No description available.

De exekutiva förmågorna möjliggör avancerade kognitiva processer. Prokrastination är vår benägenhet att fördröja en planerad handling trots att fördröjningen förvärrar situationen. Denna uppsats har utforskat om det finns ett konceptuellt samband mellan konstrukten. Orsaken till prokrastinaton tros hänga samman med bristande självreglering som är sammanlänkat med de exekutiva förmågorna. Det finns ett glapp mellan intentionen och handlandet hos de som prokrastinerar. Impulsivitet tycks ligga bakom denna skillnad. Prokrastinerande individer väljer det njutningsfulla i stunden framför långsiktiga fördelar. Indikationer tyder på att de hämmande mekanismerna inom de exekutiva förmågorna inverkar i reglerandet av impulsiviteten. Individer med högre förmåga att hämma impulser är bättre på att följa sina intentioner. Direkta studier mellan de exekutiva förmågorna och prokrastination behövs för att stärka kausala samband.

Deception has long been of interest to humans, but only recently has the neuroscience of deception started. Similarly, lie-detection, as an applied aspect of the study of deception, has long been studied but only with the advent of imaging techniques and the development of the neuroscience of deception has it become possible to develop techniques based on scanningour brains. Currently, both areas suffer from methodological and philosophical problems. As an applied science fMRI lie-detection has greater issues to deal with, specifically legal and ethical issues. Despite interesting results, implicating frontal regions as the neural correlates of deception, the neuroscience of deception need better designs and more study to be able to draw any general inferences. By its nature fMRI lie-detection suffers greatly from this, and additional problems concerning privacy and legality make it seem too early to implement it incourt or anywhere, as stated by many scientists. On the other hand the technology already exists and is likely to be used.

This thesis reviews both psychological and neural research in the fields of self-evaluation, self-views and self-enhancement bias. The research has made associations to grandiosity and need for admiration, which are two of the defining characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder. Neural correlates associated with this research are the medial prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, posteromedial cortex and anterior insula. Narcissists have been seen to have a decreased form of emotional empathy even though they rate themselves to have higher emotional empathy than they actually have, which is linked to self-enhancement bias and grandiosity. Alexithymia has not gained much attention in relation to narcissism, but research presented suggests that this might need to change. Neural correlates that are associated with lack of emotional empathy and alexithymia are the anterior insula, frontoparalimbic areas and the medial prefrontal cortex. Narcissistic personality disorder is in the DSM-5 specified to be defined by a grandiose sense of self, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy in either fantasy or behavior. However according to researchers in the field this only covers a part of the spectrum of narcissism. Deficits in the DSM-5 will he highlighted, as well as suggestions on what to do in order to help clarify the definition in DSM-5 and the concept in general.

Dreams play an important role in consciousness studies, because of their ubiquitous presence but ambiguous nature. Dreams can be divided into two categories: non-lucid dreams and lucid dreams (i.e., dreams in which the dreamer knows he is dreaming). Lucid dreams are experiences with features of both waking and dreaming consciousness. In this essay, I review the differences in neural correlates between non-lucid dreams and lucid dreams. While both types of dreams share similar neural substrates, lucid dreams are especially accompanied by more activation in prefrontal areas. These areas are known to be involved in functions of secondary consciousness such as metacognition and volition. These findings are also echoed by verbal reports from lucid dreams. While the relationship metacognition and volition and lucid dreams is not yet fully clear, it seems that increased activation of metacognition and volition cause the dreamer to realize he is dreaming. Based on previous literature, I offer a conceptualization of dreams, in which a continuous variable, lucidity, can measure the degree to which metacognition and volition vary across dream types. I suggest that the transition between non-lucid and lucid dreams is a two-step process. The implications of this are discussed.

The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) component associated with increased affective processing which seems to strongly respond to threats and to be sensitive to emotional faces. Some studies indicate that the LPP is modulated by anxiety symptoms, while others fail to find support for these observations. The facial width-to-height ratio (FWHR) is a facial-masculinity metric that refers to cheekbone width, divided by upper facial height (top of the lip to between the brows). Consequently, FWHR has by some researchers been proposed to serve as a cue of threat. For example, high FWHR and diverse emotional faces (e.g., angry faces) are perceived as more threatening than low FWHR faces. Individuals with social anxiety are thought to be biased towards the threat. The literature has indicated that high FWHR faces in combination with angry facial expression can elicit larger LPPs compared to low FWHR and neutral faces. The current experiment investigated subjective ratings in addition to the LPP in response to high and low FWHR faces in combination with an angry and neutral expression, to examine how different facial morphology and affective cues influence the perception of threat to individuals with high social anxiety. This data, in combination, suggests that high FWHR is a salient threat-related social stimulus that might have a firm influence on the perception of other peoples’ faces. Initial results do not support a significant relationship between increased LPP modulation in individuals with high social anxiety compared to individuals with low social anxiety. However, it opens up for discussion regarding how social anxiety should be approached in future LPP research.

Visual art is important for humans. Most people have an interest in visiting art museums, and they spend both time and money on artworks. Appreciating visual art can have an effect on several psychological states, such as pleasure, emotions of wonder, awe, and the sublime. However, the question of what constitutes an aesthetic experience and what mechanisms that are involved in experiencing visual art, are still not fully understood. The discipline neuroaesthetics, which is a subfield of cognitive neuroscience, investigates the biology behind aesthetic experience and aesthetic appreciation. The aim of this thesis is to give an overview of the neural processes involved in experiencing visual art, and to explore how it could be related to components of emotional well-being. As such, neuroimaging studies addressing aesthetic experience and emotional processing are reviewed and discussed. This thesis found a relationship between the neural processes that operate behind a broad range of positive valanced emotions and aesthetic experience. The findings show that experiencing visual art that are aesthetically appreciated by the viewer, induces feelings of hedonic niceness or pleasant well-being and is associated with increased activity in the reward circuit. How aesthetic appreciation affects our emotional and cognitive states respectively and enhances our physiological and psychological well-being remains to be investigated. Understanding the underlying neurobiological processes involved when experiencing visual art is important due to its implications on positive health and well-being.

Studies exploring the neural correlates of the emotion regulation strategy called cognitive change (reappraisal) have been thoroughly discussed and synthesized. This is not the case for another emotion regulation strategy called response modulation. The aim of this thesis was to conduct a systematic review on the neural correlates of one specific emotion regulation technique in response modulation, called expressive suppression. Expressive suppression is the inhibition of emotion expressive behavior. Using a systematic search, screening, and selection process, out of the initial 557 articles eight studies were included for data extraction and discussion. The studies exposed participants to negative emotion-inducing stimuli and instructed participants to either suppress their emotional behavior or to watch the stimuli without regulating the emotion. All studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Expressive suppression yielded increased activation in frontal and parietal regions, especially in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and bilateral inferior parietal cortex, compared to a non-regulation condition. Results of amygdala activation were inconsistent with different studies showing an increase, decrease, or no difference in activation during expressive suppression versus the non-regulation contrast condition. The thesis ends with a discussion of methodological issues and future directions.

Video games as an entertainment form are very popular. Understanding what video games do to us in a long-term and short-term manner is therefore of interest. Attention is a widely studied field and research into how attentional networks are affected by video is a research field on the rise. Here, I will be investigating how video game play affects our attentional networks and if it is possible for elderly individuals to train their attentional networks with video games. Video game players have high performance in reaction time and accuracy in different attentional, working memory, and cognitive control tasks. As the difficulty of video games increase video game players seem to more efficiently utilize their attentional networks. Whilst some articles cannot replicate findings in other articles this irregularity might be explained with by level of difficulty or load during task performance. Studies see group differences only when the task difficulty is high. Therefore, an important part of video game research is to find an effective and replicable standard for video game research. Measuring video game play with EEG shows that players better can forgo distracting stimuli in central and peripheral view and discriminating stimuli giving video game players more confidence when making decisions. Video game players also seem to have more efficient processes and functional connectivity in attentional networks but utilizing these networks more as non-video game players as mental load increases. Not only does video game players have more efficient attentional networks, but attentional benefits from video games is also something that can be trained with those who do not play video games. Suggesting that older individuals can utilize video games to train attentional networks.

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is characterized by hyperactivity, impulsive behavior, and excessive in attention. The diagnosis is divided into different types of ADHD depending on the symptoms. A single cause for the diagnosis has not been found; therefore, various models exist. When choosing between an immediate smaller reward and a later larger reward, ADHD-diagnosed individuals often choose the immediate smaller reward, termed choice impulsivity (CI). Several models have tried to explain this phenomenon. One theory argues that the subjective value of the reward diminishes when the reward is moved furtheraway in time. Others claim that it is a deficit in inhibitory-based executive dysfunction and that ADHD individuals cannot suppress the drive and resist the temptation of the earlier reward. The delay aversion model argues that it is a motivational problem with an abnormality in the reward mechanism making the patients hypersensitive to delayed rewards. The negative affective state that evokes from the delayed rewards makes them want to escape or avoid it and therefore choose the small, immediate reward. The insula and the amygdala mediate both negative and positive emotional processes in the brain and are candidates for this phenomenon. In this systematic review, four scientific studies were selected and included to investigate if the insula and amygdala are the primary CI candidates in ADHD-diagnosed individuals. The systematic review results support the idea that the amygdala correlates with CI in ADHD-diagnosed individuals, therefore supporting the delay aversion model theory of ADHD. A correlation between insula and CI in ADHD-diagnosed individuals could not be established in this systematic review. Understanding the role that emotional structures have in ADHD can help to develop interventions or therapy to cope with the disadvantaged features of ADHD.