scholarly journals The Effects of Angry Expressions and Fearful Expressions on Duration Perception: An ERP Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huazhan Yin ◽  
Xiaobing Cui ◽  
Youling Bai ◽  
Gege Cao ◽  
Li Zhang ◽  
...  

Little is known about the electrophysiological basis of the effect of threat-related emotional stimuli with different motivational direction on duration perception. Thus, event-related potentials were employed to examine the effects of angry expressions and fearful expressions on perception of different duration (490–910 ms). Behavioral results showed there was a greater underestimation of the duration of angry expressions (approach-motivated negative stimuli) than fearful expressions (withdrawal-motivated negative stimuli), compared with neutral expressions. Event-related potentials results showed that, the area of Contingent Negative Variation (CNV) evoked by angry expression, fearful expression and neutral expression gradually increased. These results indicated that specific electrophysiological mechanisms may underlie the attention effects of angry and fearful expressions on timing. Specifically, compared with neutral expressions, fearful expressions and angry expressions both are likely to distract more attentional resources from timer, in particular, angry expressions attract more attention resources than fearful expressions from timer. The major contribution of the current study is to provide electrophysiological evidences of fear vs. anger divergence in the aspect of time perception and to demonstrate beyond the behavioral level that the categorization of threat-related emotions should be refined so to highlight the adaptability of the human defense system.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Di Yang ◽  
Hengheng Tao ◽  
Hongxing Ge ◽  
Zuoshan Li ◽  
Yuanyan Hu ◽  
...  

Abstract BackgroundSocial impairment is a defining phenotypic feature of autism. The present study investigated whether individuals with autistic traits exhibit altered perceptions of social emotions. MethodsTwo groups of participants (High-AQ and Low-AQ) were recruited based on their scores on the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ). Their behavioral responses and event-related potentials (ERP) elicited by social and nonsocial stimuli with positive, negative, and neutral emotional valence were compared in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to view social-emotional and nonsocial-emotional pictures. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to listen to social-emotional and nonsocial-emotional audio recordings. ResultsMore negative emotional reactions and smaller amplitudes of late ERP components (the late positive potential in Experiment 1 and the late negative component in Experiment 2) were found in the High-AQ group than in the Low-AQ group in response to the social-negative stimuli. In addition, amplitudes of these late ERP components in both experiments elicited in response to social-negative stimuli were correlated with the AQ scores of the High-AQ group. LimitationsAlthough the influence of autistic traits on reactions to social or nonsocial emotional stimuli was assessed in an experimental setting, whether and how these reactions are related to real-world behavior requires further investigation. In addition, filler trials should be used to evaluate whether participants focused sufficiently on the emotional stimuli. ConclusionThese results suggest that individuals with autistic traits have altered emotional processing of social-negative emotions.


2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (12) ◽  
pp. 1508-1515 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Buodo ◽  
Michela Sarlo ◽  
Pier Antonio Battistella ◽  
Cristiana Naccarella ◽  
Daniela Palomba

The present preliminary study was aimed at investigating the electrocortical correlates of attentional allocation toward emotional stimuli in children and adolescents with migraine by means of the event-related potentials. The electroencephalogram was continuously recorded in 7 migrainous children and 8 healthy controls while they were looking at a series of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. The mean amplitude of the Negative Central component of the event-related potentials was computed as an index of the allocation of attentional resources to the presented stimuli. Relative to controls, children with migraine displayed reduced fronto-central negativity and larger posterior positivity in response to emotional pictures. This effect was already evident, overall, in a time window preceding the Negative Central component. The smaller cortical negativity in response to emotional stimuli suggests reduced attentional engagement toward emotionally relevant stimuli, or might be interpreted in terms of advanced brain maturation in migraine children.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-152
Author(s):  
Bingren Zhang ◽  
Chu Wang ◽  
Chanchan Shen ◽  
Wei Wang

Background: Responses to external emotional-stimuli or their transitions might help to elucidate the scientific background and assist the clinical management of psychiatric problems, but pure emotional-materials and their utilization at different levels of neurophysiological processing are few. Objective: We aimed to describe the responses at central and peripheral levels in healthy volunteers and psychiatric patients when facing external emotions and their transitions. Methods: Using pictures and sounds with pure emotions of Disgust, Erotica, Fear, Happiness, Neutral, and Sadness or their transitions as stimuli, we have developed a series of non-invasive techniques, i.e., the event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, excitatory and inhibitory brainstem reflexes, and polygraph, to assess different levels of neurophysiological responses in different populations. Results: Sample outcomes on various conditions were specific and distinguishable at cortical to peripheral levels in bipolar I and II disorder patients compared to healthy volunteers. Conclusions: Methodologically, designs with these pure emotions and their transitions are applicable, and results per se are specifically interpretable in patients with emotion-related problems.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasileios Ioakeimidis ◽  
Nareg Khachatoorian ◽  
Corinna Haenschel ◽  
Thomas A. Papathomas ◽  
Attila Farkas ◽  
...  

Abstract The hollow-mask illusion is an optical illusion where a concave face is perceived as convex. It has been demonstrated that individuals with schizophrenia and anxiety are less susceptible to the illusion than controls. Previous research has shown that the P300 and P600 event-related potentials (ERPs) are affected in individuals with schizophrenia. Here, we examined whether individual differences in neuroticism and anxiety scores, traits that have been suggested to be risk factors for schizophrenia and anxiety disorders, affect ERPs of healthy participants while they view concave faces. Our results confirm that the participants were susceptible to the illusion, misperceiving concave faces as convex. We additionally demonstrate significant interactions of the concave condition with state anxiety in central and parietal electrodes for P300 and parietal areas for P600, but not with neuroticism and trait anxiety. The state anxiety interactions were driven by low-state anxiety participants showing lower amplitudes for concave faces compared to convex. The P300 and P600 amplitudes were smaller when a concave face activated a convex face memory representation, since the stimulus did not match the active representation. The opposite pattern was evident in high-state anxiety participants in regard to state anxiety interaction and the hollow-mask illusion, demonstrating larger P300 and P600 amplitudes to concave faces suggesting impaired late information processing in this group. This could be explained by impaired allocation of attentional resources in high-state anxiety leading to hyperarousal to concave faces that are unexpected mismatches to standard memory representations, as opposed to expected convex faces.


2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1135-1148 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annett Schirmer ◽  
Sonja A. Kotz

The present study investigated the interaction of emotional prosody and word valence during emotional comprehension in men and women. In a prosody-word interference task, participants listened to positive, neutral, and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral, and angry prosody. Participants were asked to rate word valence while ignoring emotional prosody, or vice versa. Congruent stimuli were responded faster and more accurately as compared to incongruent emotional stimuli. This behavioral effect was more salient for the word valence task than for the prosodic task and was comparable between men and women. The event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed a smaller N400 amplitude for congruent as compared to emotionally incongruent stimuli. This ERP effect, however, was significant only for the word valence judgment and only for female listeners. The present data suggest that the word valence judgment was more difficult and more easily influenced by task-irrelevant emotional information than the prosodic task in both men and women. Furthermore, although emotional prosody and word valence may have a similar influence on an emotional judgment in both sexes, ERPs indicate sex differences in the underlying processing. Women, but not men, show an interaction between prosody and word valence during a semantic processing stage.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenglong Cao ◽  
Jian Song ◽  
Binbin Liu ◽  
Jianren Yue ◽  
Yuzhao Lu ◽  
...  

Abstract Background: Cognitive impairments have been reported in patients with pituitary adenoma; however, there is a lack of knowledge of investigating the emotional stimuli processing in pituitary patients. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether there is emotional processing dysfunction in pituitary patients by recording and analyzing the late positive potential (LPP) elicited by affective stimuli.Methods: Evaluation of emotional stimuli processing by LPP Event related potentials (ERPs) was carried out through central- parietal electrode sites (C3, Cz, C4, P3, Pz, P4) on the head of the patients and healthy controls (HCs).Results: In the negative stimuli, the amplitude of LPP was 2.435 ± 0.419μV for HCs and 0.656 ± 0.427μV for patient group respectively ( p = 0.005). In the positive stimuli, the elicited electric potential 1.450 ± 0.316μV for HCs and 0.495 ± 0.322μV for patient group respectively ( p = 0.040). Moreover, the most obvious difference of LPP amplitude between the two groups existed in the right parietal region. On the right hemisphere (at the P4 site), the elicited electric potential was 1.993 ± 0.299μV for HCs and 0.269 ± 0.305μV for patient group respectively( p = 0.001).Conclusion: There are functional dysfunction of emotional stimuli processing in pituitary adenoma patients. Our research provides the electrophysiological evidence for the presence of cognitive dysfunction which need to be intervened in the pituitary adenoma patients.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 254-278
Author(s):  
Lisa V. Eberhardt ◽  
Ferdinand Pittino ◽  
Anna Scheins ◽  
Anke Huckauf ◽  
Markus Kiefer ◽  
...  

Abstract Emotional stimuli like emotional faces have been frequently shown to be temporally overestimated compared to neutral ones. This effect has been commonly explained by induced arousal caused by emotional processing leading to the acceleration of an inner-clock-like pacemaker. However, there are some studies reporting contradictory effects and others point to relevant moderating variables. Given this controversy, we aimed at investigating the processes underlying the temporal overestimation of emotional faces by combining behavioral and electrophysiological correlates in a temporal bisection task. We assessed duration estimation of angry and neutral faces using anchor durations of 400 ms and 1600 ms while recording event-related potentials. Subjective ratings and the early posterior negativity confirmed encoding and processing of stimuli’s emotionality. However, temporal ratings did not differ between angry and neutral faces. In line with this behavioral result, the Contingent Negative Variation (CNV), an electrophysiological index of temporal accumulation, was not modulated by the faces’ emotionality. Duration estimates, i.e., short or long responses toward stimuli of ambiguous durations of 1000 ms, were nevertheless associated with a differential CNV amplitude. Interestingly, CNV modulation was already observed at 600–700 ms after stimulus onset, i.e., long before stimulus offset. The results are discussed in light of the information-processing model of time perception as well as regarding possible factors of the experimental setup moderating temporal overestimation of emotional stimuli. In sum, combining behavioral and electrophysiological measures seems promising to more clearly understand the complex processes leading to the illusion of temporal lengthening of emotional faces.


Life Sciences ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 91 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 94-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koushik Ray ◽  
Abhirup Chatterjee ◽  
Usha Panjwani ◽  
Sanjeev Kumar ◽  
Surajit Sahu ◽  
...  

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document