Cognitive processes and emotion cue processing in introvertive anhedonia
Author
Skillicorn, Deiniol
Date
2010Type
Thesis
Publisher
University of Wales
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Executive cognitive processes and emotion cue processing was explored in introvertive
anhedonia, the O-LIFE’s negative schizotypal trait dimension, with the aim of identifying
endophenotypes. The experimental work of the thesis was conducted in three distinct
parts. The first two used reaction time tasks of selective attention to examine 1) the possibility of a general abnormality in executive cognitive functioning, and 2) the
possibility of an emotion cue processing abnormality. Results from these two parts
informed the development of the final experiment that used procedures adapted from
animal associative learning to examine the interaction between executive cognitive
processes and the processing of positive and negative emotional cues in 1) the learning of
differentially reinforced biconditional discrimination and 2) the sensitivity to changes in the emotional valence of outcomes.
Two experiments, presented in Chapter 2, established that introvertive anhedonia was
associated with an executive functioning deficit that could be characterised as a deficiency in processing context. Chapter 3 presented a further three experiments indicating that introvertive anhedonia had blunted processing of negative and positive emotional cues, but under certain specific conditions a bias to the processing of negative stimuli. The final experiment, presented in Chapter 4, found that introvertive anhedonia was behaviourally
insensitive to outcome valence changes of stimulus-outcome associations.
The blunted processing of valenced stimuli seems to have influenced executive cognitive
processes involved in both detecting the changes in outcome valence of associations and in forming new associations. An inability in introvertive anhedonia to adjust behaviour to changes in outcome valence might lead to perseveration, inappropriate responding and, in
some situations, an over-exposure to aversive stimuli.
The executive cognitive deficits observed in section two, and the emotion cue processing
deficits observed in section three might therefore result form failures in common
mechanisms.
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, subject and abstract.
-
Negative schizotypy is associated with impaired episodic but not semantic coding in a conditional learning task
Watt, Andrew; Skillicorn, Deiniol (Taylor and Francis, 2019-06-11)Context processing deficits associated with negative schizotypy may reflect variation in semantic or episodic declarative coding. Healthy volunteers (n = 166) were grouped on the basis of their introvertive anhedonia and ... -
Associations between schizotypal traits and antisocial behaviours in a sub-Saharan sample
Orjiakor, Charles; Watt, Andrew; Iorfa, Steven; Onu, Desmond; Okonkwo, Angela (Elsevier, 2019-10-21)Schizophrenic symptoms have often been associated with antisocial behaviours (ASBs). Most studies have focused on violence. The association between schizophrenia and violence is often confounded by socio demographic ... -
Are Psychopathic traits a predictor for performance in Proactive and Reactive applications of executive control?
Walukiewicz, Alex (Cardiff Metropolitan University, 2017-06-01)Although under many different guises over time, Psychopathy has become a description for a set of antisocial behaviours such as a lack of remorse, manipulation and disregard for societal norms. These behaviours have been ...