Late Event-related Potentials Components Research Articles

The levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine device is related to early emotional reactivity: An ERP study

Despite the evidence of altered emotion processing in oral contraceptive (OC) users, the impact of hormonal intrauterine devices (IUD) on emotional processing remains unexplored. Our study aimed to investigate how behavioural performance and event-related potentials (ERPs) linked with emotion reactivity and its regulation are associated with hormonal profiles of women using different types of hormonal contraception and naturally cycling women. Women using OCs (n = 25), hormonal IUDs (n = 33), and naturally cycling women in their early follicular (NCF, n = 33) or mid-luteal (NCL, n = 28) phase of the menstrual cycle were instructed to view emotional pictures (neutral, low and high negativity) and use cognitive reappraisal to up- or down-regulate negative emotions, while their electroencephalogram was recorded. Participants rated perceived negativity after each picture and their emotional arousal throughout the task. Saliva samples were collected to assess levels of 17β-estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone. As expected, emotional arousal increased throughout the task and correlated positively with perceived negativity. Perceived negativity and the amplitudes of the middle (N2/P3) and later (LPP) latency ERP components increased with increasing stimuli negativity. Emotion regulation modulated perceived negativity and the amplitudes of very late ERP components (parietal and frontal LPP). Moreover, IUD-users showed a higher negative amplitude of the frontal N2 in comparison to all three other groups, with the most consistent differences during up-regulation. Finally, testosterone correlated positively with the N2 peak in IUD-users and NCL women. Overall, our findings suggest that IUD-use and testosterone might be related to altered preconscious processing during the emotion regulation task requiring attention to the stimulus. The study underscores the need for additional research into how different hormonal contraceptives are linked to socio-emotional functioning.

Biological postural oscillations during facial expression of pain in virtual characters modulate early and late ERP components associated with empathy: A pilot study

There is a surge in the use of virtual characters in cognitive sciences. However, their behavioural realism remains to be perfected in order to trigger more spontaneous and socially expected reactions in users. It was recently shown that biological postural oscillations (idle motion) were a key ingredient to enhance the empathic response to its facial pain expression. The objective of this study was to examine, using electroencephalography, whether idle motion would modulate the neural response associated with empathy when viewing a pain-expressing virtual character. Twenty healthy young adults were shown video clips of a virtual character displaying a facial expression of pain while its body was either static (Still condition) or animated with pre-recorded human postural oscillations (Idle condition). Participants rated the virtual human's facial expression of pain as significantly more intense in the Idle condition compared to the Still condition. Both the early (N2–N3) and the late (rLPP) event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with distinct dimensions of empathy, affective resonance and perspective-taking, respectively, were greater in the Idle condition compared to the Still condition. These findings confirm the potential of idle motion to increase empathy for pain expressed by virtual characters. They are discussed in line with contemporary empathy models in relation to human-machine interactions.

Global mapping congruence influences phonological interference: ERP evidence for early and persistent ortho-phonological effects in reading Chinese for meaning.

Phonological interference during written-word meaning judgments occurs in both Chinese and English, suggesting that word-level phonological activation is universal rather than dependent on the sublexical structures that vary with writing systems. To accommodate this universality, we distinguish two sources of phonological congruence between a meaning-bearing orthographic unit (word or character) and other units in the orthographic lexicon: (a) Global congruence between a word (or character) and its orthographic neighbors having the same pronunciation and (b) Local congruence between a word (or character) and its graphic constituents (letters or radicals). Recent evidence by Zhou and Perfetti in 2021 shows a greater role for global than local congruence in covert naming of Chinese characters. We hypothesize this is true also for meaning processing and use behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) measures to test this hypothesis during character meaning judgments. As expected, we found word-level phonological interference in meaning decision times. Further, ERPs detected interference effects related to global congruence at early and mid-latency ERP components; local congruence effects emerged only in interaction with global congruence. A late ERP component (LPC) also showed phonological interference, but no effect on mapping congruence. These time-course results suggest two phases of phonological activation: (a) character identification, influenced mainly by global congruence, as indicated in early and mid-latency ERP components and (b) meaning comparison, influenced only by lexical phonology, as indicated by the LPC component. The early phase of lexical processing is much the same whether meaning or pronunciation is required because it engages ortho-phonological associations that are not easily suppressed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Using Event-Related Potentials (ERP) to identify the purchase intention of a consumer for familiar brands

Several neurological processes are undergoing on a conscious and subconscious level every time a consumer likes or dislikes a product. There is presently significant research in Consumer Neuroscience based on consumer behaviour and understanding of these processes. In this study, we have used Electroencephalography (EEG) and Event-Related Potentials (ERP) to capture consumer responses to highly familiar product images. EEG analysed from the 27 participants was used to extract P1, N1, P300, N400 and Late Posterior components. The analysis showed that the early ERP components viz., P1, N1 and P300 can differentiate between consumer liking and disliking of products. In contrast, the late ERP components N400 and Late Posterior components could not differentiate in the highly familiar product category. The results indicate that after continuous exposure, consumer preference towards highly-familiar products occurs as a part of automatic, unconscious mental processes irrespective of the product properties. Further research in this direction can test for the transference of consumer preference: from a conscious mental process to a subconscious mental process due to excessive and continuous product exposure and marketing repetition. Our study demonstrates that consumer behaviour in response to highly-familiar products can be classified using early ERP components only.

A Potential Multimodal Test for Clinical Assessment of Visual Attention in Neurological Disorders.

Attention is an important aspect of human brain function and often affected in neurological disorders. Objective assessment of attention may assist in patient care, both for diagnostics and prognostication. We present a compact test using a combination of a choice reaction time task, eye-tracking and EEG for assessment of visual attention in the clinic. The system quantifies reaction time, parameters of eye movements (i.e. saccade metrics and fixations) and event related potentials (ERPs) in a single and fast (15 min) experimental design. We present pilot data from controls, patients with mild traumatic brain injury and epilepsy, to illustrate its potential use in assessing attention in neurological patients. Reaction times and eye metrics such as fixation duration, saccade duration and latency show significant differences (p < .05) between neurological patients and controls. Late ERP components (200-800 ms) can be detected in the central line channels for all subjects, but no significant group differences could be found in the peak latencies and mean amplitudes. Our system has potential to assess key features of visual attention in the clinic. Pilot data show significant differences in reaction times and eye metrics between controls and patients, illustrating its promising use for diagnostics and prognostication.

How robust is the relationship between neural processing speed and cognitive abilities?

Individual differences in processing speed are consistently related to individual differences in cognitive abilities, but the mechanisms through which a higher processing speed facilitates reasoning remain largely unknown. To identify these mechanisms, researchers have been using latencies of the event-related potential (ERP) to study how the speed of cognitive processes associated with specific ERP components is related to cognitive abilities. Although there is some evidence that latencies of ERP components associated with higher-order cognitive processes are related to intelligence, results are overall quite inconsistent. These inconsistencies likely result from variations in analytic procedures and little consideration of the psychometric properties of ERP latencies in relatively small sample studies. Here we used a multiverse approach to evaluate how different analytical choices regarding references, low-pass filter cutoffs, and latency measures affect the psychometric properties of P2, N2, and P3 latencies and their relations with cognitive abilities in a sample of 148 participants. Latent correlations between neural processing speed and cognitive abilities ranged from -.49 to -.78. ERP latency measures contained about equal parts of measurement error variance and systematic variance, and only about half of the systematic variance was related to cognitive abilities, whereas the other half reflected nuisance factors. We recommend addressing these problematic psychometric properties by recording EEG data from multiple tasks and modeling relations between ERP latencies and covariates in latent variable models. All in all, our results indicate that there is a substantial and robust relationship between neural processing speed and cognitive abilities when those issues are addressed.

Can you change your mind? An ERP study of cognitive flexibility and new evidence integration

Cognitive flexibility is an ability that allows individuals to integrate external evidence into previous expectancies. Individual differences in this ability were examined using Event-Related Potentials (ERPs), focusing on the fact that new evidence can either confirm or disprove an initial impression. Written scenarios prompted to make a prediction while either confirmatory or disconfirmatory evidence followed. A final sentence presented participants with a statement congruent with the prediction likely to have been formed based on the first statement or a statement rather congruent with corrective new evidence. A Bias Against Disconfirmatory Evidence (BADE) test rated participants in cognitive flexibility. ERPs revealed that whereas individuals overall typically reacted to unexpected endings (a classical N400 effect) within the confirmatory evidence condition, higher cognitive flexibility scores were associated with smaller N400 effects. Furthermore, individuals showed larger P600s for disconfirmatory than confirmatory evidence conditions, regardless of the final target ending. This result indexes reanalysis processes whenever disconfirmatory evidence was present. Regression analysis of BADE scores and ERP effects are presented and discussed. Late ERP components are sensitive enough to detect new evidence integration capabilities and thus provide a good implicit measure of cognitive flexibility.

How do medical students understand disease behaviors? Evidence from event-related potentials

To investigate how medical students process Western medicine (WM) terms vs . traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) terms and how this is impacted by analogical priming from the perspective of cognitive neuroscience. The experiments were designed as a 2 (TCM terms vs . WM terms) × 2 (correct terms vs . incorrect terms) × 2 (analogical priming task vs . non-priming task) scheme. A total of 26 medical students completed a non-priming judgment task and an analogical priming judgment task on medical terms. During the tasks, the participants were asked to make correct/incorrect judgments on WM terms and TCM terms, and their behavioral data and event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Behaviorally, the response speed and accuracy of WM terms were higher than those of TCM terms (both P < .001), indicating a prominent concreteness effect. Analogical priming shortened the response time to medical terms ( P < .001), and the response time to TCM terms was shortened more significantly ( P = .001). For ERPs, WM terms induced a larger P200 (an early positive ERP component), a smaller N400 (a negative ERP component), and a higher late positive ERP component, indicating superiority of attention adjustment, smaller-scale semantic activation, and a higher cost of late semantic analysis and integration. However, the analogical priming eliminated the difference between WM and TCM terms in P200 and N400 while maintaining it in the LPC. This suggests that WM terms are sensitive to analogical attention adjustment, and TCM terms are susceptible to analogical semantic integration. Our findings suggest that WM and TCM disease behavior terms may initially differ in concreteness or the use of a verbal-linguistic system. Analogy is more conducive to understanding TCM terms. This research provides important neuroscientific evidence of the difference in thinking between TCM and WM.

Altered Processing of Social Emotions in Individuals With Autistic Traits.

Social impairment is a defining phenotypic feature of autism. The present study investigated whether individuals with autistic traits exhibit altered perceptions of social emotions. Two groups of participants (High-AQ and Low-AQ) were recruited based on their scores on the autism-spectrum quotient (AQ). Their behavioral responses and event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by social and non-social stimuli with positive, negative, and neutral emotional valence were compared in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed to view social-emotional and non-social emotional pictures. In Experiment 2, participants were instructed to listen to social-emotional and non-social emotional audio recordings. More negative emotional reactions and smaller amplitudes of late ERP components (the late positive potential in Experiment 1 and the late negative component in Experiment 2) were found in the High-AQ group than in the Low-AQ group in response to the social-negative stimuli. In addition, amplitudes of these late ERP components in both experiments elicited in response to social-negative stimuli were correlated with the AQ scores of the High-AQ group. These results suggest that individuals with autistic traits have altered emotional processing of social-negative emotions.

Late Components of Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Reading Words in Children, Adolescents, and Adults

Late Components of Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Reading Words in Children, Adolescents, and Adults

An EEG Classification-Based Method for Single-Trial N170 Latency Detection and Estimation.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) can reflect the high-level thinking activities of the brain. In ERP analysis, the superposition and averaging method is often used to estimate ERPs. However, the single-trial ERP estimation can provide researchers with more information on cognitive activities. In recent years, more and more researchers try to find an effective method to extract single-trial ERPs, because most of the existing methods have poor generalization ability or suffer from strong assumptions about the characteristics of ERPs, resulting in unsatisfactory results under the condition of a very low signal-to-noise ratio. In this paper, an EEG classification-based method for single-trial ERP detection and estimation was proposed. This study used a linear generated EEG model containing templates of ERP local descriptors which include amplitude and latency, and this model can avoid the invalid assumption about ERPs taken by other methods. The purpose of this method is not to recover the whole ERP waveform but to model the amplitude and latency of ERP components. This method afterwards examined the three machine learning models including logistic regression, neural network, and support vector machine in the EEG signal classification for ERP detection and selected the best performed MLPNN model for detection. To get the utmost out of information produced in the classification process, this study also used extra information to propose a new optimization model, with which outperformed detection results were obtained. Performance of the proposed method is evaluated on simulated N170 and real P50 data sets, and the results show that the model is more effective than the Woody filter and the SingleTrialEM algorithm. These results are also consistent with the conclusion of sensory gating, which demonstrated good generalization ability.

Electrophysiological response to visual symmetry: Effects of the number of symmetry axes

The symmetry axes of a stimulus are a critical determinant of visual perception. Although much is known about the effects of a single symmetry axis on perception, the effects of multiple symmetry axes are still poorly understood. Here, we investigated the influence of the number of symmetry axes on brain activity using event-related potentials (ERPs). Our results showed that altering the number of symmetry axes affects both the amplitude and the latency of ERPs. Specifically, the amplitude of ERP components increased as the number of symmetry axes increased, starting at the N1 (165–175 ms) component and lasting until the P2 (230–250 ms) component in the bilateral posterior areas and until the N2 (340 ms) component in the frontal-central areas. Importantly, the latency of ERP components was reduced when the number of symmetry axes increased, starting at the N1 in the right posterior area and lasting until the P2 component in the bilateral posterior areas. The temporal and spatial differences in these effects imply that activity related to symmetry axes gradually changes throughout the ventral visual streams in the human brain.

Attentional bias towards high and low caloric food on repeated visual food stimuli: An ERP study.

Food variety influences appetitive behaviour, motivation to eat and energy intake. Research found that repeated exposure to varied food images increases the motivation towards food in adults and children. This study investigates the effects of repetition on the modulation of early and late components of event-related potentials (ERPs) when participants passively viewed the same food and non-food images repeatedly. The motivational attention to food and non-food images were assessed in frontal, centroparietal, parietooccipital and occipitotemporal areas of the brain. Participants showed increased late positive potential (late ERP component) to high caloric image in the occipitotemporal region compared to low caloric and non-food images. Similar effects could be seen in the early ERP component in the frontal region, but with reversed polarity. Data suggest that both the early and late ERP components show greater ERP amplitude when viewing high caloric images than low caloric and non-food images. Despite repeated exposure to same image, high caloric food continued to show sustained attention compared to low caloric and non-food image.

Impaired impulse inhibition of emotional stimuli in patients with borderline personality disorder

This study was aimed to investigate whether BPD patients showed impaired impulse inhibition of emotional and non-emotional stimuli and to explore relevant neuroelectrophysiological mechanisms. A total of 32 BPD patients and 32 matched healthy controls were recruited. Self-reported scales were used to measure psychiatric symptoms. The event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded when subjects were performing neutral and emotional Stop Signal Task (SST). Group differences in self-reported scores, behavioral variables and ERPs were compared. The BPD group scored significantly higher on impulsivity, severity of BPD symptoms, levels of depression and anxiety than the control group. In neutral SST, no significant group differences were detected in the amplitude and latency of ERPs components induced. In emotional SST, the P2 amplitude of negative emotion was significantly larger than that of neutral emotion in Go trials. In Stop trials, the P2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly smaller than that of control group, and the N2 amplitude of BPD group was significantly greater than that of control group. BPD patients showed impaired inhibition of emotional stimuli rather than non-emotional stimuli. The deficits of emotional impulse control mainly exhibit at the early attention, stimulus evaluation and conflict detection stages.

Automaticity of Early Sexual Attention: An Event-Related Potential Study.

A promising line of research on forensic assessment of paraphilic sexual interest focuses on behavioral measures of visual attention using sexual stimuli as distractors. The present study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with behavioral measures to investigate whether detection of a hidden sexual preference can be improved with ERPs. Normal variants of sexual orientation were used for a proof-of-concept investigation. Accordingly, 40 heterosexual and 40 gay men participated in the study. Within each group, half of the participants were instructed to hide their sexual orientation. The results showed that a match between sexual orientation and stimulus delays responses and influences ERP before motor responses. Late ERP components showed higher potential in differentiating hidden sexual preferences than motor responses, thereby showing how ERPs can be used in combination with reaction time measures to potentially facilitate the detection of hidden sexual preferences.

Using electrophysiological measures to evaluate the sense of presence in immersive virtual environments: An event‐related potential study

Sense of presence has been often explored in the context of virtual reality (VR) and immersive visual technologies; however, standardized and objective measures of the sense of presence have been difficult to find. Studies attempting to find physiological correlates of sense presence using electroencephalography (EEG) have reported mixed results. In the present study, we used brain event‐related potentials (ERPs) elicited by auditory stimuli to identify an objective physiological index of sense of presence during VR, attempting to replicate the findings of previous studies and explain the heterogeneity of results reported in the literature. Participants in our experiment were asked to experience an immersive virtual environment using a modern head‐mounted display while passively hearing task‐irrelevant frequent standard and infrequent deviant tones as in a classic auditory oddball paradigm. Subsequently, they were asked to complete a battery of questionnaires aimed to estimate their sense of presence during the VR. EEG and questionnaire data from three‐seventh participants were analyzed. ERP components evoked by the auditory stimuli were then analyzed. Late ERP components (after 450 ms from stimulus onset) registered over central brain areas were associated with the sense of presence as measured with questionnaires, while earlier components were not associated with presence. The use of different questionnaires and the content of the VR environment may both be a plausible explanation for heterogeneous results as reported in previous studies. The present study showed that late ERP components recorded over the central brain may represent good electrophysiological correlates of the subjective sense of presence.

The N400 and late occipital positivity in processing dynamic facial expressions with natural emotional voice.

People require multimodal emotional interactions to live in a social environment. Several studies using dynamic facial expressions and emotional voices have reported that multimodal emotional incongruency evokes an early sensory component of event-related potentials (ERPs), while others have found a late cognitive component. The integration mechanism of two different results remains unclear. We speculate that it is semantic analysis in a multimodal integration framework that evokes the late ERP component. An electrophysiological experiment was conducted using emotionally congruent or incongruent dynamic faces and natural voices to promote semantic analysis. To investigate the top-down modulation of the ERP component, attention was manipulated via two tasks that directed participants to attend to facial versus vocal expressions. Our results revealed interactions between facial and vocal emotional expressions, manifested as modulations of the auditory N400 ERP amplitudes but not N1 and P2 amplitudes, for incongruent emotional face-voice combinations only in the face-attentive task. A late occipital positive potential amplitude emerged only during the voice-attentive task. Overall, these findings support the idea that semantic analysis is a key factor in evoking the late cognitive component. The task effect for these ERPs suggests that top-down attention alters not only the amplitude of ERP but also the ERP component per se. Our results implicate a principle of emotional face-voice processing in the brain that may underlie complex audiovisual interactions in everyday communication.

Comparison of Scalp ERP to Faces in Macaques and Humans.

Face recognition is an essential activity of social living, common to many primate species. Underlying processes in the brain have been investigated using various techniques and compared between species. Functional imaging studies have shown face-selective cortical regions and their degree of correspondence across species. However, the temporal dynamics of face processing, particularly processing speed, are likely different between them. Across sensory modalities activation of primary sensory cortices in macaque monkeys occurs at about 3/5 the latency of corresponding activation in humans, though this human simian difference may diminish or disappear in higher cortical regions. We recorded scalp event-related potentials (ERPs) to presentation of faces in macaques and estimated the peak latency of ERP components. Comparisons of latencies between macaques (112 ms) and humans (192 ms) suggested that the 3:5 ratio could be preserved in higher cognitive regions of face processing between those species.

Physiological and Medico-Social Research Trends of the Wave P300 and More Late Components of Visual Event-Related Potentials.

To extend the application of the late waves of the event-related potentials (ERPs) to multiple modalities, devices and software the underlying physiological mechanisms and responses of the brain for a particular sensory system and mental function must be carefully examined. The objective of this study was aimed to study the sensory processes of the “human-computer interaction” model when classifying visual images with an incomplete set of signs based on the analysis of early, middle, late and slow ERPs components. 26 healthy subjects (men) aged 20–26 years were investigated. ERPs in 19 monopolar sites according to the 10/20 system were recorded. Discriminant and factor analyzes (BMDP Statistical Software) were applied. The component N450 is the most specialized indicator of the perception of unrecognizable (oddball) visual images. The amplitude of the ultra-late components N750 and N900 is also higher under conditions of presentation of the oddball image, regardless of the location of the registration points. In brain pathology along with the pronounced asymmetry of the wave distribution, reduction of the N150 wave and lengthening of its peak latency, a line of regularities were noted. These include–a pronounced reduction in peak latency P250 and N350, an increased amplitude of N350 in the frontal and central points of registration, a decrease in the amplitude of N450 in the left frontal cortex and its increase in the occipital registration points, activation of the occipital cortex at a time interval of 400–500 ms, as well as fusion later waves. We called such phenomena of the development of cognitive ERP in brain pathology “the incongruence of ERP components”. The results of the research are discussed in the light of the paradigm of the P300 wave application in brain-computer interface systems, as well as with the peculiarities in brain pathology.

Attentional conditions differentially affect early, intermediate and late neural responses to fearful and neutral faces.

The processing of fearful facial expressions is prioritized by the human brain. This priority is maintained across various information processing stages as evident in early, intermediate and late components of event-related potentials (ERPs). However, emotional modulations are inconsistently reported for these different processing stages. In this pre-registered study, we investigated how feature-based attention differentially affects ERPs to fearful and neutral faces in 40 participants. The tasks required the participants to discriminate either the orientation of lines overlaid onto the face, the sex of the face or the face’s emotional expression, increasing attention to emotion-related features. We found main effects of emotion for the N170, early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). While N170 emotional modulations were task-independent, interactions of emotion and task were observed for the EPN and LPP. While EPN emotion effects were found in the sex and emotion tasks, the LPP emotion effect was mainly driven by the emotion task. This study shows that early responses to fearful faces are task-independent (N170) and likely based on low-level and configural information while during later processing stages, attention to the face (EPN) or—more specifically—to the face’s emotional expression (LPP) is crucial for reliable amplified processing of emotional faces.