Individual Differences in Attentional Breadth Changes Over Time: An Event-Related Potential Investigation

Event-related potentials (ERPs) to hierarchical stimuli have been compared for global/local target trials, but the pattern of results across studies is mixed with respect to understanding how ERPs differ with local and global bias. There are reliable interindividual differences in attentional breadth biases. This study addresses two questions. Can these interindividual differences in attentional breadth be predicted by interindividual ERP differences to hierarchical stimuli? Can attentional breadth changes over time within participants (i.e., intraindividual differences) be predicted by ERPs changes over time when viewing hierarchical stimuli? Here, we estimated attentional breadth and isolated ERPs in response to Navon letter stimuli presented at two time points. We found that interindividual differences in ERPs at Time 1 did not predict attentional breadth differences across individuals at Time 1. However, individual differences in changes to P1, N1, and P3 ERPs to hierarchical stimuli from Time 1 to Time 2 were associated with individual differences in changes in attentional breadth from Time 1 to Time 2. These results suggest that attentional breadth changes within individuals over time are reflected in changes in ERP responses to hierarchical stimuli such that smaller N1s and larger P3s accompany a shift to processing the newly prioritized level, suggesting that the preferred level required less perceptual processing and elicited more attention.

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The N250 event-related potential as an index of face familiarity: a replication study

Royal Society Open Science ◽

10.1098/rsos.202356 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 8 (6) ◽

pp. 202356

Author(s):

Werner Sommer ◽

Katarzyna Stapor ◽

Grzegorz Kończak ◽

Krzysztof Kotowski ◽

Piotr Fabian ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Time Course ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Neural Correlates ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Replication Study ◽

Future Research ◽

Link Type ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Memory Representations

The neural correlates of face individuation—the acquisition of memory representations for novel faces—have been studied only in coarse detail and disregarding individual differences between learners. In their seminal study, Tanaka et al . (Tanaka et al. 2006 J. Cogn. Neurosci. 18 , 1488–1497. ( doi:10.1162/jocn.2006.18.9.1488 )) required the identification of a particular novel face across 70 trials and found that the N250 component in the EEG event-related potentials became more negative from the first to the second half of the experiment, where it reached a similar amplitude as a well-known face. We were unable to directly replicate this finding in our study when we used the original split of trials. However, when we applied a different split of trials we observed very similar changes in N250 amplitude. We conclude that the N250 component is indeed sensitive to the build-up of a robust representation of a face in memory; the time course of this process appears to vary as a function of variables that may be determined in future research.

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Individual differences in empathic processing: An event-related potentials study

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e627312013-001 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Evonne M. Edwards ◽

John K. Williams ◽

Todd W. Hall ◽

Keith J. Edwards

Keyword(s):

Individual Differences ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Related Potentials

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Individual differences predict ERP signatures of second language learning of novel grammatical rules

10.31234/osf.io/ea58h ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Emily S Nichols ◽

Marc F Joanisse

Keyword(s):

Second Language ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Language Learning ◽

First Language ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Grammatical Gender ◽

Grammatical Rule ◽

Related Potentials ◽

And Gender ◽

Anterior Negativity

We investigated the extent to which second-language (L2) learning is influenced by the similarity of grammatical features in one’s first language (L1). We used event-related potentials to identify neural signatures of a novel grammatical rule - grammatical gender - in L1 English speakers. Of interest was whether individual differences in L2 proficiency and age of acquisition (AoA) influenced these effects. L2 and native speakers of French read French sentences that were grammatically correct, or contained either a grammatical gender or word order violation. Proficiency and AoA predicted Left Anterior Negativity amplitude, with structure violations driving the proficiency effect and gender violations driving the AoA effect. Proficiency, group, and AoA predicted P600 amplitude for gender violations but not structure violations. Different effects of grammatical gender and structure violations indicate that L2 speakers engage novel grammatical processes differently from L1 speakers and that this varies appreciably based on both AoA and proficiency.

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Neural dynamics of trainee teachers' emotional conflict processing: An event-related potential study

Social Behavior and Personality An International Journal ◽

10.2224/sbp.8473 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 47 (7) ◽

pp. 1-9

Author(s):

Li Jin ◽

Xu Li ◽

Jiamei Lu ◽

Nianqu Chen ◽

Lin Cheng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

School Context ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

The Body ◽

Educational Context ◽

Congruent Condition ◽

Slow Potential ◽

Emotional Conflict ◽

Trainee Teachers ◽

Related Potentials

We investigated emotional conflict in an educational context with an emotional body–word Stroop paradigm, examining whether the N450 (a late fronto-central phasic negative event-related potential signature) and slow potential (SP) effects could be evoked in trainee teachers. The N450 effect is characterized by topography and negative polarity of an incongruent minus congruent difference potential, and the SP effect has positive polarity (incongruent minus congruent difference potential). Positive and negative body language examples were obtained from pupils in an actual school context, and emotional words were selected. Compound stimuli were presented, each comprising a congruent or incongruent word displayed across a body image. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants judged body expression valence. Reaction times were longer and accuracies were lower for the incongruent compared to the congruent condition. The N450 component amplitude in the incongruent condition was more negative than in the congruent condition. Results showed a behavioral interference effect and an N450 effect for trainee teachers in this context, thus indicating that the body–word task was efficient in assessing emotional conflict in an educational context, and trainee teachers' perception of body expressions of students could be influenced by emotional signals. The findings further the understanding of emotional conflict in an educational context.

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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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Automaticity of Early Sexual Attention: An Event-Related Potential Study

Sexual Abuse ◽

10.1177/10790632211024241 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 107906322110242

Author(s):

Anastasios Ziogas ◽

Benedikt Habermeyer ◽

Wolfram Kawohl ◽

Elmar Habermeyer ◽

Andreas Mokros

Keyword(s):

Sexual Orientation ◽

Sexual Interest ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Forensic Assessment ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Behavioral Measures ◽

Sexual Preferences ◽

Motor Responses ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Promising Line

A promising line of research on forensic assessment of paraphilic sexual interest focuses on behavioral measures of visual attention using sexual stimuli as distractors. The present study combined event-related potentials (ERPs) with behavioral measures to investigate whether detection of a hidden sexual preference can be improved with ERPs. Normal variants of sexual orientation were used for a proof-of-concept investigation. Accordingly, 40 heterosexual and 40 gay men participated in the study. Within each group, half of the participants were instructed to hide their sexual orientation. The results showed that a match between sexual orientation and stimulus delays responses and influences ERP before motor responses. Late ERP components showed higher potential in differentiating hidden sexual preferences than motor responses, thereby showing how ERPs can be used in combination with reaction time measures to potentially facilitate the detection of hidden sexual preferences.

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Phonetic Encoding Contributes to the Processing of Linguistic Prosody at the Word Level: Cross-Linguistic Evidence From Event-Related Potentials

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research ◽

10.1044/2021_jslhr-21-00037 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-11

Author(s):

Luodi Yu ◽

Jiajing Zeng ◽

Suiping Wang ◽

Yang Zhang

Keyword(s):

Auditory Processing ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Acoustic Cues ◽

Prosodic Features ◽

Speech Stimuli ◽

Word Level ◽

Acoustic Control ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Prosodic Phonology

Purpose This study aimed to examine whether abstract knowledge of word-level linguistic prosody is independent of or integrated with phonetic knowledge. Method Event-related potential (ERP) responses were measured from 18 adult listeners while they listened to native and nonnative word-level prosody in speech and in nonspeech. The prosodic phonology (speech) conditions included disyllabic pseudowords spoken in Chinese and in English matched for syllabic structure, duration, and intensity. The prosodic acoustic (nonspeech) conditions were hummed versions of the speech stimuli, which eliminated the phonetic content while preserving the acoustic prosodic features. Results We observed language-specific effects on the ERP that native stimuli elicited larger late negative response (LNR) amplitude than nonnative stimuli in the prosodic phonology conditions. However, no such effect was observed in the phoneme-free prosodic acoustic control conditions. Conclusions The results support the integration view that word-level linguistic prosody likely relies on the phonetic content where the acoustic cues embedded in. It remains to be examined whether the LNR may serve as a neural signature for language-specific processing of prosodic phonology beyond auditory processing of the critical acoustic cues at the suprasyllabic level.

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The Role of Leadership Level in College Students’ Decision-Making: Evidence From Event-Related Potential Analysis

Frontiers in Psychology ◽

10.3389/fpsyg.2021.637323 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 ◽

Author(s):

Yuwei Yang ◽

Shunshun Du ◽

Hui He ◽

Chengming Wang ◽

Xueke Shan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

College Students ◽

Decision Making ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Economic Decision Making ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Leadership Group ◽

Related Potentials ◽

Acceptance Rates ◽

Economic Transaction

Although risk decision-making plays an important role in leadership practice, the distinction in behavior between humans with differing levels of leadership, as well as the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms involved, remain unclear. In this study, the Ultimatum Game (UG) was utilized in concert with electroencephalograms (EEG) to investigate the temporal course of cognitive and emotional processes involved in economic decision-making between high and low leadership level college students. Behavioral results from this study found that the acceptance rates in an economic transaction, when the partner was a computer under unfair/sub unfair condition, were significantly higher than in transactions with real human partners for the low leadership group, while there was no significant difference in acceptance rates for the high leadership group. Results from Event-Related Potentials (ERP) analysis further indicated that there was a larger P3 amplitude in the low leadership group than in the high leadership group. We concluded that the difference between high and low leadership groups was at least partly due to their different emotional management abilities.

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ERP CORE: An Open Resource for Human Event-Related Potential Research

10.31234/osf.io/4azqm ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Emily S. Kappenman ◽

Jaclyn Farrens ◽

Wendy Zhang ◽

Andrew X Stewart ◽

Steven J Luck

Keyword(s):

Data Processing ◽

Brain Activity ◽

A Priori ◽

Event Related Potentials ◽

Event Related Potential ◽

Error Related Negativity ◽

Wide Range ◽

Experiment Control ◽

Related Potentials

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are noninvasive measures of human brain activity that index a range of sensory, cognitive, affective, and motor processes. Despite their broad application across basic and clinical research, there is little standardization of ERP paradigms and analysis protocols across studies. To address this, we created ERP CORE (Compendium of Open Resources and Experiments), a set of optimized paradigms, experiment control scripts, data processing pipelines, and sample data (N = 40 neurotypical young adults) for seven widely used ERP components: N170, mismatch negativity (MMN), N2pc, N400, P3, lateralized readiness potential (LRP), and error-related negativity (ERN). This resource makes it possible for researchers to 1) employ standardized ERP paradigms in their research, 2) apply carefully designed analysis pipelines and use a priori selected parameters for data processing, 3) rigorously assess the quality of their data, and 4) test new analytic techniques with standardized data from a wide range of paradigms.

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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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