574 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
representations in patients with amnesia. 
Tulving (1993) relates the story of K. C., an 
amnesic patient who lost the capacity to form 
new episodic memories. K. C. has a sense of 
self- awareness but not autonoetic awareness 
(autobiograpical remembering, or the feeling 
that one “owns” one’s memories). K. C. may 
be conscious in a similar way that a dog is 
conscious, but not in the same way as indi -
viduals without neurological damage. Inter -
estingly, K. C. seems to have the capacity to 
revise his self-  representations even without 
memories of his specific behaviors and ex -
periences: K. C.’s self-  descriptions converge 
with his mother’s descriptions of his cur -
rent personality more closely than with her 
descriptions of his preamnesic personality 
(Tulving, 1993). Similarly, Klein, Loftus, 
and  Kihlstrom (1996) found evidence that 
another patient with amnesia, W. J., showed 
stable and seemingly accurate self-  ratings 
of personality traits across a time period 
when she lacked the capacity to remember 
any personally experienced events. These 
findings suggest that one’s current self- 
representations are not dependent on con -
sciously accessible memories about personal 
experiences, that trait self-  ratings reflect 
different cognitive and neural mechanisms 
than self-  reports of specific past behaviors.
Despite the promise of patient studies, the 
brain damage associated with neurological 
disorders or lesions is often highly diffuse, 
making it difficult to pinpoint the specific 
brain region involved in any observed defi -
cits. Moreover, it is impossible to determine 
whether the damaged region is responsible 
for receiving or sending the necessary neural 
signals, or whether the damaged area sim -
ply blocks messages from being relayed be -
tween two adjacent brain areas that actually 
regulate the aspect of self-  functioning that is 
showing a deficit.
Studies of Neural Functioning 
in Healthy  Individuals
Advances in neuroimaging techniques, 
including methods based on electrical 
signals (electroencephalography [EEG], 
event-  related potential [ERP], magnetoen -
cephalography [MEG]) and those based on 
functional imaging (positron emission to -
mography [PET], functional magnetic reso -nance imaging [fMRI]), permit more pre -
cise measurement of the functioning of the 
brain. Although these methods are correla -
tional, they allow researchers to see which 
part of the brain becomes particularly active 
when someone performs a self-  evaluative, 
self- perceptual, or self-  regulatory task. Re -
search in this area converges with patient 
studies in showing that several regions with -
in the frontal and temporal lobes, includ -
ing the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), 
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, medial 
frontopolar–  retrosplenial cortex, orbito -
frontal cortex, and anterior cingulate, are 
more heavily recruited when individuals en -
gage in self-  related processes or experience 
self- conscious emotions (Beer et al., 2006; 
Beer, 2007; Beer, 2016; Martinelli, Sper -
dutti, & Piolino, 2013; Qin & Northoff, 
2011; Tacikowski, Berger, & Ehrsson, 2017; 
Takahashi et al., 2008). Even trait-like as -
pects of the self, such as self-  esteem, have 
been linked to activity in some of the same 
regions (Izuma et al., 2018).
One interesting question emerging from 
this research is what happens in the brain 
when participants are not performing any 
mental tasks but are simply engaging in self- 
reflection. It turns out that a set of brain 
regions in the frontal, parietal, and medial 
temporal lobes consistently become active 
when people let their minds wander and 
engage in self-  reflection, mentally traveling 
back and forth through time to learn from 
the past and plan for the future (Axelrod, 
Rees, & Bar, 2017; Mason et al., 2007). 
Neuroscientists refer to this activity as the 
brain’s “default mode network,” suggesting 
that we spend much of our time exploring 
past and future selves.
Together, this body of research illustrates 
various ways in which the brain can affect 
self processes. The ultimate goal of neuro -
science research on the self is to understand 
how the brain generates self-  awareness.4 
This goal is complicated because, like other 
higher-  order mental functions, self process -
es emerge out of a complex interplay among 
multiple brain regions. Moreover, there is a 
crucial issue of determining the direction of 
causal relations; for example, does conscious 
self- reflection cause behavior, or is behavior 
initiated through unconscious brain pro -
cesses that the conscious mind then watch -