Larger P3 Research Articles

How do extraverts process jokes? An event-related potential study on humor processing

Extraverts and introverts show different preferences for humor regarding different humor types. However, few studies focused on the neurological underpinnings of the connection between extraversion and the stage-wise cognitive model of humor processing. To investigate the influence of extraversion on different sub-stages of humor processing, electroencephalography (EEG) data was collected when participants read and rated jokes and non-jokes. The event-related potential (ERP) data showed a smaller N400 (300–500 ms) but a larger late positive potential (500–900 ms) for jokes than non-jokes, which may reflect lexical association and integrative interpretation in joke processing. The more extraverted group had a larger P2 (200–300 ms) and a smaller N400 than the less extraverted group in response to all the stimuli, which may indicate their different allocation of attentional and cognitive resources to external stimulation. Additionally, the regression analyses showed that the late positivity effects of jokes were positively correlated with the extraversion level. The results could imply extraverts’ controlled processes of cognitive resource allocation for jokes, and suggest the same groups’ attentiveness and motivation for reward stimuli (i.e., jokes). Importantly, our ERP data could support extraverts’ increased exploration for verbal humor from a better temporal aspect for the first time.

Muscular effort coding in action representation in ballet dancers and controls: Electrophysiological evidence

The present electrophysiological (EEG) study investigated the neural correlates of perceiving effortful vs. effortless movements belonging to a specific repertoire (ballet). Previous evidence has shown an increased heart and respiratory rate during the observation and imagination of human actions that require a great muscular effort. In addition, TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) and EEG studies have evidenced a greater muscle-specific cortical excitability and an increase in late event-related potentials during the observation of effortful actions. In this investigation, fifteen professional female ballet dancers and 15 controls with no experience whatsoever with dance, gymnastics, or martial arts were recruited. They were shown 326 short videos displaying a male dancer performing standard ballet steps that could be either effortful or relatively effortless. Participants were instructed to observe each clip and imagine themselves physically executing the same movement. Importantly, they were blinded to the stimuli properties. The observation of effortful compared with effortless movements resulted in a larger P300 over frontal sites in dancers only, likely because of their visuomotor expertise with the specific steps. Moreover, an enhanced Late Positivity was identified over posterior sites in response to effortful stimuli in both groups, possibly reflecting the processing of larger quantities of visual kinematic information. The source reconstruction swLORETA performed on the Late Positivity component showed greater engagement of frontoparietal regions in dancers, while task-related frontal and occipitotemporal visual regions were more active in controls. It, therefore, appears that, in dancers, effort information was encoded in a more refined manner during action observation and in the absence of explicit instruction. Acquired motor knowledge seems to result in visuomotor resonance processes, which, in turn, underlies enhanced action representation of the observed movements.

Social distance modulates prosocial behaviors in the gain and loss contexts: An event-related potential (ERP) study

This study aimed at examining how social distance modulates costly prosocial behaviors in the gain (i.e., helping another win a good outcome) and loss contexts (i.e., helping another avoid a bad outcome). To this end, participants were instructed to choose between two lotteries – One of the two lotteries was costly to their payment and always better than the other, which would result in the other person having a greater chance of ending up with more money – to give another person (a friend or a stranger) in the gain or loss context while electroencephalograms (EEGs) were recorded. The behavioral results demonstrated that in the gain context, participants tended to choose better lotteries to win money for friends than for strangers, whereas this effect of social distance was absent in the loss context. The event-related potential (ERP) results showed that in the gain context, a larger P3 was observed in response to prosocial decision-making for friends than for strangers, while the effect of social distance did not emerge in P3 under the loss context. These findings suggest that the modulation of social distance in prosocial behaviors under the gain and loss contexts is driven by different psychological mechanisms.

Evaluation of convolutional neural networks using a large multi-subject P300 dataset

Deep neural networks (DNN) have been studied in various machine learning areas. For example, event-related potential (ERP) signal classification is a highly complex task potentially suitable for DNN as signal-to-noise ratio is low, and underlying spatial and temporal patterns display a large intra- and intersubject variability. Convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been compared with baseline traditional models, i.e. linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and support vector machines (SVM) for single trial classification using a large multi-subject publicly available P300 dataset of school-age children (138 males and 112 females). For single trial classification, classification accuracy stayed between 62% and 64% for all tested classification models. When applying the trained classification models to averaged trials, accuracy increased to 76–79% without significant differences among classification models. CNN did not prove superior to baseline for the tested dataset. Comparison with related literature, limitations and future directions are discussed.

The Role of Social Power in Neural Responses to Others' Pain.

Recent evidence has demonstrated that empathic responses are modulated by social power. However, there is little consensus regarding how an observer’s social power can shape empathic responses. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the role of social power in empathic responses. Specifically, to induce the sense of power, we asked participants to recall a past situation in which they were in a position of power (high power prime) or a situation in which they were lacking power (low power prime). Afterward, we used ERPs to record the responses when participants were viewing pictures depicting other people in painful or non-painful situations. The results revealed that larger amplitudes in the earlier P2 and the later P3 components in response to painful stimuli than to non-painful stimuli. Besides, participants primed with high power only showed larger P1 amplitudes than participants primed with low power. The present study extended previous studies by showing that social power tends to enhance the early sensory processing of both painful and non-painful stimuli, instead of directly decreasing the level of empathic responses to others’ pain.

Attending to Eliza: rapid brain responses reflect competence attribution in virtual social feedback processing.

In the age of virtual communication, the source of a message is often inferred rather than perceived, raising the question of how sender attributions affect content processing. We investigated this issue in an evaluative feedback scenario. Participants were told that an expert psychotherapist, a layperson or a randomly acting computer was going to give them online positive, neutral or negative personality feedback while high-density EEG was recorded. Sender attribution affected processing rapidly, even though the feedback was on average identical. Event-related potentials revealed a linear increase with attributed expertise beginning 150 ms after disclosure and most pronounced for N1, P2 and early posterior negativity components. P3 and late positive potential amplitudes were increased for both human senders and for emotionally significant (positive or negative) feedback. Strikingly, feedback from a putative expert prompted large P3 responses, even for inherently neutral content. Source analysis localized early enhancements due to attributed sender expertise in frontal and somatosensory regions and later responses in the posterior cingulate and extended visual and parietal areas, supporting involvement of mentalizing, embodied processing and socially motivated attention. These findings reveal how attributed sender expertise rapidly alters feedback processing in virtual interaction and have implications for virtual therapy and online communication.

Different influences of facial attractiveness on judgments of moral beauty and moral goodness

Are beauty and goodness the same? The relationship between beauty and goodness has long been a controversial issue in the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, ethics and psychology. Although many empirical studies have explored moral judgment and aesthetic judgment separately, only a few studies have compared the two. Whether these two judgments are two different processes or the same process with two different labels remains unclear. To answer this question, the present study directly compared the influence of facial attractiveness on judgments of moral goodness and moral beauty and revealed distinct contributions of imaging perceptions to these two judgments. The results showed that in the moral beauty judgment task, participants gave higher scores to characters with attractive faces compared with characters with unattractive faces, and larger P200 and LPP were elicited in the unattractive-face condition compared with the attractive-face condition; while in the moral goodness judgment task, there was no significant difference between the two conditions of either behaviour or ERP data. These findings offer important insights into the understanding and comparison of the processes of moral judgment and aesthetic judgment.

Neuropsychiatric Disorders as Erratic Attention Regulation - Lessons from Electrophysiology.

Attention related electrophysiological waves, such as P300, often deviate from norm in various populations of neuropsychiatric patients. For example, the amplitude is often smaller and the latency is often longer in major depressive disorder, in bipolar disorder and in schizophrenia. On the other hand, in other neuropsychiatric populations, it is often possible to note the opposite phenomena of larger P300 amplitude and shorter latency in comparison with norm, but only for a specific subset of stimuli. This is often reported in various anxiety disorders, substance abuse and various chronic pain syndromes. These findings in the various clinical populations, on their commonalities and differences, are presented in this work. The prevalence of these two types of deviations in the electrophysiological markers of attention, shared by multiple neuropsychiatric populations, raise interesting questions regarding the role of attention deviation and regulation in neuropsychiatry. We present these questions and outline a possible hypothesis in this regard. Furthermore, such potential sensitivity of the attention-related markers to clinical dynamics suggests they could be candidates for monitoring and, potentially, early-sensing of clinical dynamics. Therefore, we discuss the potential usability of such markers.

Deficit Effect Sizes and Correlations of Auditory Event-Related Potentials at First Hospitalization in the Schizophrenia Spectrum.

The N1, P2, and P3 event-related potentials (ERPs) are impaired in first-episode schizophrenia (FESz). Reduced pitch-deviant mismatch negativity (MMN) is present in chronic schizophrenia but not FESz. We examined effect sizes of, and correlations between, N1, P2, P3, and MMN in 106 FESz and 114 matched psychiatrically well controls to determine which ERPs maximally differentiated groups, and whether late sensory/perceptual deficits (N1, P2) affected preattentive memory (MMN) and conscious attention (P3). Furthermore, we compared hallucinators and nonhallucinators within FESz. Participants completed 1 of 3 oddball tasks, silently counting target tones among standard tones. Sixty-seven FESz and 72 matched participants also completed pitch-deviant MMN testing. Measures were z-scored from task appropriate controls before merging samples. Mean z-scores for N1, P2, and P3 were significantly abnormal in FESz, while pitch-deviant MMN was not. N1 showed the largest deficit (z = 0.53), and only N1 was smaller in hallucinators (n = 71) than nonhallucinators (n = 27). Among all participants, early sensory processing (N1, P2) correlated with later cognitive processing (P3), and P2 and P3 also correlated with automatic preattentive memory (pitch-deviant MMN). In well individuals, N1 was associated with MMN. These data are consistent with bottom-up sensory/perceptual processes affecting more cognitive processes. However, N1 and MMN were not associated in FESz, suggesting different auditory cortex physiology underlie these ERPs, which is differentially affected in FESz. Larger P2 and P3 with greater estimated premorbid intellect in patients indicate a possible neuroprotective effect of intellect in FESz.

The effects of sex and residual cannabis use on emotion processing: An event-related potential study.

Cannabis use has been shown to affect processing of emotional facial expressions as measured by the P1 and P3 event-related potential (ERP) components. These components have been shown to be related to emotion processing in particular attention to emotion. Previous research also indicates that there are sex differences in how cannabis effects males and females as well as how they process emotion. This study examined the relationship between the effects of residual cannabis use and sex differences in 144 participants (F = 80) in a facial expression emotion processing task. Both the P1 and P3 ERP components were compared in male and female participants in noncannabis user, casual cannabis user, and heavy cannabis user groupings. The task involved implicitly, explicitly, and empathically identifying emotional expressions (angry, happy, neutral, and fearful) in male and females faces. There were differences between males and females in both the P1 and P3 ERP in relation to cannabis use. Males had a larger P1 than females with cannabis use and a smaller P3. Differences in the P1 were observed in both positive and negative emotion and between tasks in relation to cannabis use patterns. Differences in the P3 were seen in heavy male users for empathy happy and casual male users implicit angry when compared to females. These differences highlight the important of considering sex differences in regard to the effects of cannabis, in particular in emotion processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Animate words facilitate noun-noun integration during an imagery task: an event-related potential study.

The animate-inanimate distinction is fundamental to understand our physical world and language processing. Previous studies have shown that animate nouns are more prone to be assigned the actor role and are easier to integrate with a verb than inanimate nouns. On the basis of these characteristics of animate nouns, this study aimed to investigate whether animate nouns could facilitate the noun-noun integration. Animate-inanimate noun pairs and inanimate-inanimate noun pairs were used in an imagery task. With electroencephalogram recording, participants were instructed to integrate the two unrelated nouns in each pair to form an interactive mental imagery. These results showed a larger P600 for the animate-inanimate pairs than the inanimate-inanimate pairs. As the P600 component reflects the integration process, specifically, the more elaborate the encoding, the larger the P600 amplitude. Thus, this larger P600 amplitude indicated that a more vivid mental imagery was formed when integrating an animate noun and an inanimate noun than integrating two inanimate nouns. Thus, these results suggest that animate nouns could facilitate the integration of two unrelated nouns during the imagery task.

A New Mormoopid Bat from the Oligocene (Whitneyan and Early Arikareean) of Florida, and Phylogenetic Relationships of the Major Clades of Mormoopidae (Mammalia: Chiroptera)

A new genus and species of fossil bat, Koopmanycteris palaeomormoops, representing an ancient member of the endemic Neotropical family Mormoopidae, is described from the Oligocene of Florida. This new species is known from two paleokarst deposits in northern peninsular Florida, the early Oligocene (Whitneyan, 30–32 Ma) I-75 Local Fauna in Alachua County and the late Oligocene (early Arikareean, 26–28 Ma) Brooksville 2 Local Fauna in Hernando County. The discovery of Koopmanycteris extends the fossil record of the Mormoopidae back in time almost 30 million years. Compared to most other described taxa of North American Tertiary bats, the fossil sample of Koopmanycteris palaeomormoops is substantial, consisting of 50 specimens including: P4, all lower teeth from p3 through m3, dentary, petrosal, humerus, proximal radius, and femur. Koopmanycteris is morphologically intermediate between the two living genera of mormoopids, Mormoops and Pteronotus, but is most similar to the former taxon. Characters shared by Koopmanycteris and Mormoops include: large anterolabial basin on P4; large, double-rooted p3; secondary process ventral to angular process on dentary; absence of groove separating capitulum into medial and lateral portions on distal humerus; presence of prominent ridge on posterolateral edge of distal humeral shaft; rounded extremity on proximal radius; and presence of a prominent ridge or tubercle on posterodistal shaft of femur. All of these features appear to be relatively derived, with the exception of the large, double-rooted p3. In several mandibular characters, Koopmanycteris more closely resembles Pteronotus, including: pronounced posteroventral process on the symphysis; lack of curvature of ventral edge of horizontal ramus between posterior edge of symphysis and p4; and less pronounced dorsal upturning of ascending ramus compared to Mormoops. Koopmanycteris retains the primitive dental morphology of Mormoops, with a large double-rooted p3, and the primitive posterior mandibular morphology of Pteronotus, with the lesser degree of dorsal flexion of the ascending ramus. A phylogenetic analysis including all known extant mormoopid lineages as well as representative outgroups from other noctilionoid clades confirms that Koopmanycteris and Mormoops are sister taxa. These findings indicate that the lineages leading to Pteronotus and Mormoops were distinct by ∼30 Ma. The fossil record tentatively indicates that the Mormoopidae originated in North America in the early Oligocene or earlier, and may not have reached South America until the Pliocene following the onset of the Great American Biotic Interchange. Several lines of evidence support this hypothesis: (1) the earliest fossil record of the Mormoopidae is in the early Oligocene of Florida; (2) the greatest diversity and endemism of modern mormoopid species is in the West Indies; and (3) the absence of a pre–late Pleistocene record, lack of endemism, and marginal recent distribution of mormoopids in South America. Most species of living mormoopids are obligate cave dwellers, suggesting that the occurrence of caves and paleokarst deposits has affected both their modern distribution and fossil record.

A meta-analysis of the P3 amplitude in tasks requiring deception in legal and social contexts

In deception tasks the parietal P3 amplitude of the event-related potential indicates either recognition of salient stimuli (larger P3 following salient information) or mental effort (smaller P3 following demanding information). This meta-analysis (k = 77) investigated population effect sizes (δ) for conceptual and methodological a-priori moderators (study design, pre-task scenario, context of deception tasks, and P3 quantification). Within-subject designs show evidence of the underlying cognitive processes, between-subject designs allow for comparisons of cognitive processes in culprits vs. innocents. Committed vs. imagined mock crime scenarios yield larger δ. Deception tasks with a legal context result in almost twice as large δ than deception tasks with social-evaluative and social-biographical contexts. Peak-to-peak P3 quantification resulted in larger δ than other quantifications. Counter-measure techniques in 3-stimulus protocols reduce the discriminability of concealed vs. truthful P3 amplitudes. Depending on stimulus knowledge, deception tasks provide evidence for the salience hypothesis and the mental effort hypothesis, respectively.

Processing corrective focus and information focus at different positions: an electrophysiological investigation

ABSTRACTFocus is the most emphasised constituent of a sentence and either marks information that is newly asserted or indicates a contrast between current information and its alternatives. To investigate how readers process information focus (IF) and corrective focus (CF) at different positions in sentences, participants were visually presented with dialogues through a sentence comprehension task. The results showed that focus elicited a larger P2 and late positive component (LPC) than background, possibly reflecting a process of attention allocation and immediate discourse updating. Additionally, IF elicited a larger P2 than CF at the clause-medial position, while CF elicited a larger LPC than IF at the clause-final position, indicating that readers use various strategies to process the two kinds of focus at the different positions. The present study suggests that focus processing is influenced by both context and focus position.

The effects of negative context and attachment security priming on working memory updating among anxiously attached individuals

Two studies using event-related potentials ERPs) combined with emotional versions of 2-back tasks were performed to examine the effects of negative context on working memory (WM) updating task performance among anxiously attached individuals. One study also assessed the soothing effect of priming memories of attachment security on task performance. Three types of information, including negative attachment pictures, general negative pictures and neutral pictures, were used as materials in the present study. Impairment in WM updating capacity was found in the context of negative attachment pictures in both studies, and the ERP results revealed the following dynamic process: the participants showed enhanced attention to negative attachment stimuli during the initial encoding stage, as expressed by a larger P1, but undue immersion in negative emotion led to a reduced P300 during the elaborate stage. However, security priming was useful in reducing mood disturbance in the context of a WM updating task, and the participants performed better on the task after secure attachment activation. The implications of these findings for emotional WM updating capacity and information processing patterns among anxiously attached individuals are discussed.

Punishment-related memory-guided attention: Neural dynamics of perceptual modulation

Remembering the outcomes of past experiences allows us to generate future expectations and shape selection in the long-term. A growing number of studies has shown that learned positive reward values impact spatial memory-based attentional biases on perception. However, whether memory-driven attentional biases extend to punishment-related values has received comparatively less attention. Here, we manipulated whether recent spatial contextual memories became associated with successful avoidance of punishment (potential monetary loss). Behavioral and electrophysiological measures were collected from 27 participants during a subsequent memory-based attention task, in which we tested for the effect of punishment avoidance associations. Punishment avoidance significantly amplified effects of spatial contextual memories on visual search processes within natural scenes. Compared to non-associated scenes, contextual memories paired with punishment avoidance lead to faster responses to targets presented at remembered locations. Event-related potentials elicited by target stimuli revealed that acquired motivational value of specific spatial locations, by virtue of their association with past avoidance of punishment, dynamically affected neural signatures of early visual processing (indexed by larger P1 and earlier N1 potentials) and target selection (as indicated by reduced N2pc potentials). The present results extend our understanding of how memory, attention, and punishment-related mechanisms interact to optimize perceptual decision in real world environments.

Different Contexts in the Oddball Paradigm Induce Distinct Brain Networks in Generating the P300.

Despite the P300 event-related potential (ERP) differences between distinct stimulus sequences, the effect of stimulus sequence on the brain network is still left unveiled. To uncover the corresponding effect of stimulus sequence, we thus investigated the differences of functional brain networks, when a target (T) or standard (S) stimulus was presented preceding another T as background context. Results of this study demonstrated that, when an S was first presented preceding a T (i.e., ST sequence), the P300 experiencing large amplitude was evoked by the T, along with strong network architecture. In contrast, if a T was presented in advance [i.e., target-to-target (TT) sequence], decreased P300 amplitude and attenuated network efficiency were demonstrated. Additionally, decreased activations in regions, such as inferior frontal gyrus and superior frontal gyrus were also revealed in TT sequence. Particularly, the effect of stimulus sequence on P300 network could be quantitatively measured by brain network properties, the increase in network efficiency corresponded to large P300 amplitude evoked in P300 task.

More abstract, more difficult to shift: Behavior and electrophysiological evidence

Previous studies on task or rule shifting have shown that the switch cost is affected by the hierarchical level of abstraction. The present study aimed to explore the neural correlates of hierarchical modulation in rule shifting. Participants were required to respond to number stimuli (1-9, excluding 5) while adhering to alternative rules cued by different perceptual features of the stimuli. Across trials, the rules might repeat or shift at either high or low hierarchical levels. Behavioral results indicated that the reaction times were significantly slower in the high-shift than in the low-shift condition. The electrophysiological results revealed (1) significant difference in P300 between high- and low-shift conditions, with larger P300 in the high-shift condition; and (2) increased amplitude of the late positive component (LPC) elicited by the high-shift condition as compared to that by the low-shift condition. These findings demonstrate that the task-set reconfiguration and rule selection is more difficult for higher hierarchical level of rule shifting as compared with lower level.

Developmental differences in the neural correlates supporting semantics and syntax during sentence processing.

School-aged and adolescent children continue to demonstrate improvements in how they integrate and comprehend real-time, auditory language over this developmental time period, which can have important implications for academic and social success. To better understand developmental changes in the neural processes engaged during language comprehension in this age group, we use electroencephalography to investigate how 8-9year old, 12-13year olds, and adults process semantics and syntax in naturally paced, auditory sentences. Participants listened to semantically and syntactically correct and incorrect sentences and were asked to complete an acceptability judgment task. When processing a semantic error, developmental differences were observed in theta, but not the N400, suggesting that the N400 may be too gross a measure to identify more subtle aspects of semantic development that occur in the school years. For the syntactic task, errors resulted in a larger P600 and greater beta decrease than correct sentences, but the amplitude and location of the P600 and amplitude of beta decreases differed as a function of age, suggesting specialization of syntactic skills is ongoing through adolescence. The current findings shed new light on the development of the neural oscillations supporting language comprehension and suggest that the neural substrates underlying semantic processing reach adult-like levels at a younger age than those underlying syntactic processing.

Antipsychotic in the treatment of acute mania: A retrospective study at centro hospitalar psiquiátrico de lisboa

Previous studies on task or rule shifting have shown that the switch cost is affected by the hierarchical level of abstraction. The present study aimed to explore the neural correlates of hierarchical modulation in rule shifting. Participants were required to respond to number stimuli (1–9, excluding 5) while adhering to alternative rules cued by different perceptual features of the stimuli. Across trials, the rules might repeat or shift at either high or low hierarchical levels. Behavioral results indicated that the reaction times were significantly slower in the high-shift than in the low-shift condition. The electrophysiological results revealed (1) significant difference in P300 between high- and low-shift conditions, with larger P300 in the high-shift condition; and (2) increased amplitude of the late positive component (LPC) elicited by the high-shift condition as compared to that by the low-shift condition. These findings demonstrate that the task-set reconfiguration and rule selection is more difficult for higher hierarchical level of rule shifting as compared with lower level.