Adam K Anderson
Biographic Data
| ID | 7219489 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adam K Anderson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Adam K |
| FAMILY NAME | Anderson |
| SIGNATURE | ANDERSON A K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6492-6350 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Are valence and arousal separable in emotional experience
The bipolar valence-arousal model of conscious experience of emotions is prominent in emotion research. In this work, we examine the validity of this model in the context of feelings elicited by visual stimuli. In particular, we examine whether arousal has a unique contribution over bivariate valence (separate measures for pleasure and displeasure) in explaining physiological arousal (electrodermal activity, EDA) and self-reported feelings at the…
Trait physical disgust is related to moral judgments outside of the purity domain
Although there is an emerging consensus that disgust plays a role in human morality, it remains unclear whether this role is limited to transgressions that contain elements of physical disgust (e.g., gory murders, sexual crimes), or whether disgust is also involved in "pure" forms of morality. To address this issue, we examined the relationship between individual differences in the tendency to experience disgust toward physical stimuli (i.e., tra…
Spending one’s time: The hedonic principle in ad libitum viewing of pictures
The hedonic principle maintains that humans strive to maximize pleasant feelings and avoid unpleasant feelings. Surprisingly, and contrary to hedonic logic, previous experiments have demonstrated a relationship between picture viewing time and arousal (activation) but not with valence (pleasure vs. displeasure), suggesting that arousal rather than the hedonic principle accounts for how individuals choose to spend their time. In 2 experiments we i…
Things rank and gross in nature: A review and synthesis of moral disgust
Much like unpalatable foods, filthy restrooms, and bloody wounds, moral transgressions are often described as "disgusting." This linguistic similarity suggests that there is a link between moral disgust and more rudimentary forms of disgust associated with toxicity and disease. Critics have argued, however, that such references are purely metaphorical, or that moral disgust may be limited to transgressions that remind us of more basic disgust sti…
The role of overt attention in emotion-modulated memory
The presence of emotional stimuli results in a central/peripheral tradeoff effect in memory: memory for central details is enhanced at the cost of peripheral items. It has been assumed that emotion-modulated differences in memory are the result of differences in attention, but this has not been tested directly. The present experiment used eye movement monitoring as an index of overt attention allocation and mediation analysis to determine whether…
Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness
Recovery from emotional challenge and increased tolerance of negative affect are both hallmarks of mental health. Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to facilitate these outcomes, yet little is known about its mechanisms of action. The present study employed functional MRI (fMRI) to compare neural reactivity to sadness provocation in participants completing 8 weeks of MT and waitlisted controls. Sadness resulted in widespread recruitment of …
Emotion enhanced retention of cognitive skill learning
Ample evidence suggests that emotional arousal enhances declarative/episodic memory. By contrast, there is little evidence that emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) extends to procedural skill based memory. We examined remote EEM (1.5-month delay) for cognitive skill learning using the weather prediction (WP) probabilistic classification task. Participants viewed interleaved emotionally arousing or neutral pictures during WP acquisition. Arousal…
In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust
In common parlance, moral transgressions “leave a bad taste in the mouth.” This metaphor implies a link between moral disgust and more primitive forms of disgust related to toxicity and disease, yet convincing evidence for this relationship is still lacking. We tested directly the primitive oral origins of moral disgust by searching for similarity in the facial motor activity evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by unpleasant tastes), basic dis…
Angry, Disgusted, or Afraid?: Studies on the Malleability of Emotion Perception
Current theories of emotion perception posit that basic facial expressions signal categorically discrete emotions or affective dimensions of valence and arousal. In both cases, the information is thought to be directly “read out” from the face in a way that is largely immune to context. In contrast, the three studies reported here demonstrated that identical facial configurations convey strikingly different emotions and dimensional values dependi…
Positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection
The present study examined the thesis that positive affect may serve to broaden the scope of attentional filters, reducing their selectivity. The effect of positive mood states was measured in two different cognitive domains: semantic search (remote associates task) and visual selective attention (Eriksen flanker task). In the conceptual domain, positive affect enhanced access to remote associates, suggesting an increase in the scope of semantic …
Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits ('narrative' focus, NF) or momentary experience ('experiential' focus, EF) in both novice participants and …
Inhibition of return to social signals of fear
The present study examined whether inhibition of return (IOR) is modulated by the fear relevance of the cue. Experiment 1 found similar magnitude of IOR was produced by neutral and fear faces and luminance matched cues. To allow a more sensitive measure of endogenously directed attention, Experiment 2 removed a central reorienting cue and more precisely measured the time course of IOR. At stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 500, 1,000 and 1,500…
Affective Influences on the Attentional Dynamics Supporting Awareness.
Identification of a 1st target stimulus in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence leads to transient impairment in report for a 2nd target; this is known as the attentional blink (AB). This AB impairment was substantially alleviated for emotionally significant target words. AB sparing was not attributable to a variety of nonaffective stimulus factors that could result in augmented distinctiveness. Arousal value, not the valence of stimulus e…
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Affective Influences on the Attentional Dynamics Supporting Awareness.
Identification of a 1st target stimulus in a rapid serial visual presentation sequence leads to transient impairment in report for a 2nd target; this is known as the attentional blink (AB). This AB impairment was substantially alleviated for emotionally significant target words. AB sparing was not attributable to a variety of nonaffective stimulus factors that could result in augmented distinctiveness. Arousal value, not the valence of stimulus e…
Positive affect increases the breadth of attentional selection
The present study examined the thesis that positive affect may serve to broaden the scope of attentional filters, reducing their selectivity. The effect of positive mood states was measured in two different cognitive domains: semantic search (remote associates task) and visual selective attention (Eriksen flanker task). In the conceptual domain, positive affect enhanced access to remote associates, suggesting an increase in the scope of semantic …
Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
It has long been theorised that there are two temporally distinct forms of self-reference: extended self-reference linking experiences across time, and momentary self-reference centred on the present. To characterise these two aspects of awareness, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine monitoring of enduring traits ('narrative' focus, NF) or momentary experience ('experiential' focus, EF) in both novice participants and …
Inhibition of return to social signals of fear
The present study examined whether inhibition of return (IOR) is modulated by the fear relevance of the cue. Experiment 1 found similar magnitude of IOR was produced by neutral and fear faces and luminance matched cues. To allow a more sensitive measure of endogenously directed attention, Experiment 2 removed a central reorienting cue and more precisely measured the time course of IOR. At stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of 500, 1,000 and 1,500…
Angry, Disgusted, or Afraid?: Studies on the Malleability of Emotion Perception
Current theories of emotion perception posit that basic facial expressions signal categorically discrete emotions or affective dimensions of valence and arousal. In both cases, the information is thought to be directly “read out” from the face in a way that is largely immune to context. In contrast, the three studies reported here demonstrated that identical facial configurations convey strikingly different emotions and dimensional values dependi…
In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust
In common parlance, moral transgressions “leave a bad taste in the mouth.” This metaphor implies a link between moral disgust and more primitive forms of disgust related to toxicity and disease, yet convincing evidence for this relationship is still lacking. We tested directly the primitive oral origins of moral disgust by searching for similarity in the facial motor activity evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by unpleasant tastes), basic dis…
Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness
Recovery from emotional challenge and increased tolerance of negative affect are both hallmarks of mental health. Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to facilitate these outcomes, yet little is known about its mechanisms of action. The present study employed functional MRI (fMRI) to compare neural reactivity to sadness provocation in participants completing 8 weeks of MT and waitlisted controls. Sadness resulted in widespread recruitment of …
Emotion enhanced retention of cognitive skill learning
Ample evidence suggests that emotional arousal enhances declarative/episodic memory. By contrast, there is little evidence that emotional enhancement of memory (EEM) extends to procedural skill based memory. We examined remote EEM (1.5-month delay) for cognitive skill learning using the weather prediction (WP) probabilistic classification task. Participants viewed interleaved emotionally arousing or neutral pictures during WP acquisition. Arousal…
The role of overt attention in emotion-modulated memory
The presence of emotional stimuli results in a central/peripheral tradeoff effect in memory: memory for central details is enhanced at the cost of peripheral items. It has been assumed that emotion-modulated differences in memory are the result of differences in attention, but this has not been tested directly. The present experiment used eye movement monitoring as an index of overt attention allocation and mediation analysis to determine whether…
Things rank and gross in nature: A review and synthesis of moral disgust
Much like unpalatable foods, filthy restrooms, and bloody wounds, moral transgressions are often described as "disgusting." This linguistic similarity suggests that there is a link between moral disgust and more rudimentary forms of disgust associated with toxicity and disease. Critics have argued, however, that such references are purely metaphorical, or that moral disgust may be limited to transgressions that remind us of more basic disgust sti…
Trait physical disgust is related to moral judgments outside of the purity domain
Although there is an emerging consensus that disgust plays a role in human morality, it remains unclear whether this role is limited to transgressions that contain elements of physical disgust (e.g., gory murders, sexual crimes), or whether disgust is also involved in "pure" forms of morality. To address this issue, we examined the relationship between individual differences in the tendency to experience disgust toward physical stimuli (i.e., tra…
Spending one’s time: The hedonic principle in ad libitum viewing of pictures
The hedonic principle maintains that humans strive to maximize pleasant feelings and avoid unpleasant feelings. Surprisingly, and contrary to hedonic logic, previous experiments have demonstrated a relationship between picture viewing time and arousal (activation) but not with valence (pleasure vs. displeasure), suggesting that arousal rather than the hedonic principle accounts for how individuals choose to spend their time. In 2 experiments we i…
Are valence and arousal separable in emotional experience
The bipolar valence-arousal model of conscious experience of emotions is prominent in emotion research. In this work, we examine the validity of this model in the context of feelings elicited by visual stimuli. In particular, we examine whether arousal has a unique contribution over bivariate valence (separate measures for pleasure and displeasure) in explaining physiological arousal (electrodermal activity, EDA) and self-reported feelings at the…
Psychology (13 works) · Cognitive psychology (11 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Neuroscience (10 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Arousal (5 works) · Cognition (5 works) · Developmental psychology (5 works) · Anger (4 works) · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies (4 works)