Stimulus-preceding Negativity Amplitude Research Articles

Intolerance of uncertainty and neural measures of anticipation and reactivity for affective stimuli.

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a transdiagnostic construct referring to the aversive interpretation of contexts characterized by uncertainty. Indeed, there is a growing body of research examining individual differences in IU and how these are associated with emotional anticipation and reactivity during periods of certainty and uncertainty, however, how these associations are reflected via neurophysiological indices remain understudied and poorly understood. The present study examined the relationship between self-reported IU and neurophysiological measures of emotional anticipation and reactivity, namely stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) and late positive potential (LPP), and self-report measures of emotional experiences. These measures were captured during an S1-S2 picture viewing tasks in which participants were presented with cues (S1) that either indicated the affective valence of upcoming picture (S2) or provided no information about the valence. Findings here provide evidence for significant associations between SPN amplitude and IU scores during uncertain and certain-positive cueing conditions, and significant associations between LPP amplitude and IU scores during both certain- and uncertain-negative picture viewing conditions that appear driven by prospective IU sub-scores. These positive associations between IU and SPN amplitude are suggestive of heightened emotional anticipation following S1 cues, while positive associations between IU and LPP are suggestive of heightened emotional reactivity following S2 images. These findings are discussed in detail relative to existing IU literature, and potential implications of these findings.

P320. Waiting for the Payoff: Electrical Anticipation Response in Individuals With Depression/Anxiety Disorders

Reward processing dysfunction is considered a core characteristic of depression and anxiety disorder (DEP/ANX). However, research in DEP/ANX has focused mainly on reward receipt as opposed to anticipation. The stimulus preceding negativity (SPN) is a slow event-related potential recorded during electroencephalography (EEG), thought to reflect anticipatory brain activity. We aimed to examine the effect of MDD on SPN amplitude and its relationship with future treatment completion (>7 sessions of behavioral activation or exposure therapy).

Modulatory Effects of Prediction Accuracy on Electroencephalographic Brain Activity During Prediction.

Prediction is essential for the efficiency of many cognitive processes; however, this process is not always perfect. Predictive coding theory suggests that the brain generates and updates a prediction to respond to an upcoming event. Although an electrophysiological index of prediction, the stimulus preceding negativity (SPN), has been reported, it remains unknown whether the SPN reflects the prediction accuracy, or whether it is associated with the prediction error, which corresponds to a mismatch between a prediction and an actual input. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate this question using electroencephalography (EEG). Participants were asked to predict the original pictures from pictures that had undergone different levels of pixelation. The SPN amplitude was affected by the level of pixelation and correlated with the subjective evaluation of the prediction accuracy. Furthermore, late positive components (LPC) were negatively correlated with SPN. These results suggest that the amplitude of SPN reflects the prediction accuracy; more accurate prediction increases the SPN and reduces the prediction error, resulting in reduced LPC amplitudes.

Neural processes of reward and punishment processing in childhood and adolescence: An event-related potential study on age differences

Reward and punishment processing are subject to substantial developmental changes during youth. However, little is known about the neurophysiological correlates that are associated with these developmental changes, particularly with regard to both anticipatory and outcome processing stages. Thus, the aim of this study was to address this research gap in a sample of typically developing children and adolescents.Fifty-four children and adolescents (8–18 years) performed a Monetary Incentive Delay Task comprising a monetary reward and punishment condition. Using event-related brain potential recordings, the cue-P3 and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) were analyzed during the anticipation phase, while the Reward Positivity and the feedback-P3 were analyzed during the outcome phase.When anticipating monetary loss or no gain, SPN amplitude in the right hemisphere decreased with age. Moreover, exploratory analyses revealed a decrease in feedback-P3 amplitudes in response to monetary loss with increasing age. No other group differences were observed.Age-related changes in the SPN and fP3 component suggest that sensitivity to negative outcomes decreases from childhood to late adolescence, supporting the notion that adolescence is associated with reduced harm-avoidance. Longitudinal research including young adults is needed to substantiate our findings and its clinical implications regarding disturbed developmental trajectories in psychiatric populations.

Anticipating the unknown: The stimulus-preceding negativity is enhanced by uncertain threat

Anticipating the future is an important psychological process that facilitates adaptive functioning. The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) is an event-related potential index of anticipation that is elicited in the several hundred milliseconds before an outcome occurs. The SPN is elicited by emotional stimuli, such as electric shocks, and has been proposed to reflect emotional anticipation. To better characterize the functional significance of the SPN, the current study examined the effects of uncertain threat on SPN amplitude. Fifty-three participants from the community completed a task that compared the SPN when anticipating uncertain threat (a 50% chance of electric shock), certain threat (a 100% chance of electric shock), and safety (a 0% chance of electric shock). The SPN was enhanced by uncertain threat relative to certain threat and safety. Thus, the SPN appears to be specifically sensitive to uncertainty above and beyond threat. These results replicate and extend previous findings and inform theoretical accounts regarding the functional significance of the SPN. Furthermore, the findings highlight the utility of the SPN as a measure of anticipation and a tool for research on the effects of uncertainty, in line with recent calls for the development of additional laboratory-based measures of responding to uncertainty.

Relevance and uncertainty jointly influence reward anticipation at the level of the SPN ERP component.

The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) component reflects the anticipatory phase of reward processing. Its amplitude is usually larger for informative compared to uninformative upcoming stimuli, as well as for uncertain relative to predictable ones. In this study, we sought to assess whether these two effects, when combined together, produced a synergistic effect or rather independent ones on the SPN during performance monitoring. Participants performed a speeded Go/NoGo task while 64-channel EEG was recorded concurrently. We focused on the SPN activity generated in anticipation of feedback, which was either positive (for correct and fast reactions) or negative (for correct but slow responses). Further, the feedback's informativeness about the satisfaction status of goals was alternated across blocks. When uncertainty about the action outcome was low (in conditions where positive feedback was either less or more frequent than negative feedback), the SPN amplitude (measured at fronto-central electrodes) did not vary as a function of feedback's relevance or valence. By comparison, when positive and negative feedback were equiprobable (uncertainty was high), the SPN was more pronounced for relevant compared to irrelevant feedback. Interestingly, in this condition, it was also larger at right fronto-central sites for positive than negative feedback. These ERP results suggest that both factors-relevance and uncertainty- combine and influence reward anticipation at the SPN level.

Brain activities associated with learning of the Monty Hall Dilemma task.

The Monty Hall Dilemma (MHD) poses a counterintuitive probabilistic problem to the players of this game. In the MHD task, a participant chooses one of three options where only one contains a reward. After one of the unchosen options (always no reward) is disclosed, the participant is asked to make a final decision: either change to the remaining option or stick with their first choice. Although the probability of winning if they change is higher (2/3) compared to sticking with their first choice (1/3), most people stick with their original selection and often lose. In accordance with previous research, repetitive exposure to the MHD task increases the change behavior without any obvious understanding of the mathematical reasons why changing increases their chance of being rewarded. We recorded the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), an ERP that might reflect the informative value of the feedback. In the second half of the task, feedback was predicted to be less informative because learning had taken place. Indeed, the SPN amplitude became smaller over the frontal region. Also, the SPN amplitude was larger for change than for stick trials. These results suggest that learning in the MHD might be manifest in affective-motivational anticipation as indicated by the SPN.

Single-Trial Event-Related Potential Correlates of Belief Updating(1,2,3).

Belief updating—the process by which an agent alters an internal model of its environment—is a core function of the CNS. Recent theory has proposed broad principles by which belief updating might operate, but more precise details of its implementation in the human brain remain unclear. In order to address this question, we studied how two components of the human event-related potential encoded different aspects of belief updating. Participants completed a novel perceptual learning task while electroencephalography was recorded. Participants learned the mapping between the contrast of a dynamic visual stimulus and a monetary reward and updated their beliefs about a target contrast on each trial. A Bayesian computational model was formulated to estimate belief states at each trial and was used to quantify the following two variables: belief update size and belief uncertainty. Robust single-trial regression was used to assess how these model-derived variables were related to the amplitudes of the P3 and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN), respectively. Results showed a positive relationship between belief update size and P3 amplitude at one fronto-central electrode, and a negative relationship between SPN amplitude and belief uncertainty at a left central and a right parietal electrode. These results provide evidence that belief update size and belief uncertainty have distinct neural signatures that can be tracked in single trials in specific ERP components. This, in turn, provides evidence that the cognitive mechanisms underlying belief updating in humans can be described well within a Bayesian framework.

Effects of information and reward on stimulus‐preceding negativity prior to feedback stimuli

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effects of informational and motivational level of feedback stimuli on the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN). In the time estimation task, in which a visual stimulus was presented 3 s after a voluntary movement, (a) the information level (high information and low information) and (b) the motivation level (reward and no-reward) for feedback stimuli were manipulated. Under the high-information condition, subjects received feedback information about (1) correctness (correct or incorrect), (2) direction of error (under- or overestimate), and (3) degree of accuracy (accurate or less accurate) of their time estimation. In the low-information condition, however, they received information about the correctness only. In the reward condition, they received a monetary reward for accurate time estimations but received nothing in the no-reward condition. The results demonstrated a significant interaction of information by motivation level, showing that the SPN amplitude under the reward/high-information was larger than that in the no-reward/high-information condition. The results are discussed in terms of emotional anticipation, taking into consideration the result of self-report that subjects felt to be more motivated when they received precise information.

Individual differences in slow brain potentials in a guessing task.

18 healthy right-handed subjects had to predict one of two random non-equiprobable events by pressing one of two buttons with the right index finger. Each trial was preceded by a cue that increased the probability of the corresponding event in comparison to its overall probability. The Bereitschaftspotential (BP) before an action and the stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) between the action and the event presentation were recorded. The subjects were subdivided into groups according to their tendency to follow the cue or to reject it. Cue rejection provided in the present situation a larger final gain than cue acceptance. Those subjects who used the former strategy were characterized by a local BP increase over the right parietal cortex, when a low-probable cue was presented. Their SPN amplitude was relatively small, but it increased substantially after a low-probable cue. Subjects who tended to follow the cue had a very large BP amplitude over the projection area and at vertex. Their SPN was overall large, regardless of condition. Peculiarities of the potentials recorded in these subjects are thought to relate to their desire to minimize errors.