Woodcock Kate A, Yu Dian, Liu Yi, Han Shihui
Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China ; School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Socioaffect Neurosci Psychol. 2013 Jun 19;3:20500. doi: 10.3402/snp.v3i0.20500. eCollection 2013.
Emotional responding is sensitive to social context; however, little emphasis has been placed on the mechanisms by which social context effects changes in emotional responding.
We aimed to investigate the effects of social context on neural responses to emotional stimuli to inform on the mechanisms underpinning context-linked changes in emotional responding.
We measured event-related potential (ERP) components known to index specific emotion processes and self-reports of explicit emotion regulation strategies and emotional arousal. Female Chinese university students observed positive, negative, and neutral photographs, whilst alone or accompanied by a culturally similar (Chinese) or dissimilar researcher (British).
There was a reduction in the positive versus neutral differential N1 amplitude (indexing attentional capture by positive stimuli) in the dissimilar relative to alone context. In this context, there was also a corresponding increase in amplitude of a frontal late positive potential (LPP) component (indexing engagement of cognitive control resources). In the similar relative to alone context, these effects on differential N1 and frontal LPP amplitudes were less pronounced, but there was an additional decrease in the amplitude of a parietal LPP component (indexing motivational relevance) in response to positive stimuli. In response to negative stimuli, the differential N1 component was increased in the similar relative to dissimilar and alone (trend) context.
These data suggest that neural processes engaged in response to emotional stimuli are modulated by social context. Possible mechanisms for the social-context-linked changes in attentional capture by emotional stimuli include a context-directed modulation of the focus of attention, or an altered interpretation of the emotional stimuli based on additional information proportioned by the context.
情绪反应对社会情境敏感；然而，很少有人强调社会情境影响情绪反应变化的机制。
我们旨在研究社会情境对情绪刺激的神经反应的影响，以了解情绪反应中与情境相关变化的潜在机制。
我们测量了已知可指示特定情绪过程的事件相关电位（ERP）成分，以及明确的情绪调节策略和情绪唤醒的自我报告。中国女大学生观看正性、负性和中性照片，分别处于独自状态，或由文化背景相似（中国）或不同（英国）的研究人员陪同。
与独自情境相比，在不同文化背景的情境中，正性与中性刺激的差异N1波幅（指示正性刺激引起的注意捕获）降低。在这种情境下，额叶晚期正电位（LPP）成分的波幅也相应增加（指示认知控制资源的参与）。在与独自情境相比文化背景相似的情境中，对差异N1和额叶LPP波幅的这些影响不太明显，但对正性刺激的反应中，顶叶LPP成分的波幅额外降低（指示动机相关性）。对负性刺激的反应中，在文化背景相似与不同及独自（趋势）情境相比时，差异N1成分增加。
这些数据表明，对情绪刺激的神经反应过程受社会情境调节。情绪刺激引起的注意捕获中与社会情境相关变化的可能机制包括注意力焦点的情境导向调节，或基于情境提供的额外信息对情绪刺激的不同解释。
