Early Late Positive Potential Research Articles

Distinct Mindfulness States Produce Dissociable Effects on Neural Markers of Emotion Processing: Evidence From the Late Positive Potential

BackgroundMindfulness has long been theorized to benefit emotion regulation, but despite the ubiquity of the claim, there is little empirical evidence demonstrating how mindfulness modulates the neurophysiology of emotion processing. The current study aimed to fill this gap in knowledge by leveraging a novel research approach capable of discretizing mindfulness into distinct states of open monitoring (OM) and focused attention (FA) to distinguish their influence on multimodal subjective and objective measures of emotion processing. MethodsUtilizing a fully within-participant picture viewing state induction protocol (n = 30), we compared the effects of OM and FA, rigorously contrasted against an active control, on the visually evoked late positive potential (LPP), a neural index of motivated attention. Bayesian mixed modeling was used to distinguish OM versus FA effects on the early and late sustained LPP while evaluating the influence of subjective arousal ratings as a within-participant moderator of the state inductions. ResultsWhen negative picture trials were retrospectively rated as more subjectively arousing, the OM induction reduced the late sustained LPP response, whereas the FA induction enhanced the LPP. ConclusionsAcute manipulation of OM and FA states may reduce and enhance motivated attention to aversive stimuli during conditions of high subjective arousal, respectively. Functional distinctions between different mindfulness states on emotion processing may be most dissociable after accounting for within-participant variability in how stimuli are appraised. These results support the future potential of the state induction protocol for parsing the neural affective mechanisms that underlie mindfulness training programs and interventions.

Blindness influences emotional authenticity perception in voices: Behavioral and ERP evidence

The ability to distinguish spontaneous from volitional emotional expressions is an important social skill. How do blind individuals perceive emotional authenticity? Unlike sighted individuals, they cannot rely on facial and body language cues, relying instead on vocal cues alone. Here, we combined behavioral and ERP measures to investigate authenticity perception in laughter and crying in individuals with early- or late-blindness onset. Early-blind, late-blind, and sighted control participants (n = 17 per group, N = 51) completed authenticity and emotion discrimination tasks while EEG data were recorded. The stimuli consisted of laughs and cries that were either spontaneous or volitional. The ERP analysis focused on the N1, P2, and late positive potential (LPP). Behaviorally, early-blind participants showed intact authenticity perception, but late-blind participants performed worse than controls. There were no group differences in the emotion discrimination task. In brain responses, all groups were sensitive to laughter authenticity at the P2 stage, and to crying authenticity at the early LPP stage. Nevertheless, only early-blind participants were sensitive to crying authenticity at the N1 and middle LPP stages, and to laughter authenticity at the early LPP stage. Furthermore, early-blind and sighted participants were more sensitive than late-blind ones to crying authenticity at the P2 and late LPP stages.Altogether, these findings suggest that early blindness relates to facilitated brain processing of authenticity in voices, both at early sensory and late cognitive-evaluative stages. Late-onset blindness, in contrast, relates to decreased sensitivity to authenticity at behavioral and brain levels.

Processing of food stimuli in anorexia nervosa: An ERP-study comparing adolescents and adults.

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is associated with altered processing of disorder-relevant stimuli. Event-related potentials (ERP) - such as the Late Positive Potential (LPP) - give information about the underlying mechanisms of central nervous stimulus processing. Patients with AN (22 adolescents, 23 adults) and healthy controls (HCs; 17 adolescents, 24 adults) were included. Neutral, low, and high calorie food-images were rated for valence and arousal; EEG activity was recorded and LPPs (early: 350-700ms; late: 800-1200ms) were extracted. Effects of patient status, age group, and stimulus category were analyzed via mixed 2×2×3-AN(C)OVAs. Patients with AN rated high calorie stimuli lower in valence and higher in arousal than HCs. Controlling for hunger, food stimuli elicited higher early LPPs than neutral ones in patients and HCs. For the late LPP, patients with AN showed larger amplitudes. Results suggest a highly automatic attentional bias towards low-calorie foods. Patients with AN seem to have more intense cognitive processing independent of stimulus material. More research is needed to validate and clarify differences between early and late LPP measures as well as the operationalization and relevance of hunger status.

Weathering the storm of emotions: immediate and lasting effects of reinterpretation and distancing on event-related potentials and their association with habitual use of cognitive reappraisal

Reinterpretation and distancing, two cognitive reappraisal tactics, are known to effectively reduce negative feelings and event-related potentials (ERPs), such as the P300 and the late positive potential (LPP), in the short-term. Less is known about differential and lasting effects on ERPs as well as their association with habitual reappraisal. Fifty-seven participants were instructed to passively view or reappraise (reinterpretation, distancing) pictures that were repeatedly presented with the same instruction (active regulation phase). Thirty minutes later, these pictures were shown again without instruction for the assessment of lasting effects (re-exposure phase). ERPs were recorded and participants rated the intensity of negative feelings following picture presentation. Reappraisal led to an attenuation of the LPP, and both tactics decreased negative feelings during active regulation, whereby reinterpretation had a stronger impact on the subjective level. Passive re-exposure resulted in reduced negative feelings for previously reappraised pictures but had no lasting effects on ERPs. Higher habitual reappraisal was associated with higher P300 and early LPP amplitudes for emotional reactivity during the active regulation phase. During the re-exposure phase, higher habitual reappraisal was not related to ERPs. The current findings emphasize the effectiveness of both tactics in the short-term and lasting effects on the subjective experience of negative feelings. Enhanced emotional reactivity on the electrocortical level in individuals with a more frequent habitual use of reappraisal might indicate a higher preparedness to regulate.

Neural responses to facial attractiveness: Event-related potentials differentiate between salience and valence effects

We examined the neural correlates of facial attractiveness by presenting pictures of male or female faces (neutral expression) with low/intermediate/high attractiveness to 48 male or female participants while recording their electroencephalogram (EEG). Subjective attractiveness ratings were used to determine the 10% highest, 10% middlemost, and 10% lowest rated faces for each individual participant to allow for high contrast comparisons. These were then split into preferred and dispreferred gender categories. ERP components P1, N1, P2, N2, early posterior negativity (EPN), P300 and late positive potential (LPP) (up until 3000 ms post-stimulus), and the face specific N170 were analysed. A salience effect (attractive/unattractive > intermediate) in an early LPP interval (450–850 ms) and a long-lasting valence related effect (attractive > unattractive) in a late LPP interval (1000–3000 ms) were elicited by the preferred gender faces but not by the dispreferred gender faces. Multi-variate pattern analysis (MVPA)-classifications on whole-brain single-trial EEG patterns further confirmed these salience and valence effects. It is concluded that, facial attractiveness elicits neural responses that are indicative of valenced experiences, but only if these faces are considered relevant. These experiences take time to develop and last well beyond the interval that is commonly explored.

The priming effects of emotional vocal expressions on face encoding and recognition: An ERP study.

Previous studies have suggested that emotional primes, presented as visual stimuli, influence face memory (e.g., encoding and recognition). However, due to stimulus-associated issues, whether emotional primes affect face encoding when the priming stimuli are presented in an auditory modality remains controversial. Moreover, no studies have investigated whether the effects of emotional auditory primes are maintained in later stages of face memory, such as face recognition. To address these issues, participants in the present study were asked to memorize angry and neutral faces. The faces were presented after a simple nonlinguistic interjection expressed with angry or neutral prosodies. Subsequently, participants completed an old/new recognition task in which only faces were presented. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that during the encoding phase, all faces preceded by an angry vocal expression elicited larger N170 responses than faces preceded by a neutral vocal expression. Angry vocal expression also enhanced the late positive potential (LPP) responses specifically to angry faces. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding angry vocal primes reduced early LPP responses to both angry and neutral faces and late LPP responses specifically to neutral faces. These findings suggest that the negative emotion of auditory primes influenced face encoding and recognition.

Affective touch during the processing of angry facial expressions: an event-related potential study

It has been shown that affective touch can have stress-buffering effects. The current event-related potential (ERP) study investigated whether affective touch can reduce emotional distress and associated late positivity while viewing angry facial expressions. A total of 122 females (mean age = 23 years) were randomly assigned to one of three groups to either receive slow/soft brushing of their forearm (affective touch), fast brushing (nonaffective touch), or no touch while viewing images depicting angry and neutral facial expressions. The participants rated their affective state (valence, arousal) before and after the experiment. They also rated the perceived intensity of the angry facial expressions and the pleasantness of touch during the experiment. Components of the Late Positive Potential (LPP) in response to the images that are associated with stimulus significance, attention allocation, and emotion regulation (early LPP: 400–1000 ms; late LPP: 1000–3000 ms) were extracted for a frontal and a centroparietal cluster. Affective touch was associated with reduced amplitudes of the late LPP in the frontal cluster but did not affect centroparietal LPPs (early, late). Affective touch was rated as more pleasant than nonaffective touch but did not change reported valence, arousal, and perceived anger intensity. In conclusion, affective touch modulated a neural indicator of stimulus significance but did not influence self-report measures. More naturalistic touch settings might enhance the effects.

Temporal dynamics of emotional processing: Parsing trial-wise variance of the late positive potential using Generalizability Theory.

The reliability of individual trial event-related potential (ERP) components extracted from electroencephalogram has been consistently questioned since ERP research began. This ambivalence is based on misunderstood assumptions stemming from Cronbach and Classical Test Theory. Contemporary methods allow for the reliability of individual ERP trials to be estimated and for analyses of these trial-level ERP components to be meaningfully parsed. We illustrate the use of Generalizability Theory procedures in estimating the reliability of trial-level ERPs using the late positive potential (LPP), a neural measure of motivated attention toward emotionally evocative stimuli. Individuals (N=88) completed a passive viewing task while continuous EEG was recorded. Variability in trial-level LPP responses was decomposed into facets corresponding to individual differences, chronological trial within block, stimulus type, their two-way interactions, and specific stimuli. We estimated various reliability coefficients and found that both overall and category-specific person-level LPP estimates have good-to-excellent reliability, while the reliability of within-person differences (i.e., change) between arousal categories was fair for the early LPP. These results were generally consistent across time windows, but were highest early in the LPP time course. We argue that investigating reliability using trial-level data allows researchers to pursue hypotheses focused on neurophysiological dynamics that unfold over the course of an experiment and not risk false inferences (i.e., ecological fallacy) when using person-level aggregates to deduce such processes. Moreover, such analyses provide information that allows researchers to optimize their protocols by potentially reducing the number of individual trials, burden on participants, and cost, while retaining sufficient reliability.

ERP Effects of Malicious Envy on Schadenfreude in Gain and Loss Frames.

Previous behavioral and neural studies have shown the effects of malicious envy on schadenfreude. However, it is unclear whether these effects are modulated by contextual frames (e.g., gain and loss frames). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) effects of malicious envy on schadenfreude were different in gain and loss frames. To address this issue, the participants in the present study believed they were playing a monetary game with several other players. In the malicious envy condition, the participants won less money than the player in the gain frame and lost more money in the loss frame; in the control condition, both participants and the player gained little money in the gain frame and lost much in the loss frame. Subsequently, the participants were informed that the player encountered a misfortune, i.e., gained little in the gain frame and lost much in the loss frame. Results showed that malicious envy increased feelings of schadenfreude and ERP responses when the player encountered a misfortune. Moreover, increased ERP responses by malicious envy occurred at the feedback-related negativity (FRN), and early late positive potential (LPP) time ranges in the gain frame but at the late LPP time range in the loss frame. The findings might suggest that malicious envy affects schadenfreude and corresponding neural activity, whereas the neural effects occur at comparatively early time ranges in the gain frame but at a later time range in the loss frame.

Do Histories of Painful Life Experiences Affect the Expression of Empathy Among Young Adults? An Electroencephalography Study.

Previous research suggests that prior experience of pain affects the expression of empathy. However, most of these studies attended to physical pain despite evidence indicating that other forms of pain may also affect brain activity and emotional states in similar ways. To address this limitation, we compared empathic responses of 33 participants, some of whom had experienced a personal loss, across three conditions: observing strangers in physical pain, psychological pain, and a non-painful condition. We also examined the effect of presence of prior painful experience on empathic reactions. In addition, we examined the stimulation type, prior experience, and ERPs in the early Late Positive Potential (300–550 ms), late Late Positive Potential (550–800 ms), and very late Late Positive Potential (VLLPP; 800–1,050 ms) time windows. Behavioral data indicated that participants who had personally experienced a loss scored significantly higher on perspective taking in the psychological-pain condition. ERP results also indicated significantly lower intensity in Fp2, an electrode in the prefrontal region, within VLLPP time window for participants experiencing a loss in the psychological-pain condition. The results of both behavioral and ERP analysis indicated that prior experience of psychological pain is related to cognitive empathy, but not affective empathy. The implication of these findings for research on empathy, for the study of psychological pain, and the moderating influence of prior painful experiences are discussed.

Neurophysiological Markers Related to Negative Self-referential Processing Differentiate Adolescent Suicide Ideators and Attempters

BackgroundAdolescent suicide is a major public health concern, and presently, there is a limited understanding of the neurophysiological correlates of suicidal behaviors. Cognitive models of suicide indicate that negative views of the self are related to suicidal thoughts and behaviors, and this study investigated whether behavioral and neural correlates of self-referential processing differentiate suicide ideators from recent attempters. MethodsAdolescents with depression reporting current suicidal ideation and no lifetime suicide attempts (suicide ideators, n = 30) and past-year suicide attempts (recent attempters, n = 26) completed a self-referential encoding task while high-density electroencephalogram data were recorded. Behavioral analyses focused on negative processing bias (i.e., tendency to attribute negative information as being self-relevant) and drift rate (i.e., slope of reaction time and response type that corresponds to how quickly information is accumulated to make a decision about whether words are self-referent). Neurophysiological markers probing components reflecting early semantic monitoring (P2), engagement (early late positive potential), and effortful encoding (late late positive potential) also were tested. ResultsAdolescent suicide ideators and recent suicide attempters reported comparable symptom severity, suicide ideation, and mental disorders. Although there were no behavioral differences, compared with suicide ideators, suicide attempters exhibited greater P2 amplitudes for negative versus positive words, which may reflect enhanced attention and arousal in response to negative self-referential stimuli. There were no group differences for the early or late late positive potential. ConclusionsEnhanced sensory arousal in response to negative stimuli—that is, attentional orienting to semantic, emotional, and self-relevant features—differentiates adolescent suicide attempters from ideators and thus may signal risk for suicidal behavior.

Psychometric properties of the late positive potential in combat-exposed veterans

Trauma exposure is prevalent, associated with multiple forms of psychopathology, and thought to alter the neurobiological substrates of threat processing. The late positive potential (LPP) is an event-related potential (ERP) that may be a clinically useful probe of the neurobiology of threat processing. Despite evidence that combat-exposed veterans exhibit aberrant threat modulation of the LPP, no studies to date have tested the psychometric properties of the LPP in combat trauma-exposed, symptomatic veterans. The primary aim of the current study was to evaluate the reliability (internal consistency, retest reliability) and convergent validity of LPP modulation by threatening faces and scenes in two common tasks among combat-exposed veterans. Participants included 82 combat-exposed veterans who completed face-matching and emotion regulation tasks during EEG recording at baseline and twelve weeks. Internal consistencies of the early LPP time windows (<1000 ms) were acceptable in both tasks, whereas they were poor in late time windows (>1000 ms). Twelve-week retest reliabilities were fair for the early window LPPs to threatening scenes and fear faces, as well as in the late time window for fear faces. Reliabilities were better for individual condition compared to difference scores. Finally, LPPs modulated by threatening scenes and faces were unrelated. Together, these results suggest that the LPPs to threatening scenes and faces reflect distinct forms of threat processing in combat-exposed veterans, and their reliabilities for the early window indicate potential clinical utility in this population.

Distraction and expressive suppression strategies in down-regulation of high- and low-intensity positive emotions

Emotion intensity is important for emotional regulation process. The studies in this literature, however, have generally focused on the down-regulation of negative emotions. Few studies have examined the down-regulation of positive emotions. Distraction and expressive suppression belong to disengagement strategies, which direct coping efforts away from emotions. Participants are more likely to select distraction and expressive suppression when motivated to down-regulate their emotions. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the impact of emotional intensity on down-regulating positive emotions via distraction and expressive suppression. The event-related potentials (ERPs) of college students were recorded while they were instructed to down-regulate positive emotions using expressive suppression or distraction versus free viewing when exposed to high- and low-intensity pleasant stimuli. Subsequently, participants were instructed to rate their positive experience using a 9-point scale. Supporting our predictions, behavioral results showed that both strategies could dramatically reduce high-intensity positive experience relative to viewing, and distraction led to a larger reduction of high-intensity positive experience than expressive suppression. Both strategies could not decrease low-intensity positive experience relative to viewing. ERP results showed that distraction successfully attenuated the early (500–700 ms) and late (700–1500 ms) stage of late positive potential (LPP) in high-intensity, and in low-intensity it modulated the early (but not late) LPP relative to viewing. Unexpectedly, expressive suppression effectively attenuated the early and late LPP in high- and low-intensity relative to viewing. The findings suggest that expressive suppression and distraction can effectively down-regulate positive emotions; however, distraction is more susceptible to emotional intensity and time.

Electroencephalogram characteristics under successful cognitive reappraisal in emotion regulation

Cognitive reappraisal is an important strategy for emotion regulation. Studies show that even healthy people may not be able to implement this strategy successfully, but the underlying neural mechanism behind the behavioral observation of success or failure of reappraisal is unclear. In this paper, 28 healthy college students participated in an experiment of emotional regulation with the cognitive reappraisal strategy. They were asked to complete the cognitive psychological questionnaires before the experiment. Their behavioral scores and scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) signals were collected simultaneously during the experiment. We divided all the subjects into two groups, according to the statistical test of valence scores. Then we analyzed their questionnaires, early event-related potential (ERP) components N200, P200, and late positive potential (LPP), and calculated the correlation between the valence score and the amplitude of LPP. The results showed that, in both groups, compared with negative-watching, the reappraisal induced larger N200 and P200 components and there were two modulation patterns ("increase" and "decrease") of the reappraisal effect on the amplitude of early LPP (300-1 000 ms after stimulus onset). Moreover, correlation analysis showed that significant positive correlation between two differences in the successful group, i.e., the greater difference in the valence scoresin between reappraisal and negative-watching, the greater difference in the amplitude of early LPP between reappraisal and negative-watching; but no such effect was found in the failure group. These results indicated that, whether reappraisal was successful or not, no significant effect on early ERP components was found; and there were different patterns of the reappraisal effect on early LPP. The difference between successful and failure groups was mainly reflected in early LPP, that is, the EEG characteristics and behavioral scores of successful group were significantly positively correlated. Furthermore, the small sample analysis showed that this correlation only existed in the pattern of "increase". In the future, more research of this modulation mode is necessary in order to find more stable EEG characteristics under successful cognitive reappraisal in emotion regulation.

Selective visual attention to emotional pictures: Interactions of task-relevance and emotion are restricted to the late positive potential.

The temporal dynamics of top-down voluntary and bottom-up driven emotional attention are a matter of debate. Both emotion and task-relevance have been shown to affect the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) during the processing of emotional pictures, whereas there are mixed findings related to interactions of emotion and task-relevance. In this preregistered study, we used Bayesian models to test this interplay between emotion and task-relevance. Participants (N=104) were presented negative, neutral, and positive International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures, and block-wise were asked to respond either to negative, neutral, or positive pictures, rendering one stimulus category task-relevant and the remaining stimuli task-irrelevant. Bayesian models showed evidence for the absence of interactions between task-relevance and emotion. Furthermore, models showed parallel emotion and task effects for the EPN and late stages of the LPP. Additional interactive effects were found during an early LPP interval (400 to 600ms), with increased LPP amplitudes when emotion was rendered task-relevant. Taken together, the results revealed distinct but parallel temporal onsets of task-relevance and emotion effects, followed by task and emotion interactions in the early LPP. Thus, based on this high-powered study employing Bayesian analysis, evidence is provided that interactions between task-relevance and emotion do not emerge before the LPP time window. These results further inform theories proposing early parallel and late interactive processes of the emotional salience of stimuli and top-down attention.

Using questionnaires and task-related EEG signals to reveal hindered reappraisal and biased suppression in individuals with high schizotypal traits

Although impaired ability to regulate emotion is commonly reported in schizophrenic patients, the exact pattern of regulation of negative emotions in high-risk individuals remains unclear. In the current study, 26 high-schizotypy individuals paired with 26 controls completed an emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ) and a laboratory emotion regulation task with electroencephalogram (EEG) recording. Two emotion regulation strategies, namely, reappraisal and expression suppression, were concurrently examined. The late positive potential (LPP) and frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) were selected as two independent neural indicators of the emotion regulation effect. In the ERQ questionnaire, individuals in the high schizotypy group reported higher habitual use of suppression than the controls. During the emotion regulation task, the high schizotypy group showed no early LPP reduction in reappraisal compared with the control group and exhibited a general negative FAA pattern (left-biased alpha). In conclusion, we found that individuals with high schizotypy exhibited maladaptive regulation of negative emotions, manifested in hindered reappraisal and biased suppression; this may exacerbate the negative affect of such emotions and further serve as a risk factor for psychosis conversion. Early interventions targeting the regulation of negative emotions may be beneficial for individuals with high schizotypal traits.

Patterns of electrical brain activation in response to socially-disputed perceptual judgments.

In recent years, neuroscience has begun to investigate brain responses to social stimuli. To date, however, the effects of social feedback on attentional and perceptual processes remain unclear. In this study, participants were asked to judge the hues of distinct, or ambiguously coloured stimuli, and to indicate their confidence ratings. Alleged social feedback was then provided, either endorsing or disputing the participants' responses. Participants were then presented the stimulus a second time and given the option to reconsider their decision. Behavioural findings showed that confidence levels decreased both with task difficulty and with conflicting social feedback. Event-related potential data showed greater P2 and N2 amplitudes for ambiguous squares compared to distinct squares upon initial stimulus presentations, compatible with heightened attention. Moreover, a decreased P300 was found for ambiguous stimuli, consistent with an increase in metacognitive activity. After social feedback, an early-late positive potential between 270 and 370 ms continued to distinguish ambiguous from distinct stimuli. More importantly, after 400 ms, the late positive potential distinguished endorsed from disputed stimuli. These results reveal that social feedback, while decreasing effects linked to uncertainty, gives rise to later processes associated with enhanced motivational significance of the stimulus following divergence from social approval.

Negative expectations influence behavioral and ERP responses in the subsequent recognition of expectancy-incongruent neutral events.

Previous studies have shown that expectancy incongruence in emotional stimuli influences the encoding (i.e., the first stage of memory processing) of the stimuli. However, it is unknown about whether expectancy incongruence influences later stages of memory processing, such as recognition. To this end, expectancy cues were presented prior to emotional pictures. Most often, the cues accurately indicated the emotional consequences of the pictures, but in some cases the consequence was incongruent with the expectations, and a picture from another emotional category was presented. Afterward, participants completed an unexpected recognition task in which old and novel pictures were not preceded by expectancy cues. The results showed that, in the encoding phase, expectancy incongruence reduced response accuracy when categorizing pictorial emotions, and the effect was smaller for neutral pictures than for negative pictures. ERP results showed stronger and weaker responses to expectancy incongruent pictures compared to congruent pictures in time ranges related to the encoding-related early and middle late positive potential (LPP), respectively. In the subsequent recognition phase, d' scores were higher for incongruent neutral pictures than for congruent ones. Expectancy incongruence enlarged the P2 response but reduced the recognition-related early LPP response for neutral pictures. However, effects of expectancy incongruence were not seen for negative pictures. Therefore, the findings in the present study indicate that negative expectations influence the later recognition of expectancy incongruent neutral events, whereas negative events are more resistant to the effects of expectation incongruence.

The effects of valid and invalid expectations about stimulus valence on behavioural and electrophysiological responses to emotional pictures

Previous studies have shown that uncertainty about the expected valence of an upcoming stimulus modulates behavioural and neural responses to the stimulus. However, relatively little is known about how invalid emotion expectations (i.e. expecting a positive picture but seeing a negative picture) affect neural and behavioural responses. To investigate this, two experiments were conducted where participants viewed and rated the pleasantness of emotional pictures that were preceded by a cue. In Experiment 1, there were three cue conditions: uncertain, valid and invalid. The uncertain cue did not indicate the valence of the upcoming picture, whereas cues in the valid condition (70% of positive and negative cues) correctly indicated the valence of the upcoming picture. The remaining trials were invalid, where the valence of the picture differed from the expected valence. Behavioural results showed that invalidly cued negative pictures elicited more neutral valence ratings compared to validly cued pictures. In Experiment 2 we replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and in addition found an increased amplitude for the early (400–600 ms) portion of the late positive potential (LPP) for invalidly compared to validly cued pictures. Together, these results show that invalid expectations influence the neural and behavioural processing of subsequently presented emotional pictures, where invalidly cued pictures led to attenuated (i.e., more neutral) emotional responses, and enhanced early LPP amplitude, compared to validly cued pictures.

Positive affective priming decreases the middle late positive potential response to negative images.

IntroductionThis study aims to expand on previous literature showing that incidental emotion state priming in a specific domain leads to a higher probability that the primed emotion domain will be activated during a subsequent task.MethodsTo that end, we investigated the influence of happy, fearful, and neutral incidental emotion state priming on subsequent responses to emotionally negative and neutral pictures, measured by the event‐related potential (ERP) late positive potential (LPP). New to our study, we examined the influence of affective priming on the LPP response (analyzed separately at early and middle latency ranges) to emotional pictures in both the foveal and extrafoveal presentation locations.ResultsFollowing both fearful and neutral incidental state priming, both the early and middle LPP latency ranges overwhelmingly differentiated between negative and neutral pictures. Following happy incidental state priming, however, the LPP response failed to differentiate between negative and neutral pictures by the middle LPP latency range (800–1,000 ms). These results suggest that incidental happy states can have a protective effect when viewing aversive stimuli. Additionally, the LPP showed greater sensitivity to negative stimuli when presented extrafoveally compared to foveally.ConclusionsOverall, our findings suggest that incidental affective state and stimulus location influence emotional processing differentially for emotionally negative and emotionally neutral stimuli.