Directed and Motivated Attention during Processing of Natural Scenes

Visual attention can be voluntarily oriented to detect target stimuli in order to facilitate goal-directed behaviors. Other visual stimuli capture attention because of motivational significance. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between directed and motivated attention using event-related potentials. Affectively engaging pictures were presented either as target stimuli or as nontargets in a categorization task. Results indicated that both task relevance and emotional significance modulated the late positive potential (LPP) over centro-parietal sensors. Effects of directed and motivated attention on the LPP were additive, with the largest centro-parietal positivity found for emotional pictures that were targets of directed attention, and the least for neutral pictures that were nontargets. Taken together, the data provide new information regarding the relationship between motivated and directed attention, and suggest that the LPP reflects the operation of attentional neural circuits that are utilized by both top-down and bottom-up processes.

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Event-related Potential and Behavioural Differences in Affective Self-Referential Processing in Long-term Meditators versus Controls

10.31231/osf.io/nfpsq ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Sucharit Katyal ◽

Greg Hajcak ◽

Tamara Flora ◽

Austin Bartlett ◽

philippe goldin

Keyword(s):

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

The Self ◽

Positive Potential ◽

Contemplative Practices ◽

Referential Processing ◽

Brain Correlates ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Relationship

Contemplative practices are thought to modify one’s experience of self and fundamentally change self-referential processing. However, few studies have examined the effect of long-term meditation training on brain correlates of self-referential processing. Here we used the self-referential encoding task (SRET) to examine event-related potentials (ERP) during assessment of positive and negative self-views in long-term meditators versus demographically-matched meditation-naïve control participants. Compared to controls, meditators endorsed significantly more positive and less negative words as self-referential. We also found a between-group difference in the early component of the late-positive-potential (LPP) of the ERP characterised by a higher response to negative versus positive words in controls and no difference in meditators. These findings suggest that long-term meditation training alters self-referential processing towards a more adaptive view of self and neural equivalence towards positive and negative self-views. Such changes may be one aspect of how meditation modifies the relationship to self.

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Different Influences of Negative and Neutral Emotional Interference on Working Memory in Trait Anxiety

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.570552 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Huifang Yang ◽

Junqing Li ◽

Xifu Zheng

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Trait Anxiety ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Matching To Sample ◽

Emotional Stimuli ◽

Positive Potential ◽

Emotional Interference ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Emotional Pictures

To examine the interaction of working memory (WM) type with emotional interference in trait anxiety, event-related potentials were measured in a combined WM and emotional task. Participants completed a delayed matching-to-sample task of WM, and emotional pictures were presented during the maintenance interval. The results indicated that negative affect interfered with spatial WM; task-related changes in amplitude were observed in the late positive potential (LPP) and slow waves in both the high and low anxiety groups. We also found an interaction among WM type, emotion, and trait anxiety such that participants with high levels of trait anxiety showed an opposite neural response to verbal and spatial WM tasks compared with individuals with low trait anxiety during the sustained brain activity involved in processing negative or neutral pictures in the delay phase. Our results increase our understanding of the influence of emotions on recognition and the vulnerability of those with trait anxiety to emotional stimuli.

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Eliciting and Recording Event Related Potentials (ERPs) in Behaviourally Unresponsive Populations: A Retrospective Commentary on Critical Factors

Brain Sciences ◽

10.3390/brainsci11070835 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 835

Author(s):

Alexander Rokos ◽

Richard Mah ◽

Rober Boshra ◽

Amabilis Harrison ◽

Tsee Leng Choy ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Event Related Potentials ◽

Stimulus Presentation ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Critical Factors ◽

Healthy Elderly ◽

States Of Consciousness ◽

Long Latency ◽

Eeg Data ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Relationship

A consistent limitation when designing event-related potential paradigms and interpreting results is a lack of consideration of the multivariate factors that affect their elicitation and detection in behaviorally unresponsive individuals. This paper provides a retrospective commentary on three factors that influence the presence and morphology of long-latency event-related potentials—the P3b and N400. We analyze event-related potentials derived from electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected from small groups of healthy youth and healthy elderly to illustrate the effect of paradigm strength and subject age; we analyze ERPs collected from an individual with severe traumatic brain injury to illustrate the effect of stimulus presentation speed. Based on these critical factors, we support that: (1) the strongest paradigms should be used to elicit event-related potentials in unresponsive populations; (2) interpretation of event-related potential results should account for participant age; and (3) speed of stimulus presentation should be slower in unresponsive individuals. The application of these practices when eliciting and recording event-related potentials in unresponsive individuals will help to minimize result interpretation ambiguity, increase confidence in conclusions, and advance the understanding of the relationship between long-latency event-related potentials and states of consciousness.

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The Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions in Healthy Young Men: Event-Related Potential and Behavioral Evidence

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.686529 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yutong Liu ◽

Huini Peng ◽

Jianhui Wu ◽

Hongxia Duan

Keyword(s):

Facial Expressions ◽

Childhood Maltreatment ◽

Emotional Abuse ◽

Young Men ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Emotional Facial Expressions ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Childhood Emotional Abuse ◽

The Relationship

Background: Individuals exposed to childhood maltreatment present with a deficiency in emotional processing in later life. Most studies have focused mainly on childhood physical or sexual abuse; however, childhood emotional abuse, a core issue underlying different forms of childhood maltreatment, has received relatively little attention. The current study explored whether childhood emotional abuse is related to the impaired processing of emotional facial expressions in healthy young men.Methods: The emotional facial processing was investigated in a classical gender discrimination task while the event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected. Childhood emotional abuse was assessed by a Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) among 60 healthy young men. The relationship between the score of emotional abuse and the behavioral and the ERP index of emotional facial expression (angry, disgust, and happy) were explored.Results: Participants with a higher score of childhood emotional abuse responded faster on the behavioral level and had a smaller P2 amplitude on the neural level when processing disgust faces compared to neutral faces.Discussion: Individuals with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse may quickly identify negative faces with less cognitive resources consumed, suggesting altered processing of emotional facial expressions in young men with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse.

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A Preliminary Study of P200 in First-episode Patients, their Relatives and Healthy Controls: Search of New Endophenotypes

European Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/s0924-9338(09)70586-3 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 24 (S1) ◽

pp. 1-1

Author(s):

C. Silveira ◽

F. Santos ◽

F. Barbosa ◽

A. Pedro ◽

A. Palha ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Event Related Potentials ◽

First Episode ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Significant Group ◽

Auditory Oddball ◽

First Degree Relatives ◽

Confounding Variables ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Post Hoc ◽

The Relationship

Background/Objective:Despite the well established genetic basis of schizophrenia, the relationship between genes and the disorder itself is still elusive. Individual endophenotypes, which reduce the complexity of genetic analyses, allow statistical approaches with quantitative trait methodologies. P200 abnormalities of event-related potentials have been reported in schizophrenia with conflicting results. The present study aims to characterize the P200 in first-episode patients and to compare it with that of first-degree relatives and controls.Methods:ERPs were recorded at 19 sites with an auditory oddball for 21 first-episode patients with schizophrenia (mean age=25.14; SD=6.20), 41 of their first degree relatives (mean age=47.65; SD=15.53) and 19 healthy controls (mean age=26.32; SD=7.16). Potentials were averaged for frequent stimuli and P200 amplitude and latency measures were obtained.Results:Analysis of midline electrodes revealed significant group effects for P200 peak amplitudes (F(2, 78)=3.315, p=.042), but not for peak latencies. Post-hoc analyses revealed that patients with schizophrenia present significantly lower P200 amplitudes (M=2.466; SD=1.564) than controls (M=5.037; SD=2.500) at Pz (T(38)=3.851, p=.003). No other significant differences were found.Conclusion:The results obtained do not straight-forwardly support the P200 peak amplitude nor peak latency as an endophenotype of schizophrenia. However, the trends of our results may suggest that the P200 amplitudes of relatives may present intermediate values between healthy controls (with higher amplitudes) and patients (with lower amplitudes). Further statistical analyses will be required in order to disentangle the effects of possible confounding variables.

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The relationship between fatigue and depression, and event-related potentials in epileptics

Epilepsy & Behavior ◽

10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.01.013 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 8 (3) ◽

pp. 581-587 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Ferhan Soyuer ◽

Füsun Erdoğan ◽

Vesile Şenol ◽

Fehim Arman

Keyword(s):

Event Related Potentials ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Relationship

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Single-Option P300-BCI Performance Is Affected by Visual Stimulation Conditions

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s20247198 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (24) ◽

pp. 7198

Author(s):

Juan David Chailloux Peguero ◽

Omar Mendoza-Montoya ◽

Javier M. Antelis

Keyword(s):

Visual Stimulation ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Classification Performance ◽

Single Trial ◽

Experimental Protocol ◽

Training Time ◽

Machine Learning Model ◽

Visual Frame ◽

Related Potentials ◽

The Relationship

The P300 paradigm is one of the most promising techniques for its robustness and reliability in Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) applications, but it is not exempt from shortcomings. The present work studied single-trial classification effectiveness in distinguishing between target and non-target responses considering two conditions of visual stimulation and the variation of the number of symbols presented to the user in a single-option visual frame. In addition, we also investigated the relationship between the classification results of target and non-target events when training and testing the machine-learning model with datasets containing different stimulation conditions and different number of symbols. To this end, we designed a P300 experimental protocol considering, as conditions of stimulation: the color highlighting or the superimposing of a cartoon face and from four to nine options. These experiments were carried out with 19 healthy subjects in 3 sessions. The results showed that the Event-Related Potentials (ERP) responses and the classification accuracy are stronger with cartoon faces as stimulus type and similar irrespective of the amount of options. In addition, the classification performance is reduced when using datasets with different type of stimulus, but it is similar when using datasets with different the number of symbols. These results have a special connotation for the design of systems, in which it is intended to elicit higher levels of evoked potentials and, at the same time, optimize training time.

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Brain Indicators of Altered Attention and Information Processing in Schizophrenic Patients

The British Journal of Psychiatry ◽

10.1192/bjp.148.4.414 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 148 (4) ◽

pp. 414-420 ◽

Cited By ~ 46

Author(s):

K. Barrett ◽

W. C. McCallum ◽

P. V. Pocock

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Normal Subjects ◽

Detection Task ◽

Auditory Target ◽

Positive Potential ◽

Stimulus Evaluation ◽

Schizophrenic Patients ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Target Detection Task

Late components of brain event-related potentials reflect aspects of selective attention, stimulus evaluation, and possibly memory update mechanisms. Several of these components were measured during an auditory target detection task, performed by 20 schizophrenic and 20 normal subjects. Both the amplitude of those components and a more general late amplitude measure were significantly reduced in schizophrenics, for both target and non-target stimuli. One general late amplitude measure, from the scalp vertex, could alone correctly classify 85% of patients and 95% of controls. The source of these differences may lie in a protracted positive potential shift.

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Changes in face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine: an ERP study

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00549.2019 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 123 (3) ◽

pp. 876-884 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Gülsüm Akdeniz ◽

Sadiye Gumusyayla ◽

Gonul Vural ◽

Hesna Bektas ◽

Orhan Deniz

Keyword(s):

Migraine With Aura ◽

Migraine Without Aura ◽

Cortical Excitability ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Healthy Controls ◽

Positive Potential ◽

Cortical Hyperexcitability ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Related Potentials

Migraine is a multifactorial brain disorder characterized by recurrent disabling headache attacks. One of the possible mechanisms in the pathogenesis of migraine may be a decrease in inhibitory cortical stimuli in the primary visual cortex attributable to cortical hyperexcitability. The aim of this study was to investigate the neural correlates underlying face and face pareidolia processing in terms of the event-related potential (ERP) components, N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250, in patients with migraine. In total, 40 patients with migraine without aura, 23 patients with migraine and aura, and 30 healthy controls were enrolled. We recorded ERPs during the presentation of face and face pareidolia images. N170, VPP, and N250 mean amplitudes and latencies were examined. N170 was significantly greater in patients with migraine with aura than in healthy controls. VPP amplitude was significantly greater in patients with migraine without aura than in healthy controls. The face stimuli evoked significantly earlier VPP responses to faces (168.7 ms, SE = 1.46) than pareidolias (173.4 ms, SE = 1.41) in patients with migraine with aura. We did not find a significant difference between N250 amplitude for face and face pareidolia processing. A significant difference was observed between the groups for pareidolia in terms of N170 [F(2,86) = 14,75, P < 0.001] and VPP [F(2,86) = 16.43, P < 0.001] amplitudes. Early ERPs are a valuable tool to study the neural processing of face processing in patients with migraine to demonstrate visual cortical hyperexcitability. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Event-related potentials (ERPs) are important for understanding face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine. N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250 ERPs were investigated. N170 was revealed as a potential component of cortical excitability for face and face pareidolia processing in patients with migraine.

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