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Little is known about the interplay between affective and cognitive processes of decision making within the bounded rationality perspective, in particular for the debate on adaptive decision making and strategy selection. This gap in the knowledge is particularly important as affect and deliberation may direct preferences in opposite directions. How do decision makers solve such dissonance? In this paper, we address this question by exploring the use of integral affect as a choice heuristic in comparison with and in conjunction to “take the best,” and weighted addition of attributes (WADD). We operationalize theories of reliance on affect in choice through a "Take the emotionally best" algorithm. Its predictive power is experimentally tested against other models, including mixed-sequential cognitive/affective procedures. We find that individual decisions are better predicted by a sequential combination of "Take the emotionally best" and "Take the best" with a slight dominance of the former. Conditions of cognitive/affective ambivalence, low discrimination ability and high complexity provide the cognitive architecture where such blended choice strategies predict decisions more precisely. This implies that reliance on integral affect may precede the use of cognitive cues following an ecological rationality perspective rather than supporting a kind of competition between affect and cognition as implied in current literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and objective: The presence of executive deficits in patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis is well established, even if standardized measures are difficult to obtain due to progressive physical disability of the patients. We present clinical data concerning a newly developed measure of cognitive flexibility, administered by means of Eye-Tracking (ET) technology in order to bypass verbal-motor limitations. Methods: 21 ALS patients and 21 age-and education-matched healthy subjects participated in an ET-based cognitive assessment, including a newly developed test of cognitive flexibility (Arrows and Colors Cognitive Test–ACCT) and other oculomotor-driven measures of cognitive functions. A standard screening of frontal and working memory abilities and global cognitive efficiency was administered to all subjects, in addition to a psychological self-rated assessment. For ALS patients, a clinical examination was also performed. Results: ACCT successfully discriminated between patients and healthy controls, mainly concerning execution times obtained at different subtests. A qualitative analysis performed on error distributions in patients highlighted a lower prevalence of perseverative errors, with respect to other type of errors. Correlations between ACCT and other ET-based frontal-executive measures were significant and involved different frontal sub-domains. Limited correlations were observed between ACCT and standard ‘paper and pencil’ cognitive tests. Conclusions: The newly developed ET-based measure of cognitive flexibility could be a useful tool to detect slight frontal impairments in non-demented ALS patients by bypassing verbal-motor limitations through the oculomotor-driven administration. The findings reported in the present study represent the first contribution towards the development of a full verbal-motor free executive test for ALS patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emotions play a significant role in internal regulatory processes. In this paper, we advocate four key ideas. First, novelty detection can be grounded in the sensorimotor experience and allow higher order appraisal. Second, cognitive processes, such as those involved in self-assessment, influence emotional states by eliciting affects like boredom and frustration. Third, emotional processes such as those triggered by self-assessment influence attentional processes. Last, close emotion-cognition interactions implement an efficient feedback loop for the purpose of top-down behavior regulation. The latter is what we call ‘Emotional Metacontrol’. We introduce a model based on artificial neural networks. This architecture is used to control a robotic system in a visual search task. The emotional metacontrol intervenes to bias the robot visual attention during active object recognition. Through a behavioral and statistical analysis, we show that this mechanism increases the robot performance and fosters the exploratory behavior to avoid deadlocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – Researchers suggest that trust building may be challenging in the face of conflict. However, there is an emerging proposition that conflict is critical for trust. Using affective events and attribution theories as a framework, the purpose of this paper is to present a model of the mediating effects of positive emotional arousal and self-conscious emotions in the relationship between conflict and trust. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected from 325 students enrolled in varied postgraduate programs in a large business school. The authors employed Preacher and Hayes's bootstrapping SPSS macros to test the direct and mediation effects of the connection between conflict, emotions and trust. Findings – Results showed that task, relationship and process conflict were associated with differing aspects of positive emotional arousal (enthusiasm, excitement) and self-conscious emotions (guilt and shame). Similarly, behavioural guilt was linked with trust while emotions mediated the link between conflict and trust. Research limitations/implications – The authors acknowledge that there are possible covariates (e.g. how long ago did the conflict occur?) with the variables used in the current study. Future research should include such covariates in the study of the relationship between conflict emotions and trust. Also, the data were largely cross-sectional, drawn from a relatively small sample. In future, researchers should examine similar constructs with longitudinal data and in large organisational sample. In spite of the above limitations, the validity of the results presented in this paper is not compromised. The study extends self-conscious emotions literature by demonstrating that guilt and shame have cognitive and behavioural properties and with differing connections with conflict and trust. Practical implications – The paper's findings suggest that managers who want to engender trust in conflict situations should stimulate task conflict to arouse enthusiasm and excitement. These discrete emotions are critical for building integrity based trust. Alternatively, by managing reparative emotions of guilt effectively, managers may increase levels of perceived trust. Overall, the results suggest that focusing on the effect of conflict on trust without considering the positive emotional arousal and self-conscious emotions could yield disappointing outcomes. Originality/value – The study provides new insights into the influence of conflict on trust and the mediating role of emotions (e.g. guilt and shame) in the link between conflict and trust. The paper also offers a practical assistance to individuals interested in building trust, especially in the face of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Challenge and threat reflect two distinct psychophysiological approaches to motivated performance situations. Challenge is related to superior performance in a range of tasks compared to threat, thus methods to promote challenge are valuable. In this paper we manipulate challenge and threat cardiovascular reactivity using only resource appraisals, without altering perceived task demands between challenge and threat conditions. Study 1 used a competitive throwing task and Study 2 used a physically demanding climbing task. In both studies challenge task instructions led to challenge cardiovascular reactivity and threat task instructions led to threat cardiovascular reactivity. In Study 1, participants who received challenge instructions performed better than participants who received threat instructions. In Study 2, attendance at the climbing task did not differ across groups. The findings have implications for stress management in terms of focusing on manipulating appraisals of upcoming tasks by promoting self-efficacy and perceived control and focusing on approach goals. Future research could more reliably assess the influence of similar task instructions on performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How might approaching loss philosophically help us grieve? What does it mean to approach something philosophically? Why might such an approach be advantageous to studies of grief? In my paper, I discuss the abovementioned queries (focusing primarily on methods most commonly, though not exclusively, associated with the analytic tradition) and offer an example of how philosophy has helped me navigate the wakes of loss faced with respect to the passing of my father. In the process, I discuss the field of philosophical counseling (in general), a specific brand of practice advanced by Dr. Elliot D. Cohen, and offer a brief account of the basic tenets and steps of its leading modality, Logic-Based Therapy (LBT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term somatization has generated confusion since it was originally formulated. This conceptual difficulty leads to limitations in the development of diagnostic processes, in advancing the theoretical knowledge, and the establishment of a significantly effective treatment. Given the various multi-causal factors such as environmental, genetic, biological and psychosocial, the emotional processes or cognitive-emotional processes could provide an emotional-integrative factor that has been little studied. This paper reviews the latest research on the processes that integrate cognition and emotion associated with somatization, using a search for articles in English and Spanish on MEDLINE and Dialnet from 2002 to 2012, with the search terms "somatization", "emotion" and "mental process". It has been studied processes such as emotional recognition, attentional processes, cognitive reappraisal, expectation and the mediation of negative affectivity inter alia. Neurophysiological research highlights the activity of the prefrontal areas, the amygdala and cingulate cortex in subjects with somatization, suggesting a deficit in emotional regulation processes that modulates the Central Nervous System. Finally, the relevance of some treatment approaches are speculated and some lines of cognitive-emotional processes research in somatization are suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]