Touryan Sharon R, Johnson Marcia K, Mitchell Karen J, Farb Norman, Cunningham William A, Raye Carol L
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8205, USA.
Soc Neurosci. 2007;2(1):14-27. doi: 10.1080/17470910601046829.
We investigated self-regulatory focus (Higgins, 1997, 1998) as one source of variation in encoding of, and memory for, emotional words. Participants wrote about their hopes and aspirations (promotion focus) or duties and obligations (prevention focus). In a subsequent incidental encoding task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants evaluated emotional (positive and negative) and neutral words as either good or bad. A surprise memory test followed, outside the scanner. We observed a dissociation in posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), where activity during the evaluation task was greater when words were focus-consistent (positive for the promotion focus group, negative for the prevention focus group). Similarly, activity in a parahippocampal region was related to subsequent memory, but only for focus-consistent words. Given the role of the PCC in self-referential processing and episodic retrieval, and the parahippocampus in memory-related processing, these data suggest that regulatory focus influences which items are preferentially associated with self-referential information in memory. Such preferential processing may help explain why events are remembered differently by different individuals, which subsequently may influence interpersonal interactions.
我们研究了自我调节焦点（希金斯，1997年，1998年），将其作为情绪性词语编码及记忆方面差异的一个来源。参与者写下他们的希望和抱负（提升焦点）或职责与义务（预防焦点）。在随后的功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）期间的一个偶然编码任务中，参与者将情绪性（积极和消极）及中性词语评定为好或坏。之后在扫描仪外进行了一次突击记忆测试。我们观察到后扣带回皮质（PCC）存在分离现象，即当词语与焦点一致时（提升焦点组为积极词语，预防焦点组为消极词语），评估任务期间该区域的活动更强烈。同样，海马旁区域的活动与后续记忆有关，但仅针对与焦点一致的词语。鉴于PCC在自我参照加工和情景检索中的作用，以及海马旁区域在记忆相关加工中的作用，这些数据表明调节焦点会影响哪些项目在记忆中优先与自我参照信息相关联。这种优先加工可能有助于解释为什么不同个体对事件的记忆不同，而这随后可能会影响人际互动。
