Abstract
Uncertainty about the emotional content of an upcoming event has found to modulate neural activity to the event before its occurrence. However, it is still under debate whether the uncertainty effects occur after the occurrence of the event. To address this issue, participants were asked to view emotional pictures that were shortly after a cue, which either indicated a certain emotion of the picture or not. Both certain and uncertain cues were used by neutral symbols. The anticipatory phase (i.e., inter-trial interval, ITI) between the cue and the picture was short to enhance the effects of uncertainty. In addition, we used positive and negative pictures that differed only in valence but not in arousal to investigate whether the uncertainty effect was dependent on emotional valence. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded during the presentation of the pictures. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that negative pictures evoked smaller P2 and late LPP but larger N2 in the uncertain as compared to the certain condition; whereas we did not find the uncertainty effect in early LPP. For positive pictures, the early LPP was larger in the uncertain as compared to the certain condition; however, there were no uncertainty effects in some other ERP components (e.g., P2, N2, and late LPP). The findings suggest that uncertainty modulates neural activity to emotional pictures and this modulation is altered by the valence of the pictures, indicating that individuals alter the allocation of attentional resources toward uncertain emotional pictures dependently on the valence of the pictures.
Highlights
From a biological point of view, anticipating the emotional content of an upcoming event according to environmental cues may help individuals in preparing adaptive reactions to approach the benefit and to avoid the harm
The P2 amplitudes were larger for pictures in the certain as compared to the uncertain condition and for positive compared with negative pictures
The findings suggest that uncertainty modifies the Event-related potential (ERP) to emotional pictures and that the uncertainty effects are altered by emotional valence of the pictures
Summary
From a biological point of view, anticipating the emotional content of an upcoming event according to environmental cues may help individuals in preparing adaptive reactions to approach the benefit and to avoid the harm. People are living in an ever-changing world; there is often uncertainty about which emotional content of the event will occur. This uncertainty has been found to be associated with anxiety (Grupe and Nitschke, 2013). Studies have indicated that uncertainty modulates neural activity to emotional pictures before their occurrences (during the anticipation period; e.g., Onoda et al, 2007; Lin et al, 2014a). In our previous Event-related potential (ERP) study (Lin et al, 2014a), for example, neutral symbols (e.g., arrows; cues) that uncertainly as compared to certainly signify the emotional content of the upcoming picture generally evoked larger N2 amplitudes. When the following picture was negative, early contingent negative variation (CNV) was reduced for uncertain as compared to certain cues
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