Activity inhibition: A valid linguistic marker of executive functions?

本项目测试活动抑制（AI）——说话者或作者使用否定not的频率——是否是(a)在应对意外或威胁事件时抑制优势行为、思想和情绪的有效语言标记，以及(b)对此类事件的注意力重新定向。自20世纪60年代以来，人工智能对行为和健康结果的预测有效性已经在研究中得到证实，它被假设可以抑制动机冲动，但也被证明与左视野中呈现的刺激的注意力定向有关，这表明右半球参与其中。拟议的研究认为，这两种说法都是正确的，认知神经科学文献表明，对行为、思想和情绪的抑制，以及对意想不到的或充满情绪的刺激的注意力重新定向，可能以一种功能整合的方式与右侧前额叶皮层有关。研究还表明，在阅读或写作句子时使用否定可以重复使用大脑的抑制网络。在7项研究中，本项目将测试人工智能反映抑制和注意力重定向功能的反应性。更具体地说，它旨在(1)通过实验表明，随着人工智能的增加或减少，抑制和注意力重定向也会增加或减少；(2)复制和扩展早期研究中观察到的人工智能和注意力定向的关联；(3)确定行为、思想和情绪的抑制与人工智能的关联有多强。(4)通过文本分析和实验验证进一步扩展（换句话说）和指定（对于相关的句子上下文）人工智能的测量，(5)检查源文本（演讲，图片故事，文章）对人工智能有效性的作用，(6)探索人工智能的收敛效度和判别效度-à-vis其他执行功能的测量以及人际视角采取和自我报告的测量自我控制和抑制。

This project tests whether activity inhibition (AI) -- the frequency with which speakers or writers use the negation not -- is a valid linguistic marker of (a) the inhibition of prepotent actions, thoughts and emotions in response to unexpected or threatening events and (b) the reorienting of attention to such events. AI, whose predictive validity for behavioral and health outcomes has been documented in research since the 1960s, has been hypothesized to inhibit motivational impulses, but also shown to be linked to attentional orienting to stimuli presented in the left visual field, suggesting a right-hemisphere involvement. The proposed research argues that both accounts are right, informed by a cognitive-neuroscience literature that shows that inhibition of actions, thoughts, and emotions as well as attentional reorienting to unexpected or emotionally charged stimuli engage the right prefrontal cortex, possibly in a functionally integrated manner. It is also informed by research that suggests the reuse of the brain’s inhibition network by the use of negation in reading or writing sentences. In 7 studies, this project will test the idea that AI reflects the responsiveness of the inhibition and attentional reorienting functions. More specifically, it aims at (1) showing that as AI is increased or decreased experimentally, so are inhibition and attentional reorienting, (2) replicating and extending the association of AI and attentional orienting observed in earlier studies, (3) determining how strongly the inhibition of actions, thoughts, and emotions is associated with AI, (4) further expanding (to other words) and specifying (for relevant sentential contexts) the measurement of AI through text analysis and experimental validation, (5) examining the role of the source text (speeches, picture stories, essays) on AI’s validity, and (6) exploring the convergent and discriminant validity of AI vis-à-vis measures of other executive functions and of interpersonal perspective-taking and self-report measures of self-control and inhibition.