Hello, is that me you are looking for? A re-examination of the role of the DMN in off-task thought

Neural activity within the default mode network (DMN) is widely assumed to relate to processing during off-task states, however it remains unclear whether this association emerges from a shared role in self or social cognition. In the current study, we examine the possibility that the role of the DMN in ongoing thought emerges from contributions to specific features of off-task experience such as self-relevant or social content. A group of participants described their experiences while performing a laboratory task over a period of days. In a different session, neural activity was measured while participants performed self/other judgements. Despite the prominence of social and personal content in off-task reports, there was no association with neural activity during off-task trait adjective judgements. Instead, during both self and other judgements we found recruitment of caudal posterior cingulate cortex - a core DMN hub - was above baseline for individuals whose laboratory experiences were characterised as detailed. These data provide little support for a role of the DMN in self or other content in the off-task state and instead suggest a role in how on-going thought is represented.

Self-Reference Effect and Self-Reference Recollection Effect for Trait Adjectives in Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment

Objectives: The self-reference effect (SRE), enhanced memory for self-related information, has been studied in healthy young and older adults but has had little investigation in people with age-related memory disorders, such as amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI). Self-referential encoding may help to improve episodic memory in aMCI. Additionally, self-referential processing has been shown to benefit recollection, the vivid re-experiencing of past events, a phenomenon that has been termed the self-reference recollection effect (SRRE; Conway & Dewhurst, 1995). Furthermore, it remains unclear whether the valence of stimuli influences the appearance of the SRE and SRRE. Methods: The current study investigated the SRE and SRRE for trait adjective words in 20 individuals with aMCI and 30 healthy older adult controls. Ninety trait adjective words were allocated to self-reference, semantic, or structural encoding conditions; memory was later tested using a recognition test. Results: While healthy older adults showed a SRE, individuals with aMCI did not benefit from self-referential encoding over and above that of semantic encoding (an effect of “deep encoding”). A similar pattern was apparent for the SRRE; healthy controls showed enhanced recollection for words encoded in the self-reference condition, while the aMCI group did not show specific benefit to recollection for self-referenced over semantically encoded items. No effects of valence were found. Conclusions: These results indicate that while memory for trait adjective words can be improved in aMCI with deep encoding strategies (whether self-reference or semantic), self-referencing does not provide an additional benefit. (JINS, 2018, 24, 821–832)

Self‐gender schemata and the processing of social information

Previous research has found that subjects possessing a self‐gender schema in line with gender stereotypes (i.e. sex‐typed individuals) are quicker than non‐sex‐typed subjects in deciding whether a stereotypically masculine or feminine trait adjective is self‐descriptive or not. The results of memory tasks are more contradictory. In this study we have supposed that gender‐schematic subjects can most effectively process gender‐linked information even if it does not relate to the self. More specifically, we hypothesized (a) that sex‐typed subjects are quicker than non‐sex‐typed subjects in deciding whether a trait adjective can be better attributed to men or women and (b) that they recall a greater number of masculine and feminine adjectives and have greater gender‐based clustering indices compared with non‐sex‐typed individuals. Subjects previously identified as Sex‐typed, Androgynous, Indifferentiated, and Cross‐sex‐typed were presented with adjectives referring to stereotypic masculine and feminine traits. The results showed that sex‐typed subjects, regardless of their sex, were faster than the other groups in deciding whether a certain trait applied more to a man than to a woman. No significant differences between the groups of subjects were found as to the number of masculine and feminine items being correctly recalled or to gender‐based clustering indices.

On the spontaneity of behaviour categorization and its implications for personality measurement

In the present study 36 university students were asked to read behaviour‐descriptive sentences either under memory instructions or under behaviour‐categorization instructions. It was demonstrated that after reading sentences under memory instructions sentence recall cued by a corresponding trait adjective was better than sentence recall cued by a strong semantic associate of a sentence part. This was found despite the fact that no actors were mentioned in the sentences. This result suggests that the spontaneous encoding of sentences in trait terms during the first stage of processing behavioural information has to be interpreted as the categorization of actions rather than as the attribution of traits to actors. This categorization of a behaviour is less pronounced when it occurs spontaneously than when explicit instructions are given to do so. The impact of the occurrence of spontaneous behaviour categorization on memory‐based seq‐ or other ratings with concrete behaviour‐descriptive items is discussed.