Brain responses to disgusting and fearful pictures with and without high spatial frequencies

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Brain responses to disgusting and fearful pictures with and without high spatial frequencies Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial1*, M. Teresa Mendoza1, Francisco Esteves2 and Jose Luis Mata-Martin3 1 University of Jaén, Psychology, Spain 2 Mid Sweden University, Sweden 3 University of Granada, Spain Growing evidence indicates that negative emotional stimuli received a preferential treatment by the processing systems where time, and not precision, is the key factor in order to preserve survival. This fast processing is proposed to be mainly supported by the magnocellular pathway, that conveys mainly low spatial frequencies. However it is unclear whether this privilege is exclusive of fear relevant stimuli or whether it is shared with other types of negative stimuli such as disgusting stimuli. In the current study we presented forty participants with neutral, fear and disgust eliciting pictures in two formats: one containing only low frequencies ("filtered") and the other containing all spatial frequencies ("intact"). Fourteen pictures of each category were used and every picture was presented four times: twice "filtered" and twice "intact". Event-related potentials were recorded and temporal and spatial components were detected and quantified through Principal Component Analyses. Repeated-measures 3 (Emotion) x 2 (Spatial Frequency) ANOVAs were carried out. Emotion and Spatial Frequency, but not their interaction, were significant for the N200 component, being especially prominent in posterior regions. No differences were found between fear and disgust stimuli. Both negative categories provoked greater N200 amplitudes than neutral stimuli. This pattern was similar to both filtered and intact pictures. Thus, our results suggest that disgusting visual stimuli as well as fear related stimuli have a priority access to processing via the magnocellular pathway. The scalp activity distribution is consistent with previous studies showing activation in the visual cortex in response to low frequency emotional stimuli. * The present research was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI2012-37090). Keywords: Fear, Visual Cortex, disgust, ERPs, Magnocellular Conference: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: Emotional and Social Processes Citation: Ruiz-Padial E, Mendoza M, Esteves F and Mata-Martin J (2015). Brain responses to disgusting and fearful pictures with and without high spatial frequencies. Conference Abstract: XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00331 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 19 Feb 2015; Published Online: 24 Apr 2015. * Correspondence: Dr. Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial, University of Jaén, Psychology, Jaén, Spain, erpadial@ujaen.es Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial M. Teresa Mendoza Francisco Esteves Jose Luis Mata-Martin Google Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial M. Teresa Mendoza Francisco Esteves Jose Luis Mata-Martin Google Scholar Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial M. Teresa Mendoza Francisco Esteves Jose Luis Mata-Martin PubMed Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial M. Teresa Mendoza Francisco Esteves Jose Luis Mata-Martin Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.