Abstract
BackgroundIn research on event-related potentials (ERP) to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli (i.e., motivated attention) is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). Evidence suggests that if attention is directed away from the pictures, then the emotional effects on EPN and LPP are eliminated. However, a few studies have found residual, emotional effects on EPN and LPP. In these studies, pictures were shown at fixation, and picture composition was that of simple figures rather than that of complex scenes. Because figures elicit larger LPP than do scenes, figures might capture and hold attention more strongly than do scenes. Here, we showed negative and neutral pictures of figures and scenes and tested first, whether emotional effects are larger to figures than scenes for both EPN and LPP, and second, whether emotional effects on EPN and LPP are reduced less for unattended figures than scenes.ResultsEmotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes. When pictures were unattended, emotional effects on EPN increased for scenes but tended to decrease for figures, whereas emotional effects on LPP decreased similarly for figures and scenes.ConclusionsEmotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes, but these effects did not resist manipulations of attention more strongly for figures than scenes. These findings imply that the emotional content captures attention more strongly for figures than scenes, but that the emotional content does not hold attention more strongly for figures than scenes.
Highlights
In research on event-related potentials (ERP) to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP)
When pictures were shown in large format, emotional effects on the LPP were eliminated when participants attended neutral areas within the negative pictures [16,17]. These findings suggest that pictures need to be presented in attended locations in order to elicit an EPN and LPP to emotional versus neutral pictures
Results of the present study showed that emotional effects on EPN and LPP were larger for figures than scenes
Summary
In research on event-related potentials (ERP) to emotional pictures, greater attention to emotional than neutral stimuli (i.e., motivated attention) is commonly indexed by two difference waves between emotional and neutral stimuli: the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP). Because sensory systems have a limited capacity, stimuli that are relevant for the survival of organisms need to be prioritized for processing. Consistent with this idea, emotional stimuli tend to attract more attention than do neutral stimuli, and this natural state of selective attention is referred to as ‘motivated attention’ [1,2]. After stimulus presentation and reflects a relative negativity over temporal-occipital electrodes to emotional (negative or positive) versus neutral stimuli. The LPP starts around 300 ms after stimulus presentation and can continue several seconds and reflects a relative positivity over central parietal electrodes to emotional versus neutral stimuli. Whereas the EPN reflects a call for attentional resources, the LPP reflects the allocation of attentional resources to salient events [2,3,4,13,15]
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