The Effects of Individuals’ Mood State and Personality Trait on the Cognitive Processing of Emotional Stimuli

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of individuals’ personality trait and mood state on affective reactions to emotional stimuli. Resting electroencephalographic (EEG) was recorded from 11 healthy right-handed males and questionnaires were administered to assess subject’s mood state (total mood disturbance score) and personality trait (i.e. introvert or extravert), respectively. Along with baseline signals from the resting period, EEG was measured while subjects viewed pictures of three types of emotional stimuli (negatively arousing, calm, and positively arousing) chosen from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). A major question raised by the brain’s response to emotional stimuli was whether these changes were related to preexistent differences in subjects’ mood state and personality. Extraverted subjects and those with normal mood disturbance scores showed a greater response to positive stimuli processing while brain areas of introverted subjects and those with high mood disturbance scores were highly responsive to negative emotional pictures in the upper alpha frequency bands (10~12 Hz).