Temporal integration as “common currency” of brain and self‐scale‐free activity in resting‐stateEEGcorrelates with temporal delay effects on self‐relatedness

The self integrates information across time, but how this psychological temporal integration relates to neuronal temporal integration is unclear. In a modified self-matching task with temporal delays, participants showed a self-prioritization effect—greater accuracy for self-related stimuli—across all delay conditions, indicating stronger temporal integration of self-related information. Resting-state EEG measures of scale-free dynamics (power law exponent and autocorrelation window) indexed neuronal temporal integration. Higher neuronal integration was associated with a stronger increase in the self-prioritization effect over longer delays. Temporal integration on the neuronal level appears to serve as a template for psychological-level self-integration, suggesting it acts as a common currency linking neuronal and psychological aspects of self.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The self is a multifaceted phenomenon that integrates information and experience across multiple time scales. How temporal integration on the psychological level of the self is related to temporal integration on the neuronal level remains unclear. To investigate temporal integration on the psychological level, we modified a well-established self-matching paradigm by inserting temporal delays. On the neuronal level, we indexed temporal integration in resting-state EEG by two related measures of scale-free dynamics, the power law exponent and autocorrelation window. We hypothesized that the previously established self-prioritization effect, measured as decreased response times or increased accuracy for self-related stimuli, would change with the insertion of different temporal delays between the paired stimuli, and that these changes would be related to temporal integration on the neuronal level. We found a significant self-prioritization effect on accuracy in all conditions with delays, indicating stronger temporal integration of self-related stimuli. Further, we observed a relationship between temporal integration on psychological and neuronal levels: higher degrees of neuronal integration, that is, higher power-law exponent and longer autocorrelation window, during resting-state EEG were related to a stronger increase in the self-prioritization effect across longer temporal delays. We conclude that temporal integration on the neuronal level serves as a template for temporal integration of the self on the psychological level. Temporal integration can thus be conceived as the "common currency" of neuronal and psychological levels of self.