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Neural response to sustained affective visual stimulation using an indirect task

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Abstract

Event-related potentials were recorded from 30 subjects using sustained stimulation and an indirect task, two strategies which facilitate affective responses that are complete and free of cognitive interference. Stimuli were of three types: pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. A three-phase pattern was found. The first phase, an amplitude increase in response to negative stimuli higher than to neutral and pleasant stimuli, was produced at 160 ms after stimulus onset, the prefrontal cortex being the origin of this phase. The second phase, characterized by maximal amplitudes in response to positive stimuli, was produced at 400 ms, originating in the visual cortex. Finally, the third phase, another amplitude increase in response to negative stimuli, was produced at 680 ms, and its source was located in the left precentral gyrus. Present data show that the cortical response to sustained emotional visual stimulation presented within indirect tasks provides information on attention-, motivation- and motor-related biases that complement information obtained under other experimental conditions.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the grants BSO2002-01980 from the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain and 06/HSE/0032/2004 from the Communidad de Madrid. A part of the data described in this article was presented at the IX International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON 9; Havana, Cuba, September 2005).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 28049, Madrid, Spain

    Luis Carretié & Jacobo Albert

  2. Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    José A. Hinojosa

  3. Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain

    Francisco Mercado

Authors
  1. Luis Carretié
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  2. José A. Hinojosa
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  3. Jacobo Albert
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  4. Francisco Mercado
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luis Carretié.

Appendix

Appendix

List of the stimuli used in the present experiment, along with their values in Valence (from 1, highly unpleasant, to 9, highly pleasant) and Arousal (from 1, highly relaxing, to 9, highly arousing) as provided by the International Affective Picture System (IAPS; Lang et al. 2001). Stimuli written in italics contained a person, those in regular letters did not (see the text)

Negative

Neutral

Positive

Stimulus (IAPS code)

Valence

Arousal

Stimulus (IAPS code)

Valence

Arousal

Stimulus (IAPS code)

Valence

Arousal

1201

3.55

6.36

2235

5.64

3.36

4659

6.87

6.93

2095

1.79

5.25

2372

5.48

4.09

4669

5.97

6.11

6550

2.73

7.09

2383

4.72

3.41

4687

6.87

6.51

8580

3.7

6.28

2393

4.87

2.93

4800

6.44

7.07

1050

3.46

6.87

7009

4.93

3.01

5480

7.53

5.48

1275

3.3

4.81

7025

4.63

2.71

7230

7.38

5.52

1300

3.55

6.79

7041

4.99

2.6

7270

7.53

5.76

9570

1.68

6.14

7100

5.24

2.89

7289

6.32

5.14

Means

2.97

6.20

 

5.06

3.13

 

6.44

6.09

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Carretié, L., Hinojosa, J.A., Albert, J. et al. Neural response to sustained affective visual stimulation using an indirect task. Exp Brain Res 174, 630–637 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0510-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-006-0510-y

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