A capability model of individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetry

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.10.003

Biological Psychology

Volume 72, Issue 2, May 2006, Pages 198-207

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2005.10.003 Get rights and content

Abstract

Researchers interested in measuring individual differences in affective style via asymmetries in frontal brain activity have depended almost exclusively upon the resting state for EEG recording. This reflects an implicit conceptualization of affective style as a response predisposition that is manifest in frontal EEG asymmetry, with the goal to describe individuals in terms of their general approach or withdrawal tendencies. Alternatively, the response capability conceptualization seeks to identify individual capabilities for approach versus withdrawal responses during emotionally salient events. The capability approach confers a variety of advantages to the study of affective style and personality, and suggests new possibilities for the approach/withdrawal motivational model of frontal EEG asymmetry and emotion. Logical as well as empirical arguments supportive of this conclusion are presented.

Section snippets

Frontal EEG asymmetry: trait or state?

Little is known about the degree to which frontal EEG asymmetries represent variance attributable to individuals (traits) versus specific emotional or cognitive states. “Resting” measures do show evidence of trait-like heritability (Coan, 2003), and have been associated with measures of temperament, mental health, emotional reactivity, and stress hormones (Coan and Allen, 2004). Others have confirmed that frontal EEG asymmetries show “acceptable” levels of test–retest reliability (Allen et al.,

Approach and hypotheses

The capability model suggests the following hypotheses: (1) individual differences will be more pronounced during emotional challenges than during “resting” tasks; (2) individual differences will be more resistant to measurement error during emotional challenges than during “resting” tasks; (3) individual differences will show stronger relationships with important criterion variables if measured during emotional challenges than during “resting” tasks; and (4) individual differences derived from

Overview

A detailed description of the methods of this study is provided in Coan et al. (2001); an abbreviated description is provided here with information relevant to the analyses of this particular report.

Participants

Thirty-six introductory psychology students served as participants (10 male, 26 female). All participants were strongly right handed (scoring over 35 on the 39 point scale; Chapman and Chapman, 1987), because asymmetries in hemispheric activity may be a function of handedness (see Bryden, 1982).

Individuals and conditions

Using data collected during various experimental conditions, a G-theory model consisting of factors attributable to individual, condition (rest, anger, disgust, fear, joy and sadness) and reference scheme (average, Cz and linked mastoid) was estimated. As summarized in Table 1, stable individual differences accounted for approximately 26% of the variance across all conditions, while conditions per se accounted for approximately 5%. Small contributors included reference scheme (1%) and the

Discussion

In line with the study hypotheses stated above, these results suggest that (1) individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetries are indeed more pronounced during emotional challenges than during “resting” tasks; (2) individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetries are more resistant to undesirable variance attributable to reference scheme (our proxy for measurement error) during emotional challenges than during “resting” tasks; and (3) individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetry recorded

Conclusion

To date, the literature on individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetry has, perhaps unwittingly, supported the analogy trait is to state as rest is to experimental manipulation. Results reported here suggest this analogy is incomplete at best, and potentially limiting at worst. If the capability model is correct, and this remains to be fully evaluated, then the best conditions under which to reliably measure individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetry may be during various emotional

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by a Young Investigator award from NARSAD (John Allen) and a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (James Coan).

References (48)

J.J.B. Allen et al.
Frontal EEG asymmetry, emotion and psychopathology: the first, and the next, twenty-five years
Biological Psychology
(2004)
J.J.B. Allen et al.
Issues and assumptions on the road from raw signals to metrics of frontal EEG asymmetry in emotion
Biological Psychology
(2004)
G.C. Blackhart et al.
Affective responses to EEG preparation and their link to resting anterior EEG symmetry
Personality and Individual Differences
(2002)
J.T. Cacioppo
Feelings and emotions: roles for electrophysiological markers
Biological Psychology
(2004)
L.J. Chapman et al.
The measurement of handedness
Brain and Cognition
(1987)
D. Hagemann et al.
The effects of ocular artifacts on (lateralized) broadband power in the EEG
Clinical Neurophysiology
(2001)
D. Hagemann et al.
EEG asymmetry, dispositional mood, and personality
Personality and Individual Differences
(1999)
J.P. Kline et al.
Sex, lie scales, and electrode caps: an interpersonal context for defensiveness and anterior electroencephalographic asymmetry
Personality and Individual Differences
(2002)
Y. Shoda et al.
Toward a unified, intra-individual dynamic conception of personality
Journal of Research in Personality Special Issue: The Future of Personality
(1996)
J.J.B. Allen et al.
The stability of resting frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry in depression
Psychophysiology
(2004)

N.B. Allen et al.

Effects of mood induction on startle modulation by social threat in individuals with and without a history of depression

Psychophysiology

(2002)

J.R. Binder et al.

Conceptual processing during the conscious resting state: a functional MRI study

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

(1999)

D.R. Boele et al.

Traits and emotions: a review of their structure and management

European Journal of Personality

(2000)

M.P. Bryden

Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain

(1982)

Coan, J.A., 2003. The heritability of trait frontal EEG asymmetry and negative emotionality: sex differences and...

J.A. Coan et al.

Frontal EEG asymmetry and the behavioural activation and inhibition systems

Psychophysiology

(2003)

J.A. Coan et al.

The state and trait nature of frontal EEG asymmetry in emotion

J.A. Coan et al.

Varieties of emotional experience during voluntary emotional facial expressions

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

(2003)

J.A. Coan et al.

Frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator and mediator of emotion

Biological Psychology

(2004)

J.A. Coan et al.

Voluntary facial expression and hemispheric asymmetry over the frontal cortex

Psychophysiology

(2001)

L.J. Cronbach et al.

The Dependability of Behavioral Measurements: Theory of Generalizability of Scores and Profiles

(1972)

R.J. Davidson

Affective style and affective disorders: perspectives from affective neuroscience

Cognition and Emotion

(1998)

R.J. Davidson

Anterior electrophysiological asymmetries, emotion, and depression: conceptual and methodological conundrums

Psychophysiology

(1998)

R.J. Davidson et al.

Approach-withdrawal and cerebral asymmetry: emotional expression and brain physiology I

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

(1990)

Cited by (289)

The association of maternal-infant interactive behavior, dyadic frontal alpha asymmetry, and maternal anxiety in a smartphone-adapted still face paradigm
2024, Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
Mother-infant interactions form a strong basis for emotion regulation development in infants. These interactions can be affected by various factors, including maternal postnatal anxiety. Electroencephalography (EEG) hyperscanning allows for simultaneous assessment of mother-infant brain-to-behavior association during stressful events, such as the still-face paradigm (SFP). This study aimed at investigating dyadic interactive behavior and brain-to-behavior association across SFP and identifying neural correlates of mother-infant interactions in the context of maternal postnatal anxiety. We measured frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA), a physiological correlate of emotion regulation and a potential marker of risk for psychopathology. To emulate real-life interactions, EEG and behavioral data were collected from 38 mother-infant dyads during a smartphone-adapted dual-SFP. Although the behavioral data showed a clear still-face effect for the smartphone-adapted SFP, this was not reflected in the infant or maternal FAA. Brain-to-behavior data showed higher infant negative affect being associated with more infant leftward FAA during the still-face episodes. Finally, mothers with higher postnatal anxiety showed more right FAA during the first still-face episode, suggesting negative affectivity and a need to withdraw from the situation. Our results form a baseline for further research assessing the effects of maternal postnatal anxiety on infants’ FAA and dyadic interactive behavior.
Learning to be inventive in the face of statistics: A positive reappraisal intervention for statistics anxiety
2024, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
The burden of statistics anxiety on students calls for effective interventions. This study investigated whether a cognitive reappraisal training designed to stimulate the generation of positive re-interpretations may yield behavioral changes in anxiety measures and changes in cerebral activation patterns reflecting the activation of approach/avoidance motivational tendencies (frontal EEG alpha asymmetry response).
Three groups of female psychology students (n = 45) with statistics anxiety were tested. Two groups received a guided, two-week reappraisal training with either statistics-anxiety or general anxiety situations; the control group received no intervention.
Both training groups significantly increased their amount of positive re-interpretations from pre-to post-test compared to the control group. Increased habitual use of reappraisal in statistics situations and significant EEG changes reflecting more approach-oriented coping with anxiety occurred in the statistics-anxiety training group only. No changes in statistics anxiety and statistics attitudes were observed, suggesting that the training effects, though corroborated through neurophysiological changes, did not sufficiently translate to improving students’ deep-rooted anxiety.
Effects, though robust and following the same pattern, were observed in a small sample.
Our findings delineate a promising expandable approach for helping students’ cope with statistics anxiety in a healthier way.
Impact of varying levels of mental stress on phase information of EEG Signals: A study on the Frontal, Central, and parietal regions
2023, Biomedical Signal Processing and Control
Mental stress is a commonly occurring phenomenon that impacts people from diverse backgrounds and is associated with numerous physical and psychological illnesses. The brain plays a vital role in how individuals perceive and react to stress, including their physiological and behavioral responses. In this study, our objective was to investigate the impact of varying levels of induced stress, ranging from mild to severe, on brain activity. Our primary interest was to determine if mental stress would influence neural coordination, as assessed through intertrial phase clustering (ITPC). Furthermore, we hypothesized that an increase in perceived mental stress would result in reduced regional connectivity as measured via phase-lag index (PLI). EEG data from 41 participants (20 females, 21 males, age range 18 to 46; mean = 26.1; SD = 7.06) were collected while they were exposed to three levels of mental stress, using a parametric modulation study design. Following pre-processing, we extracted the two mentioned features and performed statistical analysis. As an additional analysis, we assessed the discriminatory power of these features using a Random Forest classifier. Statistical analysis revealed a significant decrease of ITPCs over frontal, central, and parietal regions accompanying increased levels of stress. The results obtained from the PLI analysis showed that the increase in levels of stress were associated with a decrease in the brain connectivity over the frontocentral, frontoparietal, and centroparietal regions. The classification result showed that the Random Forrest classifier predict three levels of stress with 83.78% accuracy. These findings indicate that phase-based EEG features could serve as a novel neurometric for quantifying in vivo stress levels. Furthermore, this study could contribute to developing more precise tools to measure mental stress objectively.
Cerebral asymmetry in bipolar disorders: A scoping review
2023, Biological Psychology
Current brain stimulation protocols for patients with bipolar disorders propose brain stimulation according to a model of opposing cerebral dominance in mania and bipolar depression by stimulating the right or left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during manic or depressive episodes, respectively. However, there is very little observational, rather than interventional, research on such opposing cerebral dominance. In fact, this is the first scoping review that summarizes resting-state and task- related functional cerebral asymmetries measured with brain imaging techniques in manic and depressive symptoms or episodes in patients with formal bipolar disorder diagnoses. In a three-step search process MEDLINE, Scopus, APA PsycInfo, Web of Science Core Collection, and BIOSIS Previews databases as well as reference lists of eligible studies were searched. Data from these studies were extracted with a charting table. Ten resting-state EEG and task-related fMRI studies met inclusion criteria. In line with brain stimulation protocols, mania relates to cerebral dominance in regions of the left frontal lobe, such as the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Bipolar depression relates to cerebral dominance in regions of the right frontal and temporal lobe, such as the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex and temporal pole. More observational research on cerebral asymmetries in mania and bipolar depression can advance brain stimulation protocols and potentially inform standard treatment protocols.
Frontal alpha asymmetry in anxious school-aged children during completion of a threat identification task
2023, Biological Psychology
Asymmetry of EEG alpha power in the frontal lobe has been extensively studied over the past 30 years as a potential marker of emotion and motivational state. However, most studies rely on time consuming manipulations in which participants are placed in anxiety-provoking situations. Relatively fewer studies have examined alpha asymmetry in response to briefly presented emotionally evocative stimuli. If alpha asymmetry can be evoked in those situations, it would open up greater methodological possibilities for examining task-driven changes in neural activation. Seventy-seven children, aged 8–12 years old (36 of whom were high anxious), completed three different threat identification tasks (faces, images, and words) while EEG signal was recorded. Alpha power was segmented and compared across trials in which participants viewed threatening vs. neutral stimuli. Threatening images and faces, but not words, induced lower right vs. left alpha power (greater right asymmetry) that was not present when viewing neutral images or faces. Mixed results are reported for the effect of anxiety symptomatology on asymmetry. In a similar manner to studies of state- and trait-level withdrawal in adults, frontal neural asymmetry can be induced in school-aged children using presentation of brief emotional stimuli.
Links between social avoidance and frontal alpha asymmetry during processing emotional facial stimuli: An exploratory study
2023, Biological Psychology
Individuals who are socially avoidant actively remove themselves from opportunities for social interaction and have a strong desire for solitude. Although social avoidance is associated with a host of adjustment difficulties, its neural substrates remain under-explored. To address this gap, we conducted an exploratory study to compare electroencephalography (EEG) frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) scores during processing emotional facial stimuli in socially avoidant and non-withdrawn comparison individuals. From an original sample of N = 384 undergraduate students, 25 avoidant and 27 comparison individuals were identified. For this subset of participants, EEG modulations and self-reported experience ratings during a picture processing task were assessed. Among the results, the socially avoidant group’s ratings of positive stimuli were significantly lower than the non-withdrawn comparison group. The socially avoidant group also had significantly lower FAA scores in response to positive stimuli than the comparison group. Further, asymmetry scores of the comparison group in the positive conditions were higher than in the negative and neutral conditions. However, there were no significant differences between these three conditions in the socially avoidant group. Our results suggest that socially avoidant individuals may eschew interpersonal relationships because of a relatively greater right hemisphere cortical activity, which may contribute to a withdrawal motivation when confronted with negative emotional stimuli in social contexts.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

A capability model of individual differences in frontal EEG asymmetry

Abstract

Section snippets

Frontal EEG asymmetry: trait or state?

Approach and hypotheses

Overview

Participants

Individuals and conditions

Discussion

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Biological Psychology

Biological Psychology

Personality and Individual Differences

Biological Psychology

Brain and Cognition

Clinical Neurophysiology

Personality and Individual Differences

Personality and Individual Differences

Journal of Research in Personality Special Issue: The Future of Personality

The stability of resting frontal electroencephalographic asymmetry in depression

Psychophysiology

Effects of mood induction on startle modulation by social threat in individuals with and without a history of depression

Psychophysiology

Conceptual processing during the conscious resting state: a functional MRI study

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience

Traits and emotions: a review of their structure and management

European Journal of Personality

Laterality: Functional Asymmetry in the Intact Brain

Frontal EEG asymmetry and the behavioural activation and inhibition systems

Psychophysiology

The state and trait nature of frontal EEG asymmetry in emotion

Varieties of emotional experience during voluntary emotional facial expressions

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Frontal EEG asymmetry as a moderator and mediator of emotion

Biological Psychology

Voluntary facial expression and hemispheric asymmetry over the frontal cortex

Psychophysiology

The Dependability of Behavioral Measurements: Theory of Generalizability of Scores and Profiles

Affective style and affective disorders: perspectives from affective neuroscience

Cognition and Emotion

Anterior electrophysiological asymmetries, emotion, and depression: conceptual and methodological conundrums

Psychophysiology

Approach-withdrawal and cerebral asymmetry: emotional expression and brain physiology I

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology