Abstract
Emotions are processed asymmetrically by the human brain. Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) as measured by electroencephalographic (EEG) power in the alpha band (8–13 Hz), is a sensitive indicator of asymmetric brain activity in the frontal cortex. The current study aimed to analyze the frontal EEG asymmetries in terms of valence and motivational direction. We presented 37 participants with three film excerpts that were selected from the standard emotional film database to elicit three target emotions: tenderness, anger, and neutrality. Participants’ self-reports on their induced emotional responses and EEG signals were recorded and analyzed. The results showed that individuals displayed lower alpha power in the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere when they were watching a tender film, indicating that tenderness was positive and related to approach motivation. In contrast, when watching an angry movie, participants showed higher alpha power in the left hemisphere than the right hemisphere, suggesting that anger was negative and associated with withdrawal motivation. These findings help to link positive and approach-motivated tenderness with greater left hemispheric activation and state-anger with greater right hemispheric activation through the analysis of FAA.
Highlights
Emotion is defined as an affective state of human beings and animals arising as a response to the perception of an object or situation[1]
The present study examined the EEG patternsand tested Frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) patterns in three emotional categories: tenderness, anger and neutrality
The results proved that individuals displayed lower alpha power in the left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere when they were watching a tender film
Summary
Emotion is defined as an affective state of human beings and animals arising as a response to the perception of an object or situation[1]. For state-related FAA, studies suggested that situational manipulations of positive and negative emotional states were associated with different asymmetric frontal activities. According to most contemporary theories of emotion, positive emotion often correlates to approach-related motivation with more left frontalbrain activity, whereas negative emotion correlates to withdrawal-related motivation with more right frontal brain activity[24]. The approach-withdrawal motivational directionis defined as action tendencies directed at moving toward or running away[25,26] This model states that FAA is linked to larger left-hemispheric activation during approach-related motivation but larger right-hemispheric activation during withdrawal-related motivation[15,16,27]. The authors found that greater left-frontal activation was associated with both positive and negative approach-motivated, which proved that asymmetric hemisphere activation was related to motivational direction, rather than affective valence[13]. In addition to healthy pariticipant, the results from patients with emotional disorders support the notion that left frontal regions are involved in approach-related emotions and right frontal regions are involved in withdrawal-related emotions[32]
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