Separating Sustained From Transient Aspects of Cognitive Control During Thought Suppression
Mitchell, J. P., Heatherton, T. F., Kelley, W. M., Wyland, C. L., Wegner, D. M., & Macrae, C. (2007). Separating Sustained From Transient Aspects of Cognitive Control During Thought Suppression. Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 18(4), 292-297. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01891.x
I chose this article because after talking about thinking and thought in class I became interested in learning more about thought on an in-depth level. In this study they looked at sustained and transient changes in the brain activation while the subjects attempted to suppress an unwanted thought. They used cognitive accounts and neural methods of executive control. The neural models of executive control suggest that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) deals with changes that occur in the distribution of control processes and the anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) shows a temporary need for more control. They hypothesized higher sustained PFC activation while attempting to suppress thoughts in comparison to free-thought periods and higher transient ACC activation in response to the reoccurrence of forbidden thoughts in comparison to permissible thoughts. There were 17 participants in this study. They were tested in six functional runs on three different tasks where they were asked to suppress thoughts about a specific target, in this case a white bear, or think freely about any topic. They were cued by traffic light colors red meaning suppress thoughts and green meaning think freely during these bocks they were asked to press a button signaling they had thoughts about the white bear. FMRI data was collected during the six runs. Their results found that dorsolateral PFC showed sustained increase of activation during thought suppression and bilateral ACC showed transient increase when dealing with reoccurrence of unwanted thoughts. Their proposals were correct the PFC deals with thought suppression and the ACC deals with forbidden thought reoccurrence. This study was very informative on looking more in-depth into the thought process and where things are located when thoughts are suppressed.
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