This paper proposes a theory of how conscious emotional experience is produced by the brain as the result of many interacting brain areas coordinated in working memory. These brain areas integrate perceptions of bodily states of an organism with cognitive appraisals of its current situation. Emotions are neural processes that represent the overall cognitive and somatic state of the organism. Co...

Stress is a strong modulator of memory function. However, memory is not a unitary process and stress seems to exert different effects depending on the memory type under study. Here, we explored the impact of social stress on different aspects of human memory, including tests for explicit memory and working memory (for neutral materials), as well as implicit memory (perceptual priming, contextua...

A dual task of attachment priming and memory recognition was proposed to explore the effect of adult attachment styles on the incidental memory for emotional words. Subjects completed an attachment priming task which intends to activate internal working model of attachment by describing attachment-related scenes, and then an incidental memory recognition test of words which differ in emotional ...

1305 Emotional Distractibility during Sleep Deprivation—Chuah et al EMOTION IS A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD THAT CAN ENHANCE1-3 OR HINDER COGNITION,4-6 DEPENDING ON THE CONTEXT IN WHICH EMOTIONAL STIMULI are encountered. The emotive content of pictures may enhance our attention and memory, particularly when task-relevant.7-9 However, task-irrelevant, emotion-laden stimuli are also potent distracters, o...

Emotional distracters impair cognitive function. Emotional processing is dysregulated in affective disorders such as depression, phobias, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Among the processes impaired by emotional distracters, and whose dysregulation is documented in affective disorders, is the ability to time in the seconds-to-minutes range, i.e., interval timing. Prese...

Working memory is a vital cognitive capacity without which meaningful thinking and logical reasoning would be impossible. Working memory is integrally dependent upon prefrontal cortex and it has been suggested that voluntary control of working memory, enabling sustained emotion inhibition, was the crucial step in the evolution of modern humans. Consistent with this, recent fMRI studies suggest ...

Empathic deficits have been linked to poor functioning in schizophrenia, but this work is mostly limited to self-report data. This study examined whether performance-based empathy measures account for incremental variance in social competence and social attainment above and beyond self-reported empathy, neurocognition, and clinical symptoms. Given the importance of working memory in theoretical...

objective(s): there is controversial evidence about the effect of methamphetamine (meth) on spatial memory. we tested the time- dependent effects of meth on spatial short-term (working) and long-term (reference) memory in meth –sensitized and withdrawn rats in the morris water maze. materials and methods: rats were sensitized to meth (2 mg/kg, daily/5 days, sc). rats were trained in water maze ...