Larger P3 Amplitudes Research Articles

Group empathy for pain is stronger than individual empathy for pain in the auditory modality.

Humans live in collective groups and are highly sensitive to perceived emotions of a group, including the pain of a group. However, previous research on empathy for pain mainly focused on the suffering of a single individual ("individual empathy for pain"), with limited understanding of empathy for pain to a group ("group empathy for pain"). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the cognitive neural mechanisms of group empathy for pain in the auditory modality. The study produced group painful voices to simulate the painful voices made by a group, and recruited 34 participants to explore differences between their responses to group painful voices and individual painful voices using the event-related potential (ERP) techniques. The results revealed that group painful voices were rated with higher pain intensity, more negative affective valence, and larger P2 amplitudes than individual painful voices. Furthermore, trait affective empathy scores of the participants were positively correlated with their P2 amplitudes of group painful voices. The results suggested that the group empathy for pain may facilitate affective empathetic processing in auditory modality.

Social addiction or nicotine addiction? The effect of smoking social motivation on inhibitory control under smoking social cues: Evidence from ERPs

IntroductionPrevious studies and theoretical models suggest that the decreasing effect of smoking-related cues on inhibitory control in individuals who smoke is one of the underlying mechanisms of smoking behavior. However, many studies have overlooked the effects of other types of smoking-related cues, such as social cues. Moreover, previous studies have lacked investigation into whether this decreasing effect is influenced by internal factors. The present study aims to integrate behavioral and electrophysiological indicators to investigate the effect of smoking social cues on inhibitory control in individuals who smoke, as well as the moderating role of social motivations. MethodIn Experiment 1, a visual Go/NoGo paradigm with four types of backgrounds (neutral, neutral social, smoking object, and smoking social backgrounds) was used to record the error rates and reaction times of 32 participants who smoke. In Experiment 2, the Go/NoGo paradigm with two types of backgrounds (smoking object and smoking social backgrounds) was used to record the error rates, reaction times, and amplitudes of the N2 and P3 event-related potentials among 30 participants who smoke with varying degrees of primed smoking social motivation. Results(1) Individuals who smoke had higher commission error rates and larger P3 amplitude under smoking social background than under smoking object background; (2) individuals who smoke with primed high smoking social motivation, rather than low motivation had higher commission error rates and larger P3 amplitude under smoking social background than under smoking object background. ConclusionsSmoking social cues have a greater capacity to decrease inhibitory control in people who smoke than smoking object cues, and this decreasing effect is bolstered by smoking social motivation.

The impact of smartphone deprivation on attentional bias in problematic smartphone users: Evidence from behavioral and physiological perspectives

This study innovatively applied smartphone deprivation and aimed to assess its behavioral and physiological effects in problematic smartphone users. In Experiment 1, 283 participants completed an investigation related to smartphone use, including 92 participants identified as problematic smartphone users. Based on an average smartphone unlocking interval of 19.67 min, the duration of smartphone deprivation was set to 20 min. After deprivation, the participants exhibited a significant increase in smartphone cravings and a decrease in heart rate. Experiment 2 applied a modified cueing task to explore problematic smartphone users’ attentional bias, in which smartphone-related and neutral pictures were selected as the materials. There were 22 and 23 participants in the smartphone-deprivation and control groups, respectively. In the deprivation group, reaction times (RTs) for smartphone-related pictures were longer than for neutral pictures. In Experiment 3, we incorporated electroencephalography technology to also assess a smartphone turned-off group. There were 16, 21, and 14 participants in smartphone deprivation, smartphone turned-off, and control groups, respectively. In both the smartphone deprivation and smartphone turned-off groups, participants had longer RTs on smartphone-related pictures than on neutral pictures. Furthermore, for participants in the deprivation group, N2 latencies in relation to smartphone-related pictures were earlier than those in relation to neutral pictures, while participants in the turned-off group had larger P3 amplitudes and earlier P3 latencies for invalid cues compared with valid cues.

Electrophysiological correlates of (mis)judging social information.

Social information can be used to optimize decision-making. However, the simultaneous presentation of multiple sources of advice can lead to a distinction bias in judging the validity of the information. While the involvement of event-related potential (ERP) components in social information processing has been studied, how they are modulated by (mis)judging an advisor's information validity remains unknown. In two experiments participants performed a decision-making task with highly accurate or inaccurate cues. Each experiment consisted of an initial, learning, and test phase. During the learning phase, three advice cues were simultaneously presented and the validity of them had to be assessed. The effect of different cue constellations on ERPs was investigated. In the subsequent test phase, the willingness to follow or oppose an advice cue was tested. Results demonstrated the distinction bias with participants over or underestimating the accuracy of the most uncertain cues. The P2 amplitude was significantly increased during cue presentation when advisors were in disagreement as compared to when all were in agreement, regardless of cue validity. Further, a larger P3 amplitude during outcome presentation was found when advisors were in disagreement and increased with more informative cues. As such, the most uncertain cues were related to the smallest P3 amplitude. The findings hint at the possible role of P3 in judging and learning the predictability of social cues. This study provides novel insights into the role of P2 and P3 components during the judgment of social information validity.

ERP evidence for temporal differences between cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning

Previous studies have shown that individuals not only successfully engage in cross-domain analogies but also accomplish cross-modal reasoning. Yet, the behavioral representation and neurophysiological basis of cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning remain unclear. This study established three analogical reasoning conditions by combining a multi-to-multi learning-test paradigm with a four‑term analogy paradigm: within-domain, cross-domain, and cross-modal conditions. Thirty participants were required to judge whether the relationship between C and D was the same as the learned relationship between A and B. Behavioral results revealed no significant differences in reaction times and accuracy between cross-domain and cross-modal conditions, but both conditions showed significantly lower accuracy than within-domain condition. ERP results indicated a larger P2 amplitude in the cross-modal condition, while a larger N400 amplitude was observed in the cross-domain condition. These findings suggest: (1) The P2 in cross-modal analogical reasoning is associated with more difficult access to cross-modal information. (2) The N400 in cross-domain analogical reasoning is related to more challenging semantic processing. This study provides the first evidence of behavioral and ERP differences between cross-modal and cross-domain analogical reasoning, deepening our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in cross-modal analogical reasoning.

Exploring the ‘black box’ of anxiety: An ERP study of non-consciously triggered fear generalization

Individuals with anxiety disorders frequently display heightened fear responses, even in situations where there is no imminent danger. We hypothesize that these irrational fear responses are related to automatic processing of fear generalization. The initial automatic detection of stimuli often operates at a non-conscious level. However, whether fear generalization can occur when the cues are not perceived consciously remains unclear. The current study investigated the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying fear conditioning and its non-conscious and conscious generalization using a backward masking paradigm, combined with analysis of event-related potentials from electroencephalographic recordings. Behaviorally, participants showed heightened shock expectancy in response to non-conscious perceived generalization stimuli compared to those perceived consciously. Nonetheless, participants could not consciously distinguish between danger and safe cues in non-conscious trials. Physiologically, danger cues evoked larger frontal N1 amplitudes than safety cues in non-conscious trials, suggesting enhanced attention vigilance towards danger cues in the early sensory processing stage. Meanwhile, when fear generalization was conscious, it was accompanied by a larger P2 amplitude, indicating attention orientation or stimulus evaluation. In addition, fear conditioning was associated with sustained discrimination on P2, P3, and LPP. These findings collectively suggest that non-conscious fear generalization occurs at the neural level, yet additional control conditions are required to confirm this phenomenon on the US expectancy. Thus, non-consciously fear generalization may represent a mechanism that could trigger automatic irrational fear, highlighting the need for further research to explore therapeutic targets in anxiety disorders.

An event-related potential study of prepotent motor activity and response inhibition deficits in schizophrenia.

Response inhibition deficits in schizophrenia (SZ) are accompanied by reduced neural activities using event-related potential (ERP) measurements. However, it remains unclear whether the reduction in inhibition-related ERPs in SZ is contingent upon prepotent motor tendencies. This study aimed to examine the relationship between ERP markers of prepotent motor activity (lateralised readiness potential, LRP) and response inhibition (P3) by collecting behavioural and EEG data from healthy control (HC) subjects and SZ patients during a modified Go/No-Go task. A trial-averaged analysis revealed that SZ patients made more commission errors in No-Go trials compared with HC subjects, although there was no significant difference in the inhibition-related P3 effect (i.e. larger P3 amplitudes in No-Go compared with Go trials) between the two groups. Subsequently, No-Go trials were sorted and median-split into bins of stronger and weaker motor tendencies. Both HC and SZ participants made more commission errors when faced with stronger motor tendencies. The LRP-sorted P3 data indicated that HC subjects exhibited larger P3 effects in response to stronger motor tendencies, whereas this trial-by-trial association between P3 and motor tendencies was absent in SZ patients. Furthermore, SZ patients displayed diminished P3 effects in No-Go trials with stronger motor tendencies but not in trials with weaker motor tendencies, relative to HC subjects. Taken together, these findings suggest that SZ patients are unable to dynamically adjust inhibition-related neural activities in response to changing inhibitory control demands and emphasise the importance of considering prepotent motor activity when investigating the neural mechanisms underlying response inhibition deficits in SZ.

Subsyndromal depression leads to early under-activation and late over-activation during inhibitory control: an ERP study

Individuals with depressive disorders have deficits in inhibitory control and exhibit symptoms of impaired cognitive and emotional functioning. Individuals with subsyndromal depression are intermediate between the healthy group and clinically diagnosed patients with depressive disorders, and studying the characteristics of their inhibitory control functioning can help to investigate the mechanisms underlying the development of depressive disorders. Using two classical paradigms of inhibitory control, Flanker and Go/NoGo, the present study explored the differences in inhibitory control between individuals with subsyndromal depression and healthy individuals from the perspectives of both response inhibition and interference control. Behavioral results showed that both groups did not differ in response time and accuracy; in terms of event-related potentials, individuals with subsyndromal depression presented smaller N2 amplitudes as well as larger P3 amplitudes in the NoGo condition of the Go/NoGo paradigm; and smaller N2 amplitudes in the incongruent condition of the Flanker paradigm. Moreover, the depression-prone group showed lower theta power compared to the healthy group in the NoGo condition of the NoGo paradigm and the incongruent condition of the Flanker paradigm. The present study reveals that the depression-prone group may have a compensatory mechanism in the response inhibition, which is mainly manifested as early under-activation as well as late over-activation.

Associations between physical activity, sedentary time, and neurocognitive function during adolescence: Evidence from accelerometry and the flanker P300.

Physical activity and sedentary behavior are two lifestyle factors related to overall health during adolescence. Public health efforts emphasize the importance of increasing physical activity to improve physical and mental health outcomes, including neurocognitive functioning. However, the unique effects of sedentary behavior on neurocognitive functioning remain unclear. This study aimed to investigate associations between daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA), sedentary time, and neurocognitive functioning during adolescence. Fifty-seven participants (37% female) between the ages of 13 and 17 years wore an accelerometer on their non-dominant wrist for approximately 1 week to quantify daily MVPA and sedentary time prior to completing a flanker task to elicit P300 amplitude at a laboratory visit. Results indicated that daily MVPA and sedentary time exhibited unique, significant associations with P300 amplitude in opposing directions: increased daily MVPA was correlated with larger P300 amplitudes, while increased daily sedentary time was linked to reduced P300 amplitudes. Notably, these associations remained significant even after adjusting for age, sex, and BMI-for-age percentile. These findings underscore the independent influence of daily MVPA and sedentary time on neurocognitive functioning during adolescence. Future research should explore whether modifying MVPA levels can improve neurocognitive outcomes-including the P300-during adolescence, and determine whether reducing sedentary time results in similar or differential effects.

Social observation modulates the influence of socioeconomic status on pro-environmental behavior: an event-related potential study.

Understanding the psychological antecedents of socioeconomic status (SES) on pro-environmental behavior is crucial for effectively encouraging individuals from different socioeconomic backgrounds to address environmental issues. Previous research has separately examined the influence of SES and social observation on pro-environmental behavior. However, little is known about whether social observation moderates the influence of SES on pro-environmental behavior, and the underlying neurophysiological mechanisms remain uncharacterized. Using event-related potential (ERPs), we adopted the green purchase paradigm and manipulated subjective SES, to examine whether the influence of SES on pro-environmental behavior is moderated by social observation. The behavioral results revealed that individuals of high SES tended to purchase more eco-friendly products under the observable condition than those in the non-observable condition. The ERP results revealed that participants with high SES exhibited more negative N2 and N400 amplitude during environmental decisions in the non-observable condition than in the observable condition, indicating that high SES individuals experience less cognitive conflict during environmental decisions, which may reflect the attenuated cost-benefit trade-off due to reputational incentives in the presence of observers. Additionally, individuals with high SES exhibited greater reputational motivation when observed, as indicated by larger P3 amplitude. However, these differences were not observed among individuals with low SES. These findings suggest that SES is associated with distinct psychological and behavioral differences in pro-environmental behavior, moderated by social observation, evident across both the early and later stages of environmental decisions in the brain.

Short-Term Effects of Competitive Video Games on Aggression: An Event-Related Potential Study

Previous research on factors affecting video game player aggression has mainly reflected on the violent content of video games; in recent years, some researchers have focused on competitive factors in video games. However, little research has examined the sole impacts of competitive factors in video games without violent content on aggression, and the neurological processes of these effects are still unknown. The present study was the first to examine the electrophysiological characteristics of short-term competitive video game exposure and aggression. Thirty-five participants played a video game in either competitive or solo mode for 15 min, followed by an ERP experiment based on the oddball paradigm and the hot sauce paradigm to measure aggressive behavior. Results showed that playing competitive game mode was associated with faster judgment of aggressive words, larger P300 amplitudes, and selection of more chili powder than in solo mode. Mediation analysis further revealed that the P300 amplitude evoked by the aggressive words partially mediated the relationship between competitive game exposure and aggressive behavior. These findings support the general aggression model. However, this study has limitations, such as a single form of competitive game examined and single blindness, which need further improvement in future studies.

Cueing effect of attention among nurses with different anxiety levels: an EEG study.

The attention to cueing among nurses with anxiety affects their nursing quality seriously. Nevertheless, the neural mechanism of attention under anxiety among nurses has not been revealed. In this study, we utilized the event-related potential (ERP) and functional brain networks to investigate the neural mechanism of the cueing attention differences between anxiety and non-anxiety nurse groups (AG-20 nurses; NAG-20 nurses) in the spatial cueing task. The results revealed that in the invalid cues (144 trials), longer reaction times, larger P2 amplitudes, and more linkages between the right frontal and parietal areas were found in AG compared to NAG. In the valid cues (288 trials), there were no significant behavioral and neural differences between the two groups. The AG in the invalid cues showed slower response times, larger P2 and N5 amplitudes, and denser linkages originating from the occipital cortex than those in the valid cues. The convolutional neural network was trained for discriminating between the anxiety nurses and the normal ones, with the average accuracy being 0.76. The findings provided a potential physiological biomarker to predict the anxiety group who need to give more psychological attention. Nurse leaders maybe get more information for offering solutions to retain mental health among nurses.

Reward advantage over punishment for incentivizing visual working memory.

The prospects of gaining reward and avoiding punishment widely influence human behavior. Despite of numerous attempts to investigate the influence of motivational signals on working memory (WM), whether the valence and the magnitude of motivational signals interactively influence WM performance remains unclear. To investigate this, the present study used a free-recall working memory task with EEG recording to compare the effect of incentive valence (reward or punishment), as well as the magnitude of incentives on visual WM. Behavioral results revealed that the presence of incentive signals improved WM precision when compared with no-incentive condition, and compared with punishing cues, rewarding cues led to greater facilitation in WM precision, as well as confidence ratings afterward. Moreover, event related potential (ERP) results suggested that compared with punishment, reward led to an earlier latency of late positive component (LPC), a larger amplitude of contingent negative variation (CNV) during the expectation period, and a larger P300 amplitude during the sample and delay periods. Furthermore, reward advantage over punishment in behavioral and neural results were correlated, such that individuals with larger CNV difference between reward and punishment conditions also report greater distinction in confidence ratings between the two conditions. In sum, our results demonstrate what and how rewarding cues cause more beneficial effects than punishing cues when incentivizing visual WM.

Weight status impacts children's incidental statistical learning

The expanding literature investigating the cognitive effects of childhood weight status has not included examinations of incidental statistical learning, the process by which children unintentionally acquire knowledge about patterns in their environments, despite evidence that it underlies many higher-level information processing capabilities. In the present study, we measured event-related potentials (ERPs) while school-aged participants completed a variation of an oddball task in which stimuli predicted the appearance of a target. Children were asked to respond to the target but were not given any information about the existence of predictive dependencies. We found that children with a healthy weight status had larger P3 amplitudes in response to the predictors that were most meaningful in completing the task, a finding that may suggest optimized learning mechanisms influenced by weight status. These findings offer an important first step to understanding how healthy lifestyle factors may influence incidental statistical learning.

Regional variations distinguish auditory from visual evoked potentials in healthy 4 week old piglets

Objective. Evoked potentials (EP), measured using electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings provide an opportunity to monitor cognitive dysfunctions after neurological diseases or traumatic brain injury (TBI). The 4 week old piglet is an established model of paediatric TBI; therefore, healthy piglets were studied to establish feasibility of obtaining responses to auditory and visual stimuli. A secondary aim was to input the EEG data into a piglet computational model to localize the brain sources related to processing. We tested the hypotheses: (1) visual, auditory-standard, and auditory-target stimuli elicit responses, (2) there is an effect of stimulus type, day tested, and electrode region on EPs from EEG, (3) there is an effect of stimulus type, day tested, and brain region on localized sources from a computational model. Approach. Eleven 4 week old female piglets were fitted with a 32-electrode net and presented with a simple white light stimulus and an auditory oddball click train (70 standard; 30 target tones). Main results. N1 and P2 amplitudes were consistently observed for all stimulus types. Significant interaction effects between brain region and stimulus for EP and current density demonstrate that cognitive responses are specific to each modality with auditory localizing to the temporal region and visual to the occipital regions. There was a day effect where larger responses were found on the first day than day 2 and 3 and may be due to the novelty of the stimulus on the first day. Visual stimuli had larger P1 amplitudes and earlier latencies (P1, N1) than auditory which coincides with current density results at 50 ms where larger activations were observed for visual. At 85 ms, auditory had significantly larger current densities coincident with larger and longer N1 amplitudes and latencies than visual. Significance. Auditory and visual processing were successfully and consistently obtained in a porcine model and can be evaluated as a diagnostic assessment for TBI.

The influence of thinking dispositions on belief-bias inhibition process: Evidence from ERPs and neural oscillations

Theories of belief-bias inhibition suggest that thinking dispositions play crucial roles in belief-bias inhibition. However, limited electrophysiological evidence supports the link between thinking disposition and belief-bias inhibition in reasoning. This study fills this gap by ascertaining precisely how individual differences in thinking disposition affect electrophysiological activity underlying the belief-bias inhibition process by analyzing ERPs and neural oscillations after controlling for cognitive factors (working memory and fluid intelligence). Participants with high-level thinking dispositions had larger P3 amplitudes, greater frontal theta band power, and reduced parietal alpha band power than their low-level counterparts in completing reasoning tasks with a logic-belief conflict. These results suggest that greater thinking disposition contributes to inhibition and overriding the belief-bias effect by directing more cognitive resources to resolve reasoning conflicts.

Altered resting-state network connectivity patterns for predicting attentional function in deaf individuals: An EEG study

Multiple aspects of brain development are influenced by early sensory loss such as deafness. Despite growing evidence of changes in attentional functions for prelingual profoundly deaf, the brain mechanisms underlying these attentional changes remain unclear. This study investigated the relationships between differential attention and the resting-state brain network difference in deaf individuals from the perspective of brain network connectivity. We recruited 36 deaf individuals and 34 healthy controls (HC). We recorded each participant's resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) and the event-related potential (ERP) data from the Attention Network Test (ANT). The coherence (COH) method and graph theory were used to build brain networks and analyze network connectivity. First, the ERPs of analysis in task states were investigated. Then, we correlated the topological properties of the network functional connectivity with the ERPs. The results revealed a significant correlation between frontal-occipital connection in the resting state and the amplitude of alert N1 amplitude in the alpha band. Specifically, clustering coefficients and global and local efficiency correlate negatively with alert N1 amplitude, whereas the characteristic path length positively correlates with alert N1 amplitude. In addition, deaf individuals exhibited weaker frontal-occipital connections compared to the HC group. In executive control, the deaf group had longer reaction times and larger P3 amplitudes. However, the orienting function did not significantly differ from the HC group. Finally, the alert N1 amplitude in the ANT task for deaf individuals was predicted using a multiple linear regression model based on resting-state EEG network properties. Our results suggest that deafness affects the performance of alerting and executive control while orienting functions develop similarly to hearing individuals. Furthermore, weakened frontal-occipital connections in the deaf brain are a fundamental cause of altered alerting functions in the deaf. These results reveal important effects of brain networks on attentional function from the perspective of brain connections and provide potential physiological biomarkers to predicting attention.

Associations of parent-adolescent closeness with P3 amplitude, frontal theta, and binge drinking among offspring with high risk for alcohol use disorder.

Parents impact their offspring's brain development, neurocognitive function, risk, and resilience for alcohol use disorder (AUD) via both genetic and socio-environmental factors. Individuals with AUD and their unaffected children manifest low parietal P3 amplitude and low frontal theta (FT) power, reflecting heritable neurocognitive deficits associated with AUD. Likewise, children who experience poor parenting tend to have atypical brain development and greater rates of alcohol problems. Conversely, positive parenting can be protective and critical for normative development of self-regulation, neurocognitive functioning and the neurobiological systems subserving them. Yet, the role of positive parenting in resiliency toward AUD is understudied and its association with neurocognitive functioning and behavioral vulnerability to AUD among high-risk offspring is less known. Using data from the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism prospective cohort (N= 1256, mean age [SD]=19.25 [1.88]), we investigated the associations of closeness with mother and father during adolescence with offspring P3 amplitude, FT power, and binge drinking among high-risk offspring. Self-reported closeness with mother and father between ages 12 and 17 and binge drinking were assessed using the Semi-Structured Assessment for the Genetics of Alcoholism. P3 amplitude and FT power were assessed in response to target stimuli using a Visual Oddball Task. Multivariate multiple regression analyses showed that closeness with father was associated with larger P3 amplitude (p= 0.002) and higher FT power (p= 0.01). Closeness with mother was associated with less binge drinking (p= 0.003). Among male offspring, closeness with father was associated with larger P3 amplitude, but among female offspring, closeness with mother was associated with less binge drinking. These associations remained statistically significant with father's and mothers' AUD symptoms, socioeconomic status, and offspring impulsivity in the model. Among high-risk offspring, closeness with parents during adolescence may promote resilience for developing AUD and related neurocognitive deficits albeit with important sex differences.

Estimation Strategy Utilization Is Modulated by Implicit Emotion Regulation: Evidence from Behavioral and Event-Related Potentials Studies.

A large number of studies have studied the influence of emotional experience on an individual's estimation performance, but the influence of implicit emotion regulation is still unknown. Participants were asked to complete the following tasks in order: idiom matching task, multiplication computational estimation task (MCE task), gender judgment task (GJ task), and emotional experience intensity assessment task. The words matching task was adopted to achieve the purpose of implicit emotion regulation (implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression). Behavioral results showed that implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression equally contributed to improving an individual's estimation speed (but not ACC (accuracy)). The MCE task related ERP (event-related potential) results showed that the influence of implicit emotion regulation on estimation consisted of two phases. In the first phase (encoding phase), implicit reappraisal both enhanced (larger P1 amplitudes) and weakened (smaller N170 amplitudes) an individual's encoding sensitivity, while implicit suppression enhanced an individual's encoding sensitivity (larger P1 amplitudes). In the second phase (estimation strategies retrieval phase), implicit reappraisal (but not implicit suppression) cost more attention resources (larger LPC2 and LPC3 amplitudes). The present study suggested that both implicit reappraisal and implicit suppression contributed to improving an individual's estimation performance, and the regulation effect of implicit suppression (vs. implicit reappraisal) was better.

Ratings or Sales? The Neural and Psychological Processes of Online Experience Product Purchase: Evidence from a Sample of Chinese University Students.

Extrinsic cues are ubiquitous in daily commodity consumption scenarios, not to mention online consumption scenarios. Among the many online cues, monthly sales and product ratings are two of the most representative. Some scholars have researched the impact of these cues on consumer decision making, but only search products have been investigated. Based on previous research, this article expanded the types of products to experience products and further explored consumer purchase behaviours and the underlying purchase processes influenced by these two extrinsic cues with the assistance of a neuroscience tool, event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioural results indicated that the subjects decided mainly based on ratings, while the effect of sales was continuously inhibited. The ERP results further suggested that consumers recognised low ratings and low sales as more negative stimuli than high ratings and high sales, as larger P2 amplitudes were observed. Following the early processing of these cues, low ratings were considered unacceptable and evoked more significant emotional conflicts than high ratings, which was reflected by larger N400 amplitudes. Moreover, in the late stage, high ratings, which activated evaluation categorisation and produced more significant emotional arousal than low-rating conditions, guided the formation of purchase intention and reflected greater LPP amplitudes. Theoretical and managerial implications were discussed.