolved capacities for coalition building explain why insiders use the prank as strategic signaling of hierarchies based on epistemic asymmetry. The intersection of cognitive mechanisms and patterns of professional recruitment create a tradition where insiders coordinate to humiliate newcomers to assert epistemic and coalitional dominance.

Rated Imagery and Pictures in Paired-Associate Learning

1971 ◽  
Vol 33 (3_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1247-1250 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Morelli ◽  
Diana Lang
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Visual Imagery ◽  
Paired Associate ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Paired Associate Learning ◽  
Associate Learning ◽  
Imagery Condition

The present study investigated the effect of two tests of imagery, the Betts QMI Vividness of Mental Imagery Test vs the Gordon Test of Visual Imagery Control, in a paired-associate learning task involving imposed imagery versus uncontrolled imagery. 57 Ss were equally divided into Picture, Competing-picture, Words-alone groups and were asked to rate themselves as to method of learning. Later Ss were given the imagery tests. No relation was found between the Betts QMI and PA learning. The Gordon Test related to PA learning only in the picture-imposed imagery condition. Comparisons between Ss who rated themselves pictorializers vs verbalizers were related to PA learning only in the picture-imposed imagery condition.

scholarly journals Visual Mental Imagery Activates Topographically Organized Visual Cortex: PET Investigations

1993 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Kosslyn ◽  
Nathaniel M. Alpert ◽  
William L. Thompson ◽  
Vera Maljkovic ◽  
Steven B. Weise ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Anterior Part ◽  
Imagery Task ◽  
Area 17 ◽  
Mental Images ◽  
Imagery Condition ◽  
Posterior Portion ◽  
Large Size ◽  
Positron Emission

Cerebral blood flow was measured using positron emission tomography (PET) in three experiments while subjects performed mental imagery or analogous perceptual tasks. In Experiment 1, the subjects either visualized letters in grids and decided whether an X mark would have fallen on each letter if it were actually in the grid, or they saw letters in grids and decided whether an X mark fell on each letter. A region identified as part of area 17 by the Talairach and Tournoux (1988) atlas, in addition to other areas involved in vision, was activated more in the mental imagery task than in the perception task. In Experiment 2, the identical stimuli were presented in imagery and baseline conditions, but subjects were asked to form images only in the imagery condition; the portion of area 17 that was more active in the imagery condition of Experiment 1 was also more activated in imagery than in the baseline condition, as was part of area 18. Subjects also were tested with degraded perceptual stimuli, which caused visual cortex to be activated to the same degree in imagery and perception. In both Experiments 1 and 2, however, imagery selectively activated the extreme anterior part of what was identified as area 17, which is inconsistent with the relatively small size of the imaged stimuli. These results, then, suggest that imagery may have activated another region just anterior to area 17. In Experiment 3, subjects were instructed to close their eyes and evaluate visual mental images of upper case letters that were formed at a small size or large size. The small mental images engendered more activation in the posterior portion of visual cortex, and the large mental images engendered more activation in anterior portions of visual cortex. This finding is strong evidence that imagery activates topographically mapped cortex. The activated regions were also consistent with their being localized in area 17. Finally, additional results were consistent with the existence of two types of imagery, one that rests on allocating attention to form a pattern and one that rests on activating stored visual memories.

scholarly journals Mental imagery in bipolar affective disorder versus unipolar depression: Investigating cognitions at times of ‘positive’ mood

2014 ◽  
Vol 166 ◽  
pp. 234-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annabel Ivins ◽  
Martina Di Simplicio ◽  
Helen Close ◽  
Guy M. Goodwin ◽  
Emily Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Affective Disorder ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Bipolar Affective Disorder ◽  
Unipolar Depression ◽  
Positive Mood

scholarly journals A theoretical model for optimal control of banana Moko (Musa AAB Simmonds)

F1000Research ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1443
Author(s):  
Marly Grajales Amorocho ◽  
Anibal Muñoz Loaiza
Keyword(s):  
Threshold Value ◽  
Production Costs ◽  
Logistic Growth ◽  
Optimal Conditions ◽  
Prevention Strategies ◽  
Maximum Capacity ◽  
Linear Ordinary Differential Equations ◽  
Variable Population ◽  
Population Simulation ◽  
Over Time

A population simulation model with non-linear ordinary differential equations is presented, which interprets the dynamics of the banana Moko, with prevention of the disease and population of susceptible and infected plants over time. A crop with a variable population of plants and a logistic growth of replanting is assumed, taking into account the maximum capacity of plants in the delimited study area. Also, with the help of farmers, the costs of implementing prevention strategies and elimination of infected plants were calculated per week in order to determine the optimal conditions that control the disease and reduce production costs. We found that the implementation of prevention strategies (f) plays an important role, but the parameter that most influences the threshold value is the elimination of infected plants g.  However, to reduce production costs due to the high implementation of prevention strategies and to maintain the disease in a controlled state, both controls u1 and u2 should be implemented between 40% and 60%, obtaining with this percentage an approximate reduction of 51.37% in production costs per week, where in 23 weeks following the same conditions it is expected to have a healthy plantation without infected plants.

From Feeling Good to Doing Good

2019 ◽  
pp. 595-611
Author(s):  
Gabriele Oettingen ◽  
Peter M. Gollwitzer
Keyword(s):  
Implementation Intentions ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Depressive Affect ◽  
Mental Contrasting ◽  
Clear Sense ◽  
Sense Of Reality ◽  
Over Time

Indulging in positive fantasies about a desired future helps people feel accomplished and happy. At the same time, it hurts people with implementing the wished-for future. It leads to low energy, low effort, and little success. Indulging in positive future fantasies also predicts high depressive affect over time, partially mediated by low effort and little success. However, when juxtaposing the positive future fantasies with a clear sense of reality (mental contrasting), people understand what they want and can achieve, and take the necessary steps to fulfill their wishes. People are particularly effective in fulfilling their wishes when they combine mental contrasting with implementation intentions (MCII). The chapter concludes by suggesting that MCII may also be used to snap out of excessively positive affective states.

scholarly journals Face Imagery Is Based on Featural Representations

2008 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janek S. Lobmaier ◽  
Fred W. Mast
Keyword(s):  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Imagery Condition ◽  
Configural Information ◽  
Perception Condition ◽  
Test Face ◽  
Configural Representations ◽  
Configural Face Processing ◽  
Better Than

Abstract. The effect of imagery on featural and configural face processing was investigated using blurred and scrambled faces. By means of blurring, featural information is reduced; by scrambling a face into its constituent parts configural information is lost. Twenty-four participants learned ten faces together with the sound of a name. In following matching-to-sample tasks participants had to decide whether an auditory presented name belonged to a visually presented scrambled or blurred face in two experimental conditions. In the imagery condition, the name was presented prior to the visual stimulus and participants were required to imagine the corresponding face as clearly and vividly as possible. In the perception condition name and test face were presented simultaneously, thus no facilitation via mental imagery was possible. Analyses of the hit values showed that in the imagery condition scrambled faces were recognized significantly better than blurred faces whereas there was no such effect for the perception condition. The results suggest that mental imagery activates featural representations more than configural representations.

Peer Relationships

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Peer Relationships ◽  
Children With Disabilities ◽  
Positive Mood ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Social Settings ◽  
Negative Affective States ◽  
Victims Of Bullying ◽  
Safe Environments

This chapter addresses the relation between sport and peer relationships for children with disabilities. Sport may be particularly valuable as a vehicle for the development of peer relationships, as many children with disabilities struggle with loneliness. Similar to many achievement-oriented social settings, sport can be a vehicle for positive, negative, and neutral experiences. For instance, sport has been linked to enhanced self-esteem, physical self-concept, positive mood states, and high-quality sport friendship. Sport can also mitigate negative affective states, such as loneliness, depression, anxiety, and fear. For example, segregated sport programs provide safe environments where adolescents with disabilities do not have to fear being teased or denigrated by able-bodied participants. However, experiences in integrated sport, with able-bodied children, can be beneficial if instructors create safe environments where teasing and bullying are not allowed. While children with disabilities are often victims of bullying, they can also be bullies in sport settings. Finally, sport experiences can be benign, with no discernible negative or positive ramifications.

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