Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Von-Esmarch-Str. 52, 48149, Münster, Germany.
Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Oct 6;13(1):16860. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-43794-4.
Negative emotional content is prioritized across different stages of information processing as reflected by different components of the event-related potential (ERP). In this preregistered study (N = 40), we investigated how varying the attentional focus allows us to dissociate the involvement of specific ERP components in the processing of negative and neutral words. Participants had to discriminate the orientation of lines overlaid onto the words, the word type (adjective/noun), or the emotional content (negative/neutral). Thus, attention was either not focused on words (distraction task), non-emotional aspects, or the emotional relevance of words. Regardless of the task, there were no significant differences between negative and neutral words for the P1, N1, or P2 components. In contrast, interactions between emotion and task were observed for the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). EPN differences were absent during the distraction task but were present in the other two tasks. LPP emotion differences were found only when attention was directed to the emotional content of words. Our study adds to the evidence that early ERP components do not reliably separate negative and neutral words. However, results show that mid-latency and late stages of emotion processing are separable by different attention tasks. The EPN represents a stage of attentional enhancement of negative words given sufficient attentional resources. Differential activations during the LPP stage are associated with more elaborative processing of the emotional meaning of words.
负性情绪内容在信息处理的不同阶段被优先处理，这反映在事件相关电位（ERP）的不同成分中。在这项预先注册的研究（N=40）中，我们研究了改变注意力焦点如何使我们能够区分特定 ERP 成分在处理负性和中性词中的参与。参与者必须辨别叠加在单词上的线的方向、单词类型（形容词/名词）或情绪内容（负性/中性）。因此，注意力要么不集中在单词上（分心任务），要么不集中在非情绪方面，要么不集中在单词的情绪相关性上。无论任务如何，对于 P1、N1 或 P2 成分，负性词和中性词之间没有显著差异。相比之下，情绪和任务之间的相互作用在晚期正性电位（LPP）和晚期后负性（EPN）中观察到。在分心任务中，EPN 差异不存在，但在其他两个任务中存在。只有当注意力指向单词的情绪内容时，才会发现 LPP 情绪差异。我们的研究增加了证据，表明早期 ERP 成分不能可靠地区分负性词和中性词。然而，结果表明，情绪处理的中潜伏期和晚期阶段可以通过不同的注意任务来分离。EPN 代表在有足够注意力资源的情况下，对负性单词进行注意力增强的阶段。在 LPP 阶段的差异激活与对单词的情绪意义的更详尽处理有关。
