Just do it: A neuropsychological theory of agency, cognition, mood, and dopamine.

Agency is the sense that one has control over one's own actions and the consequences of those actions. Despite the critical role that agency plays in the human condition, little is known about its neural basis. A novel theory proposes that increases in agency disinhibit the dopamine system and thereby increase the number of tonically active dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area.

Dissociable feedback valence effects on frontal midline theta during reward gain versus threat avoidance learning.

While frontal midline theta (FMθ) has been associated with threat processing, with cognitive control in the context of anxiety, and with reinforcement learning, most reinforcement learning studies on FMθ have used reward rather than threat-related stimuli as reinforcer. Accordingly, the role of FMθ in threat-related reinforcement learning is largely unknown. Here, n = 23 human participants underwent one reward-, and one punishment-, based reversal learning task, which differed only with regard to the kind of reinforcers that feedback was tied to (i.

Extraversion and reward-processing: Consolidating evidence from an electroencephalographic index of reward-prediction-error.

Trait extraversion has been theorized to emerge from functioning of the dopaminergic reward system. Recent evidence for this view shows that extraversion modulates the scalp-recorded Reward Positivity, a putative marker of dopaminergic signaling of reward-prediction-error. We attempt to replicate this association amid several improvements on previous studies in this area, including an adequately-powered sample (N = 100) and thorough examination of convergent-divergent validity.

The effects of social anxiety on emotional face discrimination and its modulation by mouth salience.

People high in social anxiety experience fear of social situations due to the likelihood of social evaluation. Whereas happy faces are generally processed very quickly, this effect is impaired by high social anxiety. Mouth regions are implicated during emotional face processing, therefore differences in mouth salience might affect how social anxiety relates to emotional face discrimination.

Modeling dopaminergic and other processes involved in learning from reward prediction error: contributions from an individual differences perspective.

Phasic firing changes of midbrain dopamine neurons have been widely characterized as reflecting a reward prediction error (RPE). Major personality traits (e.g.

Individual differences in reward prediction error: contrasting relations between feedback-related negativity and trait measures of reward sensitivity, impulsivity and extraversion.

Medial-frontal negativity occurring ∼200-300 ms post-stimulus in response to motivationally salient stimuli, usually referred to as feedback-related negativity (FRN), appears to be at least partly modulated by dopaminergic-based reward prediction error (RPE) signaling. Previous research (e.g.

Measuring belief in conspiracy theories: the generic conspiracist beliefs scale.

The psychology of conspiracy theory beliefs is not yet well understood, although research indicates that there are stable individual differences in conspiracist ideation - individuals' general tendency to engage with conspiracy theories. Researchers have created several short self-report measures of conspiracist ideation. These measures largely consist of items referring to an assortment of prominent conspiracy theories regarding specific real-world events.

Aspects of cognitive functioning in schizotypy and schizophrenia: evidence for a continuum model.

This research consisted of two studies, the fundamental aim of which was to delineate the pattern of relationships between measures of cognitive task performance and both symptom subtypes in schizophrenia and their corresponding schizotypal personality traits in healthy individuals. Study 1 compared these relationships in healthy individuals using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) and Study 2 assessed the relationships between symptomatology assessed using the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms and Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SAPS/SANS) and cognitive task performance in a group of patients with schizophrenia. The contribution of fluid intelligence to task performance was also examined.

A facial expression for anxiety.

Anxiety and fear are often confounded in discussions of human emotions. However, studies of rodent defensive reactions under naturalistic conditions suggest anxiety is functionally distinct from fear. Unambiguous threats, such as predators, elicit flight from rodents (if an escape-route is available), whereas ambiguous threats (e.

Individual differences in cognitive-flexibility: the influence of spontaneous eyeblink rate, trait psychoticism and working memory on attentional set-shifting.

Individual differences in psychophysiological function have been shown to influence the balance between flexibility and distractibility during attentional set-shifting [e.g., Dreisbach et al.

Individual differences in reward-prediction-error: extraversion and feedback-related negativity.

Medial frontal scalp-recorded negativity occurring ∼200-300 ms post-stimulus [known as feedback-related negativity (FRN)] is attenuated following unpredicted reward and potentiated following unpredicted non-reward. This encourages the view that FRN may partly reflect dopaminergic 'reward-prediction-error' signalling. We examined the influence of a putatively dopamine-based personality trait, extraversion (N = 30), and a dopamine-related gene polymorphism, DRD2/ANKK1 (N = 24), on FRN during an associative reward-learning paradigm.

Do measures of schizotypal personality provide non-clinical analogues of schizophrenic symptomatology?

This study tested the assumption that measures of schizotypal personality provide non-clinical analogues of the heterogeneous symptomatology found in the schizophrenic disorder. The Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences (O-LIFE) was administered to schizophrenic patients and healthy controls, and measures of symptomatology from the Scale for the Assessment of Positive Symptoms (SAPS) and the Scale for the Assessment of Negative Symptoms (SANS) were assessed in the patient group. Schizophrenic patients scored significantly higher than controls on O-LIFE measures of positive, negative and disorganised schizotypy, while no difference in Impulsive Nonconformity was observed.

Variation in DRD2 dopamine gene predicts Extraverted personality.

Quantitative geneticists estimate the heritability of Extraverted personality to be around 40-60%. Theory and research which links Extraversion with variation in dopaminergic function suggests that dopaminergic genes should be a start-point for molecular genetic investigations of this trait. Recent endeavours in this area have met with some encouragement but also setbacks.

A note on DeCaro, Thomas, and Beilock (2008): further data demonstrate complexities in the assessment of information-integration category learning.

DeCaro et al. [DeCaro, M. S.

Associations between schizotypal personality traits and the facilitation and inhibition of the speed of contextually cued responses.

This study measured schizotypal personality traits in a sample of 33 healthy participants using the Oxford-Liverpool Inventory of Feelings and Experiences. These traits were correlated with measures of inhibition and facilitation of response times (RTs) within a cued letter-comparison task. It was expected that scores on a measure of positive schizotypy, reflecting unrealistically distorted perceptions and beliefs, would be negatively associated with inhibition of RTs to targets that were unexpected in the context of the preceding letter cue.

The new reinforcement sensitivity theory: implications for personality measurement.

In this article, we review recent modifications to Jeffrey Gray's (1973, 1991) reinforcement sensitivity theory (RST), and attempt to draw implications for psychometric measurement of personality traits. First, we consider Gray and McNaughton's (2000) functional revisions to the biobehavioral systems of RST. Second, we evaluate recent clarifications relating to interdependent effects that these systems may have on behavior, in addition to or in place of separable effects (e.

Disrupting feedback processing interferes with rule-based but not information-integration category learning.

The effect of a sequentially presented memory scanning task on rule-based and information-integration category learning was investigated. On each trial in the short feedback-processing time condition, memory scanning immediately followed categorization. On each trial in the long feedback-processing time condition, categorization was followed by a 2.

The partial reinforcement extinction effect in humans: effects of schizophrenia, schizotypy and low doses of amphetamine.

The partial reinforcement extinction effect (PREE) was studied in human subjects. It has been suggested that the PREE depends on neural mechanisms critical to the cognitive dysfunction which underlines acute schizophrenia. We therefore predicted that the PREE should be reduced, through decreased resistance to extinction in the partial reinforcement (PR) condition, in various types of individual: (a) healthy volunteers given low doses of oral amphetamine; (b) those in the acute (but not chronic) phase of a schizophrenic illness and; (c) healthy volunteers with high scores on personality measures of schizotypy.

Perceptual organization deficits in psychotic patients.

It has been proposed that a characteristic of schizophrenic processing is an abnormality of top-down processing. The relationship between impaired top-down processing and symptoms of reality distortion was investigated using a 'degraded interference' task. In this task, fragmented stimuli (Stroop words, control words and crosses) are presented on a computer screen, and the extent to which they are visually integrated is inferred by their interfering properties.

The relationship between cognitive inhibition and psychotic symptoms.

Cognitive models of schizophrenia have highlighted deficits of inhibitory attentional processes as central to the disorder. This has been investigated using "negative priming" (S. P.