Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
PLoS One. 2010 Oct 14;5(10):e13399. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0013399.
The activity of basic motivational systems is reflected in emotional responses to arousing stimuli, such as natural pictures. The manipulation of picture properties such as size or detail allows for investigation into the extent to which separate emotional reactions are similarly modulated by perceptual changes, or, rather, may subserve different functions. Pursuing this line of research, the present study examined the effects of two types of perceptual degradation, namely picture size reduction and blurring, on emotional responses. Both manipulations reduced picture relevance and dampened affective modulation of skin conductance, possibly because of a reduced action preparation in response to degraded or remote pictures. However, the affective modulation of the startle reflex did not vary with picture degradation, suggesting that the identification of these degraded affective cues activated the neural circuits mediating appetitive or defensive motivation.
基本动机系统的活动反映在对刺激物的情绪反应中，例如自然图片。通过操纵图片的大小或细节等属性，可以研究不同的情绪反应在多大程度上受到感知变化的类似调节，或者它们可能服务于不同的功能。本研究沿着这条研究路线，考察了两种类型的感知退化，即图片大小缩小和模糊，对情绪反应的影响。这两种操作都降低了图片的相关性，并减弱了皮肤电导率的情感调节，这可能是由于对退化或远程图片的反应准备减少所致。然而，惊跳反射的情感调节并不随图片退化而变化，这表明这些退化的情感线索的识别激活了介导食欲或防御动机的神经回路。
