Abstract
Allocation of processing resources to emotional picture stimuli was examined using steady-state visual evoked brain potentials (ssVEPs). Participants viewed a set of 60 colored affective pictures from the International Affective Picture System, presented in a flickering mode at 10 Hz in order to elicit ssVEPs. Phase and amplitude of the 10-Hz ssVEP were examined for six picture categories: threat and mutilation (unpleasant), families and erotica (pleasant), and household objects and persons (neutral). Self-reported affective arousal and hedonic valence of the picture stimuli were assessed by means of subjective ratings. Viewing affectively arousing (unpleasant and pleasant) pictures was associated with enhanced ssVEP amplitude at parieto-occipital recording sites, as compared with neutral stimuli. Phase information suggested increased coactivation of right occipitotemporal and frontotemporal sources during processing of affectively arousing stimuli. These findings are consistent with reentrant modulation of early visual processing by distributed networks including subcortical and neocortical structures according to a stimulus's motivational relevance.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Amaral, D. G., Price, J. L., Pitkänen, A., & Carmichael, S. T. (1992). Anatomical organization of the primate amygdaloid complex. In J. P. Aggleton (Ed.), The amygdala: Neurobiological aspects of emotion, memory, and mental dysfunction. (pp. 1–66). New York: Wiley-Liss.
Anderson, A. K., & Phelps, E. A. (2001). Lesions of the human amygdala impair enhanced perception of emotionally salient events. Nature, 411, 305–309.
Belmonte, M. (1998). Shifts of visual spatial attention modulate a steady-state visual evoked potential. Cognitive Brain Research, 6, 295–307.
Blair, R. C., & Karniski, W. (1993). An alternative method for significance testing of waveform difference potentials. Psychophysiology, 30, 518–524.
Bradley, M. M., Codispoti, M., Sabatinelli,G, & Lang, P. J. (2001). Emotion and motivation: II. Sex differences in picture processing. Emotion, 1, 300–319.
Bradley, M. M., Greenwald, M. K., Petry, M. C., & Lang, P. J. (1992). Remembering pictures: Pleasure and arousal in memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 18, 379–390.
Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring emotion: The selfassessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy & Experimental Psychiatry, 25, 49–59.
Burkitt, G. R., Silberstein, R. B., Cadusch, P. J., & Wood, A. W. (2000). Steady-state visual evoked potentials and travelling waves. Clinical Neurophysiology, 111, 246–258.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Gardner, W. L. (1999). Emotion. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 191–214.
Cuthbert, B. N., Schupp, H. T., Bradley, M. [M.], McManis, M., & Lang, P. J. (1998). Probing affective pictures: Attended startle and tone probes. Psychophysiology, 35, 344–347.
Damasio, A. R. (1998). Emotion in the perspective of an integrated nervous system. Brain Research Reviews, 26, 83–86.
Davidson, R. J., Pizzagalli, D., Nitschke, J. B., & Putnam, K. (2002). Depression: Perspectives from affective neuroscience. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 545–574.
Davis, M. (1998). Anatomic and physiologic substrates of emotion in an animal model. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology, 15, 378–387.
Gilbert, C. D. (1998). Adult cortical dynamics. Physiological Reviews, 78, 467–485.
Greenhouse, S. W., & Geisser, S. (1959). On methods in the analysis of profile data. Psychometrika, 24, 95–112.
Hamm, A. O., Cuthbert, B. N., Globisch, J., & Vaitl, D. (1997). Fear and the startle reflex: Blink modulation and autonomic response patterns in animal and mutilation fearful subjects. Psychophysiology, 34, 97–107.
Hamm, A. O., Greenwald, M. K., Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1993). Emotional learning, hedonic change, and the startle probe. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 102, 453–465.
Hartikainen, K. M., Ogawa, K. H., & Knight, R. T. (2000). Transient interference of right hemispheric function due to automatic emotional processing. Neuropsychologia, 38, 1576–1580.
Hauk, O., Keil, A., Elbert, T., & Müller, M. M. (2002). Comparison of data transformation procedures to enhance topographical accuracy in time-series analysis of the human EEG. Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 113, 111–122.
Hillyard, S. A., & Anllo-Vento, L. (1998). Event-related brain potentials in the study of visual selective attention. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 95, 781–787.
Ito, T. A., Larsen, J. T., Smith, N. K., & Cacioppo, J. T. (1998). Negative information weighs more heavily on the brain: The negativity bias in evaluative categorizations. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 75, 887–900.
Junghöfer, M., Bradley, M. M., Elbert, T. R., & Lan, P. J. (2001). Fleeting images: A new look at early emotion discrimination. Psychophysiology, 38, 175–178.
Junghöfer, M., Elbert, T., Tucker, D. M., & Rockstroh, B. (2000). Statistical control of artifacts in dense array EEG/MEG studies. Psychophysiology, 37, 523–532.
Karniski, W., Blair, R. C., & Snider, A. D. (1994). An exact statistical method for comparing topographic maps, with any number of subjects and electrodes. Brain Topography, 6, 203–210.
Keil, A., Bradley, M. M., Hauk, O., Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., & Lang, P. J. (2002). Large-scale neural correlates of affective picture processing. Psychophysiology, 39, 641–649.
Keil, A., Gruber, T., & Müller, M. M. (2001). Functional correlates of macroscopic high-frequency brain activity in the human visual system. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 25, 527–534.
Keil, A., Müller, M. M., Gruber, T., Wienbruch, C., Stolarova, M., & Elbert, T. (2001). Effects of emotional arousal in the cerebral hemispheres: A study of oscillatory brain activity and event-related potentials. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 2057–2068.
Kemp, A. H., Gray, M. A., Eide, P., Silberstein, R. B., & Nathan, P. J. (2002). Steady-state visually evoked potential topography during processing of emotional valence in healthy subjects. NeuroImage, 17, 1684–1692.
Lang, P. J. (1980). Behavioral treatment and bio-behavioral assessment: Computer applications. In J. B. Sidowski, J. H. Johnson, & T. A. Williams (Eds.), Technology in mental health care delivery systems (pp. 119–137). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Lang, P. J. (1995). The emotion probe: Studies of motivation and attention (102nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association Distinguished Scientific Contributions Award Address, Los Angeles, 1994). American Psychologist, 50, 372–385.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1990). Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychological Review, 97, 377–395.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997a). International affective picture system (IAPS): Technical manual and affective ratings. Gainesville: University of Florida, Center for Research in Psychophysiology.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997b). Motivated attention: Affect, activation, and action. In P. J. Lang, R. F. Simons, & M. T. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97–135). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., Fitzsimmons, J. R., Cuthbert, B. N., Scott, J. D., Moulder, B., & Nangia, V. (1998). Emotional arousal and activation of the visual cortex: An fMRI analysis. Psychophysiology, 35, 199–210.
Mast, J., & Victor, J. D. (1991). Fluctuations of steady-state VEPs: Interaction of driven evoked potentials and the EEG. Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology, 78, 389–401.
Mini, A., Palomba, D., Angrilli, A., & Bravi, S. (1996). Emotional information processing and visual evoked brain potentials. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 83, 143–152.
Morgan, S. T., Hansen, J. C., & Hillyard, S. A. (1996). Selective attention to stimulus location modulates the steady-state visual evoked potential. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 93, 4770–4774.
Müller, M. M., Keil, A., Gruber, T., & Elbert, T. (1999). Processing of affective pictures modulates right-hemispheric gamma band EEG activity. Clinical Neurophysiology, 110, 1913–1920.
Müller, M. M., Picton, T. W., Valdes-Sosa, P., Riera, J., Teder-Salejarvi, W. A., & Hillyard, S. A. (1998). Effects of spatial selective attention on the steady-state visual evoked potential in the 20-28 Hz range. Cognitive Brain Research, 6, 249–261.
Müller, M. M., Teder, W., & Hillyard, S. A. (1997). Magnetoencephalographic recording of steady-state visual evoked cortical activity. Brain Topography, 9, 163–168.
Müller, M. M., Teder-Salejarvi, W., & Hillyard, S. A. (1998). The time course of cortical facilitation during cued shifts of spatial attention. Nature Neuroscience, 1, 631–634.
Öhman, A., Flykt, A., & Esteves, F. (2001). Emotion drives attention: Detecting the snake in the grass. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 466–478.
Palomba, D., Angrilli, A., & Mini, A. (1997). Visual evoked potentials, heart rate responses and memory to emotional pictorial stimuli. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 27, 55–67.
Picton, T. W., Vajsar, J., Rodriguez, R., & Campbell, K. B. (1987). Reliability estimates for steady-state evoked potentials. Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology, 68, 119–131.
Plourde, G., & Picton, T. W. (1990). Human auditory steady-state response during general anesthesia. Anesthesia & Analgesia, 71, 460–468.
Regan, D. (1989). Human brain electrophysiology: Evoked potentials and evoked magnetic fields in science and medicine. New York: Elsevier.
Schupp, H. T., Cuthbert, B. N., Bradley, M. M., Cacioppo, J. T., Ito, T., & Lang, P. J. (2000). Affective picture processing: The late positive potential is modulated by motivational relevance. Psychophysiology, 37, 257–261.
Schupp, H. T., Junghöfer, M., Weike, A. I., & Hamm, A. O. (in press). Emotional facilitation of sensory processing in the visual cortex. Psychological Science.
Silberstein, R. B., Ciorciari, J., & Pipingas, A. (1995). Steady-state visually evoked potential topography during the Wisconsin card sorting test. Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology, 96, 24–35.
Silberstein, R. B., Harris, P. G., Nield, G. A., & Pipingas, A. (2000). Frontal steady-state potential changes predict long-term recognition memory performance. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 39, 79–85.
Silberstein, R. B., Nunez, P. L., Pipingas, A., Harris, P., & Danieli, F. (2001). Steady state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) topography in a graded working memory task. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 219–232.
Silberstein, R. B., Schier, M. A., Pipingas, A., Ciorciari, J., Wood, S. R., & Simpson, D. G. (1990). Steady-state visually evoked potential topography associated with a visual vigilance task. Brain Topography, 3, 337–347.
Victor, J. D., & Mast, J. (1991). A new statistic for steady-state evoked potentials. Electroencephalography & Clinical Neurophysiology, 78, 378–388.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This work was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Keil, A., Gruber, T., Müller, M.M. et al. Early modulation of visual perception by emotional arousal: Evidence from steady-state visual evoked brain potentials. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 3, 195–206 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.3.3.195
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/CABN.3.3.195