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Abstract

The interaction of emotional and cognitive processes is multifaceted. On the one hand, emotion may facilitate perceptual, attentional and cognitive control mechanisms, or also interfere with current goal-directed behavior. On the other hand, cognitive processes can be used to regulate emotions, for example, through attentional selection or cognitive change. The talk will elucidate these processes and their neural underpinnings with example studies and explore the etiological role of alterations in psychopathology. Critically, affective and cognitive processes can also be separated when examining the routes to how we represent and understand other people’s emotions, thoughts and intentions. The talk will specify these different routes, how they can be separated behaviorally and neurally, and describe the evidence for selectivity in impaired affective and cognitive understanding of others. Lastly, first results from a long-term intervention study will demonstrate plasticity of these functions through mental training.