Department of Psychology, University of Konstanz, Germany.
Biol Psychol. 2013 Mar;92(3):520-5. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2013.02.002. Epub 2013 Feb 21.
Event-related brain potential (ERP) studies consistently revealed that a relatively early (early posterior negativity; EPN) and a late (late positive potential; LPP) ERP component differentiate between emotional and neutral picture stimuli. Two studies examined the processing of emotional stimuli when preceded either by pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant context images. In both studies, distinct streams of six pictures were shown. In Study 1, hedonic context was alternated randomly across the 180 picture streams. In Study 2, hedonic context sequences were blocked, resulting in 60 preceding sequences of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant context valence, respectively. The main finding was that the valence of the preceding picture sequence had no significant effect on the emotional modulation of the EPN and LPP components. However, previous results were replicated in that emotional stimulus processing was associated with larger EPN and LPP components as compared to neutral pictures. These findings suggest that the prioritized processing of emotional stimuli is primarily driven by the valence of the current picture.
事件相关脑电位（ERP）研究一致表明，相对较早（后正成分；EPN）和较晚（正晚成分；LPP）的 ERP 成分可区分情绪和中性图片刺激。两项研究分别考察了在愉快、中性或不愉快的上下文图像之前呈现情绪刺激时的处理情况。在这两项研究中，都展示了六个图片的不同流。在研究 1 中，愉悦语境在 180 个图片流中随机交替。在研究 2 中，愉悦语境序列被阻塞，分别产生 60 个愉悦、中性和不愉快语境效价的先前序列。主要发现是，先前图片序列的效价对 EPN 和 LPP 成分的情绪调节没有显著影响。然而，重复了先前的结果，即与中性图片相比，情绪刺激处理与更大的 EPN 和 LPP 成分相关。这些发现表明，情绪刺激的优先处理主要由当前图片的效价驱动。
