ERP Responses to Smile-Provoking Pictures

• Published in: Journal of psychophysiology 2005-01, Vol.19 (2), p.77-90
• Main Authors: Gierych, Ewa, Milner, Rafał, Michalski, Andrzej
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Cartoons (Humor); Emotional Responses; Evoked Potentials; Female; Human; Humor; Male; Pictorial Stimuli; Smiles; Visual Displays
• ISSN: 0269-8803; 2151-2124
• DOI: 10.1027/0269-8803.19.2.77

The aim of the present study was to search for event-related potential (ERP) correlates of processing pictures commonly described as "funny" but not preceded by the apparent "context-setting" phase. Three pairs of stimuli were used: (1) famous cartoon characters and images of household objects, (2) pictures reminiscent of a recently seen joke and similar pictures that did not produce such associations, (3) funny caricatures and drawings of neutral human faces. ERP differences in each pair were analyzed in two experiments. In the first experiment, both stimuli were targets in an "oddball" procedure, presented among the more frequent green disks. In the second experiment, they were both nontargets whereas the green disks were task-relevant. Both experiments and all pairs of stimuli produced similar results. ERPs for funny pictures were consistently more positive within the broad latency windows, resembling the effects of emotional arousal. Negative deflections, typical for incongruity processing, were not found. Such results indicated that these types of "humorous" images belonged to the class of affective stimuli that produced attentional reallocation of processing resources. The cognitive phase during which incongruity is detected and resolved was probably reduced to minimum or even absent.