Strategies of intention formation are reflected in continuous MEG activity
- 1 February 2009
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Informa UK Limited in Social Neuroscience
- Vol. 4 (1), 11-27
- https://doi.org/10.1080/17470910801925350
Abstract
Self-regulation of intention formation is pivotal for achieving behavior change. Fantasy realization theory (Oettingen, 2000) assumes that mentally contrasting a desired positive future with present negative reality turns high expectations of success into strong intentions to realize the desired future, while indulging in the positive future fails to do so. The present study tests the theory's process assumption that mental contrasting is a cognitively demanding, purposeful problem-solving strategy involving working and episodic memory, whereas indulging is a mindless daydreaming strategy involving the free flow of thought, by investigating the neural correlates of the two strategies via continuous magnetoencephalographic (MEG) activity. We observed greater activity during mental contrasting (but not indulging) compared to resting in prefrontal, frontal, parietal, and temporal areas, indicating that mental contrasting involves strong intention formation, working memory, and episodic memory. In addition, heightened activity of occipital areas was observed during mental contrasting compared to resting and indulging, suggesting that mental contrasting, more than indulging and resting, entails purposefully creating mental images. Taken together, these findings indicate that mental contrasting is indeed a purposeful problem-solving strategy based on past performance history, whereas indulging is a purposeless daydreaming strategy that is oblivious to past experiences.Keywords
This publication has 31 references indexed in Scilit:
- Accuracy, error, and bias in predictions for real versus hypothetical events.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2006
- Meeting of minds: the medial frontal cortex and social cognitionNature Reviews Neuroscience, 2006
- Prefrontal and hippocampal contributions to visual associative recognition: Interactions between cognitive control and episodic retrievalBrain and Cognition, 2004
- Brain Activity during Episodic Retrieval of Autobiographical and Laboratory Events: An fMRI Study using a Novel Photo ParadigmJournal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 2004
- Perceived luminance depends on temporal contextNature, 2004
- Implicit regulatory focus associated with asymmetrical frontal cortical activityJournal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2004
- Self-awareness and actionCurrent Opinion in Neurobiology, 2003
- The Role of the Frontal Cortex in Task PreparationCerebral Cortex, 2002
- Source distribution of neuromagnetic slow-wave activity in schizophrenic patients—effects of activationSchizophrenia Research, 2002
- Kurzgefaßte Statistik für die klinische ForschungPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,1998