Motivated attention to fear-related stimuli: Evidence for the enhanced processing of fear in the late positive potential

Differences in the processing of emotions like fear and sadness have important implications for our understanding of many psychological phenomena (e.g., attentional biases, psychopathology). The late positive potential (LPP) is an established event-related potential that reflects motivated attention to emotional stimuli at the neural level with excellent temporal resolution, but has been infrequently used to study differences across emotions. Drawing on functional theories of emotion suggesting that the quick processing of fear-inducing stimuli increases chances of survival, we hypothesized that fear-inducing pictures would produce larger LPP amplitudes compared to other emotions (happy and sad) in the early time windows of the LPP (e.g., 400–700, 700–1000 ms). The results supported our hypothesis, offering new, albeit preliminary, evidence of the differential processing of threat-related stimuli on the LPP.     

Neural underpinnings of the relationships between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents

There is little neurological evidence linking sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescence, which is characterised as an emotionally fluctuant period. The present study examined the relationship between sensation seeking and emotion regulation in adolescents. Electroencephalograms were recorded from 22 high sensation-seeking adolescents (HSSs, M_age = 12.36) and 24 low sensation-seeking adolescents (LSSs, M_age = 12.84) during the reactivity and regulation-image task. Group differences in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) associated with the regulation of negative and neutral stimuli were analysed. The results showed that (a) the P2 of HSSs were larger than LSSs during emotion regulation; (b) in down-regulation conditions, the LPP in all time windows were smaller than no-regulation in LSSs. However, there was no significant difference in HSSs; (c) the LPP 300–600 and LPP 1000–1500 of down-regulation were smaller in LSSs than HSSs; (d) for LPP 600–1000, HSSs induced larger LPP than LSSs in the negative down-regulation and negative no-regulation conditions. The results provide neurological evidence that higher sensation seeking is related to the high reactivity to emotional stimuli and poor cognitive control during the regulation of emotions.     

女性对新异性事件加工的偏向:来自ERP的证据

采用修订后的oddball范式,结合ERP技术考察女性与男性在加工中性新异刺激时的差异。ERP结果表明,在早期已经出现新异性效应。在300-500ms内,新异刺激在男性和女性被试中都比标准刺激诱发了更大的LPC。在500-700ms内,新异刺激仅在女性被试中比标准刺激诱发更大的LPC,在男性被试中没有显著差异。这些结果表明男性和女性都对中性新异刺激表现出加工偏向,但是女性对其加工的时间比男性更长。这可能与女性容易对显著性(salient)的刺激进行沉思(rumination)相关。     

Tracking fear in snake and spider fearful participants during visual search: A multi-response domain study

In visual search tasks snake or spider fearful participants showed shorter reaction times (RTs) to respond to their feared animal (e.g., snake) than to the nonfeared animal (i.e., spider) (Öhman, Flykt, & Esteves, 2001). Here, we used this paradigm with heart rate (HR), RTs, and event-related potential (ERP) measures, to investigate the nature of the responses to the feared animal, a nonfeared (but fear-relevant) animal, and fear-irrelevant target stimuli with snake fearful, spider fearful, and nonfearful participants. Fearful participants showed shorter RTs and evoked larger amplitudes on a late positive potential (LPP; 500–700 ms) for their feared compared to the nonfeared and the fear-irrelevant targets. No relevant significant differences were found on early ERP components and HR measures. These findings do not support an involvement of early information processing in the detection of the feared animal in fearful participants, they favour instead a more elaborated analysis of these complex stimuli to achieve the detection.     

空间推理的脑机制：一项ERP研究

记录14名正常成人完成四种空间推理及一种基线任务（记忆任务）时的事件相关电位,对空间推理的脑电活动情况进行考察。研究结果表明,在200ms-900ms窗口,推理任务比基线任务诱发更大的正成分。对不同推理任务的比较表明,具体与抽象材料的单模型推理诱发相似的波形;单模型与有效的双模型任务诱发的ERP成分明显不同,在300ms-600ms窗口,后者比前者诱发更大的正波;在200-600ms时间窗口,存在有效结论与无有效结论的双模型问题也诱发明显不同的ERP波形。研究的结果表明,推理与记忆涉及不同的加工要求,推理需要整合前提的信息,而记忆只需要储存前提信息。在解决双模型推理问题时,从200ms开始,被试就对刺激材料进行初步的加工与判断,随后对双模型问题采用有注解的单模型加工策略。另外,不同材料的空间推理任务之间的波形较为一致,表明视觉表象并未明显影响空间推理过程。     

独乐乐与众乐乐？社会与非社会正性情绪刺激的加工差异：一个ERP研究

个体情绪加工具有其生物基础,也受到文化因素的影响。社会性和非社会性情绪刺激加工可能存在不同的机制。然而,以往大多数研究主要关注负性情绪的加工差异。因此,本研究选取大学生被试20名采用图片感知范式（Picture Perception Paradigm）探讨个体在加工社会性和非社会性正性情绪刺激的脑电位活动差异。研究发现：（1）在P1成分上,情绪图片诱发的波幅要显著大于中性图片。（2）在N2成分上,正性社会情绪图片诱发的波幅要显著大于正性非社会情绪图片（3）在早期时间窗中,由正性社会情绪图片与非社会情绪图片诱发的LPP波幅差异不显著。在中期时间窗中,正性社会情绪图片与非社会情绪图片的LPP波幅差异显著。晚期时间窗中,正性社会情绪图片诱发的LPP波幅显著大于正性非社会情绪图片。由此,相对于非社会性请刺激来说,正性社会情绪刺激在加工上可能占据优势地位。     

儿童与成人对社会和非社会正性情绪刺激脑电反应特征比较

采用事件相关电位技术探究不同年龄群体社会与非社会正性情绪刺激加工是否具有差异。研究发现：在P2成分上,成人在情绪刺激下诱发的波幅大于儿童;N2成分上,儿童在三种情绪刺激条件下波幅无显著差异。成人在社会性情绪刺激条件下诱发的脑电波幅大于在中性情绪刺激条件和非社会情绪刺激条件下诱发波幅;在LPP早、中、晚时间窗中,儿童的LPP波幅大于成人。由此,儿童与成人在社会和非社会正性情绪刺激加工上存在明显差异。     

The development of cognitive empathy and concern in preschool children: A behavioral neuroscience investigation

This developmental neuroscience study examined the electrophysiological responses (EEG and ERPs) associated with perspective taking and empathic concern in preschool children, as well as their relation to parental empathy dispositions and children's own prosocial behavior. Consistent with a body of previous studies using stimuli depicting somatic pain in both children and adults, larger early (~200 ms) ERPs were identified when perceiving painful versus neutral stimuli. In the slow wave window (~800 ms), a significant interaction of empathy condition and stimulus type was driven by a greater difference between painful and neutral images in the empathic concern condition. Across early development, children exhibited enhanced N2 to pain when engaging in empathic concern. Greater pain‐elicited N2 responses in the cognitive empathy condition also related to parent dispositional empathy. Children's own prosocial behavior was predicted by several individual differences in neural function, including larger early LPP responses during cognitive empathy and greater differentiation in late LPP and slow wave responses to empathic concern versus affective perspective taking. Left frontal activation (greater alpha suppression) while engaging in affective perspective taking was also related to higher levels of parent cognitive empathy. Together, this multilevel analysis demonstrates the important distinction between facets of empathy in children; the value of examining neurobehavioral processes in development. It provides provoking links between children's neural functioning and parental dispositions in early development.     

The role of activation charge in an emotional categorisation task for words: insight from the perspective of a dual process theory of the activation mechanisms

The role of activation (arousal and subjective significance) was investigated for word processing in an explicit emotional judgement task using a 3?×?3 manipulation. We expected to find dissociative effects for both factors. The behavioural results showed that the fraction of words perceived as emotional increases with increasing arousal or subjective significance. The electrophysiological (EEG) results showed that both factors influence ERP amplitudes. General effects of subjective significance were found for early (60–120?ms and 120–250?ms, low subjective significant stimuli evoked higher amplitude than other conditions) and late (350–490?ms, high subjective significant stimuli evoked higher amplitude than other conditions) time ranges. Localised arousal effects were found in 250–350?ms and 350–490?ms time ranges at posterior (amplitude for high arousing stimuli was less positive than for other conditions) and left frontal ROIs (diverse pattern). Localised subjective significance effects were found for the 350–490?ms time range at the posterior ROIs (amplitude for high subjective significant stimuli was more positive than for other conditions). The results of this study suggest that the effects of arousal reported in earlier studies might account for a more complex form of activation that was recently postulated, namely subjective significance.     

晚期正成分的时间-空间迁移模式在情绪调节发展研究中的应用

近二十年,使用认知神经科学手段探讨情绪调节成为了研究的热点。晚期正成分(Late Positive Potential,LPP)是情绪调节脑电研究中的一个典型成分,在不同的时间窗中分析LPP的波幅的变化及其优势激活脑区的迁移能够反映情绪调节加工过程中个体由对情绪刺激的感知到相应的认知调控过程的转变。LPP的时间-空间迁移模式被应用于情绪调节的发展研究,揭示从童年到青少年再到成年期个体情绪的潜在神经机制。研究者关注幼儿期、童年期、青少期、成人期个体在情绪调节加工过程中LPP波幅的变化及其时间-空间迁移模式特征,把不同年龄段个体情绪调节的发展特点与其大脑关键脑区(主要是前额叶)发育状况进行联系,为儿童身体发育和心理发展的主题提供更多的证据支持。未来的研究应加强对LPP在异常发展研究中应用,关注大脑发育与激素变化对LPP变化的影响,并加强对LPP调节效应的个体差异等问题的探讨。     

Neural correlates of audiovisual integration of semantic category information

Previous studies have found a late frontal-central audiovisual interaction during the time period about 150-220 ms post-stimulus. However, it is unclear to which process is this audiovisual interaction related: to processing of acoustical features or to classification of stimuli? To investigate this question, event-related potentials were recorded during a words-categorization task with stimuli presented in the auditory-visual modality. In the experiment, congruency of the visual and auditory stimuli was manipulated. Results showed that within the window of about 180-210 ms post-stimulus more positive values were elicited by category-congruent audiovisual stimuli than category-incongruent audiovisual stimuli. This indicates that the late frontal-central audiovisual interaction is related to audiovisual integration of semantic category information.     

三领域厌恶情绪的时程加工模式：攻击性个体差异的视角

本研究利用事件相关电位技术结合内隐任务范式探究了三领域厌恶情绪的加工过程,同时测量了 个体的攻击水平,以期找到加工厌恶情绪的个体差异。在加工早期（130-190ms）,生理厌恶刺激和道德厌恶刺激均可得到识别;在加工中期（300-350ms） ,三种厌恶刺激相互分离,三种厌恶情绪之间得到了区分;在加工晚期（400-600ms） ,个体则对性厌恶刺激最为敏感; 不同攻击水平个体在加工厌恶刺激的过程中并未表现出明显的个体差异。结果表明, 在神经层面上,三维结构下的厌恶情绪确实能够得到识别与区分。     

The persistence of attention to emotion: brain potentials during and after picture presentation

Emotional stimuli have been shown to elicit increased perceptual processing and attentional allocation. The late positive potential (LPP) is a sustained P300-like component of the event-related potential that is enhanced after the presentation of pleasant and unpleasant pictures as compared with neutral pictures. In this study, the LPP was measured using dense array electroencephalograph both before and after pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant images to examine the time course of attentional allocation toward emotional stimuli. Results from 17 participants confirmed that the LPP was larger after emotional than neutral images and that this effect persisted for 800 ms after pleasant picture offset and at least 1,000 ms after unpleasant picture offset. The persistence of increased attention after unpleasant compared to pleasant stimuli is consistent with the existence of a negativity bias. Overall, these results indicate that attentional capture of emotion continues well beyond picture presentation and that this can be measured with the LPP. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

认知分心的强度对创伤性信息加工的影响

结合ERP技术、创伤电影范式和改进的工作记忆范式探讨了认知分心的强度对创伤性信息加工的影响。结果发现, (1)高负荷上的N2波幅显著大于低负荷上的。(2)在低工作记忆负荷上, 创伤负性图引发的LPP波幅显著大于创伤中性图和无关中性图; 而在高工作记忆负荷上, 三类图片引发的LPP波之间差异不再显著。(3)在创伤负性图上高、低负荷工作记忆任务诱发的LPP波差异显著, 且高负荷条件下的LPP波幅显著小于低负荷条件。结果表明, 相比低认知控制, 早期高认知控制对创伤性信息的调节更有效, 支持了认知控制理论。     

负性情绪调节中认知重评和分心策略的作用:ERPs研究

采用事件相关电位技术,考察了认知重评和分心两种情绪调节策略对负性情绪体验和脑电活动的影响。结果发现,认知重评后被试的负性情绪体验强度和LPP波幅(300~1300ms)比简单注视条件下低;分心后被试的负性情绪体验强度比简单注视条件下低,但LPP波幅显示比简单注视条件下高。这说明认知重评和分心对负性情绪体验和脑电活动的影响不同,负性刺激再次呈现时认知重评优于分心策略的调节。该研究为认知重评和分心的比较研究提供了神经电生理学方面的证据。     

Attentional bias to angry faces using the dot-probe task? It depends when you look for it

A number of studies using the dot-probe task now report the existence of an attentional bias to angry faces in participants who rate highly on scales of anxiety; however, no equivalent bias has been observed in non-anxious populations, despite evidence to the contrary from studies using other tasks. One reason for this discrepancy may be that researchers using the dot-probe task have rarely investigated any effects which might emerge earlier than 500 ms following presentation of the threat-related faces. Accordingly, in the current study we presented pairs of face stimuli with emotional and neutral expressions and probed the allocation of attention to these stimuli for presentation times of 100 and 500 ms. Results showed that at 100 ms there was an attentional bias towards the location of the relatively threatening stimulus (the angry face in angry/neutral pairs and the neutral face in neutral/happy pairs) and this pattern reversed by 500 ms. Comparisons of reaction time (RT) scores with an appropriate baseline suggested that the early bias toward threatening faces may actually arise through inhibition of the relatively least threatening member of a face pair rather than through facilitation of, or vigilance towards, the more threatening stimulus. However the mechanisms governing the observed biases are interpreted, these data provide evidence that probing for the location of spatial attention at 500 ms is not necessarily indicative of the initial allocation of attention between competing emotional facial stimuli.     

Modulations of the electrophysiological response to pleasant stimuli by cognitive reappraisal

Research indicates that individuals successfully regulate their emotions to negatively valenced stimuli using cognitive, antecedent-focused techniques (cf. Gross, 1998). Event-related potential studies have elucidated candidate neural correlates, particularly modulations of the late positive potential (LPP) to index emotion regulation processes. The present study attempted to extend prior demonstrations of emotion regulation effects on the LPP to the domain of positively valenced stimuli. Twenty participants completed a blocked emotion regulation task: The first block consisted of passively viewing pleasant and neutral pictures, whereas the last two blocks consisted of either decreasing or increasing emotions to pleasant pictures. Results replicated our previous findings with negatively valenced stimuli, demonstrating an attenuated LPP during decrease instructions and no effect of increase instructions. Modulation of the ERP as a function of instruction was most prominent during the positive-going slow-wave time window of the LPP, indicating that attentional resources allocated to the perceptual processing of pleasant stimuli may be manipulated using emotion regulation strategies.     

高、低趋近积极情绪对不同注意加工阶段的影响

本研究采用事件相关电位(ERP)技术和Flanker任务, 探讨由甜点和风景图片分别诱发的高、低趋近积极情绪对注意的早期和晚期加工的影响。同时, 为更精细考察情绪对视觉注意范围早期加工阶段的影响, 在75%的Flanker试次中加入了一个白色方块探测刺激, 该刺激位于中央Flanker字母的左侧或右侧。研究结果表明, 在注意加工的早期感知阶段, 高趋近积极情绪下, 带有白色探测刺激的Flanker字母比低趋近积极情绪条件下诱发了更小的P1, 表明高趋近积极情绪窄化了早期注意加工范围; 在注意加工的晚期选择阶段, 高趋近积极情绪下的Flanker字母诱发了更大的N2b成分, 低趋近积极情绪下诱发了更大的P3成分, 表明高趋近积极情绪增强了对干扰的抑制能力, 而低趋近积极情绪下个体调用了更多的注意资源用以加工周边刺激。     

面孔的表情优先于性别信息加工：来自直接比较的证据

为了探讨面孔知觉时表情或性别信息加工优先性的问题,要求被试对不同时长窗口中呈现的一系列面孔刺激的性别或者表情做出判断。两类任务的排列设置分为完全随机（实验一、二）和随机区组（实验三）。结果一致发现在面孔刺激呈现时间为12ms和50ms时,面孔表情信息识别比面孔性别信息识别更准确。由此推论,面孔知觉中面孔表情信息加工优先于面孔性别信息加工。     

个体神经质水平对情绪加工的影响 ——事件相关电位研究

采用事件相关电位方法探讨个体神经质水平对情绪加工的影响,测量并比较了神经质高水平个体和神经质低水平个体观看三类图片（积极、中性和消极）时的事件相关电位。结果发现,P120、N130、P230和N250成分的刺激效价主效应显著,积极、消极情绪刺激与中性刺激诱发的ERP差异最早开始于刺激呈现后的120ms左右。其次,在额叶和额中央部位的晚正电位上,神经质水平与刺激效价交互作用显著,神经质高分组与低分组对消极情绪刺激的反应有明显差异,而两组被试对积极、中性刺激的反应没有表现出差异。结果支持神经质与消极情绪相关,个体的神经质水平主要影响额叶和额中央叶的晚期负性情绪加工