Objectives: This study intended to examine the effectiveness of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy on moderating maladaptive schemas and affective control in students suffering from learning disabilities. Methods: This experimental research was conducted using pretest-posttest and a control group. The population included all the female students who  were studying in the Koohdasht's mid...

Although the prevailing opinion is that emotional processes are influenced by sex hormones, the literature is still inconclusive. The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of gonadal suppression on brain activity during affective picture processing. Twenty-one female-to-male (FtM) transsexuals and 19 control women were recruited and underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging ...

This study attempts to understand how website interactivity (level of active control and direction of communication) can impact purchase intention through consumer involvement. The product type featured on the website is a moderating factor in the effects of interactivity. In a laboratory experiment, subjects were asked to perform purchasing tasks of non-fictional books or greeting cards on web...

The cognitive control theory of Botvinick, Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 7, 356-366 (2007) integrates cognitive and affective control processes by emphasizing the aversive nature of cognitive conflict. Using an affective priming paradigm, we replicate earlier results showing that incongruent trials, relative to congruent trials, are indeed perceived as more aversive (Dreisbac...

The effect of mindfulness meditation (MM) on attentional control in emotional contexts was examined. In Study 1, MM practitioners (N = 28) categorized tones presented 1 or 4 s following the onset of affective pictures. Reaction times (RTs) to tones for affective minus neutral pictures provided an index of emotional interference. Participants with more MM experience showed less interference from...

Dual process models of moral judgment propose that such judgments are produced by interacting neural systems: a controlled cognitive system and an automatic affective system. Individual differences in moral judgment may therefore arise from variation in cognitive control ability and/or from variation in affective sensitivity. Previous research indicates that individual differences in cognitive ...

We present a research strategy to study the effects of various components in an agent architecture (e.g., feedback circuits that can implement various control states) on the dynamics of species interactions in a simulated environment. In particular, we discuss the consequences of behaviors elicited by affective states (like “hunger” or “fear”) for whole agent societies. Construing affective phe...

We study whether exposure to poverty can induce affective states that decrease productivity. In a controlled laboratory setting, we find that subjects randomly assigned to a treatment, in which they view a video featuring individuals that live in extreme poverty, exhibit lower subsequent productivity compared to subjects assigned to a control treatment. Questionnaire responses, as well as facia...

The therapeutic effect of lithium in bipolar affective disorder may be connected with decreasing intracellular Ca(2+) concentrations. Several linkage studies have identified a potential bipolar affective disorder susceptibility locus within chromosomal region 21q22.3. This locus contains two genes expressed in the brain - ADARB1 and TRPM2 - involved in regulating intracellular Ca(2+) concentrat...

Impairments in executive function and cognitive control are a common feature of neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders. A promising behavioral paradigm for elucidating the neural mechanisms of executive function is extradimensional/intradimensional (ED/ID) shifting, which places demands on executive function by requiring the adjustment of behavioral responses based on affective or att...