Emotional Facilitation of Sensory Processing in the Visual Cortex

A key function of emotion is the preparation for action. However, organization of successful behavioral strategies depends on efficient stimulus encoding. The present study tested the hypothesis that perceptual encoding in the visual cortex is modulated by the emotional significance of visual stimul...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2003-01, Vol.14 (1), p.7-13
Main Authors: Schupp, Harald T., Junghöfer, Markus, Weike, Almut I., Hamm, Alfons O.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affect - physiology
Brain
Brain Mapping
Case studies
Electric fields
Emotions
Evoked Potentials - physiology
Female
Human behaviour
Humans
Male
Mental stimulation
Motivation
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Perception
Psychology
Psychophysiology
Reflexes
Scalp
Selective attention
Senses
Sensors
Sight
Time Factors
Visual cortex
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual Perception - physiology
Visualization
Waveforms
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Summary:A key function of emotion is the preparation for action. However, organization of successful behavioral strategies depends on efficient stimulus encoding. The present study tested the hypothesis that perceptual encoding in the visual cortex is modulated by the emotional significance of visual stimuli. Event-related brain potentials were measured while subjects viewed pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures. Early selective encoding of pleasant and unpleasant images was associated with a posterior negativity, indicating primary sources of activation in the visual cortex. The study also replicated previous findings in that affective cues also elicited enlarged late positive potentials, indexing increased stimulus relevance at higher-order stages of stimulus processing. These results support the hypothesis that sensory encoding of affective stimuli is facilitated implicitly by natural selective attention. Thus, the affect system not only modulates motor output (i.e., favoring approach or avoidance dispositions), but already operates at an early level of sensory encoding.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1111/1467-9280.01411