The neural correlates of emotion ownership using biologically relevant emotional stimuli

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event The neural correlates of emotion ownership using biologically relevant emotional stimuli Aimee Mavratzakis1, 2*, Cornelia Herbert3, 4 and Peter Walla1, 2 1 University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Australia 2 Priority Research Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Newcastle, Australia 3 University of Wuerzburg, Department of Psychology, Germany 4 University of Tuebingen, University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Germany Aims: The relationship between emotion and self-awareness has rarely been addressed in neuroscience despite the potential clinical relevance of this knowledge. So far, existing studies using pronouns combined with emotion words such as ‘my fear’ have revealed that the interaction between emotion and self-other awareness develops hierarchically across several stages of processing. The aim of the current study was to determine whether using a biologically relevant paradigm of emotion processing, involving pictures rather than words, changes how these aspects of information are integrated across time. Method: Brain potential changes were recorded for 20 healthy participants while they viewed negative, positive and neutral emotional pictures during three blocks of emotion ownership instructions. Each participant imagined themself, an unknown person or no one experiencing the emotional scenario depicted in each picture. The words ‘You’, ‘Him’ or ‘None’ were presented before each picture to prime and reinforce the referred ownership for the respective block of instructions. Results: Rapid emotion discrimination in the visual cortex preceded ownership discrimination, with positive stimuli eliciting a significant early posterior negativity between 140-180ms. Consistent with language-based studies, personal ownership (Self and Other) elicited stronger positive potentials over parietal-occipital regions compared to no ownership at 200-300ms. Between 300-450ms Self-referential processing was significantly pronounced, but only when combined with positively valenced emotion ownership. Conclusions: The findings firstly suggest that, for pictures, emotional valence is processed earlier in the brain than is emotion ownership, which may be a direct result of their biological relevance. Second, the findings confirm previous literature, demonstrating that self-other discrimination involves two hierarchical stages of processing, beginning with selective processing of information with any personal reference over no reference. This is followed by the selective processing of information directly referred to the Self, where it is theorised that a proper distinction between Self and Other first evolves. Keywords: Emotion Ownership, EEG, Biological emotion, Self- Other discrimination, self-awareness Conference: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Wollongong, Australia, 20 Nov - 22 Nov, 2013. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Emotion Citation: Mavratzakis A, Herbert C and Walla P (2013). The neural correlates of emotion ownership using biologically relevant emotional stimuli. Conference Abstract: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.213.00049 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: 05 Nov 2013; Published Online: 05 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Miss. Aimee Mavratzakis, University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Newcastle, Australia, Aimee.Mavratzakis@uon.edu.au 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 Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Scholar Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla PubMed Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla 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.