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Neal

How similar are fluid cognition and general intelligence? A developmental neuroscience ... - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Overall, the available evidence suggests that fluid cognition is an aspect of cognitive functioning that can be under considerable environmental influence both cumulatively over time and interactively within context in a way that indicates it to be a highly salient influence on behavior, but one that is distinct from general intelligence, psychometrically defined.
  • A third source of evidence is neuropsychological and concerns the extent to which cognitive impairments in identified developmental disorders are consistent with a pattern of dissociation between fluid cognitive functions and general intelligence.
  • Fluid cognitive functioning can be thought of as allpurpose cognitive processing not necessarily associated with any specific content domain and as involving the active or effortful maintenance of information, whether verbal or visual-spatial in working memory for purposes of planning and executing goal directed behavior (Baddeley 1986; Kane & Engle 2002).
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  • As a consequence, fluid functioning involves the inhibition of irrelevant, competing, or prepotent information likely to interfere with information maintenance and response execution and the alternate shifting and sustaining of attention important for organizing and executing sequential steps or actions.
  • Furthermore, fluid functioning is for the most part distinguishable from cognitive functioning associated with previously acquired knowledge available in long-term store, referred to as crystallized intelligence (gC).
  • As a unitary entity, however, fluid function has been described in the psychological literature under a variety of terms, including executive function, executive attention, effortful control, and working memory capacity.
  • By demonstrating increasing PFC activation with parametric increase in the working memory load or cognitive control demand of tasks performed during imaging, these studies have linked the PFC to fluid cognition
  • the term fluid cognitive functioning is utilized as a primary descriptor for these integrated aspects of cognition and is used interchangeably to some extent with the terms working memory and executive function.
  • PFC activation in response to diverse tasks has indicated that the integration of information in working memory, such as verbal and spatial information, or maintenance of information in working memory while executing subsidiary tasks (i.e., cognitive control functions that would seem to be the hallmark of general intelligence), is associated with greater PFC activation than that associated with either task on its own
  • At the very least, the analysis clearly lends itself to the conclusion that intelligence tests are not measurement invariant between cohorts and that, while some increase in general intelligence appears to have occurred, change associated with rising mean IQ is, by and large, subtest specific.
  • Overall, evidence for relations between areas of the PFC and ACC and specific aspects of cognition and emotion suggest that a variety of influences, particularly those associated with emotional arousal and the stress response, may impact fluid cognitive functioning and its apparent similarity to general intelligence.
  • While most explanations for rising mean IQ tend to be underspecified on this point (i.e., general increases in parenting skill, education, or nutrition), others that more directly address the types of skills tested for in measures of fluid intelligence (such as increased visual-spatial complexity or selective changes in specific aspects of education associated with fluidskills development) are perhaps more likely to be shown to account for the phenomenon (Dickens & Flynn 2001b; Williams 1998).
  • Further examination of the deficit displayed on measures of fluid IQ in patients with frontal lesions but intact IQ as assessed by the WAIS indicates that performance is dramatically impaired by the requirement of holding multiple relations in mind simultaneously when attempting to solve problems adapted from Raven’s matrices test. Individuals with prefrontal damage exhibit no deficits on problems whose solution requires holding in mind no relations or only one relation, but exhibit a near inability to solve problems involving two or more relations
  • The study of fluid function under the label of EF in children, however, is a rapidly growing area of research in which the definition of EF employed is essentially identical to that used by individuals studying working memory and intelligence in adults. Specifically, when cognitive researchers working with child populations define EF as the maintenance of an appropriate problem-solving set involving mental representation of a given task and goal state within a limited-capacity central processing system (Welsh & Pennington 1988), they are describing cognitive processes that are being studied under the name of working memory in adults (e.g., Carpenter et al. 1990; Conway et al. 2002; Prabhakaran et al. 1997; 2000).
Neal

Why is executive function important for teenagers? - 0 views

www.parenttoolkit.com/...e-brain-and-executive-function

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • There is a set of mental skills that’s one of the best predictors of a successful life in virtually every way you can measure success. Yet most people don’t even know it exists.
  • It’s called executive function. Usually abbreviated EF, executive function plays a big part in mental health, teaching, parenting – even employment - virtually the entire behavioral food chain of human experience.
  • I define executive function as “the ability to get things done - and not punch someone in the nose while doing it.” Executive function is a set of mental skills that help you get things done. It’s located in the frontal lobe of the brain, and can help you manage time, pay attention, multitask, and more. It’s also involved in a teen’s mental health, which we know is critically important to understand,
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  • and responsiveness
  • A kid’s EF score is the only statistic that predicts their future college GPA better than chance. High-EF kids get better-paying jobs when they leave school, enjoy more stable marriages, and work better in teams.
  • Scientists have been looking at behaviors underlying these disorders for decades. They’ve uncovered a stunning finding, which underscores the importance of EF. The vast majority of mental health issues are problems in executive function.
  • blend of demandingness
  • Get your child involved in regular aerobic exercise. Especially if the activity also engages the mind (like an organized sport, as opposed to just running).
  • Make sure your child gets enough sleep. No all-nighters, and no “blue light” exposure on screens in the late evenings, especially before bed. Sleep feeds the brain, and kids certainly need it to build their EF.
  • Help your child eat the right foods. The so-called Mediterranean diet (lots of fruits and vegetables, white meat, and if there’s grease, it needs to be olive oil) can improve working memory, a vital component of EF.
  • Practice mindfulness meditation—and help your child to do the same. But do the right kind. The protocol originally designed by Jon Kabat-Zinn can change EF in as little as 8 weeks.
Neal

Can headphones train you to focus better? - The Verge - 0 views

www.theverge.com/...attention-focus-brain-training

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Posner, a neuroscientist at the University of Oregon who studies memory. Posner has conducted studies showing that even a few days of really good mindfulness meditation can alter the ability of the brain to focus. Physical exercise is also one common intervention that can help, too, especially with elderly people, he says. Meditation is helpful because, unlike “brain games” that train you to pay attention to one thing, its effects can generalize. If you engage in mindfulness meditation, there is evidence that it’ll help you focus better in general, not just be better at playing 2048, according to Giesbrecht.
Neal

Mind-Body Practices and the Adolescent Brain: Clinical Neuroimaging Studies.pdf - 1 views

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Examples of such practices include yoga postures, meditation interventions, tai chi, qi gong, hypnosis among many others.
  • As a modality, EEG is limited by its spatial resolution and bias towards detecting synchronized activity. It is unable to detect changes in neurotransmitter levels or brain activity deep in the CNS.
  • Another major drawback to PET and SPECT imaging is that these techniques have generally poor temporal resolution.
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  • PET and SPECT images can also be coregistered with anatomical MRI, but this must be obtained during a separate session and therefore, matching the scans is more difficult.
  • The ability to measure these neurotransmitter systems is unique to PET and SPECT imaging.
  • Currently, fMRI cannot be used to evaluate individual neurotransmitter systems
  • Y oga is an eight-limbed holistic system of health that includes a number of different mindbody practices. The yoga asanas are represented in the third limb of this system as organized by Patanjali (circa 400 B.C.). According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), at least 1300 different yoga postures have been described in ancient texts (Sinha, K. 2011).
  • After twelve weeks of training, significant changes in the mean CBF ratio were noted in the baseline (pre- yoga session) scans in the right amygdala, right dorsal medial cortex and right sensorimotor area. After twelve weeks, the activated (post- yoga session) scans showed significantly increased activity in the right dorsal frontal lobe, right prefrontal cortex, right sensorimotor cortex, right inferior frontal lobe, right superior frontal lobe and left dorsal medial frontal lobe.
  • This supports a model of excitatory dysfunction in mood disorders across the age spectrum
  • Theoretical models propose that these practices alter the interoceptive messages from the respiratory system to higher CNS centers via modulation of vagal activity
  • resulting in shifts in attention, perception, emotional regulation and behavior
Neal

Exploring synergistic effects of aerobic exercise and mindfu... : Medicine - 2 views

journals.lww.com/...ts_of_aerobic_exercise.14.aspx

mindfulness

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Abstract 1 Introduction 2 Methods and analysis 2.1 Study design and setting 2.2 Population 2.3 Recruitment 2.4 Screening and consent procedures 2.5 Study interventions 2.6 Safety considerations 2.7 Study assessments 2.7.1 Screening assessments 2.7.2 Primary outcomes 2.7.3 Secondary outcomes 2.7.4 Posited mediators 2.7.5 Covariates and moderators 2.8 Statistical analyses 2.9 Quality control and monitoring 2.10 Ethics and dissemination 3 Discussion 3.1 Strengths and limitations 4 Conclusion Author contributions References
Neal

"Keep That in Mind!" The Role of Positive Affect in Working Memory for Maintaining Goal... - 1 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC6060567

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • relevant information in WM, such that even a highly disruptive state is not
  • sufficient to corrupt this relationship.
  • These data suggest a tangible role of trait Positive Affect in the cognitive ability of maintaining goal-
Neal

Get Off the Couch! Exercise Your Way to a Healthy Brain · Frontiers for Young... - 0 views

kids.frontiersin.org/...frym.2017.00020

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Glossary Cognitive function: ↑ The way we process and think about the world around us. Cognitive functions include attention, memory, and ability to solve problems. Neuroplasticity: ↑ Changes that happen in the brain as the result of our experiences. Alzheimer’s disease: ↑ A disease that affects the brain in older age. The main characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease is a problem with cognitive functions, especially memory.
Neal

Development of the adolescent brain: implications for executive function and social cog... - 0 views

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...j.1469-7610.2006.01611.x

shared by Neal on 15 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • Adolescence is a time of considerable development at the level of behaviour, cognition and the brain. This article reviews histological and brain imaging studies that have demonstrated specific changes in neural architecture during puberty and adolescence, outlining trajectories of grey and white matter development. The implications of brain development for executive functions and social cognition during puberty and adolescence are discussed. Changes at the level of the brain and cognition may map onto behaviours commonly associated with adolescence. Finally, possible applications for education and social policy are briefly considered.
  • Recent MRI studies indicate that the time at which the brain reaches maturity may be much later than the end of adolescence. One such study of participants aged between 7 and 30 revealed that the loss of grey matter in the frontal cortex accelerated during adulthood between the early 20s and up to the age of 30 (Sowell et al., 2001).
  • The non‐linear decrease in grey matter was concomitant with a linear increase in white matter, consistent with earlier MRI data and with post‐mortem studies.
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  • post‐mortem cellular studies of human brains have revealed an extended period of development, in particular in the frontal and parietal cortices.
  • The term executive function is used to describe the capacity that allows us to control and coordinate our thoughts and behaviour (Luria, 1966; Shallice, 1982).
  • These skills include selective attention, decision‐making, voluntary response inhibition and working memory. Each of these executive functions has a role in cognitive control, for example filtering out unimportant information, holding in mind a plan to carry out in the future and inhibiting impulses.
  • Behavioural studies show that performance of adolescents on tasks including inhibitory control (Leon‐Carrion, Garcia‐Orza, & Perez‐Santamaria, 2004; Luna, Garver, Urban, Lazar, & Sweeney, 2004a), processing speed (Luna et al., 2004a), working memory and decision‐making (Luciana, Conklin, Cooper, & Yarger, 2005; Hooper, Luciana, Conklin, & Yarger, 2004) continues to develop during adolescence.
  • Different aspects of executive function, therefore, may have different developmental trajectories.
  • prospective memory continues to develop during adolescence, in line with the notion of frontal maturation in the brain. It is possible that the lack of improvement in performance between the 10‐ and 14‐year‐olds was related to their pubertal status.
  • The results suggest that there is a dip in performance on this kind of task at the onset of puberty.
  • The researchers linked this pubertal dip in performance to the proliferation of synapses that occurs at the onset of puberty.
  • the sudden proliferation of synapses that occurs at puberty results in a perturbation of cognitive performance.
  • In addition to neural development, there are major changes in hormones at puberty. While it is impossible to tease apart all of the important influences on the social and emotional behaviour of adolescents, significant neural development and hormonal changes are likely to influence social cognition.
  • Perspective taking is the ability to take on the viewpoint of another person. The ability to take another's perspective is crucial for successful social communication.
  • Functional neuroimaging studies have revealed that the parietal and frontal cortices are associated with making the distinction between 1PP and 3PP at the motor (Ruby & Decety, 2001), visuo‐spatial, (Vogeley et al., 2004), conceptual (Ruby & Decety, 2003) and emotional (Ruby & Decety, 2004) level.
  • It is proposed that ‘mirror neurons’ that fire when an agent both performs an action or observes another person performing the action provide a basis for integrating perceptual, motor and social functions (see Rizzolatti, Fogassi, & Gallese, 2001 for review).
  • Several neuroimaging studies have implicated the inferior parietal cortex in the distinction between the self and others at the sensorimotor level (Blakemore, Wolpert, & Frith, 1998; Farrer & Frith, 2002; Ruby & Decety, 2001).
  • hese data suggest that development of social perspective taking undergoes a perturbation during puberty in parallel with the discontinuous processes of brain maturation.
  • Cognitive processes that depend on the prefrontal cortex might undergo a perturbation at puberty due to the synaptic reorganisation that occurs at this time.
  • The greater and more diffuse activity in the dorsal region of the prefrontal cortex in children suggests that there is a heavier dependence on this region in children compared with in adults. The researchers suggested that during adolescence, the network recruited for this task is modified until adulthood, at which stage activation of a smaller, more focal region of the prefrontal cortex is used to perform the same task.
  • Thus, reaction times and imaging data together suggest that in children, an immature stage of the brain where excess synapses, possibly as a result of a burst of proliferation, accounts for the poorer performance and extensive and less efficient frontal activation. A pruned and more myelinated adult brain could explain the faster reaction times and focal activation of the frontal cortex, the area associated with generativity (Frith, Friston, Liddle, & Frackowiak, 1991) and the inhibitory response (Konishi et al., 1999).
  • One possibility is that extensive activation in children is a compensatory strategy used while the brain is less efficient in integrating executive functions.
  • To explain risky behaviour commonly associated with adolescence, the authors postulated that adolescents are driven to seek more extreme incentives to compensate for low recruitment of motivational brain circuitry.
  • It was proposed that when confronted with a risky scenario, adults’ relatively efficient responses were driven by mental images of possible outcomes and the visceral response to those images, in line with the somatic marker hypothesis (Damasio, 1996). However, adolescents relied more on reasoning capacities and therefore activated the DLPFC, hence the relatively effortful responses compared to adults.
  • Neural plasticity of the developing brain may underpin different propensities for learning new skills, such as problem solving, at different stages of the life cycle.
Neal

Short‐term Sahaja Yoga meditation training modulates brain structure and spon... - 0 views

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...brb3.1159

EF_Trainer Meditation yoga

shared by Neal on 26 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • While cross‐sectional studies have shown neural changes in long‐term meditators, they might be confounded by self‐selection and potential baseline differences between meditators and non meditators. Prospective longitudinal studies of the effects of meditation in naïve subjects are more conclusive with respect to causal inferences, but related evidence is so far limited.
  • Compared with 30 control subjects, the participants to meditation training showed increased gray matter density and changes in the coherence of intrinsic brain activity in two adjacent regions of the right inferior frontal gyrus encompassing the anterior component of the executive control network. Both these measures correlated with self‐reported well‐being scores in the meditation group.
  • The significant impact of a brief meditation training on brain regions associated with attention, self‐control, and self‐awareness may reflect the engagement of cognitive control skills in searching for a state of mental silence, a distinctive feature of Sahaja Yoga meditation. The manifold implications of these findings involve both managerial and rehabilitative settings concerned with well‐being and emotional state in normal and pathological conditions.
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  • Subjects participating in the meditation intervention displayed a significant improvement in self‐perceived general well‐being after training. In addition, compared with control subjects they also showed a significant change in brain structure and intrinsic activity in inferior fronto‐insular regions associated with executive control, and previously highlighted by cross‐sectional studies on the neural effects of long‐term SY meditation (Hernandez et al., 2015).
  • A significant time‐by‐group interaction on spectral power highlighted, in meditators vs controls, a training‐related remodeling of the contribution of slow frequencies in the anterior component of the fronto‐parietal “executive control” network.
  • involved in goal‐directed behavior
  • This set of regions, which is commonly recruited by tasks requiring controlled information processing (Dosenbach et al., 2007), has been recently proposed as a “superordinate” cognitive control network, recruited across different executive domains including flexibility, working memory, initiation, and inhibition (Niendam et al., 2012).
  • This hypothesis fits with neuroimaging evidence on other types of short‐term meditation interventions, sharing with the SY meditation an open monitoring approach aiming to develop the capacity for mindfulness (i.e., awareness of present‐moment experiences with a compassionate, non judgmental, stance). Across different studies, such interventions resulted in stronger intensity of activation (Holzel et al., 2011) and efficiency (Xue, Tang, & Posner, 2011) in functional networks involving the dACC, possibly reflecting higher cognitive control and improved suppression of distracting events
  • our results suggest a potential broad impact of meditative practice on neural organization, in turn reflecting on other outcomes related to health and well‐being (Muehsam et al., 2017).
  • General well‐being
  • Fatigue
  • Dissatisfaction
  • The SY meditation training consisted of four one‐hour sessions per week over 4 consecutive weeks, that is, a total of 16 hr.
  • No other commitments, including home practice, were required.
Neal

The Athletic Dimension of eSports | NeuroTracker - 0 views

neurotracker.net/...-athletic-dimension-of-esports

shared by Neal on 18 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • He suggests eSports athlete should be following diets similar to those in professional sports, as well as performing regular physical training to support better motor-skills. His thought is that this may extend career time by 5 years or more. “My advice is that gaming is more than just playing video games. It is a complex interaction of many different, mostly cognitive, skills. To improve these skills and guarantee sustainable results, a holistic approach is needed.” In fact now some of the biggest eSports teams are turning to sports science to raise their game, including using NeuroTracker to sharpen their minds. This means that in coming years we’re likely to see cyber athletes pushing the boundaries of human performance.
Neal

Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health - 0 views

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...PMC2998793

psychological_flexibility mindset executive function

shared by Neal on 17 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Psychological flexibility spans a wide range of human abilities to: recognize and adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviors that are congruent with deeply held values.
  • Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health Achieving psychological health is one of the foremost goals of human existence.
  • We are not disputing that positive emotions are important (Fredrickson, 1998), strengths or positive traits are important (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), or that the satisfaction of basic needs for belonging, competence, and autonomy are important (Deci & Ryan, 2000). However, these static approaches fail to capture the dynamic, fluctuating, and contextually-specific behaviors that people deploy when navigating the challenges of daily life.
    • Neal
      Neal on 17 Oct 19
       
      positive emotions positive traits strengths
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  • Indeed, research on psychological flexibility has for the past five decades traveled by a multitude of different names, among them ego-resiliency (Block, 1961), executive control (Posner & Rothbart, 1998), response modulation (Patterson & Newman, 1993), and self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000)
    • Neal
      Neal on 17 Oct 19
       
      Psychological flexibiligy
  • Psychological flexibility actually refers to a number of dynamic processes that unfold over time. This could be reflected by how a person: (1) adapts to fluctuating situational demands, (2) reconfigures mental resources, (3) shifts perspective, and (4) balances competing desires, needs, and life domains.
  • one might question whether any regulatory strategy provides universal benefits, as opposed to contingent benefits that hinge on the situation and the values and goals that we import.
  • These pathological processes span cognitive rigidities such as rumination and worry (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, & Lyubomirsky, 2008), patterns of behavioral perseveration, as well as a relative inability to rebound following stressful events, and difficulties planning and working for distant goals.
  • As these skills flourish, people become more versatile and more adept at committing finite attention and energy to meaningful interests and values (Hayes, Strosahl, & Wilson, 1999)
  • At subjective, behavioral, and biological levels of analysis, researchers continue to find that psychopathology is relatively independent from positive experiences
  • Thus, rather than focusing on specific content (within a person), definitions of psychological flexibility have to incorporate repeated transactions between people and their environmental contexts.
  • The work on ego-resiliency is extensive. Briefly, an important prediction is that ego-resilience would be associated with greater progression through the stage of identity development from being young and impulsive to learning social rules and conforming and for the most mature, advanced stages such as being wise and self-determined (Loevinger, 1987)
  • Instead, consider the flexible application of different types of emotional expression as the situation warrants.
  • the ability to modulate behavior as required by the situation contributed to real-world adjustment over and above any particular regulatory strategy.
  • Interestingly, variability in appraisals and coping strategies was positively related to the effectiveness of handling stressors. More importantly, the 30% of people demonstrating coping flexibility were better adjusted on a daily basis and showed less anxiety and depressive symptoms over a 1-week period than people demonstrating more rigid adherence to particular coping strategies, regardless of whether they were problem- or emotion-focused, active- or passive-focused. These findings on the benefits of flexibility compared with any particular configuration of self-regulatory strategies have been replicated in subsequent experimental and prospective studies (e.g., Cheng, 2003; Cheng & Cheung, 2005).
  • By ego-resiliency, we meant…a dynamic ability to temporarily change from modal reaction or perceptual tendencies to reactions and percepts responsive to the immediately pressing situation and, more generally, to the inevitably fluctuating situational demands of life. In particular, the ego-resiliency construct entailed the ability to, within personal limits, situationally reduce behavioral control as well as to situationally increase behavioral control, to expand attention as well as to narrow attention, to regress in the service of the ego as well as to progress in the service of the ego…The relatively unresilient or vulnerable individual displayed little adaptive flexibility, was disquieted by the new and altered, was perseverative or diffuse in responding to the changed or strange, was made anxious before competing demands, and had difficulty in recouping from the traumatic.
  • Rumination involves stereotypical and perseverative thinking about the reasons for and meaning of one’s own sad, dysphoric affect. Not only is a ruminative response style inflexible in that it involves habitual application of circular, looping thoughts, it also represents a passive, inactive mode that displaces more active engagement with the environment; engagement that could potentially relieve depressed mood.
  • For adolescents at age 14 and adults at age 23, ego-resilience was strongly associated with higher stages of identity development.
  • Upon reaching more mature stages of identity development, young adults are visibly more flexible in multiple contexts compared with less mature peers.
  • Besides the development of maturity and wisdom, the most characteristic features of ego-resilient children and adolescents (as rated by teachers, parents, and independent observers) include: vitality, curious and exploratory, self-reliant and confident, creative, an abundance of meaningful experiences, abilities to effectively master challenges, and quick recovery following stressful events (Gjerde, Block, & Block, 1986; Klohnen, 1996).
  • Equally useful to understanding the psychologically flexible person are the least representative features of ego-resilient youth: rigid repetitive strategies to handle stress, socially inappropriate emotional expressiveness, and discomfort in unpredictable and challenging environments.
  • Although causality cannot be determined, flexibility appears to move people from extrinsic motivated actions toward self-determination and the related health benefits
  • In the ACT model, flexibility is about being aware of thoughts and feelings that unfold in the present moment without needless defense, and depending on what the situation affords, persisting or changing behavior to pursue central interests and goals.
  • psychological flexibility was on average correlated .42 with outcomes ranging from job performance and satisfaction over a 1-year interval, daily activity engagement in pain patients, and mental health (Hayes, Luoma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006)
  • Being more open and accepting of emotional experiences, being willing to engage in difficult activities to persist in the direction of important values, allows a person to pursue a rich, meaningful life right away.
  • Emotional preferences should hinge on the goals people are inclined to pursue. We have not given due consideration to the task of identifying which emotions are functional and at what levels of intensity and type of expressiveness. Sometimes negative, unpleasant emotions can be more useful than positive emotions. Taking advantage of this knowledge, teaching people this knowledge, is to explicitly address psychological flexibility.
  • Another perspective on the health benefits of psychological flexibility arrives from work on the ability to switch one’s focus from one life domain to another, one time perspective to another, and ensure that various important elements of a person’s identity are being satisfied in a harmonious manner.
  • If these examples suggest anything, it is that greater satisfaction and meaning in life can be captured by shifting temporal perspectives when the situation requires a particular mode of being (Boniwell & Zimbardo, 2004).
  • Similarly, recent daily-diary and prospective studies show that when time is allocated effectively in important life domains (e.g., work, school, leisure, relationships) to minimize discrepancy between a person’s actual day-to-day activities and their ideal, greater well-being is experienced. This includes life satisfaction, frequent positive emotions, infrequent negative emotions, and the ability to satisfy needs involving belonging, competence, and autonomy (Sheldon, Cummins, & Khamble, in press)
  • As we will highlight below, a signal feature of many disorders is that a person’s fluid transactions with the environment break down and responses become stereotyped and invariable.
  • Ironically, by being flexible and living in service of our deepest values instead of being narrowly focused on achieving happiness, we end up experiencing more frequent joy and meaning in life and less distress; we end up with greater vitality and degrees of freedom for how to live each moment (Hayes et al., 1999, 2004).
  • Recent extensions add important layers of complexity by suggesting that researchers and clinicians should look beyond the stereotypically negative content of attributions as a marker of depression risk to consider (1) the process of fixedly deploying the same attributions across different situations, a construct known as explanatory inflexibility (Moore & Fresco, 2007), and (2) the connections between an inflexible explanatory style and inflexible coping behavior (Fresco, William, & Nugent, 2006).
  • one commonality involves psychological inflexibility with respect to responses involving fear and anxiety.
  • Our premise, shared with the “acceptance-based approaches,” is that a flexible approach to one’s experiences will be associated with health and well-being, even when those experiences are sometimes painful.
  • There is growing evidence that the anxiety disorders are characterized by experiential avoidance for a variety of experiences, whether it is the experience of bodily arousal in panic disorder (Zvolensky & Eifert, 2000), the fear of strong emotional impulses in generalized anxiety disorder (McLaughlin, Mennin, & Farach, 2007), or concerns about openly expressing and exposing intense emotional experiences to other people (Kashdan & Steger, 2006). In turn, avoidance responses, as they become the default behavioral response, maintain the disorder over time.
  • Finally, as with depression, anxiety disorders are associated with inflexibility of physiological responding. Perhaps most notably, researchers have shown repeatedly that individuals with anxiety disorder exhibit reduced flexibility in autonomic responding (e.g., Thayer, Friedman, & Borkovec, 1996)
  • In fact, the pervasive and widespread nature of evidence for inflexibility in so many different response systems in so many different mental disorders is potentially overwhelming. Can these problems be reduced to a smaller core set? If so, what are the most important forms of inflexibility?
  • For example, individuals with higher resting CVC perform better than low CVC individuals on experimental tasks that require executive function. High CVC is associated with good performance on the Stroop task, which requires people to overcome attentional interference, as well as good performance on the n-back task (Johnsen et al., 2003; Hansen, Johnsen, & Thayer, 2003), which is a working memory task that requires people to monitor a continuous sequence of stimuli and remember which stimuli were presented n trials ago.
  • Relative to participants who did not maintain the exercise routine, those who maintained the exercise regimen had higher resting CVC and better functioning on an executive functioning task
  • The Building Blocks of Psychological Flexibility
  • Now that we have demonstrated the benefits of psychological flexibility and the costs of inflexibility, we consider three critical factors that influence the likelihood of being psychologically flexible and gaining access to its benefits:
  • Acceptance and awareness processes, coupled by a curious and receptive attitude toward negative or potentially negative experiences appear to be a precursor to psychological flexibility
  • prioritize and integrate cognitive capacities.
  • Essentially, executive functioning provides critical neuropsychological support for self-regulation
  • In fact, as discussed below, it is hard to imagine psychological flexibility without at least adequate performance in this domain.
  • When someone is described as being psychologically flexible, they are more apt to be versatile, using top-down strategies. That is, they show an awareness of what a situation requires and an ability to organize and prioritize strategies that “fit” the situation rather than relying on dominant, default strategies (Fleeson, 2001).
  • Another related, essential cognitive function is the ability to tolerate distress and develop an open, receptive attitude toward emotions, thoughts, and sensations.
  • executive functioning, default mental states, and personality configurations
  • When a person is unable to accept frustration and unwanted negative experiences, attentional capacity and decision-making capabilities are narrowed.
  • Instead of flexibly responding to a situation in an active manner, a person preoccupied with avoiding experiences is psychologically unavailable to adapt to the cues afforded by an existing situation.
  • This is because negative emotions and obstacles are an inevitable part of being a human that is constantly learning and growing, going through developmental changes in identity and social roles across the lifespan, experiencing daily hassles and stressors, and striving to organize a life built around meaningful goals and values (
  • Other social neuroscience studies provide additional support for the notion that acceptance of and openness to experience, and related emotion regulation processes are bound to executive functioning
  • Finally, executive functioning also typically includes working memory and recall, information processing speed, and the ability to inhibit behavior. These, too, are relevant to psychological flexibility, for similar reasons.
  • A weak danger cue in the environment may be prepotent, shutting down executive control, leading a person to conflate their anxious feelings as evidence of the dangerous potential that was never actualized. In the end, this person will be more worried and avoidant in similar, future situations, constricting their life space by tiny portions; a precedent that interferes with flexibility and the pursuit of a pleasurable, engaging, and meaningful life.
  • Taken together, robust executive functioning is critical for modulating responses to suit the circumstances and achieving desired outcomes—whether it is extracting rewards, reducing behavioral control, or some other situationally-bound strategy.
  • Social situations impose even greater demands upon executive functioning because of the need to simultaneously represent the desired outcomes of both the self and the other parties, without compromising either one
  • If human beings lacked predictive ability and were required to be in conscious control of how to interpret and respond to each gesture in each interaction, social interactions would slow to a crawl, relationships would have to be continually renewed, and it is hard to imagine how social groups and societies would ever form.
  • in enhancing psychological flexibility
  • To be adept at forming and maintaining significant, meaningful social relationships, there is utility in recognizing the limitations of our biased social judgments.
  • end our search for new and potentially useful information about each situation being different (even slightly) from any other (Kashdan, 2009). Although this can be energy consuming, this act prevents misjudgments of people and situations, and increases engagement, creativity, and the type of mindful, compassionate style of communication that is attractive and desirable to other people.
  • The problem is that habitual thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and goals are easily activated automatically, pulling us toward common well-worn directions as opposed to being sensitive to the unique hedonic or utilitarian value of acting differently (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2000; Foa & Kozak, 1986). Essentially, conscious free will and flexible responding is subtly reduced by habits.
  • Unfortunately, the default mindset of most adults is a relatively inactive state where the past unduly influences the presen
  • Regardless of origin, there is evidence that humans commonly fail to detect novel distinctions and opportunities in the immediate environment and this can erode psychological flexibility.
  • Relatively few people can marshal the psychological flexibility to override default mental state in demanding visual tasks.
  • There is other evidence that experts often attempt to adapt old templates to new situations because of inflated confidence in their abilities to the neglect of contextual information.
  • Taken together, this line of research suggests that people are relatively insensitive to context and perspective in the present when there is the potential to rely on prior knowledge and experience.
  • Neal on 17 Oct 19
     
    "The Relationship Between Heart Rate Variability, Psychological Flexibility, and Pain in Neurofibromatosis Type 1"
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