Imaginative Problem Solving, Intuition, and Emotion-based Learning
Dr Oliver Turnbull
University of Wales, Bangor, UK
This Grant from the Philoctetes Center began in November 2004, to run for three years. This is the first of three Annual Reports in relation to the grant, which describe the work carried out on the grant, a general plan of future work, and outcomes from the grant.
The principal activities have been:
1) The appointment of a full-time Research Officer, at post-doctoral level. Dr Caroline Bowman was appointed earlier this year. She has extensive experience in research related to the core of the Project, and has been central in setting the lab up in order to complete the Project successfully.
2) Acquiring new equipment. As part of the work of the Project, we have purchased a range of test materials, and psychophysiological equipment: both skin-conductance and electrocardiography, to measure emotional arousal.
3) Data collection and analysis. This is now well under way in several domains.
Empathy Study: Data collection and data analysis for the basic task is complete. We are collecting further data that will allow us to check some details of the results, enhance the reliability of the findings, and add some additional technological features. We anticipate that a draft of a publication should be available for the January 2006 meeting – when the findings from the study will be outlined.
Schizotypy Study: Data collection and an initial data analysis for the basic task are proceeding well, and we have some preliminary data that look very encouraging. Data collection should be finished by summer 2006.
Education Study: Twin-tracked studies have been designed. The first study will systematically investigate emotion-based learning in adolescents, an initial phase of which has involved police clearance from the Criminal Records Bureau for Dr Bowman to work with those under 18 years of age (a mandatory step for all research studies with this age group) and the study now awaits Ethical Approval from the School of Psychology Ethics Board here at Bangor. I also have some suggestions about possible experimental paradigms for the second study, which I will discuss at the January 2006 meeting.
4) Publications. In addition to these projects specifically linked to the Grant, my lab has produced a range of other findings in 2004/2005.
In order to gain an impression of the way that work on the Grant fits into the context of the other work in the lab, it seems appropriate to provide a comprehensive list. The publications below all relate to the 2004/05 period (i.e. the years associated with the Grant).
While no papers have yet been published that arise directly from the grant, the support of the Philoctetes Center has been acknowledged in some of these recent ancillary publications.
(a) Emotion-based learning papers. Papers, many on methodological issues, investigating a range of phenomena related to emotion-based learning, and the linked issues of intuition and imaginative problem-solving under settings of novelty and complexity.
Bowman, C.H., Evans, C.E.Y., & Turnbull, O.H. (2005). Artificial time-constraints on the Iowa Gambling Task: The effects on behavioural performance and subjective experience. Brain and Cognition, 57: 21-25.
Bowman, C.H. & Turnbull, O.H. (2004). Emotion-based learning on a simplified card task: The Iowa and Bangor Gambling Tasks. Brain & Cognition, 55: 277-282.
Davies, J.L., Zois, E. & Turnbull, O.H. (under review). Prejudice and complex decision-making: Custom-designed emotional labelling compromises emotion-based learning on the Iowa Gambling Task. Emotion and Cognition.
Evans, C.E.Y., Kemish, K. & Turnbull, O.H. (2004). Paradoxical effects of education on the Iowa Gambling Task. Brain & Cognition, 54: 240-244.
Turnbull, O.H., Evans, C.E.Y., Bunce, A., Carzolio, B. & O'Connor, J. (2005). Emotion-based learning and central executive resources: An investigation of intuition and the Iowa Gambling Task. Brain and Cognition, 57: 244-247.
These papers have laid significant ground-work in the field, and are being widely cited by the growing community of researchers working on emotion-based learning. Notably, the Evans et al paper lays the foundation for the Education Project that is funded by the Grant.
(b) Emotion-based learning in schizophrenia. These findings demonstrate that people with schizophrenia are excessively reliant on emotion-based learning in decision-making, and that they have little flexibility in their emotion-based learning abilities.
Evans, C.E.Y., Bowman, C.H. & Turnbull, O.H. (2005). Subjective awareness on the Iowa Gambling Task: The key role of emotional experience in schizophrenia. Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology, 27: 656-664.
Turnbull, O.H., Evans, C.E.Y., Kemish, K., Park, S. & Bowman, C.H. (in press). A novel ‘set-shifting’ modification of the Iowa Gambling Task: Flexible emotion-based learning in schizophrenia. Neuropsychology.
These papers are potentially important in understanding the possible role for emotion, and emotion-based learning, in the maintaining false beliefs in people with schizophrenia. This pair of papers lays the foundation for the Schizotypy Project that is funded by the Grant.
(c) False beliefs in neurological patients. These papers investigate false beliefs in neurological patients, using various methods – all of which suggest a possible role of emotion in shaping the cognitions of these individuals.
Fotopoulou, A., Solms, M. & Turnbull, O.H. (2004). Wishful reality distortions in confabulation. Neuropsychologia, 42: 727-744.
Turnbull, O.H., Berry, H. & Evans C.E.Y. (2004). A positive emotional bias in confabulatory false beliefs about place. Brain & Cognition, 55: 490-494.
Turnbull, O.H., Jenkins, S. & Rowley, M.L. (2004). The pleasantness of false beliefs: An emotion-based account of confabulation. Neuropsychoanalysis, 6: 5-16. A Target paper, published with 23 pages of peer-commentary, by Blechner, DeLuca, Feinberg, Fotopoulou, Conway, Kinsbourne & Schnider.
Turnbull, O.H. (2004). Many a foolish notion: Emotion and confabulation. Neuropsychoanalysis, 6: 39-45. Response to commentaries.
Turnbull, O.H., Owen, V. & Evans, C.E.Y. (2005). Negative emotions in anosognosia. Cortex, 41: 67-75.
These papers investigate a range of findings in neurological patients, most notably on the role of emotion in false/unverified beliefs. This makes them complimentary to the findings above in schizophrenia: that is, the role of emotion in a similar class of clinical sign (false belief) with an entirely different pathological basis. These findings would especially important if future work related to the Grant were to investigate the neurobiology of these systems using functional imaging.
(d) Emotion-based learning in amnesia. These findings show preservation of emotion-based learning even in the presence of profound episodic memory loss.
Turnbull, O.H. & Evans, C.E.Y. (in press). Preserved complex emotion-based learning in amnesia. Neuropsychologia
Turnbull, O.H. & Zois, V. (under review). The developing transference in amnesia: Changes in the inter-personal relationship in spite of profound episodic memory loss. Neuropsychoanalysis
These papers are important in establishing the functional and anatomical independence of emotion-based learning systems. They have an especial importance as regards psychotherapies – where interpersonal interaction might employ an entirely different class of memory system (one related to emotion) to that conventionally understood as ‘memory’.
(e) Other related work. Several pieces of work that mention the important role of emotion in cognition, which flows from the line of research on which the grant is based.
Solms, M. & Turnbull, O.H. (2002). The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of Subjective Experience. New York: Other Press/Karnac Books. While this book was first printed in 2002, the last 2004/2005 have seen translations into Spanish, German, Danish, Italian, and Hebrew.
Solms, M. & Turnbull, O.H. (in press). To sleep, perchance to REM? The rediscovered role of emotion and meaning in dreams. In S. Della Sala (ed.) Tall Tales: Popular Myths about the Mind and Brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tondowski, M., Kovacs, Z., Morin, C. & Turnbull O.H. (under review). Hemispheric asymmetry, and the diversity of emotional experience in anosognosia. Neuropsychoanalysis
(f) Neuropsychoanalysis A series of publications related to the relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The Research Digests are surveys of recent scientific papers, typically on topics related to emotion and other matters of core psychoanalytic interest.
Solms, M. & Turnbull, O. (2005). Neuropsychoanalysis. Karnac Review, 6: 18-19.
Turnbull, O.H. (2004). Interview with Mortimer Ostow. Neuropsychoanalysis, 6: 211-218.
Turnbull, O.H. & Baird, J. (2004). Research Digest: Decision-making, empathy, and reward. Neuropsychoanalysis, 6: 119-122.
Turnbull, O.H. & Baird, J. (2004). Research Digest: Ethics, empathy and personality. Neuropsychoanalysis, 6: 225-228.
Turnbull, O.H. (2005). Research Digest: Dreaming, deception and affective synaesthesia. Neuropsychoanalysis, 7: 113-114.
Turnbull, O.H. (2005). Research Digest: Emotional memory, trust and hypnotic suggestion. Neuropsychoanalysis, 7: 101-102.
(g) Work outside of emotion. Two papers that relate to earlier work in my lab on visuo-spatial ability.
Turnbull, O.H., Driver, D. & McCarthy, R.A. (2004). 2D but not 3D: Pictorial-depth deficits in a case of visual agnosia. Cortex, 40: 723-738.
Turnbull, O.H. (2005). The biological basis of perception, and disorders of vision. In L. Swartz, C. De la Rey & N. Duncan Psychology: An Introduction. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, pp. 107-108, 140-149.
5) Scientific talks. Since the Project began (in Autumn 2004) I have given a series of talks based on the work on emotion and false beliefs. Where these are invited talks (the vast majority), expenses are typically paid for by the organisers, and these lectures are therefore cost-neutral to the Philoctetes Grant. Some of these talks have been to the scientific community, and also those who work with neurological or psychiatric patients. In one case (The Cheltenham Science Festival) the talk was aimed at the educated lay-person.
The support of the Philoctetes Center has been acknowledged in all of these talks that discuss my research.
INPS Congress Education Day & Research Day, Rome, Italy: 5, 8 September 2004
Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Group, Bangor, UK: 21 October 2004
British Neuropsychological Society, Queen’s Square, London. 4 November 2004
Polish Psychodynamic Psychotherapy Conference, Krakow, Poland. 16 March 2005
Cheltenham Science Festival, Cheltenham UK. 11 June 2005.
INPS Congress Education Day & Research Day, Rio, Brazil: 24 & 27 July 2005.
British Cognitive Neuroscience Society