How cognitive planning plays a role in our concept of the Common Center of cognitive-emotional integration
By Keira Autera UA’27 and Jim Stellar
We wrote about this idea that KA developed in the first blog about a common center for the integration of our planning (cognitive-neocortex) with our feelings (emotions-limbic system). We wrote a second blog on its application to Williams Syndrome. Now we want to write here about how cognition itself, particularly as mediated by the frontal lobes of the neocortex, provides that side of the common center integration.
We start here with the idea that the frontal lobe is the mediator of our executive functions, particularly around planning. In another blog, others have noted that the frontal lobe can be divided into a number of areas that play a role in making decisions in part by reading the positive or negative judgments of the limbic system. That is the kind of cognitive-emotional integration that we think underlies this concept of a Common Center. Maybe by understanding the relationship between these frontal lobe regions, we could further develop that concept. Or maybe we could examine other operations beyond the frontal lobe, such as perception, memory, attention, and language, all of which contribute to frontal lobe planning. That would take us to the other lobes of the brain and their sensory, analytic, and information storage functions. But that task may just be too big for us here and render our thinking as too superficial.
So, we will focus instead on the way frontal lobe planning is integrated with internal (and external) views of ourselves, as mentioned in the first blog. That is, we will explore the idea that the cognitive part of the common center is built upon our inner self and the way we interpret our life and plans. In other words, this idea deals with the way we recognize patterns in our thinking, what we think of them, and how we form our cognitive planning approaches. One element of our brains that seems to do that kind of reflection is the Default Mode Network (DMN), which has been studied for more than 20 years. We will explore how the DMN looks at what we are doing or thinking about doing and reflects on our purposes and the outcomes. The operative word here for the DMN is “reflect,” and a 2018 article quotes the philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett as saying that the self is “the center of narrative gravity.” That seems pretty close to our thinking about the Common Center.
As stated, we see the DMN as a neural interface of our plans and actions and our internal self, which is constructed through networks of self-conceptualization and abstract cognition. It was discovered in brain scanners as involving the frontal lobe activation and its connections with other brain regions (as noted in the DMN link above) when we are letting our minds wander. In this sense, it is the opposite of focusing, and indeed, the DMN is turned off when the task-positive network is turned on. A 2017 study on mind-wandering made two additional points for the DMN, which we quote from their paper’s abstract: First, “it supports experiences that are unrelated to the environment through strong coupling between its sub-systems,” and second, “it allows memory representations to form the basis of conscious experience.” These points may have particular relevance for our thinking here. A more recent 2025 review states that “…DMN, which is typically associated with self-referential thought and rest, shows dynamic shifts in its connectivity in response to affective states.” Thus, as those authors point out, the DMN and its relation to other brain networks may be giving us the kind of cognitive flexibility we need to develop ourselves. They say that the DMN is involved in the “continuous and dynamic construction of one’s sense of identity and self-concept.”
Our thoughts: We see the DMN as contributing to our self-conceptualization by integrating memory, attention, and imagination, allowing for unconstrained thoughts to emerge through the process known as mind wandering. An internal narrative allows for the DMN to construct our representation of the self throughout time. Intercortical activity allows for self-projection, such as the imagination of our actions, and through self-evaluation, which we can judge through such behaviors that violate our moral or social standards. Self-evaluation connects to our autobiographical memory by using self-referential processing, which integrates various models of who we are. The various models of who we are are established during the period of self-reflection, which later forms our identity. Identity involves the evaluation and our ability to assess behavior. By looking at our own shortcomings, we can create change by conditioning our brains by facilitating action. The DMN represents how identity is not formed in isolation, but rather through self-referential reflections that include the internal characterization of the self.
Self-reflection derives from investigating the absence of specific stimuli that we encode from the outside world, which activates the processing of our internal self. We would say that our internal self derives from the unconscious part of our being that our conscious self does not yet understand, and is only understood within the context of our emotional introspection. By breaking down parts of our memory and enhancing our ability to integrate our cognition and emotions to form our identity of who we are. Who we are is shaped by our ability to interpret our environment and internally process the stimuli it provides. Within our seeking to understand, we must be misunderstood to activate our investigative nature that reveals new knowledge and brings us closer to our understanding of our identity. We can reflect upon ourselves through the DMN by examining our brain and breaking down the internal self to form the external self that connects us to the world and our common center.
The idea of our internal self is known as emic, as mentioned. It is how we are on the inside, where the brain, heart, emotions, philosophical, unconscious, and our internal systems create this part of ourselves. While the external self, known in that reference as the etic view, is how we present these executive functions and exhibit them through our physical self, which is illustrated through our conscious environment. The concept of the emic and etic view is what helps us reevaluate what it is that allows us to function. It is through our consciousness that we can form the unconscious, which consists of the internal emotions and recognition of our receptive encoding from external cues, which we use to form our internal processes to gain a better understanding of the “self”. Through interacting with others and through self-awareness, we understand how we utilize our higher cognitive functions. Through our limbic systems, specifically the amygdala and accumbens, we receive feedback from our emotions that are rooted in survival and homeostasis, indicating what is good for us. This feedback also drives our cognitive self. Our cognition is not something finite but rather built with the inner workings and experiences that we have lived through.
Conclusion about the Common Center notion: The way we find our cognitive balance is by integrating every part of ourselves, from our neocortex, to work together and form our drive, which powers the mental self. We can gain a firm grasp on what we consider our brain to be by becoming knowledgeable about what makes the brain and ourselves as individuals. Through self-appraisal, we can distinguish ourselves as individuals by examining our unconscious thoughts, as they provide a pathway to understanding the unconscious processes that shape our conscious self and reality.
We need such qualifiers because we cannot directly see our unconscious thoughts; rather, we perceive them through their consequences in our behavior. These systems likely encode the parts of ourselves that only we, as individuals, can see—breaking down the internal aspects of our physical, emotional, and psychological selves and transforming them into who we consider ourselves to be.
While there is no precise definition of what the Common Center is, by exploring the brain and the DMN, we begin to understand what it is that makes us who we are. Who we are is not built upon a single part of ourselves; rather, it is the combination of multiple aspects that form our very being that are crucial in shaping our character. We are not one, but many, and recognizing this reveals a part of the unknown that accompanies the Common Center–for within that unknown, lies a part of you. This is what allows you to nurture and develop yourself as life helps you build the world around you. The cognitive self, which constructs the picture of who we believe ourselves to be, is of prime importance when examining the Common Center. It is we, as individuals, who define it, refine it, and recreate it into something that we have not yet known until we know ourselves.
