title: The neural correlates of incidental self-processing induced by handwritten negative words.
abstract: Behavioral studies revealed that people were less likely to endorse negative information as self-descriptive. Neuroimaging studies have tapped on the neural mechanism underlying intentional self-processing of negative information using self-reflection tasks. Given that human self-processing occurring in our daily life is more likely to be captured by tasks involving incidental self-processing (automatic associations between the self- and external stimuli), rather than tasks involving intentional self-processing, it could be presumed that the relationship between self- and negative emotion might be better reflected during incidental self-processing. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging study aimed to explore incidental self-processing of negative information. To induce participants' incidental self-processing, we adopted negative and neutral words written by themselves or others as materials. They were scanned during judging whether the handwritten words were negative or neutral (additional non-self-task). Results revealed that incidental self-processing of negative information relied on the activation of left anterior insula, whereas medial prefrontal cortex activity was associated with incidental self-processing of neutral information.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Fudan University, Handan Road 220, Shanghai, 200433, China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Menghe
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Xiuyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Jianqi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Luguang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Zhiliang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D010100:Oxygen; D011930:Reaction Time; D012649:Self Concept; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen