The Me-File: An Event-Coding Approach to Self-Representation

Numerous authors have taken it for granted that people represent themselves or even have something like “a self”, but the underlying mechanisms remain a mystery. How do people represent themselves? Here I propose that they do so not any differently from how they represent other individuals, events, and objects: by binding codes representing the sensory consequences of being oneself into a Me-File, that is, into an event file integrating all the codes resulting from the behaving me. This amounts to a Humean bundle-self theory of selfhood, and I will explain how recent extensions of the Theory of Event Coding, a general theory of human perception and action control, provide all the necessary ingredients for specifying the mechanisms underlying such a theory. The Me-File concept is likely to provide a useful mechanistic basis for more specific and more theoretically productive experimentation, as well as for the construction of artificial agents with human-like selves.

An event-coding account of attitudes

Attitudes (or opinions, preferences, biases, stereotypes) can be considered bindings of the perceptual features of the attitudes’ object to affective codes with positive or negative connotations, which effectively renders them “event files” in terms of the Theory of Event Coding. We tested a particularly interesting implication of this theoretical account: that affective codes might “migrate” from one event file to another (i.e., effectively function as a component of one while actually being part of another), if the two files overlap in terms of other features. We tested this feature-migration hypothesis by having participants categorize pictures of fictitious outer space characters as members of two fictitious races by pressing a left or right key, and to categorize positive and negative pictures of the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) as positive and negative by using the same two keys. When the outer space characters were later rated for likability, members of the race that was categorized by means of the same key as positive IAPS pictures were liked significantly more than members of the race that was categorized with the same key as negative IAPS pictures – suggesting that affective feature codes from the event files for the IAPS pictures effectively acted as an ingredient of event files for the outer space characters that shared the same key. These findings were fully replicated in a second experiment in which the two races were replaced by two unfamiliar fonts. These outcomes are consistent with the claim that attitudes, opinions, and preferences are represented in terms of event files and created by feature binding.

Pathophysiologie des Gilles-de-la-Tourette-Syndroms

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGBeim Gilles-de-la-Tourette-Syndrom (GTS) handelt es sich um eine häufige facettenreiche, typischerweise im Kindes- oder Jugendalter beginnende neuropsychiatrische Erkrankung. Die Pathophysiologie ist nicht sicher geklärt. Eine wichtige Rolle scheinen die Basalganglien und kortiko-striato-thalamo-kortikale Regelkreise einzunehmen. Eine der konstantesten Veränderungen stellt eine diskrete Volumenreduktion des Striatums bei Kindern dar. Auch konnten Veränderungen im Bereich der weißen Substanz innerhalb dieses Regelkreises nachgewiesen werden. Auf kortikaler Ebene wurden Veränderungen im Bereich des sensomotorischen und präfrontalen Kortex, der supplementär motorischen Region und des inferioren parietalen Kortex (BA 40) beschrieben. Auf biochemischer Ebene zeigt sich vor allem eine erhöhte dopaminerge Transmission. Auch Serotonin scheint durch den Wegfall Dopamin hemmender Effekte eine Rolle zu spielen. Kognitionspsychologische bzw. wahrnehmungspsychologische Ansätze gingen zunächst von einer gestörten inhibitorischen Kontrolle aus.Aufgrund uneinheitlicher Ergebnisse wird eher eine Interferenz mit Kompensationsmechanismen zur Tic-Kontrolle vermutet. Auch zeigen sich Veränderungen der interozeptiven Wahrnehmung. Allerdings ist unsicher, ob diese ursächlich sind oder eine sekundäre Veränderung des GTS darstellen. Einer der aktuellsten Ansätze stützt sich auf die „Theory of Event Coding“, welche besagt, dass sowohl Wahrnehmungen als auch Handlungen gemeinsam in „event files“ gespeichert werden und in enger Verbindung stehen. Es gibt erste experimentelle Hinweise, dass bei Patienten mit einem GTS die Kopplung zwischen Wahrnehmung und Handlung besonders stark ausgeprägt ist und Tics aufgrund dieser starken Bindung durch verschiedene Stimuli ausgelöst werden könnten.

Alcohol Hangover Differentially Modulates the Processing of Relevant and Irrelevant Information

Elevated distractibility is one of the major contributors to alcohol hangover-induced behavioral deficits. Yet, the basic mechanisms driving increased distractibility during hangovers are still not very well understood. Aside from impairments in attention and psychomotor functions, changes in stimulus-response bindings may also increase responding to distracting information, as suggested by the theory of event coding (TEC). Yet, this has never been investigated in the context of alcohol hangover. Therefore, we investigated whether alcohol hangover has different effects on target-response bindings and distractor-response bindings using a task that allows to differentiate these two phenomena. A total of n = 35 healthy males aged 19 to 28 were tested once sober and once hungover after being intoxicated in a standardized experimental drinking setting the night before (2.64 gr of alcohol per estimated liter of body water). We found that alcohol hangover reduced distractor-response bindings, while no such impairment was found for target-response bindings, which appeared to be unaffected. Our findings imply that the processing of distracting information is most likely not increased, but in fact decreased by hangover. This suggests that increased distractibility during alcohol hangover is most likely not caused by modulations in distractor-response bindings.

Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome

Gilles de la Tourette syndrome is a common, multifaceted neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by multiple motor and vocal tics. Although numerous neuroanatomical and neurophysiological particularities have been documented, there is no general concept or overarching theory to explain the pathophysiology of Tourette syndrome. Given the premonitory urges that precede tics and the altered sensorimotor processing in Tourette syndrome, the “Theory of Event Coding” (TEC) seems to be an attractive framework. TEC assumes that perceptions and actions are bound together and encoded using the same neural code to form so-called “event files.” Depending on the strength of the binding between perception and action, partial repetition of features of an event file can lead to increasing cost because existing event files need to be reconfigured. This is referred to as “partial repetition costs”, which appear to be increased in Tourette patients. This indicates stronger binding within “event files” in Tourette.

Representing Oneself and Others

Human beings are assumed to own a concept of their self, but it remains a mystery how they represent themselves and others. I shall develop a theoretical framework, inspired by the Theory of Event Coding, of how people represent themselves and others, how and under which circumstances these two kinds of representations interact and what consequences this has. In a nutshell, I shall argue that self- and other-representations can overlap to the degree that they share features, that the shared features are particularly relevant or salient, and that the individual is under a particular metacontrol state. Then I shall argue that self-concepts emerge through active exploration of one’s physical and social environment during infancy and childhood, as well as through cultural learning, and that their main purpose is related to social communication but not online action control.