Abstract
It has been shown in numerous studies that emotion affects cognition. This study looks at the interaction between emotion regulation and response inhibition. Specifically, it looks at how negative pictures impact one’s performance on a complex task that requires inhibition of an on-going response. This was tested by presenting negative and neutral pictures within the context of a stop signal task while measuring electroencephalograph (EEG) Event Related Potentials (ERPs). We found that there was an increase in the amplitude of an ERP measure of attention to emotional stimuli (the LPP) to negative pictures compared to neutral pictures. We further found that neural processing to subsequent target stimuli increased (as evident in the increase in amplitude of the late processing negativity component). However, it seems that due to several limitations of this study, behaviorally significant differences were not found, and no significant ERP findings to the stop signal was found (no P300 effect). Therefore, this study shows that emotional stimuli work to prime a physiological measure of attention to a subsequent visual target, but this emotional priming effect does not influence behavior to the auditory stop signal.
Faculty Sponsors
Dr. Leanne Boucher, Dr. Jaime Tartar
Project Type
Event
Location
Alvin Sherman Library
Start Date
4-13-2012 1:00 PM
End Date
4-13-2012 5:30 PM
The Influence of Emotional Stimuli on Response Inhibition
Alvin Sherman Library
It has been shown in numerous studies that emotion affects cognition. This study looks at the interaction between emotion regulation and response inhibition. Specifically, it looks at how negative pictures impact one’s performance on a complex task that requires inhibition of an on-going response. This was tested by presenting negative and neutral pictures within the context of a stop signal task while measuring electroencephalograph (EEG) Event Related Potentials (ERPs). We found that there was an increase in the amplitude of an ERP measure of attention to emotional stimuli (the LPP) to negative pictures compared to neutral pictures. We further found that neural processing to subsequent target stimuli increased (as evident in the increase in amplitude of the late processing negativity component). However, it seems that due to several limitations of this study, behaviorally significant differences were not found, and no significant ERP findings to the stop signal was found (no P300 effect). Therefore, this study shows that emotional stimuli work to prime a physiological measure of attention to a subsequent visual target, but this emotional priming effect does not influence behavior to the auditory stop signal.
