Paying less but harvesting more:the effect of unconscious acceptance in regulating frustrating emotion

Previous studies indicate that emotion regulation may occur unconsciously, without the cost of cognitive effort, while conscious acceptance may enhance negative experiences despite having potential long-term health benefits. Thus, it is important to overcome this weakness to boost the efficacy of the acceptance strategy in negative emotion regulation. As unconscious regulation occurs with little cost of cognitive resources, the current study hypothesizes that unconscious acceptance regulates the emotional consequence of negative events more effectively than does conscious acceptance. Subjects were randomly assigned to conscious acceptance, unconscious acceptance and no-regulation conditions. A frustrating arithmetic task was used to induce negative emotion. Emotional experiences were assessed on the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale while emotion-related physiological activation was assessed by heart-rate reactivity. Results showed that conscious acceptance had a significant negative affective consequence, which was absent during unconscious acceptance. That is, unconscious acceptance was linked with little reduction of positive affect during the experience of frustration, while this reduction was prominent in the control and conscious acceptance groups. Instructed, conscious acceptance resulted in a greater reduction of positive affect than found for the control group. In addition, both conscious and unconscious acceptance strategies significantly decreased emotion-related heart-rate activity(to a similar extent) in comparison with the control condition. Moreover, heart-rate reactivity was positively correlated with negative affect and negatively correlated with positive affect during the frustration phase relative to the baseline phase, in both the control and unconscious acceptance groups. Thus, unconscious acceptance not only reduces emotion-related physiological activity but also better protects mood stability compared with conscious acceptance. This suggests that the clinical practice of acceptance therapy may need to consider using the unconscious priming of an accepting attitude, instead of intentionally instructing people to implement such a strategy, to boost the efficacy of acceptance in emotion regulation.     

Your unconscious knows your name

One''s own name constitutes a unique part of conscious awareness – but does this also hold true for unconscious processing? The present study shows that the own name has the power to bias a person''s actions unconsciously even in conditions that render any other name ineffective. Participants judged whether a letter string on the screen was a name or a non-word while this target stimulus was preceded by a masked prime stimulus. Crucially, the participant''s own name was among these prime stimuli and facilitated reactions to following name targets whereas the name of another, yoked participant did not. Signal detection results confirmed that participants were not aware of any of the prime stimuli, including their own name. These results extend traditional findings on “breakthrough” phenomena of personally relevant stimuli to the domain of unconscious processing. Thus, the brain seems to possess adroit mechanisms to identify and process such stimuli even in the absence of conscious awareness.     

The Merits of Unconscious Thought in Rule Detection

According to unconscious thought theory (UTT), unconscious thought is more adept at complex decision-making than is conscious thought. Related research has mainly focused on the complexity of decision-making tasks as determined by the amount of information provided. However, the complexity of the rules generating this information also influences decision making. Therefore, we examined whether unconscious thought facilitates the detection of rules during a complex decision-making task. Participants were presented with two types of letter strings. One type matched a grammatical rule, while the other did not. Participants were then divided into three groups according to whether they made decisions using conscious thought, unconscious thought, or immediate decision. The results demonstrated that the unconscious thought group was more accurate in identifying letter strings that conformed to the grammatical rule than were the conscious thought and immediate decision groups. Moreover, performance of the conscious thought and immediate decision groups was similar. We conclude that unconscious thought facilitates the detection of complex rules, which is consistent with UTT.     

无意识接受策略在挫折情景下的情绪调节效应:行为与生理证据

由于无意识调节过程具有节省认知资源的特征,本研究假设无意识接受策略相比有意识接受策略能更加有效地调控负性事件的情绪影响.实验以挫折任务诱发负面情绪同时记录被试的主观情绪体验与情绪相关的生理变化(心率).被试被随机分为控制组、有意识接受组和无意识接受组.结果显示,无意识接受组和有意识接受组在情绪体验上存在显著差异:在挫折诱发阶段有意识接受组比无意识接受组出现了更多正性情绪指标的下降.此外,相对于控制组,挫折情景下有意识接受和无意识接受都显著降低了被试情绪相关的心率活动水平;但两者的调节水平无显著差异.并且,心率活动水平可预测主观情绪体验强度:控制组的心率变化值与负性情绪变化值存在正相关关系,与正性情绪指标变化值存在负相关趋势.因此,在挫折情景下,无意识接受策略不仅能有效降低情绪相关的生理活动水平,且相比有意识接受策略对主观情绪体验具有更好的调节效果.这提示,无意识接受策略对于现实生活中的情绪调节具有重要启示意义.     

Infertility,abortion, and biotechnology

Patterns of reproductive failure described in humans and other mammals suggest that reproductive failure may in many instances be the result of adaptations evolved to suppress reproduction under temporarily harsh conditions. By suppressing reproduction under such conditions, females are able to conserve their time and energy for reproductive opportunities in which reproduction is most likely to succeed. Such adaptations have been particularly important for female mammals, given (a) the amount of time and energy that reproduction requires, and (b) the degree to which reproductive conditions can vary. The existence of conscious and unconscious mechanisms to suppress reproduction under poor conditions has several implications for obstetric/gynecologic practices. Two implications are discussed with reference to biotechnological advancements in our ability to facilitate conceptions and manage problem pregnancies: (a) potential dangers of sophisticated technologies overriding natural fertility controls; and (b) the need for greater appreciation of the association between psychosocial stress and reproductive failure in the treatment of reproductive problems. Implications for elective abortion practices are discussed as well. The ideas for this paper were developed while the author was a recipient of a Career Development Award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Dr. Wasser received a B.S. degree of Zoology from Michigan State University in 1975, a Masters of Science in Zoology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1976, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Washington in 1981. He is co-director of the Animal Behavior Research Unit, a long-term study on the behavioral ecology and reproduction of free-ranging yellow baboons at Mikumi National Park, Tanzania. Dr. Wasser’s primary research focus is on the evolution of reproductive strategies in female mammals. His work includes research on human infertility and abortion. He is also working on the breeding of endangered species in captivity under a Research Development Award from the National Zoological Park of the Smithsonian Institution.     

Development of skill of children in the performance of the family computer game "Super Mario Brothers".

The development of skill of children in the performance of a family computer game (Super Mario Brothers) was investigated among three groups of different age: kindergarten children (6 years old) and primary school children (9 and 12 years old). The skill to perform the game with either hand was evaluated by the mean scores gained by the children. In the normal (right and dominant) situation, the mean score improved significantly with advancement of age. Similar was true in the reversed (left hand dominant) situation, but more distinctly. The mean scores were significantly higher in the normal than in the reversed situations. The experienced children were superior to the inexperienced children in playing the game. The correlation between the reaction time and the game score was also investigated with the same subjects for the 9- and 12-year-old school children. Almost no correlation could be elucidated.     

Large-Scale Information Flow in Conscious and Unconscious States: an ECoG Study in Monkeys

Consciousness is an emergent property of the complex brain network. In order to understand how consciousness is constructed, neural interactions within this network must be elucidated. Previous studies have shown that specific neural interactions between the thalamus and frontoparietal cortices; frontal and parietal cortices; and parietal and temporal cortices are correlated with levels of consciousness. However, due to technical limitations, the network underlying consciousness has not been investigated in terms of large-scale interactions with high temporal and spectral resolution. In this study, we recorded neural activity with dense electrocorticogram (ECoG) arrays and used the spectral Granger causality to generate a more comprehensive network that relates to consciousness in monkeys. We found that neural interactions were significantly different between conscious and unconscious states in all combinations of cortical region pairs. Furthermore, the difference in neural interactions between conscious and unconscious states could be represented in 4 frequency-specific large-scale networks with unique interaction patterns: 2 networks were related to consciousness and showed peaks in alpha and beta bands, while the other 2 networks were related to unconsciousness and showed peaks in theta and gamma bands. Moreover, networks in the unconscious state were shared amongst 3 different unconscious conditions, which were induced either by ketamine and medetomidine, propofol, or sleep. Our results provide a novel picture that the difference between conscious and unconscious states is characterized by a switch in frequency-specific modes of large-scale communications across the entire cortex, rather than the cessation of interactions between specific cortical regions.     

The mathematical biophysics of some mental phenomena

In this paper some aspects of the mathematical biophysics of the central nervous system, which hitherto have not been treated, are discussed. First, a neurobiophysical mechanism for consciousness is suggested. It provides for the possibility of conscious and unconscious rractions. Next, a mechanism of memory, both on the conscious and subconscious level, is suggested. The gradual forgetting of remote events is ascribed to the inhibition of older memory traces by the more recent ones. On the average, an exponential decay of memory with time is thus obtained, although memory for unusually strong experiences follows a somewhat different law of decay. A homeostatic mechanism is then considered which regulates the level of accumulated excitation or inhibition. Such a mechanism, under certain disturbing conditions, will result in periodical fluctuations of the total cortical excitation with periods varying within a very wide range. Finally, a mechanism for foresight and desire of future events is suggested. The latter provides for the possibility of the formation of subconscious reactions and habits, which may be abolished by bringing them into consciousness.     

Instruments of Judgment: Inscribing Organic Processes in Late Eighteenth-Century Germany

The paper argues for the importance to Kant's critique of judgment of epistemological reflections upon the problematics of experimentation on organic processes. It examines the investigations of generation by Wolff and Blumenbach, demonstrating how their experimental practices mediated reflectively between organic phenomena and their conceptualisation, acting as instruments of their judgments of these processes. It then reads Kant's ‘Kritik der teleologischen Urteilskraft’ in light of these experimental investigations, arguing that Kant highlights how the problematic relation between organic phenomena and their conceptualisation manifested in such investigations is opened up as a space for reflection, thus making this act of judgment conscious. The relation between Kant's critiques of judgment in his first and third critiques are then discussed, and it is argued that the reflective character of judgment highlighted in the judgment of organic processes draws into focus the problematic aspects of all judgments of natural phenomena, by making conscious the synthetic process of judgment effected by unconscious acts of the imagination in the first critique. Finally, the paper examines Humboldt's galvanic experiments, showing how they were informed by Kant's critical philosophy, but also how they contributed to the blurring of the boundaries between the judgment of organic and inorganic processes. Thus it is claimed that the reflections upon judgment in the Kritik der Urteilskraft problematized rather than clarified Kant's treatment of judgment in the first critique.     

Sensorimotor Reactivity of Children Living in a Radionuclide-Contaminated Zone

Schoolchildren aged 8 to 13 years were examined in Gomel. The children's sensorimotor reaction to light and acoustic stimuli is characterized with regard for their age and sex on the basis of the latency of sensorimotor reactions (LSMR), which shortened significantly with age in children of either sex. This developed unevenly in the children examined, as may be seen from the quite broad ranges of the LSMR fluctuation in each age group. The boys had a stronger sensorimotor reaction to both light and acoustic stimuli than the girls. At the same time, both the boys and the girls reacted to the acoustic stimulus more actively than to the light stimulus.     

The flexible nature of unconscious cognition

The cognitive signature of unconscious processes is hotly debated recently. Generally, consciousness is thought to mediate flexible, adaptive and goal-directed behavior, but in the last decade unconscious processing has rapidly gained ground on traditional conscious territory. In this study we demonstrate that the scope and impact of unconscious information on behavior and brain activity can be modulated dynamically on a trial-by-trial basis. Participants performed a Go/No-Go experiment in which an unconscious (masked) stimulus preceding a conscious target could be associated with either a Go or No-Go response. Importantly, the mapping of stimuli onto these actions varied on a trial-by-trial basis, preventing the formation of stable associations and hence the possibility that unconscious stimuli automatically activate these control actions. By eliminating stimulus-response associations established through practice we demonstrate that unconscious information can be processed in a flexible and adaptive manner. In this experiment we show that the same unconscious stimulus can have a substantially different effect on behavior and (prefrontal) brain activity depending on the rapidly changing task context in which it is presented. This work suggests that unconscious information processing shares many sophisticated characteristics (including flexibility and context-specificity) with its conscious counterpart.     

Darwin's artificial selection analogy and the generic character of "phyletic" evolution

This paper examines the way Charles Darwin applied his domestic breeding analogy to the practical workings of species evolution: that application, it is argued, centered on Darwin's distinction between methodical and unconscious selection. Methodical selection, which entailed pairing particular individuals for mating purposes, represented conditions of strict geographic isolation, obviously useful for species multiplication (speciation). By contrast, unconscious selection represented an open landmass with a large breeding population. Yet Darwin held that this latter scenario, which often would include multiple ecological subdistricts and thus partial isolation, was better suited for speciation than were isolated conditions. At the same time, many passages in Darwin's writings that apparently portrayedphyletic evolution exclusively (these including references to unconscious selection), actually applied to speciation as well, for phyletic change in a single district could constitute a local manifestation of a larger common-descent pattern. This generic use of "phyletic" change was reflected in Darwin's deployment of the unconscious selection analogy in his published writings as well as in his dispute with Moritz Wagner over the necessity of geographic isolation for speciation. We can thus understand Darwin's otherwise puzzling declaration in The Origin of Species that unconscious selection was 'more important' than the methodical approach.     

Characteristics and trends in the development of an epidemic process of Sonne and Flexner dysentery among preschool children

The results of studies indicate that the morbidity rates of dysentery among children attending preschool institutions and children brought up at home converged in recent years. This phenomenon was most pronounced among children of the kindergarten age group. At the same time dysentery caused by Sh. sonnei and Sh. flexnery produced a higher morbidity rate among children attending nursery in comparison with that among children of the same age group brought up at home. Group infections in preschool institutions were caused by Sh. sonnei in 89.1% of cases and by Sh. flexneri in 10.9% of cases. Outbreaks due to the transfer of infection through everyday contacts were observed only in dysentery caused by Sh. sonnei, constituting 71.4% of the total number of dysentery outbreaks.     

The Divergent Effects of Fear and Disgust on Inhibitory Control: An ERP Study

Negative emotional stimuli have been shown to attract attention and impair executive control. However, two different types of unpleasant stimuli, fearful and disgusting, are often inappropriately treated as a single category in the literature on inhibitory control. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the divergent effects of fearful and disgusting distracters on inhibitory control (both conscious and unconscious inhibition). Specifically, participants were engaged in a masked Go/No-Go task superimposed on fearful, disgusting, or neutral emotional contexts, while event-related potentials were measured concurrently. The results showed that for both conscious and unconscious conditions, disgusting stimuli elicited a larger P2 than fearful ones, and the difference waves of P3 amplitude under disgusting contexts were smaller than that under fearful contexts. These results suggest that disgusting distracters consume more attentional resources and therefore impair subsequent inhibitory control to a greater extent. This study is the first to provide electrophysiological evidence that fear and disgust differently affect inhibitory control. These results expand our understanding of the relationship between emotions and inhibitory control.     

Classical and quantum dynamics on p-adic trees of ideas

We propose mathematical models of information processes of unconscious and conscious thinking (based on p-adic number representation of mental spaces). Unconscious thinking is described by classical cognitive mechanics (which generalizes Newton's mechanics). Conscious thinking is described by quantum cognitive mechanics (which generalizes the pilot wave model of quantum mechanics). The information state and motivation of a conscious cognitive system evolve under the action of classical information forces and a new quantum information force, namely, conscious force. Our model might provide mathematical foundations for some cognitive and psychological phenomena: collective conscious behavior, connection between physiological and mental processes in a biological organism, Freud's psychoanalysis, hypnotism, homeopathy. It may be used as the basis of a model of conscious evolution of life.     

The significance of the thalamic parafascicular complex in tracking processes in cats

In conditions of free behaviour, trace processes of various complexity degrees (conditioned reflexes to time, temporal prognostication and delayed behaviour) were studied in cats in norm and following electrolytic destruction of some thalamic structures. It has been shown that parafascicular nuclei of the cat thalamus take part in the control of temporal reactions characteristics, and the thalamus median centre provides for generalization function proceeding on the basis of complicated trace phenomena connected with events prognostication.     

Education Is Life Itself: Biological Evolution as a Model for Human Learning

Schooling often rests uneasily on presumed dichotomies between coverage and inquiry, skill development, and creativity. By drawing on the often under-recognized parallels between biological evolution and human learning, this essay argues that formal education needs and ought not to forego the unconscious exploratory processes of informal learning. Rather than posit as natural the cultural story that formal schooling must prepare students to integrate with given cultures and foreknowable futures, the evolutionary perspective shows that education is better thought of as preparing students to create cultures and to change, and foster change, in relation to unknown futures. The properties that distinguish formal from informal learning—conscious reflection and a degree of collective consensus about what constitutes knowledge at any given time—are, we argue, useful not as ends in themselves, but as tools for maximizing, sharing, and extending unconscious, evolutionary learning. Working with them as such offers a way out of some of education’s persistent problems. Two autobiographical case studies provide examples of these evolutionary changes and indicate pathways of inquiry by which to pursue them.     

Epidemic of mumps in a partially immune population.

The incidence of mumps in vaccinated and nonvaccinated schoolchildren was studied after a recent epidemic. Information was collected by telephone interviews with the parents and a review of the physicians'' records. The vaccine appeared to be effective, for the incidence of mumps in the 145 vaccinated children--5.5%, or 8 cases--was significantly less (P less than 0.001) than the incidence in the 350 children considered susceptible to infection--21.7%, or 76 cases. The percentage of children who had been immunized decreased with increasing age, and acquisition of immunity through natural infection had the reverse trend; thus, the proportions of children susceptible to infection in each age group were about the same, and the age-specific attack rates were similar. Although the mothers were accurate in indicating absence of vaccination, they incorrectly indicated vaccination of their children 43.0% of the time; this error in reporting could influence vaccine administration in older children. Our findings suggest that mumps vaccination may substitute for natural illness in immunizing populations, and that more extensive use of the vaccine over a broader age range is required to prevent similar epidemics in the future.     

Age at first reproduction in male fallow deer: age-specific versus dominance-specific behaviors

The argument that an optimal age at first reproduction evolveswhere the benefits of reproduction outweigh the costs impliesthat where conditions change, age at first reproduction shouldalso change. We studied six captive populations of fallow deer(Dama dama) that differed in the age structure of males, maledensity, and sex ratio. We examined responses of males to changesin competition by simulating the presence of additional malesby providing visual, olfactory, and auditory stimuli. Our resultssuggest that dominance rank was the most important factor indetermining the level of reproductive behaviors exhibited. Theparticipation in reproduction increased with dominance status,and this association held for males that are usually sociallyimmature (3-5 years old). Hence, age apart from dominance wasrelatively unimportant in affecting the reproductive behavior.Male density was positively correlated with the time spent walkingand standing The female-to-male ratio was positively relatedto male-female interactions, but negatively related to male-maleinteractions. In response to the simulations, males older than3 years increased the rate of reproductive behaviors, but youngermales did not change or decreased the rate. We conclude thatonly males up to 3 years of age refrained from reproductionunder competition by mature males. However, past 3 years ofage, investment in reproduction is a function of dominance ratherthan a function bf age. This implies that 4- and 5-year-oldmales do not seems to defer reproduction until socially maturebut that their participation is a correlate of the achievabledominance rank.     

Longevity and the costs of reproduction in a historical human population

It has been argued that the priority that natural selection places on reproduction negatively affects other processes such as longevity and the problem posed by this trade-off underlies the disposable soma theory for the evolution of human ageing. Here we examine the relationship between reproduction and longevity in a historical human population (the Krummh?rn, north-west Germany 1720-1870). In our initial analyses, we found no support for the hypothesized negative effects of reproduction on longevity: married women who remained childless lived no longer than women who reproduced and women who had few children lived no longer than women who had many children. However, more detailed analyses in relation to socio-economic class revealed that the extent to which reproduction has an effect on longevity is a function of the level of economic deprivation. We found that, when possible sources of confound were controlled for (e.g. duration of marriage and amount of time spent in fecund marriage), there is an increasingly strong relationship between longevity and reproduction with increasing poverty.