CAREER: Functional Brain Networks Mediating Positivity Bias in Healthy Aging

许多重大的社会决策都是在高度不确定的情况下做出的。 不确定性的一个来源是基于这样一个事实，即大多数人类交流是非语言的。 因此，人们面临着理解非语言信号的任务，这些信号可以以各种方式解释。 举个例子，谈话中的沉默可以传达不适，愤怒，满足，体贴或同情。根据不同的情境（工作面试、第一次约会、与老师见面或体检），一个人解决这种不确定性的能力可能会产生深远的影响。对不确定性的反应也可以揭示情绪处理和应对策略的重要个体差异，这些技能的不足会对心理和社会功能产生广泛的影响。社会、教育和就业的实际和财务成本是深远的。 然而，人们对使我们能够科普和应对不确定性的过程知之甚少。这个职业项目考虑了不同的人对这些极端不确定性的情况做出反应的方式。 与年轻人相比，老年人更有可能乐观，对不确定性有更积极的解释。 通过将社会心理学与发展科学，认知神经科学和网络科学相结合，该项目旨在更好地了解整个发展过程中对不确定性的反应。它侧重于如何解释这些情况，以及大脑功能和连接如何促进某种反应。一些人在应对不确定性时所经历的消极思想和感受可能会对健康，工作表现和人际关系产生有害影响。该项目为开发干预措施以破坏这些适应不良的过程奠定了基础，有利于更有成效的反应。在这个CAREER项目中，测量年轻人的大脑功能和大脑连接，以表征效价偏差的个体差异的来源，或者某人将不确定性解释为具有积极或消极情绪意义的程度。 网络分析工具被应用于建立大脑的基本功能组织和效价偏差之间的联系，并提供有关大脑功能变化的信息，因为它与偏差有关。由于老年人有一种自然的偏见，将模糊的线索解释为积极的，这项研究检查了老年人相同的大脑功能和连接措施，以确定这种增强的积极性背后的机制。 长期目标是探索大脑机制，可以解释当另一个人对同一事件做出反应时，是什么让一个人体验到积极情绪。 该研究考虑了人们如何学会“做得更好”，以提高福祉和应对潜在威胁的能力。 研究结果将揭示个人如何与一个更乐观的观点学习，随着时间的推移，克服基本默认的消极，而不是解决不确定性在积极的光。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

Many significant social decisions are made in situations of high uncertainty. One source of uncertainty is based on the fact that most of human communication is nonverbal. As a result, people are faced with the task of understanding nonverbal signals that could be interpreted in a variety of ways. As one example, a silent pause in conversation can communicate discomfort, anger, contentment, thoughtfulness, or empathy. Depending on the context (a job interview, a first date, meeting with a teacher, or a medical exam), one's ability to resolve such uncertainty can have profound consequences. Responses to uncertainty can also reveal important individual differences in emotion processing and coping strategies, and deficiencies in these skills can have widespread effects on mental and social functioning. The practical and financial costs to society, education, and employment are far-reaching. Yet, very little is known about the processes that allow us to cope with and respond to uncertainty. This CAREER project considers the ways in which different people respond to these situations of extreme uncertainty. In comparison to younger adults, older adults are more likely to be optimistic and to have more positive interpretations of uncertainty. By integrating social psychology with developmental science, cognitive neuroscience and network sciences, this project seeks to better understand responses to uncertainty throughout development. It focuses on how these situations are interpreted and on how brain function and connectivity may promote a certain response. The negative thoughts and feelings some individuals experience in response to uncertainty can have deleterious outcomes on health, work performance, and relationships. This project lays the foundation for developing interventions to disrupt these maladaptive processes in favor of more productive responses.In this CAREER project, brain function and brain connectivity are measured in younger adults to characterize the source of individual differences in valence bias, or the extent to which someone interprets uncertainty as having a positive or negative emotional meaning. Network analytic tools are applied to establish a link between the basic functional organization of the brain and valence bias, and to provide information about variability in brain function as it relates to the bias. Because older adults have a natural bias to interpret ambiguous cues as positive, this research examines the same brain function and connectivity measures in older adults to determine the mechanisms underlying this enhanced positivity. The long-term goal is to explore the brain mechanisms that can explain what makes one person experience a positive emotion when another person, in response to the same event, experiences a negative emotion. The research considers how people can learn to "do it better" to increase well-being and resilience in response to potential threats. The findings will shed light on how individuals with a more optimistic view learn, over time, to override a fundamental default negativity and instead resolve uncertainty in a positive light.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.