This article was originally published in a journal published byElsevier, and the attached copy is provided by Elsevier for theauthor’s benefit and for the benefit of the author’s institution, fornon-commercial research and educational use including withoutlimitation use in instruction at your institution, sending it to specificcolleagues that you know, and providing a copy to your institution’sadministrator.All other uses, reproduction and distribution, including withoutlimitation commercial reprints, selling or licensing copies or access,or posting on open internet sites, your personal or institution’swebsite or repository, are prohibited. For exceptions, permissionmay be sought for such use through Elsevier’s permissions site at:http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissionusematerialAuthor's personal copy11 Feigenson, L. et al. (2002) The representations underlying infants’choice of more: object-files versus analog magnitudes. Psychol. Sci. 13,150–15612 Gao, F. et al. (2000) What do infants know about continuous quantity?J. Exp. Child Psychol. 77, 20–2913 Huttenlocher, J. et al. (2002) Infants and toddlers discriminateamount: are they measuring? Psychol. Sci. 13, 244–24914 Newcombe, N. et al. (1999) Infants’ coding of location in continuousspace. Infant Behav. Dev. 22, 483–51015 Clearfield, M.W. and Mix, K.S. (1999) Number versus contour lengthin infants’ discrimination of small visual sets. Psychol. Sci. 10, 408–41116 Wynn, K. (1992) Addition and subtraction by human infants. Nature358, 749–75017 Wood, J.N. and Spelke, E.S. (2005) Infants’ enumeration of actions:numerical discrimination and its signature limits. Dev. Sci. 8, 173–1811364-6613/$ – see front matter ß 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.tics.2007.01.006The default self: feeling good or being right?Jennifer S. BeerUniversity of California, Davis, 1 Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USAThe medial prefrontal cortex exhibits a higher restingmetabolic rate than many other brain regions. Thisphysiological default mode might support a psychologi-cal default state of chronic self-evaluation that helpspeople consider their strengths and weaknesses whenplanning future actions. However, a recent imagingstudy that relates medial prefrontal cortex activity toself-evaluation raises new questions about whether thepsychological default mode of self-evaluation is bestcharacterized by accurate self-evaluations or by feelinggood about yourself.IntroductionNeural investigations of self suggest an intriguingrelationship between the resting physiology and thepsychological function of the medial prefrontal cortex [1–5]. The medial prefrontal cortex has a higher level ofbaseline metabolism in comparison with many other brainregions [5]. The baseline physiological difference in themedial prefrontal cortex has been theorized to reflect abaseline psychological characteristic of the mind when it isnot otherwise engaged in a specific task. The increasedresting metabolism of the medial prefrontal cortex mightsupport a generalized, automatic evaluation of self [5]. Thisdefault psychological mode promotes the consideration ofone’s strengths and weaknesses so that future actions canbe planned in light of these qualities. The associationbetween self-evaluation and medial prefrontal cortex hasbeen supported primarily by studies that compare judg-ments about the self with judgments about other socialobjects or low-level characteristics of stimuli (e.g. a self-reference paradigm) [1–4]. In these studies, self-judgments(e.g. descriptiveness of personality traits) are associatedwith changes in medial prefrontal activity. A recent fMRIstudy by Moran et al. extends this research by investi-gating whether medial prefrontal cortex is associated withcognitive aspects or emotional aspects of self-evaluation[6]. In other words, is medial prefrontal cortex recruited forevaluations of the self because those evaluations draw on aparticular cognitive process or because those evaluationsinvolve emotional biases that paint the self in an unrea-listically positive manner?Medial prefrontal cortex: a default mode ofcognitive self-evaluationMoran et al. recently examined the neural underpinningsof cognitive and emotional processing in relation to the selfby scanning participants while they used a four-point scale(from 1 = not at all like me, to 4 = very much like me) torate themselves on a series of positive (e.g. sincere) andnegative (e.g. liar) personality traits [6]. There were threemain findings. First, increases in medial prefrontal cortexand posterior cingulate activity over time were related toincreases in self-description ratings. Second, responselatencies were not associated with medial prefrontal cor-tex, which suggests that this region does not simply indextime spent on the task. Third, medial prefrontal cortex andposterior cingulate activity were related to cognitive pro-cessing (high versus low self-description ratings), whereasactivity in the ventral anterior cingulate was related toemotional processing (positive versus negative traits),particularly for highly self-descriptive traits (Figure 1a).These findings refine our understanding of medial prefron-tal activity and self-evaluation [1–4]. This area is recruitedfor cognitive aspects of self-evaluation, such as judging thedescriptiveness of personality traits, and is not recruitedfor emotional aspects of self-evaluation, such as favoringpositive information over negative information.The ‘psychological’ default mode of self-evaluationThe study by Moran et al. [6] furthers our understanding ofthe default mode of self-evaluation associated with medialprefrontal cortex, but it also presents a puzzle. Is thenormative, default mode of self-evaluation characterizedby accurate information gathering or by a biased search forflattering information? As stated earlier, the increasedresting metabolism of the medial prefrontal cortex is the-orized to support a default psychological mode of self-evaluation that provides chronic, generalized updates onCorresponding author: Beer, J.S. ([email protected]).Available online 7 March 2007.UpdateTRENDS in Cognitive Sciences Vol.11 No.5 187www.sciencedirect.comAuthor's personal copythe self. These automatic self-evaluations promote adap-tive behavior by using ‘cognitive downtime’ to evaluateone’s strengths and weaknesses, which can be taken intoaccount when responding to future situations [5]. If
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