Subjective Ratings Of Valence Research Articles

The near-miss effect in online slot machine gambling: A series of conceptual replications.

Near-misses are a structural characteristic of gambling products that can be engineered within modern digital games. Over a series of preregistered experiments using an online slot machine simulation, we investigated the impact of near-miss outcomes on subjective ratings (motivation, valence) and two behavioral measures (speed of gambling, bet size). Participants were recruited using Prolific and gambled on an online three-reel slot machine simulator that delivered a one in three rate of X-X-O near-misses. Study 1 measured trial-by-trial subjective ratings of valence and motivation (Study 1a, n = 169; Study 1b, n = 148). Study 2 (n = 170) measured spin initiation latencies as a function of the previous trial outcome. Study 3 (n = 172) measured bet size as a function of the previous trial outcome. In Study 1a, near-misses increased the motivation to continue gambling relative to full-misses, supporting Hypothesis 1. On valence ratings, near-misses were rated significantly more positively than full-misses, in the opposite direction to Hypothesis 2; this effect was confirmed in a close replication (Study 1b). In Study 2, participants gambled faster following near-misses relative to full-misses, supporting Hypothesis 3. In Study 3, participants significantly increased their bet size following near-misses relative to full-misses, supporting Hypothesis 4. Across all dependent variables, near-miss outcomes yielded statistically significant differences from objectively equivalent full-miss outcomes, corroborating the "near-miss effect" across both subjective and behavioral measures, and in the environment of online gambling. The unexpected findings on valence ratings are considered in terms of boundary conditions for the near-miss effect, and competing theoretical accounts based on frustration/regret, goal generalization, and skill acquisition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Time-locked acute alpha-frequency stimulation of subthalamic nuclei during the evaluation of emotional stimuli and its effect on power modulation.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) studies in Parkinson's Disease (PD) targeting the subthalamic nucleus (STN) have characterized its spectral properties across cognitive processes. In emotional evaluation tasks, specific alpha frequency (8-12 Hz) event-related de-synchronization (ERD) (reduced power) has been demonstrated. The time-locked stimulation of STN relative to stimuli onset has shown subjective positive valence shifts with 10 Hz but not with 130 Hz. However, neurophysiological effects of stimulation on power modulation have not been investigated. We aim to investigate effects of acute stimulation of the right STN on concurrent power modulation in the contralateral STN and frontal scalp EEG. From our previous study, we had a strong a priori hypothesis that negative imagery without stimulation would be associated with alpha ERD; negative imagery with 130 Hz stimulation would be also associated with alpha ERD given the lack of its effect on subjective valence ratings; negative imagery with 10 Hz stimulation was to be associated with enhanced alpha power given the shift in behavioral valence ratings. Twenty-four subjects with STN DBS underwent emotional picture-viewing tasks comprising neutral and negative pictures. In a subset of these subjects, the negative images were associated with time-locked acute stimulation at either 10 or 130 Hz. Power of signals was estimated relative to the baseline and subjected to non-parametric statistical testing. As hypothesized, in 130 Hz stimulation condition, we show a decrease in alpha power to negative vs. neutral images irrespective of stimulation. In contrast, this alpha power decrease was no longer evident in the negative 10 Hz stimulation condition consistent with a predicted increase in alpha power. Greater beta power in the 10 Hz stimulation condition along with correlations between beta power across the 10 Hz stimulation and unstimulated conditions suggest physiological and cognitive generalization effects. Acute alpha-specific frequency stimulation presumably was associated with a loss of this expected decrease or desynchronization in alpha power to negative images suggesting the capacity to facilitate the synchronization of alpha and enhance power. Acute time-locked stimulation has the potential to provide causal insights into the spectral frequencies and temporal dynamics of emotional processing.

Effect of Taste-Induced Mood on ERP and Emotional Assessment of Images.

Tastes affect the body and our emotions. We used tasteless, sweet, and bitter stimuli to induce participants' moods, and we examined the effect of mood on an emotional evaluation of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant images using event-related potentials, N2, N400, and late positive potential (LPP), which reflect emotional evaluation in the brain. The results indicated that mood valence was most positive for sweetness and most negative for bitterness. Moreover, there was no significant mood effect on subjective valence ratings of emotional images. Furthermore, the N2 amplitude, which is related to the early semantic processing of preceding stimuli, was unaffected by the taste induced mood. In contrast, we found that the N400 amplitude, which is related to the mismatch of emotional valence between stimuli, increased significantly for unpleasant images when participants were in a positive rather than negative mood state. Also, the LPP amplitude, which is related to the emotional valence of images, showed only the main effect of the images' emotional valence. The N2's results suggest that the early semantic processing of taste stimuli might have had a negligible impact on emotional evaluation because taste stimuli minimize semantic processing that accompanies mood induction. In contrast, the N400 reflected the effects of the induced mood, and the LPP reflected the impact of the valence of emotional images. The use of taste stimuli to induce mood revealed different brain processing of taste-induced mood effects on emotional evaluation, including N2's involvement in semantic processing, N400's involvement in matching emotions between mood and stimuli, and LPP's involvement in subjective evaluations of stimuli.

Oscillatory and non-oscillatory brain activity reflects fear expression in an immediate and delayed fear extinction task.

Fear extinction is pivotal for inhibiting fear responding to former threat-predictive stimuli. In rodents, short intervals between fear acquisition and extinction impair extinction recall compared to long intervals. This is called Immediate Extinction Deficit (IED). Importantly, human studies of the IED are sparse and its neurophysiological correlates have not been examined in humans. We, therefore, investigated the IED by recording electroencephalography (EEG), skin conductance responses (SCRs), an electrocardiogram (ECG), and subjective ratings of valence and arousal. Forty male participants were randomly assigned to extinction learning either 10min after fear acquisition (immediate extinction) or 24 h afterward (delayed extinction). Fear and extinction recall were assessed 24 h after extinction learning. We observed evidence for an IED in SCR responses, but not in the ECG, subjective ratings, or in any assessed neurophysiological marker of fear expression. Irrespective of extinction timing (immediate vs. delayed), fear conditioning caused a tilt of the non-oscillatory background spectrum with decreased low-frequency power (<30 Hz) for threat-predictive stimuli. When controlling for this tilt, we observed a suppression of theta and alpha oscillations to threat-predictive stimuli, especially pronounced during fear acquisition. In sum, our data show that delayed extinction might be partially advantageous over immediate extinction in reducing sympathetic arousal (as assessed via SCR) to former threat-predictive stimuli. However, this effect was limited to SCR responses since all other fear measures were not affected by extinction timing. Additionally, we demonstrate that oscillatory and non-oscillatory activity is sensitive to fear conditioning, which has important implications for fear conditioning studies examining neural oscillations.

Electrophysiological normative responses to emotional, neutral, and cigarette-related images.

To create reproducible emotional probes, affective scientists rely on sets of standardized pictures that are normed using subjective ratings of valence and emotional arousal. However, when emotional responses are investigated using neurophysiological measures, it might be more appropriate to select pictures integrating information from normative subjective reports and normative neurophysiological responses. Here, we provide electrophysiological normative responses for 323 emotional pictures (215 from the IAPS) covering a wide range of categories (erotica, romantic, appetizing foods, landscapes, people engaged in mundane activities, household objects, disgusting objects, accidents, sad people, violence, mutilations, and cigarette-related contents). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and subjective ratings of pleasure and emotional arousal were collected from 763 individuals (52% females, 41% white) aged between 18 and 65 (mean=43). For each image, the mean amplitude of the late positive potential (LPP, an electrophysiological index of motivational relevance) and the mean subjective ratings of valence and arousal were calculated. We validated our procedure by showing that the subjective ratings of valence and arousal from this sample were highly correlated to the IAPS' published norms (Pearson r=.97 for pleasure and r=.82 for emotional arousal). LPP responses and subjective ratings of emotional arousal also were correlated (Pearson r=.61), but some categories reported being significantly more arousing than neutral (i.e., food, landscapes, and unpleasant objects) did not evoke LPPs significantly different from those evoked by neutral pictures. Researchers interested in probing the brain's affective systems can use these electrophysiological normative responses to create emotional probes that evoke reliable neuroaffective responses.

Empathy development from adolescence to adulthood and its consistency across targets.

This research was conducted with two main goals—to contribute to knowledge on the development of empathy from early adolescence to adulthood, including its contribution to decoding emotion expression, and to improve the understanding of the nature of empathy by simultaneously assessing empathy toward two different targets—humans and animals. It unfolded into two cross-sectional studies: One (S1) obtaining measures of empathy toward humans and animals as targets across five age groups (from pre-adolescents to adults); and another (S2) where a subset of the adolescents who participated in S1 were assessed in emotion expression decoding and subjective and physiological responses to emotional video clips. The results of S1 showed that empathy toward animals and most dimensions of empathy toward humans increase toward adulthood, with important gender differences in empathy to animals and humans, and empathy levels in girls starting off in the age trajectory at higher levels, A moderate correlation between empathy toward human and toward animal targets was also found. S2 showed that the expression of positive emotion is better recognized than that of negative emotion, surprise, or neutral expression, and that the measure of human-directed empathy predicts successful decoding of negative emotion, whereas skin conductance responses (SCRs) and subjective valence ratings predicted successful identification of positive emotion. Gender differences emerged but not across all age groups nor all subscales. Results yield keys to the developmental “pace” and trajectory of the various dimensions of empathy and to how empathy relates to emotion decoding.

Built to last: Theta and delta changes in resting-state EEG activity after regulating emotions.

Background: Over the past years, electroencephalography (EEG) studies focused on task‐related activity to characterize cortical responses associated with emotion regulation (ER), without exploring the possibility that regulating emotions can leave a trace in the brain by affecting its oscillatory activity. Demonstrating whether the effect of regulation alters the brain activity after the session and whether this reflects an increased cognitive regulatory ability has great relevance.Methods: To address this issue, 5 min of electrical brain activity at rest were recorded before and after (1) one session in which participants perceived and regulated (through distancing) their emotions (regulation session, ReS), and (2) another session in which they only perceived emotions (attend session, AtS). One hundred and sixty visual stimuli were presented, and subjective ratings of valence and arousal of stimuli were recorded.Results: Behavioral results showed the efficacy of the regulation strategy in modulating both arousal and valence. A cluster‐based permutation test on EEG data at rest revealed a significant increase in theta and delta activity after the ReS compared to the AtS, suggesting that regulating emotions can alter brain activity after the session.Conclusions: These results allowed us to outline a comprehensive view of the neurophysiological mechanisms associated with ER, as well as some possible implications in psychotherapy.

Robot touch with speech boosts positive emotions

A gentle touch is an essential part of human interaction that produces a positive care effect. Previously, robotics studies have shown that robots can reproduce a gentle touch that elicits similar, positive emotional responses in humans. However, whether the positive emotional effects of a robot’s touch combined with speech can be enhanced using a multimodal approach remains unclear. This study supports the hypothesis that a multimodal interaction combining gentle touch and speech by a robot enhances positive emotional responses. Here, we conducted an experiment using a robotic arm to perform a gentle touch combined with speech and compared three conditions: touch alone, speech alone, and touch with speech. We assessed participants’ subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and human likeliness using subjective emotional responses. Furthermore, we recorded facial electromyography (EMG) from the corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major muscles and measured skin conductance levels (SCLs) as physiological emotional responses. Our results show that touch combined with speech elicited higher subjective valence and arousal ratings, stronger zygomaticus major EMG and SCL activities than touch alone. The results suggest that the positive emotional effects of robotic touch can be boosted by combining elements of speech.

Facing Your Fear in Immersive Virtual Reality: Avoidance Behavior in Specific Phobia.

Specific phobias are the most common anxiety disorder and are characterized by avoidance behavior. Avoidance behavior impacts daily function and is proposed to impair extinction learning. However, despite its prevalence, its objective assessment remains a challenge. To this end, we developed a fully automated experimental procedure using immersive virtual reality. The procedure contained a behavioral search, forced-choice, and an approach task with varying degrees of freedom and task relevance of the stimuli. In this study, we examined the sensitivity and feasibility of these tasks to assess avoidance behavior in patients with specific phobia. We adapted the tasks by replacing the originally conditioned stimuli with a spider and a neutral animal and investigated 31 female participants composed of 15 spider-phobic and 16 non-phobic participants. As the non-phobics were quite heterogeneous in terms of their Fear of Spiders Questionnaire (FSQ) scores, we subdivided them into six “fearfuls” that had elevated FSQ scores, and 10 “non-fearfuls” that had no fear of spiders. The phobics successfully managed to complete the procedure and showed consistent avoidance behavior across all behavioral tasks. Compared to the non-fearfuls, which did not show any avoidance behavior at all, the phobics looked at the spider much more often and clearly directed their body toward it in the search task. In the approach task, they hesitated most when they were close to the spider, and their difficulty to touch the spider was reflected in a strong increase in right hand acceleration changes. The fearfuls showed avoidance behavior depending on the tasks: strongest in the search task and weakest in the approach task. Additionally, we identified subjective valence ratings of the spider as the main influence on both objective avoidance behavior and subjective well-being after exposure, mediating the effect of the FSQ. In summary, the behavioral tasks are well suited to assess avoidance behavior in phobic participants and provide detailed insights into the process of avoidance.

Generalization of reappraisal to novel negative stimuli as evidenced by the LPP

Cognitive reappraisal is a well-studied emotion regulation technique that involves changing the meaning of stimuli. To be useful in everyday life, reappraisal's effects would ideally generalize from previously reappraised stimuli to novel, but similar stimuli, saving individuals from needing to generate novel interpretations for similar stimuli. Here, 41 participants were asked to use reappraisal to down-regulate their response to negative pictures from one category (e.g., snakes), and to view negative pictures from another category (e.g., guns) as well as neutral pictures (e.g., plants). In a subsequent task, participants passively viewed novel pictures from all three categories (e.g., snakes, guns, and plants). EEG and subjective ratings of valence and arousal were collected in both tasks. In the reappraisal task, we did not find an effect of reappraisal on the LPP or arousal ratings, but reappraisal reduced ratings of picture unpleasantness. In the second task, negative pictures from the previously reappraised category elicited smaller LPPs than negative pictures from the previously viewed category, though there was no evidence that reappraisal generalized to subjective ratings of pictures. Therefore, at the electrocortical level, cognitive reappraisal may generalize to similar but novel stimuli encountered outside of the reappraisal context. Moreover, meaning change might be more effective in modulating electrocortical response following a delay and in the absence of deliberate attempts to down-regulate emotional response. Nonetheless, reappraisal's effects appear to differ across levels of affective response when similar stimuli are encountered in the absence of willful attempts at reappraisal.

Fear conditioning and stimulus generalization in association with age in children and adolescents

The aim of the study was to investigate age-related differences in fear learning and generalization in healthy children and adolescents (n = 133), aged 8–17 years, using an aversive discriminative fear conditioning and generalization paradigm adapted from Lau et al. (2008). In the current task, participants underwent 24 trials of discriminative conditioning of two female faces with neutral facial expressions, with (CS+) or without (CS−) a 95-dB loud female scream, presented simultaneously with a fearful facial expression (US). The discriminative conditioning was followed by 72 generalization trials (12 CS+, 12 GS1, 12 GS2, 12 GS3, 12 GS4, and 12 CS−): four generalization stimuli depicting gradual morphs from CS+ to CS− in 20%-steps were created for the generalization phases. We hypothesized that generalization in children and adolescents is negatively correlated with age. The subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and US expectancy (the probability of an aversive noise following each stimulus), as well as skin conductance responses (SCRs) were measured. Repeated-measures ANOVAs on ratings and SCR amplitudes were calculated with the within-subject factors stimulus type (CS+, CS−, GS1-4) and phase (Pre-Acquisition, Acquisition 1, Acquisition 2, Generalization 1, Generalization 2). To analyze the modulatory role of age, we additionally calculated ANCOVAs considering age as covariate. Results indicated that (1) subjective and physiological responses were generally lower with increasing age irrespective to the stimulus quality, and (2) stimulus discrimination improved with increasing age paralleled by reduced overgeneralization in older individuals. Longitudinal follow-up studies are required to analyze fear generalization with regard to brain maturational aspects and clarify whether overgeneralization of conditioned fear promotes the development of anxiety disorders or vice versa.

Enhanced emotional and motor responses to live versus videotaped dynamic facial expressions

Facial expression is an integral aspect of non-verbal communication of affective information. Earlier psychological studies have reported that the presentation of prerecorded photographs or videos of emotional facial expressions automatically elicits divergent responses, such as emotions and facial mimicry. However, such highly controlled experimental procedures may lack the vividness of real-life social interactions. This study incorporated a live image relay system that delivered models’ real-time performance of positive (smiling) and negative (frowning) dynamic facial expressions or their prerecorded videos to participants. We measured subjective ratings of valence and arousal and facial electromyography (EMG) activity in the zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii muscles. Subjective ratings showed that the live facial expressions were rated to elicit higher valence and more arousing than the corresponding videos for positive emotion conditions. Facial EMG data showed that compared with the video, live facial expressions more effectively elicited facial muscular activity congruent with the models’ positive facial expressions. The findings indicate that emotional facial expressions in live social interactions are more evocative of emotional reactions and facial mimicry than earlier experimental data have suggested.

Emotion Classification Based on Biophysical Signals and Machine Learning Techniques

Emotions constitute an indispensable component of our everyday life. They consist of conscious mental reactions towards objects or situations and are associated with various physiological, behavioral, and cognitive changes. In this paper, we propose a comparative analysis between different machine learning and deep learning techniques, with and without feature selection, for binarily classifying the six basic emotions, namely anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, and surprise, into two symmetrical categorical classes (emotion and no emotion), using the physiological recordings and subjective ratings of valence, arousal, and dominance from the DEAP (Dataset for Emotion Analysis using EEG, Physiological and Video Signals) database. The results showed that the maximum classification accuracies for each emotion were: anger: 98.02%, joy:100%, surprise: 96%, disgust: 95%, fear: 90.75%, and sadness: 90.08%. In the case of four emotions (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness), the classification accuracies were higher without feature selection. Our approach to emotion classification has future applicability in the field of affective computing, which includes all the methods used for the automatic assessment of emotions and their applications in healthcare, education, marketing, website personalization, recommender systems, video games, and social media.

Measuring cooking experience implicitly and explicitly: Physiology, facial expression and subjective ratings

Understanding consumers’ emotional experience during the process of cooking is important to enable the development of food products. In addition to verbal (‘explicit’) reports, physiological variables and facial expression may be helpful measures since they do not interfere with the experience itself and are of a continuous nature. This study investigated the potential of a range of implicit and explicit measures (1) to differentiate between subtle differences in pleasantness of ingredients, and (2) to identify emotionally salient phases during the process of cooking. 74 participants cooked and tasted a curry dish following standardized timed auditory instructions, either with ‘basic’ or ‘premium’ versions of ingredients. Heart rate, skin conductance, EEG and facial expression were recorded continuously during cooking and tasting. Subjective ratings of valence and arousal were taken directly after. Before and after cooking, participants performed ‘dry cooking’ sessions without ingredients to acquire changes in the physiological variables caused by physical activity only. We found no differences between the ‘basic’ and ‘premium’ groups, neither in implicit, nor in explicit measures. However, there were several robust physiological effects reflecting different cooking phases. Most notably, heart rate was relatively high for two specific phases: adding curry paste from a sachet during cooking, and tasting the prepared dish. The verbal reports of valence and arousal showed similar patterns over phases. Thus, our method suggests that physiological variables can be used as continuous, implicit measures to identify phases of affective relevance during cooking and may be a valuable addition to explicit measures of emotion.

Surprise-related activation in the nucleus accumbens interacts with music-induced pleasantness.

How can music—merely a stream of sounds—be enjoyable for so many people? Recent accounts of this phenomenon are inspired by predictive coding models, hypothesizing that both confirmation and violations of musical expectations associate with the hedonic response to music via recruitment of the mesolimbic system and its connections with the auditory cortex. Here we provide support for this model, by revealing associations of music-induced pleasantness with musical surprises in the activity and connectivity patterns of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc)—a central component of the mesolimbic system. We examined neurobehavioral responses to surprises in three naturalistic musical pieces using fMRI and subjective ratings of valence and arousal. Surprises were associated with changes in reported valence and arousal, as well as with enhanced activations in the auditory cortex, insula and ventral striatum, relative to unsurprising events. Importantly, we found that surprise-related activation in the NAcc was more pronounced among individuals who experienced greater music-induced pleasantness. These participants also exhibited stronger surprise-related NAcc–auditory cortex connectivity during the most pleasant piece, relative to participants who found the music less pleasant. These findings provide a novel demonstration of a direct link between musical surprises, NAcc activation and music-induced pleasantness.

Altered orbitofrontal activity and dorsal striatal connectivity during emotion processing in dependent marijuana users after 28days of abstinence.

Intact cognitive and emotional functioning is vital for the long-term success of addiction treatment strategies. Accumulating evidence suggests an association between chronic marijuana use and lasting alterations in cognitive brain function. Despite initial evidence for altered emotion processing in dependent marijuana users after short abstinence periods, adaptations in the domain of emotion processing after longer abstinence remain to be determined. Using task-based and resting state fMRI, the present study investigated emotion processing in 19 dependent marijuana users and 18 matched non-using controls after an abstinence period of > 28days. Relative to the control subjects, negative emotional stimuli elicited increased medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) activity and stronger mOFC-dorsal striatal and mOFC-amygdala functional coupling in dependent marijuana users (p < 0.022, FWE-corrected). Furthermore, mOFC-dorsal striatal functional connectivity was increased at rest in marijuana users (p < 0.03, FWE-corrected). Yet, processing of positive stimuli and subjective ratings of valence and arousal were comparable in both groups. Together, the present findings provide the first evidence for persisting emotion processing alterations in dependent marijuana users. Alterations might reflect long-term neural adaptations as a consequence of chronic marijuana use or predisposing risk factors for the development of marijuana dependence.

An fMRI study into emotional processing in Parkinson's disease: Does increased medial prefrontal activation compensate for striatal dysfunction?

BackgroundApart from a progressive decline of motor functions, Parkinson’s disease (PD) is also characterized by non-motor symptoms, including disturbed processing of emotions. This study aims at assessing emotional processing and its neurobiological correlates in PD with the focus on how medicated Parkinson patients may achieve normal emotional responsiveness despite basal ganglia dysfunction.MethodsNineteen medicated patients with mild to moderate PD (without dementia or depression) and 19 matched healthy controls passively viewed positive, negative, and neutral pictures in an event-related blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging study (BOLD-fMRI). Individual subjective ratings of valence and arousal levels for these pictures were obtained right after the scanning.ResultsParkinson patients showed similar valence and arousal ratings as controls, denoting intact emotional processing at the behavioral level. Yet, Parkinson patients showed decreased bilateral putaminal activation and increased activation in the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (PFC), compared to controls, both most pronounced for highly arousing emotional stimuli.ConclusionsOur findings revealed for the first time a possible compensatory neural mechanism in Parkinson patients during emotional processing. The increased medial PFC activity may have modulated emotional responsiveness in patients via top-down cognitive control, therewith restoring emotional processing at the behavioral level, despite striatal dysfunction. These results may impact upon current treatment strategies of affective disorders in PD as patients may benefit from this intact or even compensatory influence of prefrontal areas when therapeutic strategies are applied that rely on cognitive control to modulate disturbed processing of emotions.

The influence of frontal alpha-asymmetry on the processing of approach- and withdrawal-related stimuli-A multichannel psychophysiology study.

The approach-withdrawal model of hemispheric activation suggests that left frontal cortical areas mediate approach, while right frontal cortical areas mediate withdrawal motivation. Within this framework, the present study investigates the association of frontal cortical asymmetry with attentional and emotional responses toward approach- and withdrawal-related emotional stimuli. Resting frontal asymmetry was measured from 43 students before they passively viewed negative, neutral, and positive emotional pictures. The startle reflex, skin conductance response, and subjective ratings of valence and arousal were assessed to quantify emotional responding, while attention was assessed with ERPs. We also assessed frontal asymmetry in response to the pictures. Results indicated that relatively stronger right frontal cortical activation was associated with increased N1 amplitudes and more negative subjective emotional evaluation of all stimuli. Furthermore, enhanced right frontal asymmetry (state and trait) was associated with diminished emotional modulation of the late positive potential. In contrast, no association of frontal asymmetry with defensive reflex physiology or activation of sympathetic nervous system activity was found. The current data suggest dissociable influence of resting frontal brain asymmetry on attentional and physiological processing of withdrawal- and approach-related stimuli. That is, asymmetrical frontal cortical brain activation might not modulate approach-/withdrawal-related motor responses and sympathetic arousal directly, but instead enhances allocation of attentional resources to subjectively significant stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of their potential importance for emotion perception in anxiety disorders and their contribution to the understanding of frontal asymmetry.

Affective Responses in Different Stages of Anorexia Nervosa: Results from a Startle-reflex Paradigm.

There is an evolving debate about pathological affective responses in patients with anorexia nervosa (AN). We examined startle responses in different stages of AN. We applied a startle reflex paradigm with standardized visual stimuli (International Affective Pictures System; food and body pictures) in 64 female participants (17 acute AN, 16 chronically ill AN, 15 long-term recovered AN, 16 healthy controls). We measured subjective ratings of valence and anxiety, and electromyographic startle responses. Participants with acute and chronic AN displayed the same subjective valence ratings to affective stimuli but showed less startle reactivity to affective pictures (F(6, 116) = 2.75, p = .02) compared with healthy control. Food pictures were rated as more unpleasant and higher anxiety provoking by currently ill AN (F(3, 59) = 3.32, p=.03). We observed diverging subjective and psychophysiological reactions in different stages of AN. Psychophysiological methods can help to attain a more comprehensive understanding of biological alterations in the long-term course of AN. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

Responses to affective pictures depicting humans: late positive potential reveals a sex-related effect in processing that is not present in subjective ratings.

We examined sex-related effects in the amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential elicited by the presentation of emotional stimuli. Sixteen females and 18 males viewed emotional pictures to perform a visual detection task. In female participants, viewing unpleasant pictures elicited larger LPP (550-900ms) when the pictures contained humans (human pictures) than when they did not contain humans (non-human pictures). For male participants, the results were reversed, with smaller LPP for unpleasant human pictures. Subjective ratings of valence in both female and male participants showed that unpleasant human pictures were evaluated less negatively than unpleasant non-human pictures. The results indicate that greater LPP amplitude for human than for non-human pictures occurred in females irrespective of subjective evaluations. This suggests that relatively robust processes in females cause sex-related effects in sensitivity to human pictures.