Negative emotional stimuli reduce contextual cueing but not response times in inefficient search

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Kunar, Melina A.; Watson, Derrick G.; Cole, Louise (Researcher in Psychology); Cox, Angeline

2014-01-01

In visual search, previous work has shown that negative stimuli narrow the focus of attention and speed reaction times (RTs). This paper investigates these two effects by first asking whether negative emotional stimuli narrow the focus of attention to reduce the learning of a display context in a contextual cueing task and, second, whether exposure to negative stimuli also reduces RTs in inefficient search tasks. In Experiment 1, participants viewed either negative or neutral images (faces or...

Affective states leak into movement execution: Automatic avoidance of threatening stimuli in fear of spider is visible in reach trajectories

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Buetti, S.; Juan, E.; Rinck, M.; Kerzel, D.

2012-01-01

Approach-like actions are initiated faster with stimuli of positive valence. Conversely, avoidance-like actions are initiated faster with threatening stimuli of negative valence. We went beyond reaction time measures and investigated whether threatening stimuli also affect the way in which an action

Emotional Stimuli and Motor Conversion Disorder

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Voon, Valerie; Brezing, Christina; Gallea, Cecile; Ameli, Rezvan; Roelofs, Karin; LaFrance, W. Curt, Jr.; Hallett, Mark

2010-01-01

Conversion disorder is characterized by neurological signs and symptoms related to an underlying psychological issue. Amygdala activity to affective stimuli is well characterized in healthy volunteers with greater amygdala activity to both negative and positive stimuli relative to neutral stimuli, and greater activity to negative relative to…

Automatic and deliberate affective associations with sexual stimuli in women with lifelong vaginismus before and after therapist-aided exposure treatment.

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Melles, Reinhilde J; ter Kuile, Moniek M; Dewitte, Marieke; van Lankveld, Jacques J D M; Brauer, Marieke; de Jong, Peter J

2014-03-01

The intense fear response to vaginal penetration in women with lifelong vaginismus, who have never been able to experience coitus, may reflect negative automatic and deliberate appraisals of vaginal penetration stimuli which might be modified by exposure treatment. The aim of this study is to examine whether (i) sexual stimuli elicit relatively strong automatic and deliberate threat associations in women with vaginismus, as well as relatively negative automatic and deliberate global affective associations, compared with symptom-free women; and (ii) these automatic and more deliberate attitudes can be modified by therapist-aided exposure treatment. A single target Implicit Association Test (st-IAT) was used to index automatic threat associations, and an Affective Simon Task (AST) to index global automatic affective associations. Participants were women with lifelong vaginismus (N = 68) and women without sexual problems (N = 70). The vaginismus group was randomly allocated to treatment (n = 34) and a waiting list control condition (n = 34). Indices of automatic threat were obtained by the st-IAT and automatic global affective associations by the AST, visual analogue scales (VAS) were used to assess deliberate appraisals of the sexual pictures (fear and global positive affect). More deliberate fear and less global positive affective associations with sexual stimuli were found in women with vaginismus. Following therapist-aided exposure treatment, the strength of fear was strongly reduced, whereas global positive affective associations were strengthened. Automatic associations did not differ between women with and without vaginismus and did not change following treatment. Relatively stronger negative (threat or global affect) associations with sexual stimuli in vaginismus appeared restricted to the deliberate level. Therapist-aided exposure treatment was effective in reducing subjective fear of sexual penetration stimuli and led to more global positive affective

Ratio of dopamine synthesis capacity to D2 receptor availability in ventral striatum correlates with central processing of affective stimuli

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Kienast, Thorsten; Rapp, Michael; Siessmeier, Thomas; Buchholz, Hans G.; Schreckenberger, Mathias; Wrase, Jana; Heinz, Andreas; Braus, Dieter F.; Smolka, Michael N.; Mann, Karl; Roesch, Frank; Cumming, Paul; Gruender, Gerhard; Bartenstein, Peter

2008-01-01

Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral striatum may interact with limbic processing of affective stimuli, whereas dorsal striatal dopaminergic neurotransmission can affect habitual processing of emotionally salient stimuli in the pre-frontal cortex. We investigated the dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral and dorsal striatum with respect to central processing of affective stimuli in healthy subjects. Subjects were investigated with positron emission tomography and [ 18 F]DOPA for measurements of dopamine synthesis capacity and [ 18 F]DMFP for estimation of dopamine D2 receptor binding potential. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response to affective pictures, which was correlated with the ratio of [ 18 F]DOPA net influx constant K in app /[ 18 F]DMFP-binding potential (BP N D) in the ventral and dorsal striatum. The magnitude of the ratio in the ventral striatum was positively correlated with BOLD signal increases elicited by negative versus neutral pictures in the right medial frontal gyrus (BA10), right inferior parietal lobe and left post-central gyrus. In the dorsal striatum, the ratio was positively correlated with BOLD signal activation elicited by negative versus neutral stimuli in the left post-central gyrus. The BOLD signal elicited by positive versus neutral stimuli in the superior parietal gyrus was positively correlated with the dorsal and ventral striatal ratio. The correlations of the ratio in the ventral and dorsal striatum with processing of affective stimuli in the named cortical regions support the hypothesis that dopamine transmission in functional divisions of the striatum modulates processing of affective stimuli in specific cortical areas. (orig.)

Minho Affective Sentences (MAS): Probing the roles of sex, mood, and empathy in affective ratings of verbal stimuli.

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Pinheiro, Ana P; Dias, Marcelo; Pedrosa, João; Soares, Ana P

2017-04-01

During social communication, words and sentences play a critical role in the expression of emotional meaning. The Minho Affective Sentences (MAS) were developed to respond to the lack of a standardized sentence battery with normative affective ratings: 192 neutral, positive, and negative declarative sentences were strictly controlled for psycholinguistic variables such as numbers of words and letters and per-million word frequency. The sentences were designed to represent examples of each of the five basic emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, fear, and happiness) and of neutral situations. These sentences were presented to 536 participants who rated the stimuli using both dimensional and categorical measures of emotions. Sex differences were also explored. Additionally, we probed how personality, empathy, and mood from a subset of 40 participants modulated the affective ratings. Our results confirmed that the MAS affective norms are valid measures to guide the selection of stimuli for experimental studies of emotion. The combination of dimensional and categorical ratings provided a more fine-grained characterization of the affective properties of the sentences. Moreover, the affective ratings of positive and negative sentences were not only modulated by participants' sex, but also by individual differences in empathy and mood state. Together, our results indicate that, in their quest to reveal the neurofunctional underpinnings of verbal emotional processing, researchers should consider not only the role of sex, but also of interindividual differences in empathy and mood states, in responses to the emotional meaning of sentences.

The Contributions of Positive and Negative Affect to Emotional Well-Being

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Randy Larsen

2009-12-01

Full Text Available In this paper, the definitions of subjective well-being have been reviewed with a focus on its emotional core, which we consider to be the ratio of positive to negative affect over time. The reviewed evidence showed that negative emotions tend to be of longer duration than positive and that the NA system produces stronger emotional responses than the PA system. Also, a variety of experimental results show that negative stimuli make unique demands on cognitive resources (particularly perception and attention compared to positive stimuli. The evidence that the negative affect system produces stronger affective output, per unit input, than the positive affect system, is a phenomenon known as negativity bias. I also went so far as to argue that negativity exceeds positivity by a factor of pi (3.14 and that efforts to speed adaptation to negative events may be more important to overall SWB then efforts to prolong responses to positive events (Larsen and Prizmic, 2008. The fact that negativity is stronger than positivity, combined with the notion of differential adaptation (people adapt faster to good events than to bad events, creates the conditions that drive the hedonic treadmill. However, most people are, to some degree, able to overcome the psychological forces of the hedonic treadmill and maintain at least a modicum of emotional well-being (Biswas-Diener, Vitterso, & Diener, 2005. It is likely that the ability called "emotional intelligence" refers in large part to the capacity to manage negative affect following unpleasant or stressful events (Larsen & Learner, 2006. Moreover, such an ability is likely to be made up of particular behaviors and strategies that each contributes specifically to the management of negative emotions (Larsen & Prizmic, 2004.

Ratio of dopamine synthesis capacity to D2 receptor availability in ventral striatum correlates with central processing of affective stimuli

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Kienast, Thorsten; Rapp, Michael [Charite Campus Mitte, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charite University Medical Center, Berlin (Germany); Siessmeier, Thomas; Buchholz, Hans G.; Schreckenberger, Mathias [University of Mainz, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Mainz (Germany); Wrase, Jana; Heinz, Andreas [Charite Campus Mitte, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the Charite University Medical Center, Berlin (Germany); Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim (Germany); Braus, Dieter F. [University of Hamburg, Neuroimage Nord, Department of Psychiatry, Hamburg (Germany); Smolka, Michael N.; Mann, Karl [Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim (Germany); Roesch, Frank [University of Mainz, Institute of Nuclear Chemistry, Mainz (Germany); Cumming, Paul [PET Center and Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus (Denmark); Gruender, Gerhard [Aachen University Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry of the RWTH, Mainz (Germany); Bartenstein, Peter [Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Department of Nuclear Medicine, Munich (Germany)

2008-06-15

Dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral striatum may interact with limbic processing of affective stimuli, whereas dorsal striatal dopaminergic neurotransmission can affect habitual processing of emotionally salient stimuli in the pre-frontal cortex. We investigated the dopaminergic neurotransmission in the ventral and dorsal striatum with respect to central processing of affective stimuli in healthy subjects. Subjects were investigated with positron emission tomography and [{sup 18}F]DOPA for measurements of dopamine synthesis capacity and [{sup 18}F]DMFP for estimation of dopamine D2 receptor binding potential. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to assess the blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response to affective pictures, which was correlated with the ratio of [{sup 18}F]DOPA net influx constant K{sub in}{sup app} /[{sup 18}F]DMFP-binding potential (BP{sub N}D) in the ventral and dorsal striatum. The magnitude of the ratio in the ventral striatum was positively correlated with BOLD signal increases elicited by negative versus neutral pictures in the right medial frontal gyrus (BA10), right inferior parietal lobe and left post-central gyrus. In the dorsal striatum, the ratio was positively correlated with BOLD signal activation elicited by negative versus neutral stimuli in the left post-central gyrus. The BOLD signal elicited by positive versus neutral stimuli in the superior parietal gyrus was positively correlated with the dorsal and ventral striatal ratio. The correlations of the ratio in the ventral and dorsal striatum with processing of affective stimuli in the named cortical regions support the hypothesis that dopamine transmission in functional divisions of the striatum modulates processing of affective stimuli in specific cortical areas. (orig.)

Epistemic motivation affects the processing of negative emotional stimuli in interpersonal decisions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhenyu eWei

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The present electrophysiological study investigated the role of the need for cognitive closure (NFC in emotional processing. The NFC is conceptualized as an epistemic motive that is related to how and why people seek out information in social environments. Event-related potentials were recorded while individuals with high NFC (i.e., low epistemic motivation or low NFC (i.e., high epistemic motivation performed a modified Ultimatum Game, in which the emotions of happy or angry game agents were employed to predict their most likely offer. High-NFC participants more closely adhered to the decisions rules of the game than low-NFC individuals did. The electrophysiological results showed that the dispositional NFC modified early perceptual components (N170, N200, and P200. The potentials showed that high-NFC subjects had a processing bias to angry faces, whereas low-NFC individuals exhibited no such effects. These findings indicated that high-NFC individuals were more sensitive to negative emotional stimuli than low-NFC individuals in an interpersonal decision-making task.

Reversal Negativity and Bistable Stimuli: Attention, Awareness, or Something Else?

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Intaite, Monika; Koivisto, Mika; Ruksenas, Osvaldas; Revonsuo, Antti

2010-01-01

Ambiguous (or bistable) figures are visual stimuli that have two mutually exclusive perceptual interpretations that spontaneously alternate with each other. Perceptual reversals, as compared with non-reversals, typically elicit a negative difference called reversal negativity (RN), peaking around 250 ms from stimulus onset. The cognitive…

Emotional stimuli and motor conversion disorder

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Voon, V.; Brezing, C.; Gallea, C.; Ameli, R.; Roelofs, K.; LaFrance, W.C.; Hallett, M.

2010-01-01

Conversion disorder is characterized by neurological signs and symptoms related to an underlying psychological issue. Amygdala activity to affective stimuli is well characterized in healthy volunteers with greater amygdala activity to both negative and positive stimuli relative to neutral stimuli,

The effects of anxiety upon attention allocation to affective stimuli.

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Waters, Allison M; Nitz, Ashley B; Craske, Michelle G; Johnson, Chris

2007-04-01

Pictures of emotionally aversive, neutral, and pleasant scenes were presented for 500 ms, followed by a probe presented in the same location (valid trials) or an alternate location (invalid trials) as the picture. Response-times to the probes were recorded in low (N=20) and high (N=27) trait anxious participants. Results revealed an overall negative cue validity effect of shorter reaction times (RTs) on invalid than valid trials, suggestive of an inhibition of return effect. Moreover, high trait anxious females showed a reduced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures in comparison with neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of selective interference by the unpleasant material. By contrast, low trait anxious females showed an enhanced negative cue validity effect for aversive pictures relative to neutral and pleasant pictures, suggestive of attentional avoidance of the aversive content. The emotional content of picture cues did not significantly affect RTs in males, regardless of anxiety status. The results suggest that biased attention processes for aversive stimuli may contribute to the greater female propensity for anxiety disorders.

Heart rate reactivity associated to positive and negative food and non-food visual stimuli.

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Kuoppa, Pekka; Tarvainen, Mika P; Karhunen, Leila; Narvainen, Johanna

2016-08-01

Using food as a stimuli is known to cause multiple psychophysiological reactions. Heart rate variability (HRV) is common tool for assessing physiological reactions in autonomic nervous system. However, the findings in HRV related to food stimuli have not been consistent. In this paper the quick changes in HRV related to positive and negative food and non-food visual stimuli are investigated. Electrocardiogram (ECG) was measured from 18 healthy females while being stimulated with the pictures. Subjects also filled Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire to determine their eating behavior. The inter-beat-interval time series and the HRV parameters were extracted from the ECG. The quick change in HRV parameters were studied by calculating the change from baseline value (10 s window before stimulus) to value after the onset of the stimulus (10 s window during stimulus). The paired t-test showed significant difference between positive and negative food pictures but not between positive and negative non-food pictures. All the HRV parameters decreased for positive food pictures while they stayed the same or increased a little for negative food pictures. The eating behavior characteristic cognitive restraint was negatively correlated with HRV parameters that describe decreasing of heart rate.

Subliminal presentation of emotionally negative vs positive primes increases the perceived beauty of target stimuli.

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Era, Vanessa; Candidi, Matteo; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

2015-11-01

Emotions have a profound influence on aesthetic experiences. Studies using affective priming procedures demonstrate, for example, that inducing a conscious negative emotional state biases the perception of abstract stimuli towards the sublime (Eskine et al. Emotion 12:1071-1074, 2012. doi: 10.1037/a0027200). Moreover, subliminal happy facial expressions have a positive impact on the aesthetic evaluation of abstract art (Flexas et al. PLoS ONE 8:e80154, 2013). Little is known about how emotion influences aesthetic perception of non-abstract, representational stimuli, especially those that are particularly relevant for social behaviour, like human bodies. Here, we explore whether the subliminal presentation of emotionally charged visual primes modulates the explicit subjective aesthetic judgment of body images. Using a forward/backward masking procedure, we presented subliminally positive and negative, arousal-matched, emotional or neutral primes and measured their effect on the explicit evaluation of perceived beauty (high vs low) and emotion (positive vs negative) evoked by abstract and body images. We found that negative primes increased subjective aesthetic evaluations of target bodies or abstract images in comparison with positive primes. No influence of primes on the emotional dimension of the targets was found, thus ruling out an unspecific arousal effect and strengthening the link between emotional valence and aesthetic appreciation. More specifically, that subliminal negative primes increase beauty ratings compared to subliminal positive primes indicates a clear link between negative emotions and positive aesthetic evaluations and vice versa, suggesting a possible link between negative emotion and the experience of sublime in art. The study expands previous research by showing the effect of subliminal negative emotions on the subjective aesthetic evaluation not only of abstract but also of body images.

Can I trust you? Negative affective priming influences social judgments in schizophrenia

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Hooker, Christine I.; Tully, Laura M.; Verosky, Sara C.; Fisher, Melissa; Holland, Christine; Vinogradov, Sophia

2010-01-01

Successful social interactions rely on the ability to make accurate judgments based on social cues as well as the ability to control the influence of internal or external affective information on those judgments. Prior research suggests that individuals with schizophrenia misinterpret social stimuli and this misinterpretation contributes to impaired social functioning. We tested the hypothesis that for people with schizophrenia social judgments are abnormally influenced by affective information. 23 schizophrenia and 35 healthy control participants rated the trustworthiness of faces following the presentation of neutral, negative (threat-related), or positive affective primes. Results showed that all participants rated faces as less trustworthy following negative affective primes compared to faces that followed neutral or positive primes. Importantly, this effect was significantly more pronounced for schizophrenia participants, suggesting that schizophrenia may be characterised by an exaggerated influence of negative affective information on social judgment. Furthermore, the extent that the negative affective prime influenced trustworthiness judgments was significantly associated with patients’ severity of positive symptoms, particularly feelings of persecution. These findings suggest that for people with schizophrenia negative affective information contributes to an interpretive bias, consistent with paranoid ideation, when judging the trustworthiness of others. This bias may contribute to social impairments in schizophrenia. PMID:20919787

Combined non-adaptive light and smell stimuli lowered blood pressure, reduced heart rate and reduced negative affect.

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Dong, Shan; Jacob, Tim J C

2016-03-15

Bright light therapy has been shown to have a positive impact on seasonal affective disorder (SAD), depression and anxiety. Smell has also has been shown to have effects on mood, stress, anxiety and depression. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of the combination of light and smell in a non-adaptive cycle. Human subjects were given smell (lemon, lavender or peppermint) and light stimuli in a triangular wave (60scycle) for 15min. Blood pressure and heart rate were monitored before and after each session for 5 consecutive days and a Profile of Mood States (POMS) test was administered before and after the sensory stimulation on days 1, 3 and 5. The light-smell stimulus lowered blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic, and reduced heart rate for all odours compared to control. Of the two sensory stimuli, the odour stimulus contributed most to this effect. The different aromas in the light-smell combinations could be distinguished by their different effects on the mood factors with lemon inducing the greatest mood changes in Dejection-Depression, Anger-Hostility, Tension-Anxiety. In conclusion, combined light and smell stimulation was effective in lowering blood pressure, reducing heart rate and improving mood. The combination was more effective than either smell or light stimuli alone, suggesting that a light-smell combination would be a more robust and efficacious alternative treatment for depression, anxiety and stress. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Valence of physical stimuli, not housing conditions, affects behaviour and frontal cortical brain activity in sheep.

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Vögeli, Sabine; Lutz, Janika; Wolf, Martin; Wechsler, Beat; Gygax, Lorenz

2014-07-01

Modulation of short-term emotions by long-term mood is little understood but relevant to understand the affective system and of importance in respect to animal welfare: a negative mood might taint experiences, whilst a positive mood might alleviate single negative events. To induce different mood states in sheep housing conditions were varied. Fourteen ewes were group-housed in an unpredictable, stimulus-poor and 15 ewes in a predictable, stimulus-rich environment. Sheep were tested individually for mood in a behavioural cognitive bias paradigm. Also, their reactions to three physical stimuli thought to differ in their perceived valence were observed (negative: pricking, intermediate: slight pressure, positive: kneading). General behaviour, activity, ear movements and positions, and haemodynamic changes in the cortical brain were recorded during stimulations. Generalised mixed-effects models and model probabilities based on the BIC (Bayesian information criterion) were used. Only weak evidence for mood difference was found. Sheep from the unpredictable, stimulus-poor housing condition had a somewhat more negative cognitive bias, showed slightly more aversive behaviour, were slightly more active and moved their ears somewhat more. Sheep most clearly differentiated the negative from the intermediate and positive stimulus in that they exhibited more aversive behaviour, less nibbling, were more active, showed more ear movements, more forward ear postures, fewer backward ear postures, and a stronger decrease in deoxyhaemoglobin when subjected to the negative stimulus. In conclusion, sheep reacted towards stimuli according to their presumed valence but their mood was not strongly influenced by housing conditions. Therefore, behavioural reactions and cortical brain activity towards the stimuli were hardly modulated by housing conditions. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Distress intolerance moderation of motivated attention to cannabis and negative stimuli after induced stress among cannabis users: an ERP study.

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Macatee, Richard J; Okey, Sarah A; Albanese, Brian J; Schmidt, Norman B; Cougle, Jesse R

2018-05-07

Prevalence of cannabis use is increasing, but many regular users do not develop cannabis use disorder (CUD); thus, CUD risk identification among current users is vital for targeted intervention development. Existing data suggest that high distress intolerance (DI), an individual difference reflective of the ability to tolerate negative affect, may be linked to CUD, but no studies have tested possible neurophysiological mechanisms. Increased motivated attentional processing of cannabis and negative emotional stimuli as indexed by neurophysiology [i.e. the late positive potential (LPP)], particularly during acute stress, may contribute to CUD among high DI users. Frequent cannabis users with high (n = 61) and low DI (n = 44) viewed cannabis, negative, and matched neutral images during electroencephalography (EEG) recording before and after a laboratory stressor. Cannabis cue-elicited modulation of the 1000- to 3000-milliseconds LPP was larger in high DI users at post-stressor only, although the effect was only robust in the 1000- to 2000-milliseconds window. Further, modulation magnitude in the high DI group covaried with stress-relief craving and some CUD indices in the 400- to 1000-milliseconds and 1000- to 3000-milliseconds windows, respectively. No significant effects of DI on negative stimuli-elicited LPP modulation were found, although inverse associations with some CUD indices were observed. Finally, exploratory analyses revealed some evidence for DI moderation of the relation between subjective stressor reactivity and negative stimuli-elicited LPP modulation such that greater stressor reactivity was associated with blunted versus enhanced modulation in the high and low DI groups, respectively. Negative and cannabis stimuli-elicited LPP modulation appear to index distinct, CUD-relevant neural processes in high DI cannabis users. © 2018 Society for the Study of Addiction.

Effects of the exposure to self- and other-referential bodies on state body image and negative affect in resistance-trained men.

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Cordes, Martin; Vocks, Silja; Düsing, Rainer; Waldorf, Manuel

2017-06-01

Previous body image research suggests that first, exposure to body stimuli can negatively affect men's body satisfaction and second, body concerns are associated with dysfunctional gaze behavior. To date, however, the effects of self- vs. other-referential body stimuli and of gaze behavior on body image in men under exposure conditions have not been investigated. Therefore, 49 weight-trained men were presented with pictures of their own and other bodies of different builds (i.e., normal, muscular, hyper-muscular) while being eye-tracked. Participants completed pre- and post-exposure measures of body image and affect. Results indicated that one's own and the muscular body negatively affected men's body image to a comparable degree. Exposure to one's own body also led to increased negative affect. Increased attention toward disliked own body parts was associated with a more negative post-exposure body image and affect. These results suggest a crucial role of critical self-examination in maintaining body dissatisfaction. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Affective and physiological correlates of the perception of unimodal and bimodal emotional stimuli.

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Rosa, Pedro J; Oliveira, Jorge; Alghazzawi, Daniyal; Fardoun, Habib; Gamito, Pedro

2017-08-01

Despite the multisensory nature of perception, previous research on emotions has been focused on unimodal emotional cues with visual stimuli. To the best of our knowledge, there is no evidence on the extent to which incongruent emotional cues from visual and auditory sensory channels affect pupil size. To investigate the effects of audiovisual emotional information perception on the physiological and affective response, but also to determine the impact of mismatched cues in emotional perception on these physiological indexes. Pupil size, electrodermal activity and affective subjective responses were recorded while 30 participants were exposed to visual and auditory stimuli with varied emotional content in three different experimental conditions: pictures and sounds presented alone (unimodal), emotionally matched audio-visual stimuli (bimodal congruent) and emotionally mismatched audio-visual stimuli (bimodal incongruent). The data revealed no effect of emotional incongruence on physiological and affective responses. On the other hand, pupil size covaried with skin conductance response (SCR), but the subjective experience was partially dissociated from autonomic responses. Emotional stimuli are able to trigger physiological responses regardless of valence, sensory modality or level of emotional congruence.

Abnormal GABAergic function and negative affect in schizophrenia.

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Taylor, Stephan F; Demeter, Elise; Phan, K Luan; Tso, Ivy F; Welsh, Robert C

2014-03-01

Deficits in the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) system have been reported in postmortem studies of schizophrenia, and therapeutic interventions in schizophrenia often involve potentiation of GABA receptors (GABAR) to augment antipsychotic therapy and treat negative affect such as anxiety. To map GABAergic mechanisms associated with processing affect, we used a benzodiazepine challenge while subjects viewed salient visual stimuli. Fourteen stable, medicated schizophrenia/schizoaffective patients and 13 healthy comparison subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging using the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) technique while they viewed salient emotional images. Subjects received intravenous lorazepam (LRZ; 0.01 mg/kg) or saline in a single-blinded, cross-over design (two sessions separated by 1-3 weeks). A predicted group by drug interaction was noted in the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) as well as right superior frontal gyrus and left and right occipital regions, such that psychosis patients showed an increased BOLD signal to LRZ challenge, rather than the decreased signal exhibited by the comparison group. A main effect of reduced BOLD signal in bilateral occipital areas was noted across groups. Consistent with the role of the dmPFC in processing emotion, state negative affect positively correlated with the response to the LRZ challenge in the dmPFC for the patients and comparison subjects. The altered response to LRZ challenge is consistent with altered inhibition predicted by postmortem findings of altered GABAR in schizophrenia. These results also suggest that negative affect in schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder is associated-directly or indirectly-with GABAergic function on a continuum with normal behavior.

[An attempt to construct a Japanese version of the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT)].

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Shimoda, Shunsuke; Okubo, Nobutoshi; Kobayashi, Mai; Sato, Shigetaka; Kitamura, Hideya

2014-08-01

The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) is an instrument for the indirect assessment of positive and negative affect. A Japanese version of the IPANAT was developed and its reliability and validity were examined. In Study 1, factor analysis identified two independent factors that could be interpreted as implicit positive and negative affect, which corresponded to the original version. The Japanese IPANAT also had sufficient internal consistency and acceptable test-retest reliability. In Study 2, we demonstrated that the Japanese IPANAT was associated with explicit state affect (e.g., PANAS), extraversion, and neuroticism, which indicated its adequate construct validity. In Study 3, we examined the extent to which the Japanese IPANAT was sensitive to changes in affect by assessing a set of IPANAT items after the presentation of positive, negative, or neutral photographs. The results indicated that the Japanese IPANAT was sufficiently sensitive to changes in affect resulting from affective stimuli. Taken together, these studies suggest that the Japanese version of the IPANAT is a useful instrument for the indirect assessment of positive and negative affect.

Anxiety and autonomic response to social-affective stimuli in individuals with Williams syndrome.

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Ng, Rowena; Bellugi, Ursula; Järvinen, Anna

2016-12-01

Williams syndrome (WS) is a genetic condition characterized by an unusual "hypersocial" personality juxtaposed by high anxiety. Recent evidence suggests that autonomic reactivity to affective face stimuli is disorganised in WS, which may contribute to emotion dysregulation and/or social disinhibition. Electrodermal activity (EDA) and mean interbeat interval (IBI) of 25 participants with WS (19 - 57 years old) and 16 typically developing (TD; 17-43 years old) adults were measured during a passive presentation of affective face and voice stimuli. The Beck Anxiety Inventory was administered to examine associations between autonomic reactivity to social-affective stimuli and anxiety symptomatology. The WS group was characterized by higher overall anxiety symptomatology, and poorer anger recognition in social visual and aural stimuli relative to the TD group. No between-group differences emerged in autonomic response patterns. Notably, for participants with WS, increased anxiety was uniquely associated with diminished arousal to angry faces and voices. In contrast, for the TD group, no associations emerged between anxiety and physiological responsivity to social-emotional stimuli. The anxiety associated with WS appears to be intimately related to reduced autonomic arousal to angry social stimuli, which may also be linked to the characteristic social disinhibition. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neural evidence for reduced apprehensiveness of familiarized stimuli in a mere exposure paradigm.

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Zebrowitz, Leslie A; Zhang, Yi

2012-07-01

Mere familiarization with a stimulus increases liking for it or similar stimuli ("mere exposure" effects) as well as perceptual fluency, indexed by the speed and accuracy of categorizing it or similar stimuli ("priming" effects). Candidate mechanisms proposed to explain mere exposure effects include both increased positive affect associated with greater perceptual fluency, and reduced negative affect associated with diminished apprehensiveness of novel stimuli. Although these two mechanisms are not mutually exclusive, it is difficult for behavioral measures to disentangle them, since increased liking or other indices of greater positive affect toward exposed stimuli could result from increases in positive feelings or decreases in negative feelings or both. The present study sought to clarify this issue by building on research showing a dissociation at the neural level in which the lateral orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC) is activated more by negatively valenced than by neutral or positively valenced stimuli, with the reverse effect for medial orbitofrontal cortex (MOFC). Supporting the reduced apprehensiveness hypothesis, we found lower LOFC activation to familiarized faces and objects (repetition suppression). We did not find evidence to support the positive affect hypothesis in increased activation to familiarized stimuli in MOFC or in other parts of the reward circuit that respond more to positively valenced stimuli (repetition enhancement), although enhancement effects were shown in some regions.

A Critical Review of Negative Affect and the Application of CBT for PTSD.

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Brown, Wilson J; Dewey, Daniel; Bunnell, Brian E; Boyd, Stephen J; Wilkerson, Allison K; Mitchell, Melissa A; Bruce, Steven E

2018-04-01

Forms of cognitive and behavioral therapies (CBTs), including prolonged exposure and cognitive processing therapy, have been empirically validated as efficacious treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the assumption that PTSD develops from dysregulated fear circuitry possesses limitations that detract from the potential efficacy of CBT approaches. An analysis of these limitations may provide insight into improvements to the CBT approach to PTSD, beginning with an examination of negative affect as an essential component to the conceptualization of PTSD and a barrier to the implementation of CBT for PTSD. As such, the literature regarding the impact of negative affect on aspects of cognition (i.e., attention, processing, memory, and emotion regulation) necessary for the successful application of CBT was systematically reviewed. Several literature databases were explored (e.g., PsychINFO and PubMed), resulting in 25 articles that met criteria for inclusion. Results of the review indicated that high negative affect generally disrupts cognitive processes, resulting in a narrowed focus on stimuli of a negative valence, increased rumination of negative autobiographical memories, inflexible preservation of initial information, difficulty considering counterfactuals, reliance on emotional reasoning, and misinterpretation of neutral or ambiguous events as negative, among others. With the aim to improve treatment efficacy of CBT for PTSD, suggestions to incorporate negative affect into research and clinical contexts are discussed.

[WMN: a negative ERPs component related to working memory during non-target visual stimuli processing].

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Zhao, Lun; Wei, Jin-he

2003-10-01

To study non-target stimuli processing in the brain. Features of the event-related potentials (ERPs) from non-target stimuli during selective response task (SR) was compared with that during visual selective discrimination (DR) task in 26 normal subjects. The stimuli consisted of two color LED flashes (red and green) appeared randomly in left (LVF) or right (RVF) visual field with same probability. ERPs were derived at 9 electrode sites on the scalp under 2 task conditions: a) SR, making switch response to the target (NT) stimuli from LVF or RVF in one direction and making no response to the non-target (NT) ones; b) DR, making switching response to T stimuli differentially, i.e., to the left for T from LVF and to the right for T from RVF. 1) the non-target stimuli in DR conditions, compared with that in SR condition, elicited smaller P2 and P3 components and larger N2 component at the frontal brain areas; 2) a significant negative component, named as WMN (working memory negativity), appeared in the non-target ERPs during DR in the period of 100 to 700 ms post stimulation which was predominant at the frontal brain areas. According to the major difference between brain activities for non-target stimuli during SR and DR, the predominant appearance of WMN at the frontal brain areas demonstrated that the non-target stimulus processing was an active process and was related to working memory, i.e., the temporary elimination and the retrieval of the response mode which was stored in working memory.

Impact of sleep quality on amygdala reactivity, negative affect, and perceived stress.

Science.gov (United States)

Prather, Aric A; Bogdan, Ryan; Hariri, Ahmad R

2013-05-01

Research demonstrates a negative impact of sleep disturbance on mood and affect; however, the biological mechanisms mediating these links are poorly understood. Amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli has emerged as one potential pathway. Here, we investigate the influence of self-reported sleep quality on associations between threat-related amygdala reactivity and measures of negative affect and perceived stress. Analyses on data from 299 participants (125 men, 50.5% white, mean [standard deviation] age = 19.6 [1.3] years) who completed the Duke Neurogenetics Study were conducted. Participants completed several self-report measures of negative affect and perceived stress. Threat-related (i.e., angry and fearful facial expressions) amygdala reactivity was assayed using blood oxygen level-dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Global sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions predicted greater depressive symptoms and higher perceived stress in poor (β values = 0.18-1.86, p values .05). In sex-specific analyses, men reporting poorer global sleep quality showed a significant association between amygdala reactivity and levels of depression and perceived stress (β values = 0.29-0.44, p values sleep quality or in women, irrespective of sleep quality. This study provides novel evidence that self-reported sleep quality moderates the relationships between amygdala reactivity, negative affect, and perceived stress, particularly among men.

On the relationship between positive and negative affect: Their correlation and their co-occurrence.

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Larsen, Jeff T; Hershfield, Hal E; Stastny, Bradley J; Hester, Neil

2017-03-01

Understanding the nature of emotional experience requires understanding the relationship between positive and negative affect. Two particularly important aspects of that relationship are the extent to which positive and negative affect are correlated with one another and the extent to which they co-occur. Some researchers have assumed that weak negative correlations imply greater co-occurrence (i.e., more mixed emotions) than do strong negative correlations, but others have noted that correlations may imply very little about co-occurrence. We investigated the relationship between the correlation between positive and negative affect and co-occurrence. Participants in each of 2 samples provided moment-to-moment happiness and sadness ratings as they watched an evocative film and listened to music. Results indicated (a) that 4 measures of the correlation between positive and negative affect were quite highly related to 1 another; (b) that the strength of the correlation between measures of mixed emotions varied considerably; (c) that correlational measures were generally (but not always) weakly correlated with mixed emotion measures; and (d) that bittersweet stimuli consistently led to elevations in mixed emotion measures but did not consistently weaken the correlation between positive and negative affect. Results highlight that the correlation between positive and negative affect and their co-occurrence are distinct aspects of the relationship between positive and negative affect. Such insight helps clarify the implications of existing work on age-related and cultural differences in emotional experience and sets the stage for greater understanding of the experience of mixed emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Does the amygdala response correlate with the personality trait 'harm avoidance' while evaluating emotional stimuli explicitly?

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Van Schuerbeek, Peter; Baeken, Chris; Luypaert, Robert; De Raedt, Rudi; De Mey, Johan

2014-05-07

The affective personality trait 'harm avoidance' (HA) from Cloninger's psychobiological personality model determines how an individual deals with emotional stimuli. Emotional stimuli are processed by a neural network that include the left and right amygdalae as important key nodes. Explicit, implicit and passive processing of affective stimuli are known to activate the amygdalae differently reflecting differences in attention, level of detailed analysis of the stimuli and the cognitive control needed to perform the required task. Previous studies revealed that implicit processing or passive viewing of affective stimuli, induce a left amygdala response that correlates with HA. In this new study we have tried to extend these findings to the situation in which the subjects were required to explicitly process emotional stimuli. A group of healthy female participants was asked to rate the valence of positive and negative stimuli while undergoing fMRI. Afterwards the neural responses of the participants to the positive and to the negative stimuli were separately correlated to their HA scores and compared between the low and high HA participants. Both analyses revealed increased neural activity in the left laterobasal (LB) amygdala of the high HA participants while they were rating the positive and the negative stimuli. Our results indicate that the left amygdala response to explicit processing of affective stimuli does correlate with HA.

Music influences ratings of the affect of visual stimuli

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hanser, W.E.; Mark, R.E.

2013-01-01

This review provides an overview of recent studies that have examined how music influences the judgment of emotional stimuli, including affective pictures and film clips. The relevant findings are incorporated within a broader theory of music and emotion, and suggestions for future research are

Music Influences Ratings of the Affect of Visual Stimuli

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Waldie E Hanser

2013-09-01

Full Text Available This review provides an overview of recent studies that have examined how music influences the judgment of emotional stimuli, including affective pictures and film clips. The relevant findings are incorporated within a broader theory of music and emotion, and suggestions for future research are offered.Music is important in our daily lives, and one of its primary uses by listeners is the active regulation of one's mood. Despite this widespread use as a regulator of mood and its general pervasiveness in our society, the number of studies investigating the issue of whether, and how, music affects mood and emotional behaviour is limited however. Experiments investigating the effects of music have generally focused on how the emotional valence of background music impacts how affective pictures and/or film clips are evaluated. These studies have demonstrated strong effects of music on the emotional judgment of such stimuli. Most studies have reported concurrent background music to enhance the emotional valence when music and pictures are emotionally congruent. On the other hand, when music and pictures are emotionally incongruent, the ratings of the affect of the pictures will in- or decrease depending on the emotional valence of the background music. These results appear to be consistent in studies investigating the effects of (background music.

Visual attention and emotional reactions to negative stimuli: The role of age and cognitive reappraisal.

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Wirth, Maria; Isaacowitz, Derek M; Kunzmann, Ute

2017-09-01

Prominent life span theories of emotion propose that older adults attend less to negative emotional information and report less negative emotional reactions to the same information than younger adults do. Although parallel age differences in affective information processing and age differences in emotional reactivity have been proposed, they have rarely been investigated within the same study. In this eye-tracking study, we tested age differences in visual attention and emotional reactivity, using standardized emotionally negative stimuli. Additionally, we investigated age differences in the association between visual attention and emotional reactivity, and whether these are moderated by cognitive reappraisal. Older as compared with younger adults showed fixation patterns away from negative image content, while they reacted with greater negative emotions. The association between visual attention and emotional reactivity differed by age group and positive reappraisal. Younger adults felt better when they attended more to negative content rather than less, but this relationship only held for younger adults who did not attach a positive meaning to the negative situation. For older adults, overall, there was no significant association between visual attention and emotional reactivity. However, for older adults who did not use positive reappraisal, decreases in attention to negative information were associated with less negative emotions. The present findings point to a complex relationship between younger and older adults' visual attention and emotional reactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

How stimuli presentation format affects visual attention and choice outcomes in choice experiments

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Orquin, Jacob Lund; Mueller Loose, Simone

This study analyses visual attention and part-worth utilities in choice experiments across three different choice stimuli presentation formats. Visual attention and choice behaviour in discrete choice experiments are found to be strongly affected by stimuli presentation format. These results...

The content of lexical stimuli and self-reported physiological state modulate error-related negativity amplitude.

Science.gov (United States)

Benau, Erik M; Moelter, Stephen T

2016-09-01

The Error-Related Negativity (ERN) and Correct-Response Negativity (CRN) are brief event-related potential (ERP) components-elicited after the commission of a response-associated with motivation, emotion, and affect. The Error Positivity (Pe) typically appears after the ERN, and corresponds to awareness of having committed an error. Although motivation has long been established as an important factor in the expression and morphology of the ERN, physiological state has rarely been explored as a variable in these investigations. In the present study, we investigated whether self-reported physiological state (SRPS; wakefulness, hunger, or thirst) corresponds with ERN amplitude and type of lexical stimuli. Participants completed a SRPS questionnaire and then completed a speeded Lexical Decision Task with words and pseudowords that were either food-related or neutral. Though similar in frequency and length, food-related stimuli elicited increased accuracy, faster errors, and generated a larger ERN and smaller CRN than neutral words. Self-reported thirst correlated with improved accuracy and smaller ERN and CRN amplitudes. The Pe and Pc (correct positivity) were not impacted by physiological state or by stimulus content. The results indicate that physiological state and manipulations of lexical content may serve as important avenues for future research. Future studies that apply more sensitive measures of physiological and motivational state (e.g., biomarkers for satiety) or direct manipulations of satiety may be a useful technique for future research into response monitoring. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Positive and negative affect dimensions in chronic knee osteoarthritis: effects on clinical and laboratory pain.

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Finan, Patrick H; Quartana, Phillip J; Smith, Michael T

2013-06-01

This study investigated whether daily and laboratory assessed pain differs as a function of the temporal stability and valence of affect in individuals with chronic knee osteoarthritis (KOA). One hundred fifty-one men and women with KOA completed 14 days of electronic diaries assessing positive affect (PA), negative affect (NA), and clinical pain. A subset of participants (n =79) engaged in quantitative sensory testing (QST). State PA and NA were assessed prior to administration of stimuli that induced suprathreshold pain and temporal summation. Multilevel modeling and multiple regression evaluated associations of affect and pain as a function of valence (i.e., positive versus negative) and stability (i.e., stable versus state). In the diary, stable NA (B = -.63, standard error [SE] = .13, p affect-pain processes in the field may reflect individual differences in central pain facilitation.

Impact of Sleep Quality on Amygdala Reactivity, Negative Affect, and Perceived Stress

Science.gov (United States)

Prather, Aric A.; Bogdan, Ryan; Ahmad R. Hariri, PhD

2013-01-01

Objective Research demonstrates a negative impact of sleep disturbance on mood and affect; however, the biological mechanisms mediating these links are poorly understood. Amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli has emerged as one potential pathway. Here, we investigate the influence of self-reported sleep quality on associations between threat-related amygdala reactivity and measures of negative affect and perceived stress. Methods Analyses on data from 299 participants (125 men, 50.5% white, mean [standard deviation] age = 19.6 [1.3] years) who completed the Duke Neurogenetics Study were conducted. Participants completed several self-report measures of negative affect and perceived stress. Threat-related (i.e., angry and fearful facial expressions) amygdala reactivity was assayed using blood oxygen level–dependent functional magnetic resonance imaging. Global sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Results Amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions predicted greater depressive symptoms and higher perceived stress in poor (β values = 0.18–1.86, p values .05). In sex-specific analyses, men reporting poorer global sleep quality showed a significant association between amygdala reactivity and levels of depression and perceived stress (β values = 0.29–0.44, p values < .05). In contrast, no significant associations were observed in men reporting good global sleep quality or in women, irrespective of sleep quality. Conclusions This study provides novel evidence that self-reported sleep quality moderates the relationships between amygdala reactivity, negative affect, and perceived stress, particularly among men. PMID:23592753

Negative Affect, Decision Making, and Attentional Networks.

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Ortega, Ana Raquel; Ramírez, Encarnación; Colmenero, José María; García-Viedma, Ma Del Rosario

2017-02-01

This study focuses on whether risk avoidance in decision making depends on negative affect or it is specific to anxious individuals. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to obtain an objective measure in a risk situation with anxious, depressive, and control individuals. The role of attentional networks was also studied using the Attentional Network Test-Interaction (ANT-I) task with neutral stimuli. A significant difference was observed between anxious and depressive individuals in assumed risk in decision making. We found no differences between anxious and normal individuals in the alert, orientation, and congruency effects obtained in the ANT-I task. The results showed that there was no significant relationship between the risk avoidance and the indexes of alertness, orienting, and control. Future research shall determine whether emotionally relevant stimulation leads to attentional control deficit or whether differences between anxious and no anxious individuals are due to the type of strategy followed in choice tasks.

Reward learning and negative emotion during rapid attentional competition

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Takemasa eYokoyama

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Learned stimulus-reward associations influence how attention is allocated, such that stimuli rewarded in the past are favored in situations involving limited resources and competition. At the same time, task-irrelevant, high-arousal negative stimuli capture attention and divert resources away from tasks resulting in poor behavioral performance. Yet, investigations of how reward learning and negative stimuli affect perceptual and attentional processing have been conducted in a largely independent fashion. We have recently reported that performance-based monetary rewards reduce negative stimuli interference during perception. The goal of the present study was to investigate how stimuli associated with past monetary rewards compete with negative stimuli during a subsequent attentional task when, critically, no performance-based rewards were at stake. Across two experiments, we found that target stimuli that were associated with high reward reduced the interference effect of potent, negative distractors. Similar to our recent findings with performance-based rewards, our results demonstrate that reward-associated stimuli reduce the deleterious impact of negative stimuli on behavior.

How Major Depressive Disorder affects the ability to decode multimodal dynamic emotional stimuli

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FILOMENA SCIBELLI

2016-09-01

Full Text Available Most studies investigating the processing of emotions in depressed patients reported impairments in the decoding of negative emotions. However, these studies adopted static stimuli (mostly stereotypical facial expressions corresponding to basic emotions which do not reflect the way people experience emotions in everyday life. For this reason, this work proposes to investigate the decoding of emotional expressions in patients affected by Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder (RMDDs using dynamic audio/video stimuli. RMDDs’ performance is compared with the performance of patients with Adjustment Disorder with Depressed Mood (ADs and healthy (HCs subjects. The experiments involve 27 RMDDs (16 with acute depression - RMDD-A, and 11 in a compensation phase - RMDD-C, 16 ADs and 16 HCs. The ability to decode emotional expressions is assessed through an emotion recognition task based on short audio (without video, video (without audio and audio/video clips. The results show that AD patients are significantly less accurate than HCs in decoding fear, anger, happiness, surprise and sadness. RMDD-As with acute depression are significantly less accurate than HCs in decoding happiness, sadness and surprise. Finally, no significant differences were found between HCs and RMDD-Cs in a compensation phase. The different communication channels and the types of emotion play a significant role in limiting the decoding accuracy.

Mixing positive and negative valence: Affective-semantic integration of bivalent words.

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Kuhlmann, Michael; Hofmann, Markus J; Briesemeister, Benny B; Jacobs, Arthur M

2016-08-05

Single words have affective and aesthetic properties that influence their processing. Here we investigated the processing of a special case of word stimuli that are extremely difficult to evaluate, bivalent noun-noun-compounds (NNCs), i.e. novel words that mix a positive and negative noun, e.g. 'Bombensex' (bomb-sex). In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment we compared their processing with easier-to-evaluate non-bivalent NNCs in a valence decision task (VDT). Bivalent NNCs produced longer reaction times and elicited greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) than non-bivalent words, especially in contrast to words of negative valence. We attribute this effect to a LIFG-grounded process of semantic integration that requires greater effort for processing converse information, supporting the notion of a valence representation based on associations in semantic networks.

Complexities of Emotional Responses to Social and Nonsocial Affective Stimuli in Schizophrenia

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Joel S. Peterman

2015-03-01

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Adaptive emotional responses are important in interpersonal relationships. We investigated self-reported emotional experience, physiological reactivity, and micro-facial expressivity in relation to the social nature of stimuli in individuals with schizophrenia.METHOD: Galvanic skin response (GSR and facial electromyography (fEMG were recorded in medicated outpatients with schizophrenia (SZ and demograph-ically-matched healthy controls (CO while they viewed social and non-social im-ages from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS. Participants rated the valence and arousal, and selected a label for experienced emotions. Symp-tom severity in the SZ, and schizotypy in CO were assessed.RESULTS: The two groups did not differ in their labeling of the emotions evoked by the stimuli, but individuals with schizophrenia were more positive in their va-lence ratings. Although self-reported arousal was similar in both groups, GSR was greater in schizophrenia, suggesting differential awareness or calibration of internal states. Both groups reported social images to be more arousing than non-social images but their physiological responses to nonsocial vs. social imag-es were different. Self-reported arousal to neutral social images was correlated with positive symptoms in schizophrenia. Negative symptoms in SZ and disor-ganized schizotypy in CO were associated with reduced fEMG. Greater corruga-tor fEMG activity for positive images in SZ indicates valence-incongruent facial expressions.CONCLUSIONS: The patterns of emotional responses differed between the two groups. While both groups were in broad agreement in self-reported arousal and emotion labels, their GSR and fEMG correlates of emotion diverged in relation to the social nature of the stimuli and clinical measures. Importantly, these results suggest disrupted self awareness of internal states in schizophrenia and under-score the complexities of emotion processing in health and

Common Elements Enhance or Retard Negative Patterning Discrimination Learning Depending on Modality of Stimuli

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Redhead, Edward S.; Curtis, Cheryl

2013-01-01

Human contingency learning studies were used to compare the predictions of configural and elemental theories. In two experiments, participants were required to learn which stimuli were associated with an increase in core temperature of a fictitious nuclear plant. Experiments investigated the rate at which a simple negative patterning…

Ideological reactivity: Political conservatism and brain responsivity to emotional and neutral stimuli.

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Tritt, Shona M; Peterson, Jordan B; Page-Gould, Elizabeth; Inzlicht, Michael

2016-12-01

Conservatives are often thought to have a negativity bias-responding more intensely to negative than positive information. Yet, recent research has found that greater endorsement of conservative beliefs follows from both positive and negative emotion inductions. This suggests that the role of affect in political thought may not be restricted to negative valence, and more attention should be given to how conservatives and liberals respond to a wider range of stimulation. In this vein, we examined neural responses to a full range of affective stimuli, allowing us to examine how self-reported ideology moderated these responses. Specifically, we explored the relationship between political orientation and 2 event-related potentials (1 late and 1 early) previously shown to covary with the subjective motivational salience of stimuli-in response to photographs with standardized ratings of arousal and valence. At late time points, conservatives exhibited sustained heightened reactivity, compared with liberals, specifically in response to relatively unarousing and neutral stimuli. At early time points, conservatives exhibited somewhat enhanced neural activity in response to all stimulus types compared with liberals. These results may suggest that conservatives experience a wide variety of stimuli in their environment with increased motivational salience, including positive, neutral, and low-arousal stimuli. No effects of valence were found in this investigation. Such findings have implications for the development and refinement of psychological conceptions of political orientation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The effects of using stimuli from three different dimensions on autoshaping with a complex negative patterning discrimination.

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Pearce, John M; George, David N

2002-10-01

In two experiments pigeons received a complex negative patterning discrimination, using autoshaping, in which food was made available after three stimuli if they were presented alone (A, B, C), or in pairs (AB, AC, BC), but not when they were all presented together (ABC). Subjects also received a positive patterning discrimination in which three additional stimuli were not followed by food when presented alone (D, E, F), or in pairs (DE, DF, EF), but they were followed by food when presented together (DEF). Stimuli A and D belonged to one dimension, B and E to a second dimension, and D and F to a third dimension. For both problems, the discrimination between the individual stimuli and the triple-element compounds developed more readily than that between the pairs of stimuli and the triple-element compound. The results are consistent with predictions that can be derived from a configural theory of conditioning.

Affective Overload: The Effect of Emotive Visual Stimuli on Target Vocabulary Retrieval

Science.gov (United States)

Çetin, Yakup; Griffiths, Carol; Özel, Zeynep Ebrar Yetkiner; Kinay, Hüseyin

2016-01-01

There has been considerable interest in cognitive load in recent years, but the effect of affective load and its relationship to mental functioning has not received as much attention. In order to investigate the effects of affective stimuli on cognitive function as manifest in the ability to remember foreign language vocabulary, two groups of…

Amygdala reactivity to negative stimuli is influenced by oral contraceptive use

OpenAIRE

Petersen, Nicole; Cahill, Larry

2015-01-01

The amygdala is a highly interconnected region of the brain that is critically important to emotional processing and affective networks. Previous studies have shown that the response of the amygdala to emotionally arousing stimuli can be modulated by sex hormones. Because oral contraceptive pills dramatically lower circulating sex hormone levels with potent analogs of those hormones, we performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment to measure amygdala reactivity in response to ...

Automatic Affective Appraisal of Sexual Penetration Stimuli in Women with Vaginismus or Dyspareunia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huijding, Jorg; Borg, Charmaine; Weijmar-Schultz, Willibrord; de Jong, Peter J.

Introduction. Current psychological views are that negative appraisals of sexual stimuli lie at the core of sexual dysfunctions. It is important to differentiate between deliberate appraisals and more automatic appraisals, as research has shown that the former are most relevant to controllable

Marijuana's acute effects on cognitive bias for affective and marijuana cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Metrik, Jane; Aston, Elizabeth R; Kahler, Christopher W; Rohsenow, Damaris J; McGeary, John E; Knopik, Valerie S

2015-10-01

Marijuana produces acute increases in positive subjective effects and decreased reactivity to negative affective stimuli, though may also acutely induce anxiety. Implicit attentional and evaluative processes may explicate marijuana's ability to acutely increase positive and negative emotions. This within-subjects study examined whether smoked marijuana with 2.7-3.0% delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), relative to placebo, acutely changed attentional processing of rewarding and negative affective stimuli as well as marijuana-specific stimuli. On 2 separate days, regular marijuana users (N = 89) smoked placebo or active THC cigarette and completed subjective ratings of mood, intoxication, urge to smoke marijuana, and 2 experimental tasks: pleasantness rating (response latency and perceived pleasantness of affective and marijuana-related stimuli) and emotional Stroop (attentional bias to affective stimuli). On the pleasantness rating task, active marijuana increased response latency to negatively valenced and marijuana-related (vs. neutral) visual stimuli, beyond a general slowing of response. Active marijuana also increased pleasantness ratings of marijuana images, although to a lesser extent than placebo due to reduced marijuana urge after smoking. Overall, active marijuana did not acutely change processing of positive emotional stimuli. There was no evidence of attentional bias to affective word stimuli on the emotional Stroop task with the exception of attentional bias to positive word stimuli in the subgroup of marijuana users with cannabis dependence. Marijuana may increase allocation of attentional resources toward marijuana-specific and negatively valenced visual stimuli without altering processing of positively valenced stimuli. Marijuana-specific cues may be more attractive with higher levels of marijuana craving and less wanted with low craving levels. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Working Memory Load and Negative Picture Processing: Neural and Behavioral Associations With Panic, Social Anxiety, and Positive Affect.

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MacNamara, Annmarie; Jackson, T Bryan; Fitzgerald, Jacklynn M; Hajcak, Greg; Phan, K Luan

2018-04-22

Internalizing disorders such as anxiety may be characterized by an imbalance between bottom-up (stimulus-driven) and top-down (goal-directed) attention. The late positive potential (LPP) can be used to assess these processes when task-irrelevant negative and neutral pictures are presented within a working memory paradigm. Prior work using this paradigm has found that working memory load reduces the picture-elicited LPP across participants; however, anxious individuals showed a reduced effect of working memory load on the LPP, suggesting increased distractibility. The current study assessed transdiagnostic associations between specific symptom dimensions of anxiety, the LPP, and behavior in a clinically representative, heterogeneous group of 76 treatment-seeking patients with internalizing disorders, who performed a working memory task interspersed with negative and neutral pictures. As expected, negative pictures enhanced the LPP, and working memory load reduced the LPP. Participants with higher social anxiety showed increased LPPs to negative stimuli during early and late portions of picture presentation. Panic symptoms were associated with reduced LPPs to negative pictures compared with neutral pictures as well as a reduced effect of working memory load on the LPP during the late time window. Reduced positive affect was associated with greater behavioral interference from negative pictures. Hypervigilance for negative stimuli was uniquely explained by social anxiety symptoms, whereas panic symptoms were associated with the opposing effect-blunted processing/avoidance of these stimuli. Panic symptoms were uniquely associated with reduced top-down control. Results reveal distinct associations between neural reactivity and anxiety symptom dimensions that transcend traditional diagnostic boundaries. Copyright © 2018 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Social and nonsocial affective processing in schizophrenia - An ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Okruszek, Ł; Wichniak, A; Jarkiewicz, M; Schudy, A; Gola, M; Jednoróg, K; Marchewka, A; Łojek, E

2016-09-01

Despite social cognitive dysfunction that may be observed in patients with schizophrenia, the knowledge about social and nonsocial affective processing in schizophrenia is scant. The aim of this study was to examine neurophysiological and behavioural responses to neutral and negative stimuli with (faces, people) and without (animals, objects) social content in schizophrenia. Twenty-six patients with schizophrenia (SCZ) and 21 healthy controls (HC) completed a visual oddball paradigm with either negative or neutral pictures from the Nencki Affective Picture System (NAPS) as targets while EEG was recorded. Half of the stimuli within each category presented social content (faces, people). Negative stimuli with social content produced lower N2 amplitude and higher mean LPP than any other type of stimuli in both groups. Despite differences in behavioural ratings and alterations in ERP processing of affective stimuli (lack of EPN differentiation, decreased P3 to neutral stimuli) SCZ were still able to respond to specific categories of stimuli similarly to HC. The pattern of results suggests that with no additional emotion-related task demands patients with schizophrenia may present similar attentional engagement with negative social stimuli as healthy controls. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The presence of a culturally similar or dissimilar social partner affects neural responses to emotional stimuli

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Kate A. Woodcock

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Background: Emotional responding is sensitive to social context; however, little emphasis has been placed on the mechanisms by which social context effects changes in emotional responding. Objective: We aimed to investigate the effects of social context on neural responses to emotional stimuli to inform on the mechanisms underpinning context-linked changes in emotional responding. Design: We measured event-related potential (ERP components known to index specific emotion processes and self-reports of explicit emotion regulation strategies and emotional arousal. Female Chinese university students observed positive, negative, and neutral photographs, whilst alone or accompanied by a culturally similar (Chinese or dissimilar researcher (British. Results: There was a reduction in the positive versus neutral differential N1 amplitude (indexing attentional capture by positive stimuli in the dissimilar relative to alone context. In this context, there was also a corresponding increase in amplitude of a frontal late positive potential (LPP component (indexing engagement of cognitive control resources. In the similar relative to alone context, these effects on differential N1 and frontal LPP amplitudes were less pronounced, but there was an additional decrease in the amplitude of a parietal LPP component (indexing motivational relevance in response to positive stimuli. In response to negative stimuli, the differential N1 component was increased in the similar relative to dissimilar and alone (trend context. Conclusion: These data suggest that neural processes engaged in response to emotional stimuli are modulated by social context. Possible mechanisms for the social-context-linked changes in attentional capture by emotional stimuli include a context-directed modulation of the focus of attention, or an altered interpretation of the emotional stimuli based on additional information proportioned by the context.

Frontal brain activity and behavioral indicators of affective states are weakly affected by thermal stimuli in sheep living in different housing conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sabine eVögeli

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Many stimuli evoke short-term emotional reactions. These reactions may play an important role in assessing how a subject perceives a stimulus. Additionally, long-term mood may modulate the emotional reactions but it is still unclear in what way. The question seems to be important in terms of animal welfare, as a negative mood may taint emotional reactions. In the present study with sheep, we investigated the effects of thermal stimuli on emotional reactions and the potential modulating effect of mood induced by manipulations of the housing conditions. We assume that unpredictable, stimulus-poor conditions lead to a negative and predictable, stimulus-rich conditions to a positive mood state. The thermal stimuli were applied to the upper breast during warm ambient temperatures: hot (as presumably negative, intermediate, and cold (as presumably positive. We recorded cortical activity by functional near-infrared spectroscopy, restlessness behavior (e.g. locomotor activity, aversive behaviors and ear postures as indicators of emotional reactions. The strongest hemodynamic reaction was found during a stimulus of intermediate valence independent of the animal’s housing conditions, whereas locomotor activity, ear movements and aversive behaviors were seen most in sheep from the unpredictable, stimulus-poor housing conditions, independent of stimulus valence. We conclude that, sheep perceived the thermal stimuli and differentiated between some of them. An adequate interpretation of the neuronal activity pattern remains difficult, though. The effects of housing conditions were small indicating that the induction of mood was only modestly efficacious. Therefore, a modulating effect of mood on the emotional reaction was not found.

Marijuana’s Acute Effects on Cognitive Bias for Affective and Marijuana Cues

Science.gov (United States)

Metrik, Jane; Aston, Elizabeth R.; Kahler, Christopher W.; Rohsenow, Damaris J.; McGeary, John E.; Knopik, Valerie S.

2015-01-01

Marijuana produces acute increases in positive subjective effects and decreased reactivity to negative affective stimuli, though may also acutely induce anxiety. Implicit attentional and evaluative processes may explicate marijuana’s ability to acutely increase positive and negative emotions. This within-subjects study examined whether smoked marijuana with 2.7–3.0 % delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), relative to placebo, acutely changed attentional processing of rewarding and negative affective stimuli as well as marijuana-specific stimuli. On two separate days, regular marijuana users (N=89) smoked placebo or active THC cigarette and completed subjective ratings of mood, intoxication, urge to smoke marijuana, and two experimental tasks: Pleasantness Rating (response latency and perceived pleasantness of affective and marijuana-related stimuli) and Emotional Stroop (attentional bias to affective stimuli). On the Pleasantness Rating task, active marijuana increased response latency to negatively-valenced and marijuana-related (vs. neutral) visual stimuli, beyond a general slowing of response. Active marijuana also increased pleasantness ratings of marijuana images, although to a lesser extent than placebo due to reduced marijuana urge after smoking. Overall, active marijuana did not acutely change processing of positive emotional stimuli. There was no evidence of attentional bias to affective word stimuli on the Emotional Stroop task with the exception of attentional bias to positive word stimuli in the subgroup of marijuana users with cannabis dependence. Marijuana may increase allocation of attentional resources towards marijuana-specific and negatively-valenced visual stimuli without altering processing of positively-valenced stimuli. Marijuana-specific cues may be more attractive with higher levels of marijuana craving and less wanted with low craving levels. PMID:26167716

Reducing attentional capture of emotion by broadening attention: increased global attention reduces early electrophysiological responses to negative stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Gable, Philip A; Harmon-Jones, Eddie

2012-05-01

Decades of research has shown the influence of emotion on attentional capture, and more recently, the influence of emotion on neurophysiological processes related to attentional capture. The current research tested whether some of the earliest neurophysiological underpinnings of emotive attentional processes can be influenced by attentional manipulations of broadening versus narrowing. Previous research has shown that negative affects high in motivational intensity (e.g., disgust, fear) cause a relative narrowing of attentional scope (Gable and Harmon-Jones, 2010a; Easterbrook, 1959). Because of the strong link between motivation and attention, attentional scope should also influence the attentional capture of negative stimuli. The current study manipulated a local attentional scope or global attentional scope, then measured attentional capture towards disgust and neutral pictures using the N1 event-related potential component. Results revealed that a manipulated global attentional scope reduced N1 amplitude towards disgust pictures compared to a manipulated local attentional scope. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attention bias towards personally relevant stimuli: the individual emotional Stroop task.

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Wingenfeld, Katja; Bullig, Renate; Mensebach, Christoph; Hartje, Wolfgang; Driessen, Martin; Beblo, Thomas

2006-12-01

The emotional Stroop task is a widely used method for investigating attentional bias towards stimuli due to mood or affect. In general, standardized stimuli are used, which might not be appropriate when investigating individual contextual frameworks. It was investigated whether words chosen to be related to individuals' personal life events would produce more pronounced Stroop interference (as an indicator of attentional bias) than stimuli without any personal relevance. Twenty-six nonclinical subjects, 20 female and 6 male, participated in the study. Mean age was 36.1 yr. (SD = 18.1). All were recruited by means of local advertising. Stimulus material consisted of four word types: personal words related to negative life events with and without current personal relevance, and negative and neutral words without any personal relevance. Words were presented in three blocks. Analysis of variance showed main effects for word type and blocks, with slower reactions in the personally relevant conditions than in the negative, or neutral conditions, and in response to the first blocks as opposed to the last. These findings indicate that regardless of the word valence, personally relevant stimuli evoke more pronounced Stroop interference than do stimuli without personal relevance.

The impact of positive, negative and neutral stimuli in a virtual reality cognitive-motor rehabilitation task: a pilot study with stroke patients.

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Cameirão, Mónica S; Faria, Ana Lúcia; Paulino, Teresa; Alves, Júlio; Bermúdez I Badia, Sergi

2016-08-09

Virtual Reality (VR) based methods for stroke rehabilitation have mainly focused on motor rehabilitation, but there is increasing interest in integrating motor and cognitive training to increase similarity to real-world settings. Unfortunately, more research is needed for the definition of which type of content should be used in the design of these tools. One possibility is the use of emotional stimuli, which are known to enhance attentional processes. According to the Socioemotional Selectivity Theory, as people age, the emotional salience arises for positive and neutral, but not for negative stimuli. For this study we developed a cognitive-motor VR task involving attention and short-term memory, and we investigated the impact of using emotional images of varying valence. The task consisted of finding a target image, shown for only two seconds, among fourteen neutral distractors, and selecting it through arm movements. After performing the VR task, a recall task took place and the patients had to identify the target images among a valence-matched number of distractors. Ten stroke patients participated in a within-subjects experiment with three conditions based on the valence of the images: positive, negative and neutral. Eye movements were recorded during VR task performance with an eye tracking system. Our results show decreased attention for negative stimuli in the VR task performance when compared to neutral stimuli. The recall task shows significantly more wrongly identified images (false memories) for negative stimuli than for neutral. Regression and correlation analyses with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment and the Geriatric Depression Scale revealed differential effects of cognitive function and depressive symptomatology in the encoding and recall of positive, negative and neutral images. Further, eye movement data shows reduced search patterns for wrongly selected stimuli containing emotional content. The results of this study suggest that it is feasible

Viewing socio-affective stimuli increases connectivity within an extended default mode network.

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Göttlich, Martin; Ye, Zheng; Rodriguez-Fornells, Antoni; Münte, Thomas F; Krämer, Ulrike M

2017-03-01

Empathy is an essential ability for prosocial behavior. Previous imaging studies identified a number of brain regions implicated in affective and cognitive aspects of empathy. In this study, we investigated the neural correlates of empathy from a network perspective using graph theory and beta-series correlations. Two independent data sets were acquired using the same paradigm that elicited empathic responses to socio-affective stimuli. One data set was used to define the network nodes and modular structure, the other data set was used to investigate the effects of emotional versus neutral stimuli on network connectivity. Emotional relative to neutral stimuli increased connectivity between 74 nodes belonging to different networks. Most of these nodes belonged to an extended default mode network (eDMN). The other nodes belonged to a cognitive control network or visual networks. Within the eDMN, posterior STG/TPJ regions were identified as provincial hubs. The eDMN also showed stronger connectivity to the cognitive control network encompassing lateral PFC regions. Connector hubs between the two networks were posterior cingulate cortex and ventrolateral PFC. This stresses the advantage of a network approach as regions similarly modulated by task conditions can be dissociated into distinct networks and regions crucial for network integration can be identified. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Replay of conditioned stimuli during late REM and stage N2 sleep influences affective tone rather than emotional memory strength.

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Rihm, Julia S; Rasch, Björn

2015-07-01

Emotional memories are reprocessed during sleep, and it is widely assumed that this reprocessing occurs mainly during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. In support for this notion, vivid emotional dreams occur mainly during REM sleep, and several studies have reported emotional memory enhancement to be associated with REM sleep or REM sleep-related parameters. However, it is still unknown whether reactivation of emotional memories during REM sleep strengthens emotional memories. Here, we tested whether re-presentation of emotionally learned stimuli during REM sleep enhances emotional memory. In a split-night design, participants underwent Pavlovian conditioning after the first half of the night. Neutral sounds served as conditioned stimuli (CS) and were either paired with a negative odor (CS+) or an odorless vehicle (CS-). During sound replay in subsequent late REM or N2 sleep, half of the CS+ and half of the CS- were presented again. In contrast to our hypothesis, replay during sleep did not affect emotional memory as measured by the differentiation between CS+ and CS- in expectancy, arousal and valence ratings. However, replay unspecifically decreased subjective arousal ratings of both emotional and neutral sounds and increased positive valence ratings also for both CS+ and CS- sounds, respectively. These effects were slightly more pronounced for replay during REM sleep. Our results suggest that re-exposure to previously conditioned stimuli during late sleep does not affect emotional memory strength, but rather influences the affective tone of both emotional and neutral memories. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Valuation of Go Stimuli or Devaluation of No-Go Stimuli? Evidence of an Increased Preference for Attended Go Stimuli Following a Go/No-Go Task.

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Inoue, Kazuya; Sato, Nobuya

2017-01-01

Attentional inhibition that occurs during discrimination tasks leads to the negative evaluation of distractor stimuli. This phenomenon, known as the distractor devaluation effect also occurs when go/no-go tasks require response inhibition. However, it remains unclear whether there are interactions between attention and response controls when the distractor devaluation effect occurs. The aims of this study were to investigate whether attention to stimuli in the go/no-go task plays a facilitative role in distractor devaluation through response inhibition, and to clarify whether this effect reflects a decreased preference for no-go stimuli. Participants evaluated the preference for pictures before and after a go/no-go task. In Experiments 1 and 2, they made a go or no-go response depending on the category of pictures displayed (gummy candies or rice crackers), whereas in Experiment 3 they did on the basis digit category, even or odd numbers, superimposed on such pictures. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that the pictures presented as no-go stimuli in the preceding go/no-go task were evaluated as less positive than the pictures presented as go stimuli. This devaluation effect reflected an increased preference for the go stimuli but not a decreased preference for the no-go stimuli. Experiment 3 indicated that response inhibition did not affect the preference for the pictures that had not received attention in a preceding go/no-go task. These results suggest that although attention plays an important role in differential ratings for go and no-go stimuli, such differences, in fact, reflect the valuation of go stimuli.

Differences in male and female subjective experience and physiological reactions to emotional stimuli.

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Poláčková Šolcová, Iva; Lačev, Alek

2017-07-01

Research based on self-reported data often indicates that women are the more emotional sex. The present study examined differences in emotion between the sexes across two components of the emotional process: subjective experience and physiological reactions to emotional stimuli. During the experimental study, participants (N=124; 22.5±2.88; 51 males) subjectively rated their emotional experience (valence and intensity) towards presented positive and negative affective stimuli, while physiological reactions (facial electromyography, heart rate, skin conductance, and finger skin temperature) were measured during expositions. Results from self-reports suggest that women declared more intensive emotional experiences for positive and negative stimuli and rated negative stimuli as more negative in comparison to men. Physiological measurements showed differences between the sexes in the physiological baseline measurements (facial electromyography, skin conductance and finger skin temperature). However, physiological responses towards positive or negative emotional stimuli did not prove to be different between men and women, except for finger skin temperature. Relations between self-reported subjective experiences and physiological changes were weak and insignificant. Collectively, our findings suggest certain emotional differences experienced between men and women. These differences can be found specifically in self-reported subjective experiences, while significant differences were not predominantly present in recorded physiological reactions. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier B.V.

The mediation effect of menstrual phase on negative emotion processing: evidence from N2.

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Wu, Haiyan; Chen, Chunping; Cheng, Dazhi; Yang, Suyong; Huang, Ruiwang; Cacioppo, Stephanie; Luo, Yue-Jia

2014-01-01

Numerous studies have shown a 'negativity bias' in emotion processing and effect of menstrual phase on emotion processing. Most of these results, however, did not match the arousal of different types of stimuli. The present study examined the time course of negative emotion processing across different menstrual phases (e.g., late luteal/premenstrual phase and follicular phase) when the arousal level of negative and neutral stimuli was equal. Following previous studies, an oddball paradigm was utilized in present study. Participants viewed neutral and negative (highly (HN) and moderately negative (MN)) stimuli with matched arousal and were asked to make deviant vs. standard judgments. The behavioral results showed a higher accuracy for HN stimuli than neutral stimuli, and the other comparisons were not significant. The major event-related potential (ERP) finding was that N2 amplitude was larger for MN than neutral in the late luteal phase, whereas such difference was absent during the follicular phase. Moreover, The N2 for HN stimuli was larger in late luteal phase than in follicular phase. Therefore, female may be with higher sensitivity to MN stimuli during late luteal phase than during follicular phase when the arousal of stimuli was well controlled. These results provide additional insight to premenstrual affective syndrome and affective disorder.

Differential autoshaping to common and distinctive elements of positive and negative discriminative stimuli.

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Wasserman, E A; Anderson, P A

1974-11-01

The learning by hungry pigeons of a discrimination between two successively presented compound visual stimuli was investigated using a two-key autoshaping procedure. Common and distinctive stimulus elements were simultaneously presented on separate keys and either followed by food delivery, S+, or not, S-. The subjects acquired both between-trial and within-trial discriminations. On S+ trials, pigeons pecked the distinctive stimulus more than the common stimulus; before responding ceased on S- trials, they pecked the common stimulus more than the distinctive one. Mastery of the within-display discrimination during S+ trials preceded mastery of the between-trials discrimination. These findings extend the Jenkins-Sainsbury analysis of discriminations based upon a single distinguishing feature to discriminations in which common and distinctive elements are associated with both the positive and negative discriminative stimuli. The similarity of these findings to other effects found in autoshaping-approach to signals that forecast reinforcement and withdrawal from signals that forecast nonreinforcement-is also discussed.

Individual differences in response to positive and negative stimuli: endocannabinoid-based insight on approach and avoidance behaviors

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Daniela eLaricchiuta

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Approach and avoidance behaviors - the primary responses to the environmental stimuli of danger, novelty and reward - are associated with the brain structures that mediate cognitive functionality, reward sensitivity and emotional expression. Individual differences in approach and avoidance behaviors are modulated by the functioning of amygdaloid-hypothalamic-striatal and striatal-cerebellar networks implicated in action and reaction to salient stimuli. The nodes of these networks are strongly interconnected and by acting on them the endocannabinoid and dopaminergic systems increase the intensity of appetitive or defensive motivation. This review analyzes the approach and avoidance behaviors in humans and rodents, addresses neurobiological and neurochemical aspects of these behaviors, and proposes a possible synaptic plasticity mechanism, related to endocannabinoid-dependent long-term potentiation and depression that allows responding to salient positive and negative stimuli.

Contextual influences on implicit evaluation: a test of additive versus contrastive effects of evaluative context stimuli in affective priming.

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Gawronski, Bertram; Deutsch, Roland; Seidel, Oliver

2005-09-01

Drawing on two alternative accounts of the affective priming effect (spreading activation vs. response interference), the present research investigated the underlying processes of how evaluative context stimuli influence implicit evaluations in the affective priming task. Employing two sequentially presented prime stimuli (rather than a single prime), two experiments showed that affective priming effects elicited by a given prime stimulus were more pronounced when this stimulus was preceded by a context prime of the opposite valence than when it was preceded by a context prime of the same valence. This effect consistently emerged for pictures (Experiment 1) and words (Experiment 2) as prime stimuli. These results suggest that the impact of evaluative context stimuli on implicit evaluations is mediated by contrast effects in the attention to evaluative information rather than by additive effects in the activation of evaluative information in associative memory.

Is Neural Processing of Negative Stimuli Altered in Addiction Independent of Drug Effects? Findings From Drug-Naïve Youth with Internet Gaming Disorder.

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Yip, Sarah W; Gross, James J; Chawla, Megha; Ma, Shan-Shan; Shi, Xing-Hui; Liu, Lu; Yao, Yuan-Wei; Zhu, Lei; Worhunsky, Patrick D; Zhang, Jintao

2018-05-01

Difficulties in emotion regulation are commonly reported among individuals with alcohol and drug addictions and contribute to the acquisition and maintenance of addictive behaviors. Alterations in neural processing of negative affective stimuli have further been demonstrated among individuals with addictions. However, it is unclear whether these alterations are a general feature of addictions or are a result of prolonged exposure to drugs of abuse. To test the hypothesis of altered negative affect processing independent of drug effects, this study assessed neural function among drug-naïve youth with a behavioral addiction-Internet gaming disorder (IGD). Fifty-six young adults (28 with IGD, 28 matched controls) participated in fMRI scanning during performance of a well-validated emotion regulation task. Between-group differences in neural activity during task performance were assessed using a whole-brain, mixed-effects ANOVA with correction for multiple comparisons at currently recommended thresholds (voxel-level peffects.

False memories to emotional stimuli are not equally affected in right- and left-brain-damaged stroke patients.

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Buratto, Luciano Grüdtner; Zimmermann, Nicolle; Ferré, Perrine; Joanette, Yves; Fonseca, Rochele Paz; Stein, Lilian Milnitsky

2014-10-01

Previous research has attributed to the right hemisphere (RH) a key role in eliciting false memories to visual emotional stimuli. These results have been explained in terms of two right-hemisphere properties: (i) that emotional stimuli are preferentially processed in the RH and (ii) that visual stimuli are represented more coarsely in the RH. According to this account, false emotional memories are preferentially produced in the RH because emotional stimuli are both more strongly and more diffusely activated during encoding, leaving a memory trace that can be erroneously reactivated by similar but unstudied emotional items at test. If this right-hemisphere hypothesis is correct, then RH damage should result in a reduction in false memories to emotional stimuli relative to left-hemisphere lesions. To investigate this possibility, groups of right-brain-damaged (RBD, N=15), left-brain-damaged (LBD, N=15) and healthy (HC, N=30) participants took part in a recognition memory experiment with emotional (negative and positive) and non-emotional pictures. False memories were operationalized as incorrect responses to unstudied pictures that were similar to studied ones. Both RBD and LBD participants showed similar reductions in false memories for negative pictures relative to controls. For positive pictures, however, false memories were reduced only in RBD patients. The results provide only partial support for the right-hemisphere hypothesis and suggest that inter-hemispheric cooperation models may be necessary to fully account for false emotional memories. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Negative “gossip” stimuli modulate left-lateralized P1 component while viewing neutral faces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Weed, Ethan; Allen, Micah Galen; Gramm, Daniel

, Anderson et al. (2011) showed that short “gossip” phrases modulated the length of time faces remained perceptually dominant. However, binocular rivalry is measured by self-report. We used EEG to investigate the timing of gossip’s early effect on face perception. Gossip stimuli were those used by Anderson...... et al. (2011), translated to Danish. Neutral faces were taken from the PUT database (Kasiński et al., 2008). Participants (n=30) viewed each face together with the gossip stimuli a total of six times. Following this encoding period, 32 channels of EEG were recorded while participants viewed the faces...... mixed with unfamiliar faces, and performed a distracter task. A post-test checked participants’ memory of the individual faces. We hypothesized that negative gossip would modulate the face-sensitive N170 component at electrodes P7 and P8. No differences were observed in the N170, and no memory effect...

Emotional suppression in torture survivors: Relationship to posttraumatic stress symptoms and trauma-related negative affect.

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Nickerson, Angela; Garber, Benjamin; Ahmed, Ola; Asnaani, Anu; Cheung, Jessica; Hofmann, Stefan G; Huynh, Ly; Liddell, Belinda; Litz, Brett T; Pajak, Rosanna; Bryant, Richard A

2016-08-30

While clinical reports suggest that torture survivors may try to suppress their emotions during torture, little is known about the use of emotional suppression following torture. In this study, 82 refugees and asylum-seekers (including 33 torture survivors) completed self-report measures of trait suppression, PTSD symptoms and baseline negative affect before being exposed to images depicting scenes of interpersonal trauma. The use of suppression while viewing the images was indexed and negative affect was measured both immediately after viewing the images and following a five minute rest period. Findings indicated that torture survivors did not show higher rates of trait suppression or state emotional suppression during the experimental session compared to non-torture survivors. However, torture survivors who endorsed state suppression higher levels of distress, and this relationship was especially strong for those with more severe PTSD symptoms. In contrast, there was a negative relationship between state suppression and distress for non-torture survivors with high levels of PTSD symptoms. These findings suggest that, while torture exposure does not lead to greater use of suppression, it does influence the impact of suppression on emotional responses to stimuli. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

tDCS over the left prefrontal cortex enhances cognitive control for positive affective stimuli.

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Vanderhasselt, Marie-Anne; De Raedt, Rudi; Brunoni, Andre R; Campanhã, Camila; Baeken, Chris; Remue, Jonathan; Boggio, Paulo S

2013-01-01

Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulation technique with promising results for enhancing cognitive information processes. So far, however, research has mainly focused on the effects of tDCS on cognitive control operations for non-emotional material. Therefore, our aim was to investigate the effects on cognitive control considering negative versus positive material. For this sham-controlled, within-subjects study, we selected a homogeneous sample of twenty-five healthy participants. By using behavioral measures and event related potentials (ERP) as indexes, we aimed to investigate whether a single session of anodal tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) would have specific effects in enhancing cognitive control for positive and negative valenced stimuli. After tDCS over the left DLPFC (and not sham control stimulation), we observed more negative N450 amplitudes along with faster reaction times when inhibiting a habitual response to happy compared to sad facial expressions. Gender did not influence the effects of tDCS on cognitive control for emotional information. In line with the Valence Theory of side-lateralized activity, this stimulation protocol might have led to a left dominant (relative to right) prefrontal cortical activity, resulting in augmented cognitive control specifically for positive relative to negative stimuli. To verify that tDCS induces effects that are in line with all aspects of the well known Valence Theory, future research should investigate the effects of tDCS over the left vs. right DLPFC on cognitive control for emotional information.

Reliability Generalization: An Examination of the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule

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Leue, Anja; Lange, Sebastian

2011-01-01

The assessment of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) by means of the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule has received a remarkable popularity in the social sciences. Using a meta-analytic tool--namely, reliability generalization (RG)--population reliability scores of both scales have been investigated on the basis of a random…

Pupillary Response to Negative Emotional Stimuli Is Differentially Affected in Meditation Practitioners

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Alejandra Vasquez-Rosati

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Clinically, meditative practices have become increasingly relevant, decreasing anxiety in patients and increasing antibody production. However, few studies have examined the physiological correlates, or effects of the incorporation of meditative practices. Because pupillary reactivity is a marker for autonomic changes and emotional processing, we hypothesized that the pupillary responses of mindfulness meditation practitioners (MP and subjects without such practices (non-meditators (NM differ, reflecting different emotional processing. In a group of 11 MP and 9 NM, we recorded the pupil diameter using video-oculography while subjects explored images with emotional contents. Although both groups showed a similar pupillary response for positive and neutral images, negative images evoked a greater pupillary contraction and a weaker dilation in the MP group. Also, this group had faster physiological recovery to baseline levels. These results suggest that mindfulness meditation practices modulate the response of the autonomic nervous system, reflected in the pupillary response to negative images and faster physiological recovery to baseline levels, suggesting that pupillometry could be used to assess the potential health benefits of these practices in patients.

Differential autoshaping to common and distinctive elements of positive and negative discriminative stimuli1

Science.gov (United States)

Wasserman, Edward A.; Anderson, Patricia A.

1974-01-01

The learning by hungry pigeons of a discrimination between two successively presented compound visual stimuli was investigated using a two-key autoshaping procedure. Common and distinctive stimulus elements were simultaneously presented on separate keys and either followed by food delivery, S+, or not, S−. The subjects acquired both between-trial and within-trial discriminations. On S+ trials, pigeons pecked the distinctive stimulus more than the common stimulus; before responding ceased on S− trials, they pecked the common stimulus more than the distinctive one. Mastery of the within-display discrimination during S+ trials preceded mastery of the between-trials discrimination. These findings extend the Jenkins-Sainsbury analysis of discriminations based upon a single distinguishing feature to discriminations in which common and distinctive elements are associated with both the positive and negative discriminative stimuli. The similarity of these findings to other effects found in autoshaping—approach to signals that forecast reinforcement and withdrawal from signals that forecast nonreinforcement—is also discussed. PMID:16811812

Age-related differences in attention and memory toward emotional stimuli.

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Bi, Dandan; Han, Buxin

2015-09-01

From the perspectives of time perception and motivation, socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) postulates that in comparison with younger adults, older adults tend to prefer positive stimuli and avoid negative stimuli. Currently the cross-cultural consistency of this positivity effect (PE) is still not clear. While empirical evidence for Western populations is accumulating, the validation of the PE in Asians is still rare. The current study compared 28 younger and 24 older Chinese adults in the processing of emotional information. Eye-tracking and recognition data of participants in processing pictures with positive, negative, or neutral emotional information sampled from the International Affection Picture System were collected. The results showed less negative bias for emotional attention in older adults than in younger adults, whereas for emotional recognition, only younger adults showed a negative bias while older adults showed no bias between negative and positive emotional information. Overall, compared with younger adults, emotional processing was more positive in older adults. It was concluded that Chinese older adults show a PE. © 2015 The Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd.

Time of day affects implicit memory for unattended stimuli.

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Rothen, Nicolas; Meier, Beat

2016-11-01

We investigated whether circadian arousal affects perceptual priming as a function of whether stimuli were attended or ignored during learning. We tested 160 participants on- and off-peak with regards to their circadian arousal. In the study phase, they were presented with two superimposed pictures in different colours. They had to name the pictures of one colour while ignoring the others. In the test phase, they were presented with the same and randomly intermixed new pictures. Each picture was presented in black colour in a fragment completion task. Priming was measured as the difference in fragmentation level at which the pictures from the study phase were named compared to the new pictures. Priming was stronger for attended than ignored pictures. Time of day affected priming only for ignored pictures, with stronger priming effects off-peak than on-peak. Thus, circadian arousal seems to favour the encoding of unattended materials specifically at off-peak. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Mindfulness Trait Predicts Neurophysiological Reactivity Associated with Negativity Bias: An ERP Study

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Nerissa S. P. Ho

2015-01-01

Full Text Available This study explored the relationship of mindfulness trait with the early and late stages of affective processing, by examining the two corresponding ERP components, P2 and LPP, collected from twenty-two male Chinese participants with a wide range of meditation experiences. Multiple regression analyses was performed on the mindfulness scores, as measured by CAMS-R, with the subjective affective ratings and ERP data collected during an emotion processing task. The results showed that increased mindfulness scores predicted increased valence ratings of negative stimuli (less negative, as well as increased P2 amplitudes at the frontocentral location for positive compared to negative stimuli. Based on these findings, a plausible mechanism of mindfulness in reducing negativity bias was discussed. Moreover, our results replicated previous findings on the age-related increase of P2 amplitudes at the frontal sites for positive compared to neutral stimuli. Since the locations at which P2 amplitudes were found as associated with age and mindfulness differed, as did the emotional contents of the stimuli being compared, indicating that the effect of age did not confound our findings on mindfulness and the two factors might operate on early affective processing from distinct sources and mechanisms.

tDCS over the left prefrontal cortex enhances cognitive control for positive affective stimuli.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marie-Anne Vanderhasselt

Full Text Available Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS is a neuromodulation technique with promising results for enhancing cognitive information processes. So far, however, research has mainly focused on the effects of tDCS on cognitive control operations for non-emotional material. Therefore, our aim was to investigate the effects on cognitive control considering negative versus positive material. For this sham-controlled, within-subjects study, we selected a homogeneous sample of twenty-five healthy participants. By using behavioral measures and event related potentials (ERP as indexes, we aimed to investigate whether a single session of anodal tDCS of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC would have specific effects in enhancing cognitive control for positive and negative valenced stimuli. After tDCS over the left DLPFC (and not sham control stimulation, we observed more negative N450 amplitudes along with faster reaction times when inhibiting a habitual response to happy compared to sad facial expressions. Gender did not influence the effects of tDCS on cognitive control for emotional information. In line with the Valence Theory of side-lateralized activity, this stimulation protocol might have led to a left dominant (relative to right prefrontal cortical activity, resulting in augmented cognitive control specifically for positive relative to negative stimuli. To verify that tDCS induces effects that are in line with all aspects of the well known Valence Theory, future research should investigate the effects of tDCS over the left vs. right DLPFC on cognitive control for emotional information.

Intake of Mediterranean foods associated with positive affect and low negative affect.

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Ford, Patricia A; Jaceldo-Siegl, Karen; Lee, Jerry W; Youngberg, Wes; Tonstad, Serena

2013-02-01

To examine associations between consumption of foods typical of Mediterranean versus Western diets with positive and negative affect. Nutrients influence mental states yet few studies have examined whether foods protective or deleterious for cardiovascular disease affect mood. Participants were 9255 Adventist church attendees in North America who completed a validated food frequency questionnaire in 2002-6. Scores for affect were obtained from the positive and negative affect schedule questionnaire in 2006-7. Multiple linear regression models controlled for age, gender, ethnicity, BMI, education, sleep, sleep squared (to account for high or low amounts), exercise, total caloric intake, alcohol and time between the questionnaires. Intake of vegetables (β=0.124 [95% CI 0.101, 0.147]), fruit (β=0.066 [95% CI 0.046, 0.085]), olive oil (β=0.070 [95% CI 0.029, 0.111]), nuts (β=0.054 [95% CI 0.026, 0.082]), and legumes (β=0.055 [95% CI 0.032, 0.077]) were associated with positive affect while sweets/desserts (β=-0.066 [95% CI -0.086, -0.046]), soda (β=-0.025 [95% CI -0.037, -0.013]) and fast food frequency (β=-0.046 [95% CI -0.062, -0.030]) were inversely associated with positive affect. Intake of sweets/desserts (β=0.058 [95% CI 0.037, 0.078]) and fast food frequency (β=0.052 [95% CI 0.036, 0.068]) were associated with negative affect while intake of vegetables (β=-0.076 [95% CI -0.099, -0.052]), fruit (β=-0.033 [95% CI -0.053, -0.014]) and nuts (β=-0.088 [95% CI -0.116, -0.060]) were inversely associated with negative affect. Gender interacted with red meat intake (Pnegative affect in females only. Foods typical of Mediterranean diets were associated with positive affect as well as lower negative affect while Western foods were associated with low positive affect in general and negative affect in women. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Family Caregivers' Patterns of Positive and Negative Affect

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Robertson, Suzanne M.; Zarit, Steven H.; Duncan, Larissa G.; Rovine, Michael J.; Femia, Elia E.

2007-01-01

Stressful and positive family caregiving experiences were examined as predictors of caregivers' patterns of positive and negative affect in a sample of families providing care for a relative with dementia (N = 234). Four affect pattern groups were identified: (a) Well Adjusted (i.e., high positive affect, low negative affect); (b) Ambiguous (i.e.,…

Unattractive infant faces elicit negative affect from adults.

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Schein, Stevie S; Langlois, Judith H

2015-02-01

We examined the relationship between infant attractiveness and adult affect by investigating whether differing levels of infant facial attractiveness elicit facial muscle movement correlated with positive and negative affect from adults (N=87) using electromyography. Unattractive infant faces evoked significantly more corrugator supercilii and levator labii superioris movement (physiological correlates of negative affect) than attractive infant faces. These results suggest that unattractive infants may be at risk for negative affective responses from adults, though the relationship between those responses and caregiving behavior remains elusive. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Information Content Moderates Positivity and Negativity Biases in Memory

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Hess, Thomas M.; Popham, Lauren E.; Dennis, Paul A.; Emery, Lisa

2014-01-01

Two experiments examined the impact of encoding conditions and information content in memory for positive, neutral, and negative pictures. We examined the hypotheses that the positivity effect in memory (i.e., a bias in favor of positive or against negative information in later life) would be reduced when (a) pictures were viewed under structured as opposed to unstructured conditions, and (b) contained social as opposed to nonsocial content. Both experiments found that the positivity effect observed with nonsocial stimuli was absent with social stimuli. In addition, little evidence was obtained that encoding conditions affected the strength of the positivity effect. We argue that some types of social stimuli may engage different types of processing than nonsocial stimuli, perhaps encouraging self-referential processing that engages attention and supports memory. This processing may then conflict with the goal-driven, top-down processing that is hypothesized to drive the positivity effect. Thus, our results identify further boundary conditions associated with the positivity effect in memory, arguing that stimulus factors as well as situational goals may affect its occurrence. Further research awaits to determine if this effect is specific to all social stimuli or specific subsets. PMID:23421322

Information content moderates positivity and negativity biases in memory.

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Hess, Thomas M; Popham, Lauren E; Dennis, Paul A; Emery, Lisa

2013-09-01

Two experiments examined the impact of encoding conditions and information content in memory for positive, neutral, and negative pictures. We examined the hypotheses that the positivity effect in memory (i.e., a bias in favor of positive or against negative information in later life) would be reduced when (a) pictures were viewed under structured as opposed to unstructured conditions, and (b) contained social as opposed to nonsocial content. Both experiments found that the positivity effect observed with nonsocial stimuli was absent with social stimuli. In addition, little evidence was obtained that encoding conditions affected the strength of the positivity effect. We argue that some types of social stimuli may engage different types of processing than nonsocial stimuli, perhaps encouraging self-referential processing that engages attention and supports memory. This processing may then conflict with the goal-driven, top-down processing that is hypothesized to drive the positivity effect. Thus, our results identify further boundary conditions associated with the positivity effect in memory, arguing that stimulus factors as well as situational goals may affect its occurrence. Further research awaits to determine if this effect is specific to all social stimuli or specific subsets.

Only "efficient" emotional stimuli affect the content of working memory during free-recollection from natural scenes.

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Buttafuoco, Arianna; Pedale, Tiziana; Buchanan, Tony W; Santangelo, Valerio

2018-02-01

Emotional events are thought to have privileged access to attention and memory, consuming resources needed to encode competing emotionally neutral stimuli. However, it is not clear whether this detrimental effect is automatic or depends on the successful maintenance of the specific emotional object within working memory. Here, participants viewed everyday scenes including an emotional object among other neutral objects followed by a free-recollection task. Results showed that emotional objects-irrespective of their perceptual saliency-were recollected more often than neutral objects. The probability of being recollected increased as a function of the arousal of the emotional objects, specifically for negative objects. Successful recollection of emotional objects (positive or negative) from a scene reduced the overall number of recollected neutral objects from the same scene. This indicates that only emotional stimuli that are efficient in grabbing (and then consuming) available attentional resources play a crucial role during the encoding of competing information, with a subsequent bias in the recollection of neutral representations.

Alexithymia Components Are Differentially Related to Explicit Negative Affect But Not Associated with Explicit Positive Affect or Implicit Affectivity.

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Suslow, Thomas; Donges, Uta-Susan

2017-01-01

Alexithymia represents a multifaceted personality construct defined by difficulties in recognizing and verbalizing emotions and externally oriented thinking. According to clinical observations, experience of negative affects is exacerbated and experience of positive affects is decreased in alexithymia. Findings from research based on self-report indicate that all alexithymia facets are negatively associated with the experience of positive affects, whereas difficulties identifying and describing feelings are related to heightened negative affect. Implicit affectivity, which can be measured using indirect assessment methods, relates to processes of the impulsive system. The aim of the present study was to examine, for the first time, the relations between alexithymia components and implicit and explicit positive and negative affectivity in healthy adults. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were administered to two hundred and forty-one healthy individuals along with measures of depression and trait anxiety. Difficulties identifying feelings were correlated with explicit negative trait affect, depressive mood and trait anxiety. Difficulties describing feelings showed smaller but also significant correlations with depressive mood and trait anxiety but were not correlated with explicit state or trait affect as assessed by the PANAS. Externally oriented thinking was not significantly correlated with any of the implicit and explicit affect measures. According to our findings, an externally oriented, concrete way of thinking appears to be generally unrelated to dispositions to develop positive or negative affects. Difficulties identifying feelings seem to be associated with increased conscious negative affects but not with a heightened disposition to develop negative affects at an automatic response level.

Alexithymia Components Are Differentially Related to Explicit Negative Affect But Not Associated with Explicit Positive Affect or Implicit Affectivity

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Thomas Suslow

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Alexithymia represents a multifaceted personality construct defined by difficulties in recognizing and verbalizing emotions and externally oriented thinking. According to clinical observations, experience of negative affects is exacerbated and experience of positive affects is decreased in alexithymia. Findings from research based on self-report indicate that all alexithymia facets are negatively associated with the experience of positive affects, whereas difficulties identifying and describing feelings are related to heightened negative affect. Implicit affectivity, which can be measured using indirect assessment methods, relates to processes of the impulsive system. The aim of the present study was to examine, for the first time, the relations between alexithymia components and implicit and explicit positive and negative affectivity in healthy adults. The 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS were administered to two hundred and forty-one healthy individuals along with measures of depression and trait anxiety. Difficulties identifying feelings were correlated with explicit negative trait affect, depressive mood and trait anxiety. Difficulties describing feelings showed smaller but also significant correlations with depressive mood and trait anxiety but were not correlated with explicit state or trait affect as assessed by the PANAS. Externally oriented thinking was not significantly correlated with any of the implicit and explicit affect measures. According to our findings, an externally oriented, concrete way of thinking appears to be generally unrelated to dispositions to develop positive or negative affects. Difficulties identifying feelings seem to be associated with increased conscious negative affects but not with a heightened disposition to develop negative affects at an automatic response level.

The Relationship between Negative Affect and Reported Cognitive Failures

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Tabitha W. Payne

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study was to expand our understanding of the range of negative affect associated with reported problems with everyday functions and activities, measured by the cognitive failures questionnaire (CFQ. Evidence from previous research indicates that individuals meeting criteria for mood disorders, such as major depression or seasonal affective disorder, experience cognitive deficits in memory and attention that can lead to problems with everyday activities reported in the CFQ. The Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS was used to assess potential correlations with a wider range of negative emotions. Findings for a sample of 129 college students revealed that negative affective experiences were significantly correlated with failures of memory and attention on the CFQ (fear = .41, hostility = .38, sadness = .28, and guilt = .43. Conversely, positive affect was negatively correlated with distractibility (r=−.21. Additional affective scales on the PANAS (e.g., shyness and fatigue were also associated with higher reports of cognitive failures. The results provide converging evidence of a relationship between negative affective experiences and reported frequency of problems on the cognitive failures questionnaire.

Negative affect reduces performance in implicit sequence learning.

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Junchen Shang

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: It is well documented that positive rather than negative moods encourage integrative processing of conscious information. However, the extent to which implicit or unconscious learning can be influenced by affective states remains unclear. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A Serial Reaction Time (SRT task with sequence structures requiring integration over past trials was adopted to examine the effect of affective states on implicit learning. Music was used to induce and maintain positive and negative affective states. The present study showed that participants in negative rather than positive states learned less of the regularity. Moreover, the knowledge was shown by a Bayesian analysis to be largely unconscious as participants were poor at recognizing the regularity. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The results demonstrated that negative rather than positive affect inhibited implicit learning of complex structures. Our findings help to understand the effects of affective states on unconscious or implicit processing.

The Affective Consequences of Cognitive Inhibition: Devaluation or Neutralization?

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Frischen, Alexandra; Ferrey, Anne E.; Burt, Dustin H. R.; Pistchik, Meghan; Fenske, Mark J.

2012-01-01

Affective evaluations of previously ignored visual stimuli are more negative than those of novel items or prior targets of attention or response. This has been taken as evidence that inhibition has negative affective consequences. But inhibition could act instead to attenuate or "neutralize" preexisting affective salience, predicting opposite…

Positive and Negative Affect More Concurrent among Blacks than Whites.

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Lankarani, Maryam Moghani; Assari, Shervin

2017-08-01

While positive and negative affect are inversely linked, people may experience and report both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. However, it is unknown if race alters the magnitude of the association between positive and negative affect. The current study compared Black and White Americans for the association between positive and negative affect. We used data from MIDUS (Midlife in the United States), a national study of Americans with an age range of 25 to 75. A total number of 7108 individuals were followed for 10 years from 1995 to 2004. Positive and negative affect was measured at baseline (1995) and follow-up (2004). Demographic (age and gender), socioeconomic (education and income) as well as health (self-rated health, chronic medical conditions, and body mass index) factors measured at baseline were covariates. A series of linear regressions were used to test the moderating effect of race on the reciprocal association between positive and negative affect at baseline and over time, net of covariates. In the pooled sample, positive and negative affect showed inverse correlation at baseline and over time, net of covariates. Blacks and Whites differed in the magnitude of the association between positive and negative affect, with weaker inverse associations among Blacks compared to Whites, beyond all covariates. Weaker reciprocal association between positive and negative affect in Blacks compared to Whites has implications for cross-racial measurement of affect and mood, including depression. Depression screening programs should be aware that race alters the concordance between positive and negative affect domains and that Blacks endorse higher levels of positive affect compared to Whites in the presence of high negative affect.

Macaque cardiac physiology is sensitive to the valence of passively viewed sensory stimuli.

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Eliza Bliss-Moreau

Full Text Available Autonomic nervous system activity is an important component of affective experience. We demonstrate in the rhesus monkey that both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system respond differentially to the affective valence of passively viewed video stimuli. We recorded cardiac impedance and an electrocardiogram while adult macaques watched a series of 300 30-second videos that varied in their affective content. We found that sympathetic activity (as measured by cardiac pre-ejection period increased and parasympathetic activity (as measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia decreased as video content changes from positive to negative. These findings parallel the relationship between autonomic nervous system responsivity and valence of stimuli in humans. Given the relationship between human cardiac physiology and affective processing, these findings suggest that macaque cardiac physiology may be an index of affect in nonverbal animals.

Obesity and the relationship with positive and negative affect.

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Pasco, Julie A; Williams, Lana J; Jacka, Felice N; Brennan, Sharon L; Berk, Michael

2013-05-01

To examine the cross-sectional association between overweight and obesity and positive and negative affect. Participants included 273 women, aged 29-84 years, who were enrolled in the Geelong Osteoporosis Study (GOS). Weight and height were measured and overweight and obesity determined from body mass index (BMI; kg/m(2)) according to WHO criteria. Medical history and lifestyle exposures were assessed by questionnaire. Positive and negative affect scores were derived using the validated 20-item Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) and categorised into tertiles. A pattern of greater negative affect scores was observed for increasing levels of BMI. Setting normal weight as the referent category, the odds for having a negative affect score in the highest tertile were sequentially increased for women who were overweight (OR = 1.31, 95% CI: 0.72-2.40) and obese (OR = 1.95, 95% CI: 1.02-3.73). The association between obesity and increased negative affect was diminished by adjusting for physical illness (adjusted OR = 1.76, 95% CI: 0.91-3.42). These associations were not substantially influenced by positive affect score or other exposures. No association was detected between BMI categories and positive affect scores. We report data suggesting that obesity is associated with greater negative affect scores, reflecting emotions such as distress, anger, disgust, fear and shame, and that this association is attenuated by physical illness. Further investigations are now warranted to explore possible mechanistic interplay between pathological, neurobiological and psychosocial factors.

Abnormal daily situations and negative affects in Peru

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Ramón León

2002-12-01

Full Text Available Four hundred seventy nine Peruvian students (188 mal e and 291 female rated the frequency of negative social emotions in themselves, in their neighborhood, and in the Peruvian society; and the frequency of anomalous daily situations. Verbal aggressions and gossiping obtained the highest averages in the evaluations of affects in the neighborhood, but solidarity was rated as high than the negative affects. In the Peruvian society, envy and physical aggression were rated asthe highest, and the positive affects obtained the smallest averages. To be a victim of an assault,to be cheated, and to be insulted obtained the highest averages in anomalous situations. Resentment and anger were the most salient negative affects.

Macroscopic brain dynamics during verbal and pictorial processing of affective stimuli.

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Keil, Andreas

2006-01-01

Emotions can be viewed as action dispositions, preparing an individual to act efficiently and successfully in situations of behavioral relevance. To initiate optimized behavior, it is essential to accurately process the perceptual elements indicative of emotional relevance. The present chapter discusses effects of affective content on neural and behavioral parameters of perception, across different information channels. Electrocortical data are presented from studies examining affective perception with pictures and words in different task contexts. As a main result, these data suggest that sensory facilitation has an important role in affective processing. Affective pictures appear to facilitate perception as a function of emotional arousal at multiple levels of visual analysis. If the discrimination between affectively arousing vs. nonarousing content relies on fine-grained differences, amplification of the cortical representation may occur as early as 60-90 ms after stimulus onset. Affectively arousing information as conveyed via visual verbal channels was not subject to such very early enhancement. However, electrocortical indices of lexical access and/or activation of semantic networks showed that affectively arousing content may enhance the formation of semantic representations during word encoding. It can be concluded that affective arousal is associated with activation of widespread networks, which act to optimize sensory processing. On the basis of prioritized sensory analysis for affectively relevant stimuli, subsequent steps such as working memory, motor preparation, and action may be adjusted to meet the adaptive requirements of the situation perceived.

Negative affect impairs associative memory but not item memory.

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Bisby, James A; Burgess, Neil

2013-12-17

The formation of associations between items and their context has been proposed to rely on mechanisms distinct from those supporting memory for a single item. Although emotional experiences can profoundly affect memory, our understanding of how it interacts with different aspects of memory remains unclear. We performed three experiments to examine the effects of emotion on memory for items and their associations. By presenting neutral and negative items with background contexts, Experiment 1 demonstrated that item memory was facilitated by emotional affect, whereas memory for an associated context was reduced. In Experiment 2, arousal was manipulated independently of the memoranda, by a threat of shock, whereby encoding trials occurred under conditions of threat or safety. Memory for context was equally impaired by the presence of negative affect, whether induced by threat of shock or a negative item, relative to retrieval of the context of a neutral item in safety. In Experiment 3, participants were presented with neutral and negative items as paired associates, including all combinations of neutral and negative items. The results showed both above effects: compared to a neutral item, memory for the associate of a negative item (a second item here, context in Experiments 1 and 2) is impaired, whereas retrieval of the item itself is enhanced. Our findings suggest that negative affect impairs associative memory while recognition of a negative item is enhanced. They support dual-processing models in which negative affect or stress impairs hippocampal-dependent associative memory while the storage of negative sensory/perceptual representations is spared or even strengthened.

Effects of testosterone on attention and memory for emotional stimuli in male rhesus monkeys.

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King, Hanna M; Kurdziel, Laura B; Meyer, Jerrold S; Lacreuse, Agnès

2012-03-01

Increasing evidence in humans and other animals suggests that testosterone (T) plays an important role in modulating emotion. We previously reported that T treatment in rhesus monkeys undergoing chemically induced hypogonadism results in increased watching time of videos depicting fights between unfamiliar conspecifics (Lacreuse et al., 2010). In the current study, we aimed to further investigate the effect of T manipulations on attention and memory for emotional stimuli in male rhesus monkeys. Six males (7 years old) were administered Depot Lupron to suppress endogenous T levels and treated with either testosterone enanthate (TE, 5 mg/kg) or oil, before crossing over to the alternate treatment. Animals were tested for 16 weeks on two computerized touchscreen tasks with both social and nonsocial emotional and neutral stimuli. The Dot-Probe task was used to measure attention, and the Delayed-Non-Matching-to-Sample task with a 1s delay (DNMS) was used to measure recognition memory for these stimuli. Performance on the two tasks was examined during each of four month-long phases: Baseline, Lupron alone, Lupron+TE and Lupron+oil. It was predicted that T administration would lead to increased attention to negative social stimuli (i.e., negative facial expressions of unfamiliar conspecifics) and would improve memory for such stimuli. We found no evidence to support these predictions. In the Dot-Probe task, an attentional bias towards negative social stimuli was observed at baseline, but T treatment did not enhance this bias. Instead, monkeys had faster response times when treated with T compared to oil, independently of the emotional valence or social relevance of stimuli, perhaps reflecting an enhancing effect of T on reward sensitivity or general arousal. In the DNMS, animals had better memory for nonsocial compared to social stimuli and showed the poorest performance in the recognition of positive facial expressions. However, T did not affect performance on the task

A longitudinal mediation analysis of the effect of negative-self-schemas on positive symptoms via negative affect.

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Jaya, E S; Ascone, L; Lincoln, T M

2018-06-01

Cognitive models postulate that negative-self-schemas (NSS) cause and maintain positive symptoms and that negative affect mediates this link. However, only few studies have tested the temporal mediation claim systematically using an appropriate design. A longitudinal cohort design in an online community sample (N = 962) from Germany, Indonesia, and the USA was used. NSS, negative affect and positive symptoms were measured at four time-points (T0-T3) over a 1-year period. Cross-lagged panel and longitudinal mediation analyses with structural equation modeling were used to test the temporal mediation. Independent cross-lagged panel models showed a significant unidirectional longitudinal path from NSS to positive symptoms (T2-T3, β = 0.18, p negative affect (T0-T1, γ = 0.14, p negative affect at T1 and T2 to positive symptoms at T3 (unstandardized indirect effect coefficient = 0.020, p affective pathway from NSS to positive symptoms via negative affect. Specifically, our data indicate that NSS and negative affect influence each other and build up over the course of several months before leading on to positive symptoms. We conclude that interrupting this process by targeting NSS and negative affect early in the process could be a promising strategy to prevent the exacerbation of positive symptoms.

Negative Affectivity, Role Stress, and Work-Family Conflict.

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Stoeva, Albena Z.; Chiu, Randy K.; Greenhaus, Jeffrey H.

2002-01-01

Measures of job and family stress and negative affectivity were completed by 148 (of 400) Hong Kong civil service employees. Persons with high negative affectivity experience more work and family stress. Job stress was associated with extensive interference of work with family, and family stress with extensive interference of family with work.…

Feeling worse to feel better: pain-offset relief simultaneously stimulates positive affect and reduces negative affect.

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Franklin, Joseph C; Lee, Kent M; Hanna, Eleanor K; Prinstein, Mitchell J

2013-04-01

Although pain itself induces negative affect, the removal (or offset) of pain induces a powerful state of relief. Despite being implicated in a wide range of psychological and behavioral phenomena, relief remains a poorly understood emotion. In particular, some theorists associate relief with increased positive affect, whereas others associate relief with diminished negative affect. In the present study, we examined the affective nature of relief in a pain-offset paradigm with psychophysiological measures that were specific to negative valence (startle eyeblink reactivity) and positive valence (startle postauricular reactivity). Results revealed that pain offset simultaneously stimulates positive affect and diminishes negative affect for at least several seconds. Results also indicated that pain intensity differentially affects the positive and negative valence aspects of relief. These findings clarify the affective nature of relief and provide insight into why people engage in both normal and abnormal behaviors associated with relief.

Perfectionism, Performance, and State Positive Affect and Negative Affect after a Classroom Test

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Flett, Gordon L.; Blankstein, Kirk R.; Hewitt, Paul L.

2009-01-01

The current study examined the associations among trait dimensions of perfectionism, test performance, and levels of positive and negative affect after taking a test. A sample of 92 female university students completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale one week prior to an actual class test. Measures of positive affect and negative affect…

Momentary positive and negative affect preceding marijuana use events in youth.

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Shrier, Lydia A; Ross, Craig S; Blood, Emily A

2014-09-01

ABSTRACT. among young people. This study examined how positive and negative affect differ before marijuana use compared with other times. Forty medical outpatients ages 15-24 years who used marijuana recreationally at least twice a week (M = 18.7 years; 58% female) reported momentary positive affect, negative affect, companionship, perceived ease of obtaining marijuana, and marijuana use several times a day for 2 weeks on a handheld computer. Mean momentary positive affect and negative affect scores in the 24 hours leading up to a marijuana use event (n = 294) were compared with affect scores in times further from subsequent use. Generalized estimating equation models considered as potential moderators perceived ease of obtaining marijuana and being with friends. Positive affect did not differ in the 24 hours before marijuana use compared with times further before use. Negative affect was significantly higher before marijuana use compared with other times. Being with friends and perceived easy marijuana availability did not moderate the associations. The association between negative affect and subsequent marijuana use was attenuated when negative affect was examined only for the moment just before use, suggesting that use may follow a period of increased negative affect. The findings support an affect regulation model for marijuana use among frequently using youth. Specifically, these youth may use marijuana to manage increased negative affect.

Negative symptoms in first episode non-affective psychosis.

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Malla, Ashok K; Takhar, Jatinder J; Norman, Ross M G; Manchanda, Rahul; Cortese, Leonard; Haricharan, Raj; Verdi, Mary; Ahmed, Rashid

2002-06-01

To determine the prevalence of negative symptoms and to examine secondary sources of influence on negative symptoms and the role of specific negative symptoms in delay associated with seeking treatment in first episode non-affective psychosis. One hundred and ten patients who met Diagnostic Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) criteria for a first episode of schizophrenia spectrum psychoses were rated for assessment of negative, positive, depressive and extrapyramidal symptoms, the premorbid adjustment scale and assessment of demographic and clinical characteristics including duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). Alogia/flat affect and avolition/anhedonia were strongly influenced by parkinsonian and depressive symptoms, respectively. A substantial proportion (26.8%) of patients showed at a least moderate level of negative symptoms not confounded by depression and Parkinsonism. DUP was related only to avolition/anhedonia while flat affect/alogia was related to male gender, diagnosis of schizophrenia, age of onset and the length of the prodrome. Negative symptoms that are independent of the influence of positive symptoms, depression and extra pyramidal symptoms (EPS) are present in a substantial proportion of first episode psychosis patients and delay in seeking treatment is associated mainly with avolition and anhedonia.

Neural processing of food and emotional stimuli in adolescent and adult anorexia nervosa patients.

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Horndasch, Stefanie; Roesch, Julie; Forster, Clemens; Dörfler, Arnd; Lindsiepe, Silja; Heinrich, Hartmut; Graap, Holmer; Moll, Gunther H; Kratz, Oliver

2018-01-01

A constant preoccupation with food and restrictive eating are main symptoms of anorexia nervosa (AN). Imaging studies revealed aberrant neural activation patterns in brain regions processing hedonic and reward reactions as well as-potentially aversive-emotions. An imbalance between so called "bottom-up" and "top-down" control areas is discussed. The present study is focusing on neural processing of disease-specific food stimuli and emotional stimuli and its developmental course in adolescent and adult AN patients and could offer new insight into differential mechanisms underlying shorter or more chronic disease. 33 adolescents aged 12-18 years (15 AN patients, 18 control participants) and 32 adult women (16 AN patients, 16 control participants) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, 3T high-field scanner) while watching pictures of high and low-calorie food and affective stimuli. Afterwards, they rated subjective valence of each picture. FMRI data analysis was performed using a region of interest based approach. Pictures of high-calorie food items were rated more negatively by AN patients. Differences in activation between patients and controls were found in "bottom up" and "top down" control areas for food stimuli and in several emotion processing regions for affective stimuli which were more pronounced in adolescents than in adults. A differential pattern was seen for food stimuli compared to generally emotion eliciting stimuli. Adolescents with AN show reduced processing of affective stimuli and enhanced activation of regions involved in "bottom up" reward processing and "top down" control as well as the insula with regard to food stimuli with a focus on brain regions which underlie changes during adolescent development. In adults less clear and less specific activation differences were present, pointing towards a high impact that regions undergoing maturation might have on AN symptoms.

Neural processing of food and emotional stimuli in adolescent and adult anorexia nervosa patients

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Forster, Clemens; Dörfler, Arnd; Lindsiepe, Silja; Heinrich, Hartmut; Graap, Holmer; Moll, Gunther H.; Kratz, Oliver

2018-01-01

Background A constant preoccupation with food and restrictive eating are main symptoms of anorexia nervosa (AN). Imaging studies revealed aberrant neural activation patterns in brain regions processing hedonic and reward reactions as well as–potentially aversive–emotions. An imbalance between so called “bottom-up” and “top-down” control areas is discussed. The present study is focusing on neural processing of disease-specific food stimuli and emotional stimuli and its developmental course in adolescent and adult AN patients and could offer new insight into differential mechanisms underlying shorter or more chronic disease. Methods 33 adolescents aged 12–18 years (15 AN patients, 18 control participants) and 32 adult women (16 AN patients, 16 control participants) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI, 3T high-field scanner) while watching pictures of high and low-calorie food and affective stimuli. Afterwards, they rated subjective valence of each picture. FMRI data analysis was performed using a region of interest based approach. Results Pictures of high-calorie food items were rated more negatively by AN patients. Differences in activation between patients and controls were found in “bottom up” and “top down” control areas for food stimuli and in several emotion processing regions for affective stimuli which were more pronounced in adolescents than in adults. Conclusion A differential pattern was seen for food stimuli compared to generally emotion eliciting stimuli. Adolescents with AN show reduced processing of affective stimuli and enhanced activation of regions involved in “bottom up” reward processing and “top down” control as well as the insula with regard to food stimuli with a focus on brain regions which underlie changes during adolescent development. In adults less clear and less specific activation differences were present, pointing towards a high impact that regions undergoing maturation might have on AN

Heritability of Intraindividual Mean and Variability of Positive and Negative Affect.

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Zheng, Yao; Plomin, Robert; von Stumm, Sophie

2016-12-01

Positive affect (e.g., attentiveness) and negative affect (e.g., upset) fluctuate over time. We examined genetic influences on interindividual differences in the day-to-day variability of affect (i.e., ups and downs) and in average affect over the duration of a month. Once a day, 17-year-old twins in the United Kingdom ( N = 447) rated their positive and negative affect online. The mean and standard deviation of each individual's daily ratings across the month were used as the measures of that individual's average affect and variability of affect. Analyses revealed that the average of negative affect was significantly heritable (.53), but the average of positive affect was not; instead, the latter showed significant shared environmental influences (.42). Fluctuations across the month were significantly heritable for both negative affect (.54) and positive affect (.34). The findings support the two-factor theory of affect, which posits that positive affect is more situational and negative affect is more dispositional.

Reducing negative affect and increasing rapport improve interracial mentorship outcomes.

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Leitner, Jordan B; Ayduk, Özlem; Boykin, C Malik; Mendoza-Denton, Rodolfo

2018-01-01

Research suggests that interracial mentoring relationships are strained by negative affect and low rapport. As such, it stands to reason that strategies that decrease negative affect and increase rapport should improve these relationships. However, previous research has not tested this possibility. In video-chats (Studies 1 and 2) and face-to-face meetings (Study 3), we manipulated the degree of mutual self-disclosure between mentees and mentors, a strategy that has been shown to reduce negative affect and increase rapport. We then measured negative affect and rapport as mediators, and mentee performance (quality of speech delivered; Studies 1 and 3) and mentor performance (warmth and helpfulness; Studies 2 and 3) as key outcomes. Results revealed that increased self-disclosure decreased negative affect and increased rapport for both mentees and mentors. Among mentees, decreased negative affect predicted better performance (Studies 1 and 3). Among mentors, increased rapport predicted warmer feedback (Studies 2 and 3). These effects remained significant when we meta-analyzed data across studies (Study 4), and also revealed the relationship of rapport to more helpful feedback. Findings suggest that affect and rapport are key features in facilitating positive outcomes in interracial mentoring relationships.

Naltrexone alters the processing of social and emotional stimuli in healthy adults.

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Wardle, Margaret C; Bershad, Anya K; de Wit, Harriet

2016-12-01

Endogenous opioids have complex social effects that may depend on specific receptor actions and vary depending on the "stage" of social behavior (e.g., seeking vs. responding to social stimuli). We tested the effects of a nonspecific opioid antagonist, naltrexone (NTX), on social processing in humans. NTX is used to treat alcohol and opiate dependence, and may affect both mu and kappa-opioid systems. We assessed attention ("seeking"), and subjective and psychophysiological responses ("responding") to positive and negative social stimuli. Based on literature suggesting mu-opioid blockade impairs positive social responses, we hypothesized that NTX would decrease responses to positive social stimuli. We also tested responses to negative stimuli, which might be either increased by NTX's mu-opioid effects or decreased by its kappa-opioid effects. Thirty-four healthy volunteers received placebo, 25 mg, or 50 mg NTX across three sessions under double-blind conditions. At each session, participants completed measures of attention, identification, and emotional responses for emotional faces and scenes. NTX increased attention to emotional expressions, slowed identification of sadness and fear, and decreased ratings of arousal for social and nonsocial emotional scenes. These findings are more consistent with anxiolytic kappa-antagonist than mu-blocking effects, suggesting effects on kappa receptors may contribute to the clinical effects of NTX.

Positive and Negative Affect More Concurrent among Blacks than Whites

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Lankarani, Maryam Moghani; Assari, Shervin

2017-01-01

Background: While positive and negative affect are inversely linked, people may experience and report both positive and negative emotions simultaneously. However, it is unknown if race alters the magnitude of the association between positive and negative affect. The current study compared Black and White Americans for the association between positive and negative affect. Methods: We used data from MIDUS (Midlife in the United States), a national study of Americans with an age range of 25 to 7...

Cognitive appraisal of environmental stimuli induces emotion-like states in fish.

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Cerqueira, M; Millot, S; Castanheira, M F; Félix, A S; Silva, T; Oliveira, G A; Oliveira, C C; Martins, C I M; Oliveira, R F

2017-10-13

The occurrence of emotions in non-human animals has been the focus of debate over the years. Recently, an interest in expanding this debate to non-tetrapod vertebrates and to invertebrates has emerged. Within vertebrates, the study of emotion in teleosts is particularly interesting since they represent a divergent evolutionary radiation from that of tetrapods, and thus they provide an insight into the evolution of the biological mechanisms of emotion. We report that Sea Bream exposed to stimuli that vary according to valence (positive, negative) and salience (predictable, unpredictable) exhibit different behavioural, physiological and neuromolecular states. Since according to the dimensional theory of emotion valence and salience define a two-dimensional affective space, our data can be interpreted as evidence for the occurrence of distinctive affective states in fish corresponding to each the four quadrants of the core affective space. Moreover, the fact that the same stimuli presented in a predictable vs. unpredictable way elicited different behavioural, physiological and neuromolecular states, suggests that stimulus appraisal by the individual, rather than an intrinsic characteristic of the stimulus, has triggered the observed responses. Therefore, our data supports the occurrence of emotion-like states in fish that are regulated by the individual's perception of environmental stimuli.

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder and prefrontal reactivity during anticipation of emotional stimuli.

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Gingnell, Malin; Bannbers, Elin; Wikström, Johan; Fredrikson, Mats; Sundström-Poromaa, Inger

2013-11-01

Premenstrual disorder (PMDD) affects around 5% of women in childbearing ages. An increased sensitivity in emotion processing areas of the brain to variations in ovarian steroid levels has been suggested as part of the pathophysiology in PMDD, but prior neuroimaging studies of emotion processing are yet inconclusive. Previous behavioral studies of women with PMDD have, however, reported enhanced luteal phase startle responsivity during emotional anticipation. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate central neural circuitry activity during anticipation of, and exposure to, emotional stimuli across the menstrual cycle in women with and without PMDD. As compared to healthy controls, women with PMDD displayed significantly enhanced reactivity in the prefrontal cortex during anticipation of, but not exposure to, negative emotional stimuli during the luteal phase. In PMDD patients, BOLD reactivity during anticipation or viewing of negative emotional stimuli was not dependent on absolute levels of estradiol or progesterone. However, progesterone levels were positively correlated with emotion-induced reactivity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to positive emotional stimuli. These findings suggest that cortical emotional circuitry reactivity during anticipation is altered in PMDD during the luteal phase, which might be part of the pathophysiology behind the emotional symptoms or lack of emotional control reported by women with PMDD. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

Positive affect, negative affect, stress, and social support as mediators of the forgiveness-health relationship.

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Green, Michelle; Decourville, Nancy; Sadava, Stanley

2012-01-01

Structural equation modeling was used to test a model in which positive affect, negative affect, perceived stress, and social support were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between forgiveness and mental and physical health. Six hundred and twenty-three undergraduates completed a battery of self-report measures. Results of the analyses indicated that the forgiveness-health relation was mediated by positive affect, negative affect, stress, and the interrelationship between negative affect and stress. There was limited support for social support and the interrelationship between positive affect and social support as mediators. The results suggested that the relationship between forgiveness and health is mediated rather than direct. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Neural Processing of Emotional Musical and Nonmusical Stimuli in Depression.

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Rebecca J Lepping

Full Text Available Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC and striatum are part of the emotional neural circuitry implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD. Music is often used for emotion regulation, and pleasurable music listening activates the dopaminergic system in the brain, including the ACC. The present study uses functional MRI (fMRI and an emotional nonmusical and musical stimuli paradigm to examine how neural processing of emotionally provocative auditory stimuli is altered within the ACC and striatum in depression.Nineteen MDD and 20 never-depressed (ND control participants listened to standardized positive and negative emotional musical and nonmusical stimuli during fMRI scanning and gave subjective ratings of valence and arousal following scanning.ND participants exhibited greater activation to positive versus negative stimuli in ventral ACC. When compared with ND participants, MDD participants showed a different pattern of activation in ACC. In the rostral part of the ACC, ND participants showed greater activation for positive information, while MDD participants showed greater activation to negative information. In dorsal ACC, the pattern of activation distinguished between the types of stimuli, with ND participants showing greater activation to music compared to nonmusical stimuli, while MDD participants showed greater activation to nonmusical stimuli, with the greatest response to negative nonmusical stimuli. No group differences were found in striatum.These results suggest that people with depression may process emotional auditory stimuli differently based on both the type of stimulation and the emotional content of that stimulation. This raises the possibility that music may be useful in retraining ACC function, potentially leading to more effective and targeted treatments.

Anhedonia reflects impairment in making relative value judgments between positive and neutral stimuli in schizophrenia.

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Strauss, Gregory P; Visser, Katherine Frost; Keller, William R; Gold, James M; Buchanan, Robert W

2018-02-27

Anhedonia (i.e., diminished capacity to experience pleasure) has traditionally been viewed as a core symptom of schizophrenia (SZ). However, modern laboratory-based studies suggest that this definition may be incorrect, as hedonic capacity may be intact. Alternative conceptualizations have proposed that anhedonia may reflect an impairment in generating mental representations of affective value that are needed to guide decision-making and initiate motivated behavior. The current study evaluated this hypothesis in 42 outpatients with SZ and 19 healthy controls (CN) who completed two tasks: (a) an emotional experience task that required them to indicate how positive, negative, and calm/excited they felt in response to a single emotional or neutral photograph; (b) a relative value judgment task where they selected which of 2 photographs they preferred. Results indicated that SZ and CN reported similar levels of positive emotion and arousal in response to emotional and neutral stimuli; however, SZ reported higher negative affect for neutral and pleasant stimuli than CN. In the relative value judgment task, CN displayed clear preference for stimuli differing in valence; however, SZ showed less distinct preferences for positive over neutral stimuli. Findings suggest that although in-the-moment experiences of positive emotion to singular stimuli may be intact in SZ, the ability to make relative value judgments that are needed to guide decision-making is impaired. Original conceptualizations of anhedonia as a diminished capacity for pleasure in SZ may be inaccurate; anhedonia may more accurately reflect a deficit in relative value judgment that results from impaired value representation. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Virtual Meal-Making Environment as a Platform to Measure the Effect of Affective Stimuli on Emotional Response and Task Performance in Children with and without Cerebral Palsy

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Tirosh Emanuel

2011-12-01

Full Text Available The study examined whether a functional virtual environment (VE may be used to provide affective stimuli (AS that lead to changes in the emotional responses and task performance of children with and without cerebral palsy (CP. Fifteen children with CP and 19 typically developing (TD peers (6 to 12 years prepared seven virtual meals in a predefined order within the Emotional Meal-Maker (EMM, a virtual meal-making VE, run on a 2D video capture VR platform. Six meals included either a negative, positive, or neutral visual stimuli, selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS. Heart rate (HR and skin conductance were recorded online, synchronized with stimulus onset. Significant differences were found between groups in task performance and heart rate variability (HRV components, e.g., higher low frequency (LF/ high frequency (HF ratio in CP during the EMM task (U=2517.5, p<001, regardless of type of AS. No significant changes in autonomic responses as a function of AS were found. The implications of these results are discussed.

Happiness takes you right: the effect of emotional stimuli on line bisection.

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Cattaneo, Zaira; Lega, Carlotta; Boehringer, Jana; Gallucci, Marcello; Girelli, Luisa; Carbon, Claus-Christian

2014-01-01

Emotion recognition is mediated by a complex network of cortical and subcortical areas, with the two hemispheres likely being differently involved in processing positive and negative emotions. As results on valence-dependent hemispheric specialisation are quite inconsistent, we carried out three experiments with emotional stimuli with a task being sensitive to measure specific hemispheric processing. Participants were required to bisect visual lines that were delimited by emotional face flankers, or to haptically bisect rods while concurrently listening to emotional vocal expressions. We found that prolonged (but not transient) exposition to concurrent happy stimuli significantly shifted the bisection bias to the right compared to both sad and neutral stimuli, indexing a greater involvement of the left hemisphere in processing of positively connoted stimuli. No differences between sad and neutral stimuli were observed across the experiments. In sum, our data provide consistent evidence in favour of a greater involvement of the left hemisphere in processing positive emotions and suggest that (prolonged) exposure to stimuli expressing happiness significantly affects allocation of (spatial) attentional resources, regardless of the sensory (visual/auditory) modality in which the emotion is perceived and space is explored (visual/haptic).

Implicit attitudes toward eating stimuli differentiate eating disorder and non-eating disorder groups and predict eating disorder behaviors.

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Smith, April R; Forrest, Lauren N; Velkoff, Elizabeth A; Ribeiro, Jessica D; Franklin, Joseph

2018-04-01

The current study tested whether people with and without eating disorders (EDs) varied in their implicit attitudes toward ED-relevant stimuli. Additionally, the study tested whether implicit evaluations of ED-relevant stimuli predicted ED symptoms and behaviors over a 4-week interval. Participants were people without EDs (N = 85) and people seeking treatment for EDs (N = 92). All participants completed self-report questionnaires and a version of the affect misattribution procedure (AMP) at baseline. The AMP indexed implicit evaluations of average body stimuli, eating stimuli, and ED-symptom stimuli. Participants with EDs completed weekly follow-up measures of ED symptoms and behaviors for 4 weeks. Contrary to predictions, the anorexia nervosa (AN) group did not differ from the no ED group on implicit attitudes toward ED-symptom stimuli, and the bulimia nervosa (BN) group had less positive implicit attitudes toward ED-symptom stimuli relative to the no ED group. In line with predictions, people with AN and BN had more negative implicit attitudes toward average body and eating stimuli relative to the no ED group. In addition, among the ED group more negative implicit attitudes toward eating stimuli predicted ED symptoms and behaviors 4 weeks later, over and above baseline ED symptoms and behaviors. Taken together, implicit evaluations of eating stimuli differentiated people with AN and BN from people without EDs and longitudinally predicted ED symptoms and behaviors. Interventions that increase implicit liking of eating-related stimuli may reduce ED behaviors. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Affect and craving: positive and negative affect are differentially associated with approach and avoidance inclinations.

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Schlauch, Robert C; Gwynn-Shapiro, Daniel; Stasiewicz, Paul R; Molnar, Danielle S; Lang, Alan R

2013-04-01

Research on reactivity to alcohol and drug cues has either ignored affective state altogether or has focused rather narrowly on the role of negative affect in craving. Moreover, until recently, the relevant analyses of affect and craving have rarely addressed the ambivalence often associated with craving itself. The current study investigated how both negative and positive affect moderate approach and avoidance inclinations associated with cue-elicited craving in a clinical sample diagnosed with substance use disorders. One hundred forty-four patients (age range of 18-65, mean 42.0; n=92 males) were recruited from an inpatient detoxification unit for substance abuse. Participants completed a baseline assessment of both positive and negative affect prior to completing a cue-reactivity paradigm for which they provided self-report ratings of inclinations to approach (use) and avoid (not use) alcohol, cigarettes, and non-psychoactive control substances (food and beverages). Participants with elevated negative affect reported significantly higher approach ratings for cigarette and alcohol cues, whereas those high in positive affect showed significantly higher levels of avoidance inclinations for both alcohol and cigarette cues and also significantly lower approach ratings for alcohol cues, all relative to control cues. Results for negative affect are consistent with previous cue reactivity research, whereas results for positive affect are unique and call attention to its clinical potential for attenuating approach inclinations to substance use cues. Further, positive affect was related to both approach and avoidance inclinations, underscoring the utility of a multidimensional conceptualization of craving in the analysis. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effects of preferred natural stimuli on humans' affective states, physiological stress and mental health, and the potential implications for well-being in captive animals.

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Ross, Misha; Mason, Georgia J

2017-12-01

Exposure to certain natural stimuli improves people's moods, reduces stress, enhances stress resilience, and promotes mental and physical health. Laboratory studies and real estate prices also reveal that humans prefer environments containing a broad range of natural stimuli. Potential mediators of these outcomes include: 1) therapeutic effects of specific natural products; 2) positive affective responses to stimuli that signalled safety and resources to our evolutionary ancestors; 3) attraction to environments that satisfy innate needs to explore and understand; and 4) ease of sensory processing, due to the stimuli's "evolutionary familiarity" and/or their fractal, self-repeating properties. These processes, and the benefits humans gain from natural stimuli, seem to be largely innate. They thus have strong implications for other species (including laboratory, farm and zoo animals living in environments devoid of natural stimuli), suggesting that they too may have nature-related "sensory needs". By promoting positive affect and stress resilience, preferred natural stimuli (including views, sounds and odours) could therefore potentially provide effective and efficient ways to improve captive animal well-being. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Thermal facial reactivity patterns predict social categorization bias triggered by unconscious and conscious emotional stimuli.

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Ponsi, Giorgia; Panasiti, Maria Serena; Rizza, Giulia; Aglioti, Salvatore Maria

2017-08-30

Members of highly social species decode, interpret, and react to the emotion of a conspecific depending on whether the other belongs to the same (ingroup) or different (outgroup) social group. While studies indicate that consciously perceived emotional stimuli drive social categorization, information about how implicit emotional stimuli and specific physiological signatures affect social categorization is lacking. We addressed this issue by exploring whether subliminal and supraliminal affective priming can influence the categorization of neutral faces as ingroup versus outgroup. Functional infrared thermal imaging was used to investigate whether the effect of affective priming on the categorization decision was moderated by the activation of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). During the subliminal condition, we found that stronger SNS activation after positive or negative affective primes induced ingroup and outgroup face categorization, respectively. The exact opposite pattern (i.e. outgroup after positive and ingroup after negative primes) was observed in the supraliminal condition. We also found that misattribution effects were stronger in people with low emotional awareness, suggesting that this trait moderates how one recognizes SNS signals and employs them for unrelated decisions. Our results allow the remarkable implication that low-level affective reactions coupled with sympathetic activation may bias social categorization. © 2017 The Author(s).

The Scope of Our Affective Influences: When and How Naturally Occurring Positive, Negative, and Neutral Affects Alter Judgment.

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Gasper, Karen; Danube, Cinnamon L

2016-03-01

To determine how naturally arising affect alters judgment, we examined whether (a) affective states exert a specific, rather than a general, influence on valenced-specific judgments; (b) neutral affect is associated with increased neutral judgments, independent of positive, negative, and ambivalent affects, and whether neutral judgments are associated with behavioral disengagement; and (c) the informational value of naturally arising states may be difficult to alter via salience and relevance manipulations. The results support several conclusions: (a) Affective states exerted a judgment-specific effect-positive affect was most strongly associated with positive judgments, negative affect with negative judgments, and neutral affect with neutral judgments. (b) Neutral affect influenced judgments, taking into account positive, negative, and ambivalent affects; and neutral judgments predicted behavioral disengagement. (c) With the exception of negative affect, naturally arising affective states typically influenced judgments regardless of their salience and relevance. © 2016 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Do emotional stimuli enhance or impede recall relative to neutral stimuli? An investigation of two "false memory" tasks.

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Monds, Lauren A; Paterson, Helen M; Kemp, Richard I

2017-09-01

Many eyewitness memory situations involve negative and distressing events; however, many studies investigating "false memory" phenomena use neutral stimuli only. The aim of the present study was to determine how both the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) procedure and the Misinformation Effect Paradigm tasks were related to each other using distressing and neutral stimuli. Participants completed the DRM (with negative and neutral word lists) and viewed a distressing or neutral film. Misinformation for the film was introduced and memory was assessed. Film accuracy and misinformation susceptibility were found to be greater for those who viewed the distressing film relative to the neutral film. Accuracy responses on both tasks were related, however, susceptibility to the DRM illusion and Misinformation Effect were not. The misinformation findings support the Paradoxical Negative Emotion (PNE) hypothesis that negative stimuli will lead to remembering more accurate details but also greater likelihood of memory distortion. However, the PNE hypothesis was not supported for the DRM results. The findings also suggest that the DRM and Misinformation tasks are not equivalent and may have differences in underlying mechanisms. Future research should focus on more ecologically valid methods of assessing false memory.

Attentional Bias for Emotional Stimuli in Borderline Personality Disorder: A Meta-Analysis.

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Kaiser, Deborah; Jacob, Gitta A; Domes, Gregor; Arntz, Arnoud

2016-01-01

In borderline personality disorder (BPD), attentional bias (AB) to emotional stimuli may be a core component in disorder pathogenesis and maintenance. 11 emotional Stroop task (EST) studies with 244 BPD patients, 255 nonpatients (NPs) and 95 clinical controls and 4 visual dot-probe task (VDPT) studies with 151 BPD patients or subjects with BPD features and 62 NPs were included. We conducted two separate meta-analyses for AB in BPD. One meta-analysis focused on the EST for generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words. The other meta-analysis concentrated on the VDPT for negative and positive facial stimuli. There is evidence for an AB towards generally negative emotional words compared to NPs (standardized mean difference, SMD = 0.311) and to other psychiatric disorders (SMD = 0.374) in the EST studies. Regarding BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words, BPD patients reveal an even stronger AB than NPs (SMD = 0.454). The VDPT studies indicate a tendency towards an AB to positive facial stimuli but not negative stimuli in BPD patients compared to NPs. The findings rather reflect an AB in BPD to generally negative and BPD-specific/personally relevant negative words rather than an AB in BPD towards facial stimuli, and/or a biased allocation of covert attentional resources to negative emotional stimuli in BPD and not a bias in focus of visual attention. Further research regarding the role of childhood traumatization and comorbid anxiety disorders may improve the understanding of these underlying processes. © 2016 The Author(s) Published by S. Karger AG, Basel.

Verbal makes it positive, spatial makes it negative: working memory biases judgments, attention, and moods.

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Storbeck, Justin; Watson, Philip

2014-12-01

Prior research has suggested that emotion and working memory domains are integrated, such that positive affect enhances verbal working memory, whereas negative affect enhances spatial working memory (Gray, 2004; Storbeck, 2012). Simon (1967) postulated that one feature of emotion and cognition integration would be reciprocal connectedness (i.e., emotion influences cognition and cognition influences emotion). We explored whether affective judgments and attention to affective qualities are biased by the activation of verbal and spatial working memory mind-sets. For all experiments, participants completed a 2-back verbal or spatial working memory task followed by an endorsement task (Experiments 1 & 2), word-pair selection task (Exp. 3), or attentional dot-probe task (Exp. 4). Participants who had an activated verbal, compared with spatial, working memory mind-set were more likely to endorse pictures (Exp. 1) and words (Exp. 2) as being more positive and to select the more positive word pair out of a set of word pairs that went 'together best' (Exp. 3). Additionally, people who completed the verbal working memory task took longer to disengage from positive stimuli, whereas those who completed the spatial working memory task took longer to disengage from negative stimuli (Exp. 4). Interestingly, across the 4 experiments, we observed higher levels of self-reported negative affect for people who completed the spatial working memory task, which was consistent with their endorsement and attentional bias toward negative stimuli. Therefore, emotion and working memory may have a reciprocal connectedness allowing for bidirectional influence.

Trait Affect, Emotion Regulation, and the Generation of Negative and Positive Interpersonal Events.

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Hamilton, Jessica L; Burke, Taylor A; Stange, Jonathan P; Kleiman, Evan M; Rubenstein, Liza M; Scopelliti, Kate A; Abramson, Lyn Y; Alloy, Lauren B

2017-07-01

Positive and negative trait affect and emotion regulatory strategies have received considerable attention in the literature as predictors of psychopathology. However, it remains unclear whether individuals' trait affect is associated with responses to state positive affect (positive rumination and dampening) or negative affect (ruminative brooding), or whether these affective experiences contribute to negative or positive interpersonal event generation. Among 304 late adolescents, path analyses indicated that individuals with higher trait negative affect utilized dampening and brooding rumination responses, whereas those with higher trait positive affect engaged in rumination on positive affect. Further, there were indirect relationships between trait negative affect and fewer positive and negative interpersonal events via dampening, and between trait positive affect and greater positive and negative interpersonal events via positive rumination. These findings suggest that individuals' trait negative and positive affect may be associated with increased utilization of emotion regulation strategies for managing these affects, which may contribute to the occurrence of positive and negative events in interpersonal relationships. Copyright © 2017. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Perceiving, imaging, and preferring physiognomic stimuli.

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Lindauer, M S

1986-01-01

Physiognomic color responses in perception, imagery, and affect were investigated. Maluma and taketa, nonsense stimuli defined by many investigators as physiognomic, were utilized as prototypical physiognomic stimuli, along with eight other stimuli of various sorts. In Experiment 1, 22 subjects matched the colors of the stimuli; in Experiment 2, 27 subjects reported their imagery to the stimuli; and in Experiment 3, 16 subjects gave their color preferences for the stimuli. The Munsell sets of colors were employed throughout. Significant differences between the physiognomic and other stimuli were found on the brightness and saturation of color matches, images, and preferences. Other differences (e.g., the latency of color images) were also present. Distinctions were also noted between the two physiognomic stimuli. These results support the priority of innate and perceptual processes in physiognomy over those of learning and memory, although some ambiguities still remain.

Automatic and deliberate affective associations with sexual stimuli in women with lifelong vaginismus before and after therapist-aided exposure treatment

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Melles, Reinhilde J.; ter Kuile, Moniek M.; Dewitte, Marieke; van Lankveld, Jacques J. D. M.; Brauer, Marieke; de Jong, Peter J.

2014-01-01

The intense fear response to vaginal penetration in women with lifelong vaginismus, who have never been able to experience coitus, may reflect negative automatic and deliberate appraisals of vaginal penetration stimuli which might be modified by exposure treatment. The aim of this study is to

Neural Correlates of Processing Negative and Sexually Arousing Pictures

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Bailey, Kira; West, Robert; Mullaney, Kellie M.

2012-01-01

Recent work has questioned whether the negativity bias is a distinct component of affective picture processing. The current study was designed to determine whether there are different neural correlates of processing positive and negative pictures using event-related brain potentials. The early posterior negativity and late positive potential were greatest in amplitude for erotic pictures. Partial Least Squares analysis revealed one latent variable that distinguished erotic pictures from neutral and positive pictures and another that differentiated negative pictures from neutral and positive pictures. The effects of orienting task on the neural correlates of processing negative and erotic pictures indicate that affective picture processing is sensitive to both stimulus-driven, and attentional or decision processes. The current data, together with other recent findings from our laboratory, lead to the suggestion that there are distinct neural correlates of processing negative and positive stimuli during affective picture processing. PMID:23029071

Are females more responsive to emotional stimuli? A neurophysiological study across arousal and valence dimensions.

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Lithari, C; Frantzidis, C A; Papadelis, C; Vivas, Ana B; Klados, M A; Kourtidou-Papadeli, C; Pappas, C; Ioannides, A A; Bamidis, P D

2010-03-01

Men and women seem to process emotions and react to them differently. Yet, few neurophysiological studies have systematically investigated gender differences in emotional processing. Here, we studied gender differences using Event Related Potentials (ERPs) and Skin Conductance Responses (SCR) recorded from participants who passively viewed emotional pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). The arousal and valence dimension of the stimuli were manipulated orthogonally. The peak amplitude and peak latency of ERP components and SCR were analyzed separately, and the scalp topographies of significant ERP differences were documented. Females responded with enhanced negative components (N100 and N200), in comparison to males, especially to the unpleasant visual stimuli, whereas both genders responded faster to high arousing or unpleasant stimuli. Scalp topographies revealed more pronounced gender differences on central and left hemisphere areas. Our results suggest a difference in the way emotional stimuli are processed by genders: unpleasant and high arousing stimuli evoke greater ERP amplitudes in women relatively to men. It also seems that unpleasant or high arousing stimuli are temporally prioritized during visual processing by both genders.

Ecological momentary assessment of stressful events and negative affect in bulimia nervosa.

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Goldschmidt, Andrea B; Wonderlich, Stephen A; Crosby, Ross D; Engel, Scott G; Lavender, Jason M; Peterson, Carol B; Crow, Scott J; Cao, Li; Mitchell, James E

2014-02-01

Negative affect precedes binge eating and purging in bulimia nervosa (BN), but little is known about factors that precipitate negative affect in relation to these behaviors. We aimed to assess the temporal relation among stressful events, negative affect, and bulimic events in the natural environment using ecological momentary assessment. A total of 133 women with current BN recorded their mood, eating behavior, and the occurrence of stressful events every day for 2 weeks. Multilevel structural equation mediation models evaluated the relations among Time 1 stress measures (i.e., interpersonal stressors, work/environment stressors, general daily hassles, and stress appraisal), Time 2 negative affect, and Time 2 binge eating and purging, controlling for Time 1 negative affect. Increases in negative affect from Time 1 to Time 2 significantly mediated the relations between Time 1 interpersonal stressors, work/environment stressors, general daily hassles, and stress appraisal and Time 2 binge eating and purging. When modeled simultaneously, confidence intervals for interpersonal stressors, general daily hassles, and stress appraisal did not overlap, suggesting that each had a distinct impact on negative affect in relation to binge eating and purging. Our findings indicate that stress precedes the occurrence of bulimic behaviors and that increases in negative affect following stressful events mediate this relation. Results suggest that stress and subsequent negative affect may function as maintenance factors for bulimic behaviors and should be targeted in treatment. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Physical activity and negative affective reactivity in daily life.

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Puterman, Eli; Weiss, Jordan; Beauchamp, Mark R; Mogle, Jacqueline; Almeida, David M

2017-12-01

The results from experimental studies indicate that physically active individuals remain calmer and report less anxiety after the induction of a standardized stressor. The current study extends this research to real life, and examines whether daily physical activity attenuates negative affect that occurs in response to naturally occurring daily stressors. The current study used data from the second wave of the National Study of Daily Experiences, a sub-study of the second wave of the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS-II) of 2,022 individuals aged 33-84 questioned nightly for eight consecutive days about their general affect and affective responses to stressful events and their engagement in physical activity. Results indicated that while negative affect is significantly elevated on days with stressful events compared to days free of events in all individuals, these effects are attenuated in those who remain physically active when compared to those who were underactive. This was also true for any day participants were physically active. Importantly, negative affect in response to any specific stressor was reduced the closer in time that the stressor occurred to the bout of exercise in underactive participants, while, in active participants, negative affect in response to any stressor remained low throughout the entire day that participants reported that they were active. Given the significant mental and physical health implications of elevated affective reactivity observed in previous studies, the current study sheds further light on the importance of remaining physically active in times of stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The influence of positive vs. negative affect on multitasking.

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Morgan, Brent; D'Mello, Sidney K

2016-10-01

Considerable research has investigated how affect influences performance on a single task; however, little is known about the role of affect in complex multitasking environments. In this paper, 178 participants multitasked in a synthetic work environment (SYNWORK) consisting of memory, visual monitoring, auditory monitoring, and math tasks. Participants multitasked for a 3-min baseline phase (MT1), following which they were randomly assigned to watch one of three affect-induction videos: positive, neutral, or negative. Participants then resumed multitasking for two additional critical phases (MT2, MT3; 3min each). In MT2, performance of the positive and neutral conditions was statistically equivalent and higher than the negative condition. In MT3, the positive condition performed better than the negative condition, with the neutral condition not significantly different from the other two. The differences in overall multitasking scores were largely driven by errors in the Math task (the most cognitively demanding task) in MT2 and the Memory task in MT3. These findings have implications for how positive and negative affective states influence processing in a cognitively demanding multitasking environment. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Negative affect varying in motivational intensity influences scope of memory.

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Threadgill, A Hunter; Gable, Philip A

2018-04-06

Emotions influence cognitive processes involved in memory. While some research has suggested that cognitive scope is determined by affective valence, recent models of emotion-cognition interactions suggest that motivational intensity, rather than valence, influences these processes. The present research was designed to clarify how negative affects differing in motivational intensity impact memory for centrally or peripherally presented information. Experiments 1 & 2 found that, relative to a neutral condition, high intensity negative affect (anger) enhances memory for centrally presented information. Experiment 3 replicated this effect using another high intensity negative affect (threat). Experiment 4 extended this by finding that, relative to a neutral condition, low intensity negative affect (sadness) enhanced memory for peripherally presented information. Finally, in Experiment 5, the effects of sadness and threat on scope of memory were directly compared, finding that threat narrowed scope of memory, while sadness broadened scope of memory. Together, these results provide additional support for the motivational dimensional model of cognitive scope, in that high intensity emotions narrow cognitive scope, while low intensity emotions broaden cognitive scope.

Cultures differ in the ability to enhance affective neural responses.

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Varnum, Michael E W; Hampton, Ryan S

2017-10-01

The present study (N = 55) used an event-related potential paradigm to investigate whether cultures differ in the ability to upregulate affective responses. Using stimuli selected from the International Affective Picture System, we found that European-Americans (N = 29) enhanced central-parietal late positive potential (LPP) (400-800 ms post-stimulus) responses to affective stimuli when instructed to do so, whereas East Asians (N = 26) did not. We observed cultural differences in the ability to enhance central-parietal LPP responses for both positively and negativelyvalenced stimuli, and the ability to enhance these two types of responses was positively correlated for Americans but negatively for East Asians. These results are consistent with the notion that cultural variations in norms and values regarding affective expression and experiences shape how the brain regulates emotions.

Manipulating affective state influences conditioned appetitive responses.

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Arnaudova, Inna; Krypotos, Angelos-Miltiadis; Effting, Marieke; Kindt, Merel; Beckers, Tom

2017-10-06

Affective states influence how individuals process information and behave. Some theories predict emotional congruency effects (e.g. preferential processing of negative information in negative affective states). Emotional congruency should theoretically obstruct the learning of reward associations (appetitive learning) and their ability to guide behaviour under negative mood. Two studies tested the effects of the induction of a negative affective state on appetitive Pavlovian learning, in which neutral stimuli were associated with chocolate (Experiment 1) or alcohol (Experiment 2) rewards. In both experiments, participants showed enhanced approach tendencies towards predictors of reward after a negative relative to a positive performance feedback manipulation. This increase was related to a reduction in positive affect in Experiment 1 only. No effects of the manipulation on conditioned reward expectancies, craving, or consumption were observed. Overall, our findings support the idea of counter-regulation, rather than emotional congruency effects. Negative affective states might therefore serve as a vulnerability factor for addiction, through increasing conditioned approach tendencies.

Electrophysiological differences in the processing of affective information in words and pictures.

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Hinojosa, José A; Carretié, Luis; Valcárcel, María A; Méndez-Bértolo, Constantino; Pozo, Miguel A

2009-06-01

It is generally assumed that affective picture viewing is related to higher levels of physiological arousal than is the reading of emotional words. However, this assertion is based mainly on studies in which the processing of either words or pictures has been investigated under heterogenic conditions. Positive, negative, relaxing, neutral, and background (stimulus fragments) words and pictures were presented to subjects in two experiments under equivalent experimental conditions. In Experiment 1, neutral words elicited an enhanced late positive component (LPC) that was associated with an increased difficulty in discriminating neutral from background stimuli. In Experiment 2, high-arousing pictures elicited an enhanced early negativity and LPC that were related to a facilitated processing for these stimuli. Thus, it seems that under some circumstances, the processing of affective information captures attention only with more biologically relevant stimuli. Also, these data might be better interpreted on the basis of those models that postulate a different access to affective information for words and pictures.

Dynamically tracking anxious individuals' affective response to valenced information.

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Fua, Karl C; Teachman, Bethany A

2017-09-01

Past research has shown that an individual's feelings at any given moment reflect currently experienced stimuli as well as internal representations of similar past experiences. However, anxious individuals' affective reactions to streams of interrelated valenced information (vs. reactions to static stimuli that are arguably less ecologically valid) are rarely tracked. The present study provided a first examination of the newly developed Tracking Affect Ratings Over Time (TAROT) task to continuously assess anxious individuals' affective reactions to streams of information that systematically change valence. Undergraduate participants (N = 141) completed the TAROT task in which they listened to narratives containing positive, negative, and neutral physically- or socially-relevant events, and indicated how positive or negative they felt about the information they heard as each narrative unfolded. The present study provided preliminary evidence for the validity and reliability of the task. Within scenarios, participants higher (vs. lower) in anxiety showed many expected negative biases, reporting more negative mean ratings and overall summary ratings, changing their pattern of responding more quickly to negative events, and responding more negatively to neutral events. Furthermore, individuals higher (vs. lower) in anxiety tended to report more negative minimums during and after positive events, and less positive maximums after negative events. Together, findings indicate that positive events were less impactful for anxious individuals, whereas negative experiences had a particularly lasting impact on future affective responses. The TAROT task is able to efficiently capture a number of different cognitive biases, and may help clarify the mechanisms that underlie anxious individuals' biased negative processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Negative affect and neural response to palatable food intake in bulimia nervosa.

Science.gov (United States)

Bohon, Cara; Stice, Eric

2012-06-01

Binge eating is often preceded by reports of negative affect, but the mechanism by which affect may lead to binge eating is unclear. This study evaluated the effect of negative affect on neural response to anticipation and receipt of palatable food in women with bulimia nervosa (BN) versus healthy controls. We also evaluated connectivity between the amygdala and reward-related brain regions. Females with and without BN (n=26) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during receipt and anticipated receipt of chocolate milkshake and a tasteless solution. We measured negative affect just prior to the scan. Women with BN showed a positive correlation between negative affect and activity in the putamen, caudate, and pallidum during anticipated receipt of milkshake (versus tasteless solution). There were no significant relations between negative affect and receipt of milkshake. Connectivity analyses revealed a greater relation of amygdala activity to activation in the left putamen and insula during anticipated receipt of milkshake in the bulimia group relative to the control group. The opposite pattern was found for the taste of milkshake; the control group showed a greater relation of amygdala activity to activation in the left putamen and insula in response to milkshake receipt than the bulimia group. Results show that as negative affect increases, so does responsivity of reward regions to anticipated intake of palatable food, implying that negative affect may increase the reward value of food for individuals with bulimia nervosa or that negative affect has become a conditioned cue due to a history of binge eating in a negative mood. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Urdu translation and validation of shorter version of Positive Affect and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) on Pakistani bank employees.

Science.gov (United States)

Akhter, Noreen

2017-10-01

To translate, adapt and validate shorter version of positive affect and negative affect scale on Pakistani corporate employees. This cross-sectional study was conducted in the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi from October 2014 to December 2015. The study was completed into two independent parts. In part one, the scale was translated by forward translation. Then it was pilot-tested and administered on customer services employees from commercial banks and the telecommunication sector. Data of the pilot study was analysed by using exploratory factor analysis to extract the initial factor of positive affect and negative affect scale. Part two comprised the main study. Commercial bank employees were included in the sample using convenient sampling technique. Data of the main study was analysed using confirmatory factor analysis in order to establish construct validity of positive affect and negative affect scale. There were145 participants in the first part of the study and 495 in the second. Results of confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the two-factor structure of positive affect and negative affect scale suggesting that the scale has two distinct domains, i.e. positive affect and negative affect. The shorter version of positive affect and negative affect scale was found to be a valid and reliable measure.

Divided attention enhances the recognition of emotional stimuli: evidence from the attentional boost effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Rossi-Arnaud, Clelia; Spataro, Pietro; Costanzi, Marco; Saraulli, Daniele; Cestari, Vincenzo

2018-01-01

The present study examined predictions of the early-phase-elevated-attention hypothesis of the attentional boost effect (ABE), which suggests that transient increases in attention at encoding, as instantiated in the ABE paradigm, should enhance the recognition of neutral and positive items (whose encoding is mostly based on controlled processes), while having small or null effects on the recognition of negative items (whose encoding is primarily based on automatic processes). Participants were presented a sequence of negative, neutral and positive stimuli (pictures in Experiment 1, words in Experiment 2) associated to target (red) squares, distractor (green) squares or no squares (baseline condition). They were told to attend to the pictures/words and simultaneously press the spacebar of the computer when a red square appeared. In a later recognition task, stimuli associated to target squares were recognised better than stimuli associated to distractor squares, replicating the standard ABE. More importantly, we also found that: (a) the memory enhancement following target detection occurred with all types of stimuli (neutral, negative and positive) and (b) the advantage of negative stimuli over neutral stimuli was intact in the DA condition. These findings suggest that the encoding of negative stimuli depends on both controlled (attention-dependent) and automatic (attention-independent) processes.

Affective bias in visual working memory is associated with capacity.

Science.gov (United States)

Xie, Weizhen; Li, Huanhuan; Ying, Xiangyu; Zhu, Shiyou; Fu, Rong; Zou, Yingmin; Cui, Yanyan

2017-11-01

How does the affective nature of task stimuli modulate working memory (WM)? This study investigates whether WM maintains emotional information in a biased manner to meet the motivational principle of approaching positivity and avoiding negativity by retaining more approach-related positive content over avoidance-related negative content. This bias may exist regardless of individual differences in WM functionality, as indexed by WM capacity (overall bias hypothesis). Alternatively, this bias may be contingent on WM capacity (capacity-based hypothesis), in which a better WM system may be more likely to reveal an adaptive bias. In two experiments, participants performed change localisation tasks with emotional and non-emotional stimuli to estimate the number of items that they could retain for each of those stimuli. Although participants did not seem to remember one type of emotional content (e.g. happy faces) better than the other type of emotional content (e.g. sad faces), there was a significant correlation between WM capacity and affective bias. Specifically, participants with higher WM capacity for non-emotional stimuli (colours or line-drawing symbols) tended to maintain more happy faces over sad faces. These findings demonstrated the presence of a "built-in" affective bias in WM as a function of its systematic limitations, favouring the capacity-based hypothesis.

Resting RSA Is Associated with Natural and Self-Regulated Responses to Negative Emotional Stimuli

Science.gov (United States)

Demaree, Heath A.; Robinson, Jennifer L.; Everhart, D. Erik; Schmeichel, Brandon J.

2004-01-01

Resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was assessed among 111 adult participants. These individuals were then asked to watch a positive or negative affective film in either a natural manner or while exaggerating their facial response. Facial reactions to the film were video-recorded and subsequently rated in terms of facial affect.…

A Pontine Region is a Neural Correlate of the Human Affective Processing Network

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tatia M.C. Lee

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The in vivo neural activity of the pons during the perception of affective stimuli has not been studied despite the strong implications of its role in affective processing. To examine the activity of the pons during the viewing of affective stimuli, and to verify its functional and structural connectivity with other affective neural correlates, a multimodal magnetic resonance imaging methodology was employed in this study. We observed the in vivo activity of the pons when viewing affective stimuli. Furthermore, small-world connectivity indicated that the functional connectivity (FC between the pons and the cortico-limbic affective regions was meaningful, with the coefficient λ being positively associated with self-reported emotional reactivity. The FC between the pons and the cortico-limbic-striatal areas was related to self-reported negative affect. Corroborating this finding was the observation that the tract passing through the pons and the left hippocampus was negatively related to self-reported positive affect and positively correlated with emotional reactivity. Our findings support the framework that the pons works conjunctively with the distributed cortico-limbic-striatal systems in shaping individuals' affective states and reactivity. Our work paves the path for future research on the contribution of the pons to the precipitation and maintenance of affective disorders.

Many behavioral tendencies associated with right-leaning (conservative) political ideologies are malleable and unrelated to negativity.

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Olivola, Christopher Y; Sussman, Abigail B

2014-06-01

Recent research has identified several judgment and decision making tendencies associated with right-leaning political ideologies that are difficult (if not impossible) to explain in terms of stable, negative affective appraisals because they (1) are uncorrelated with the negativity of the stimuli being considered, (2) do not reflect divergent affective evaluations, and (3) can be eliminated by superficial manipulations and interventions.

Negative affect, negative urgency, thought suppression, and bulimic symptoms: a moderated mediation analysis in a sample at-risk for bulimic symptoms.

Science.gov (United States)

Lavender, Jason M; Green, Daniel; Anestis, Michael D; Tull, Matthew T; Gratz, Kim L

2015-05-01

Research suggests that negative affect, negative urgency, and thought suppression are related to bulimic symptoms, either directly or indirectly. This study examined associations between these constructs in a sample at-risk for bulimic symptoms. Participants (N = 80) recruited from a residential substance abuse treatment facility completed self-report questionnaires. A regression-based bootstrapping approach was used to examine the indirect effect of negative affect on bulimic symptoms through negative urgency and the moderating role of thought suppression in the association between negative affect and negative urgency. Results revealed a significant indirect effect, significant moderation, and a significant moderated mediation effect, with an indirect effect of negative affect on bulimic symptoms through negative urgency, conditional upon low to moderate (but not high) levels of thought suppression. These findings suggest that negative affect may promote rash actions, particularly in the context of low to moderate thought suppression, leading to increased risk of bulimic symptoms. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and Eating Disorders Association.

The Relationship Between Trust-in-God, Positive and Negative Affect, and Hope.

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Fadardi, Javad S; Azadi, Zeinab

2017-06-01

We aimed to test the relationships between Trust-in-God, positive and negative affect, and feelings of hope. A sample of university students (N = 282, 50 % female) completed the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale, and a Persian measure of Trust-in-God for Muslims. The results of a series of hierarchical regression analyses indicated that Trust-in-God was positively associated with participants' scores for hope and positive affect but was negatively associated with their scores for negative affect. The results support the relationship between Trust-in-God and indices of mental health.

Associations between maternal negative affect and adolescent's neural response to peer evaluation

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Patricia Z.; Lee, Kyung Hwa; Dahl, Ronald E.; Nelson, Eric E.; Stroud, Laura J.; Siegle, Greg J.; Morgan, Judith K.; Silk, Jennifer S.

2016-01-01

Parenting is often implicated as a potential source of individual differences in youths’ emotional information processing. The present study examined whether parental affect is related to an important aspect of adolescent emotional development, response to peer evaluation. Specifically, we examined relations between maternal negative affect, observed during parent–adolescent discussion of an adolescent-nominated concern with which s/he wants parental support, and adolescent neural responses to peer evaluation in 40 emotionally healthy and depressed adolescents. We focused on a network of ventral brain regions involved in affective processing of social information: the amygdala, anterior insula, nucleus accumbens, and subgenual anterior cingulate, as well as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Maternal negative affect was not associated with adolescent neural response to peer rejection. However, longer durations of maternal negative affect were associated with decreased responsivity to peer acceptance in the amygdala, left anterior insula, subgenual anterior cingulate, and left nucleus accumbens. These findings provide some of the first evidence that maternal negative affect is associated with adolescents’ neural processing of social rewards. Findings also suggest that maternal negative affect could contribute to alterations in affective processing, specifically, dampening the saliency and/or reward of peer interactions during adolescence. PMID:24613174

The contribution of trait negative affect and stress to recall for bodily states.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma-Kellams, Christine; Lai, Lei; Taylor, Shelley E; Lerner, Jennifer S

2016-12-01

How does trait negative affect shape somatic memory of stressful events? We hypothesized that negative affect would impair accurate recall of one's own heart rate during stressful situations. Two bio-behavioral studies used a new paradigm to test retrospective visceral perception and assessed whether negative affective states experienced during aversive events (i.e., the Trier Stress Task-Time 1) would retrospectively shape recall of past heart rate (Time 2), even when accounting for actual heart rate at the time of each stressful event (Time 1). Results across both studies showed that individual differences in negative affect in response to a stressful task predicted visceral recollections, and those who experienced more negative affect were more inaccurate. Negative affect was associated with a tendency to remember visceral reactions as worse than they actually were. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

During the long way to Mars: effects of 520 days of confinement (Mars500) on the assessment of affective stimuli and stage alteration in mood and plasma hormone levels.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yue; Jing, Xiaolu; Lv, Ke; Wu, Bin; Bai, Yanqiang; Luo, Yuejia; Chen, Shanguang; Li, Yinghui

2014-01-01

For future interplanetary manned spaceflight, mental issues, as well as physiological problems, must inevitably be considered and solved. Mars500 is a high-fidelity ground simulation experiment that involved 520 days of confined isolation for six multinational crewmembers. This experiment provided a good opportunity to perform psycho-physiological and psycho-social researches on such missions. To investigate emotional responses and psychological adaptation over long-term confinement, the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS) was selected as the visual emotional stimuli in this study. Additional data collected and analyzed included the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire and the levels of four types of plasma hormones: cortisol, 5-hydroxy tryptamine, dopamine, and norepinephrine. The results demonstrated an obvious bias on valence rating for unpleasant stimuli with time (pconfined crew tended to assign positive ratings to negative pictures with time, which might be driven by a defensive system. There was a stage-changing pattern of psychological adaptation of the Mars500 crew, which is similar to the third-quarter phenomenon.

Comparison of blood volume pulse and skin conductance responses to mental and affective stimuli at different anatomical sites

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Kushki, Azadeh; Fairley, Jillian; Merja, Satyam; King, Gillian; Chau, Tom

2011-01-01

Measurements of blood volume pulse (BVP) and skin conductance are commonly used as indications of psychological arousal in affective computing and human–machine interfaces. To date, palmar surfaces remain the primary site for these measurements. Placement of sensors on palmar surfaces, however, is undesirable when recordings are fraught with motion and pressure artifacts. These artifacts are frequent when the human participant has involuntary movements as in hyperkinetic cerebral palsy. This motivates the use of alternative measurement sites. The present study examined the correlation between measurements of blood volume pulse and skin conductance obtained from three different sites on the body (fingers, toes and ear for BVP; fingers, toes and arch of the foot for skin conductance) in response to cognitive and affective stimuli. The results of this pilot study indicated significant inter-site correlation among signal features derived from different sites, with the exception of BVP amplitude, the number of electrodermal reactions and the slope of the electrodermal activity response. We attribute these differences in part to inter-site discrepancies in local skin conditions, such as skin temperature. Despite these differences, significant changes from baseline were present in the responses to the cognitive and affective stimuli at non-palmar sites, suggesting that these sites may provide viable signal measurements for use in affective computing and human–machine interface applications

Trustworthiness and Negative Affect Predict Economic Decision-Making.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Christopher M; Koenigs, Michael; Yamada, Torricia H; Teo, Shu Hao; Cavanaugh, Joseph E; Tranel, Daniel; Denburg, Natalie L

2011-09-01

The Ultimatum Game (UG) is a widely used and well-studied laboratory model of economic decision-making. Here, we studied 129 healthy adults and compared demographic (i.e., age, gender, education), cognitive (i.e., intelligence, attention/working memory, speed, language, visuospatial, memory, executive functions), and personality (i.e., "Big Five", positive affect, negative affect) variables between those with a "rational" versus an "irrational" response pattern on the UG. Our data indicated that participants with "rational" UG performance (accepting any offer, no matter the fairness) endorsed higher levels of trust, or the belief in the sincerity and good intentions of others, while participants with "irrational" UG performance (rejecting unfair offers) endorsed higher levels of negative affect, such as anger and contempt. These personality variables were the only ones that differentiated the two response patterns-demographic and cognitive factors did not differ between rational and irrational players. The results indicate that the examination of personality and affect is crucial to our understanding of the individual differences that underlie decision-making.

Micro-oscillations in positive and negative affect during competitive ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Methods. The positive and negative affect schedule (PANAS), Worcester affect scale ... Successful trials were characterised by higher PA (p=0.000) and lower NA ... Further clarification of the catalyst to the performance demise requires a ...

Associations of positive affect and negative affect with allostatic load : A Lifelines Cohort Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schenk, Hendrika M; Jeronimus, Bertus F; van der Krieke, Lian; Bos, Elisabeth H; de Jonge, Peter; Rosmalen, Judith G M

2018-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Allostatic load (AL) reflects the deteriorating influences of stress on the body, and comprises a selection of biological markers. AL is associated with negative life events, stress, and negative affect (NA), as well as poor health outcomes. However, whether AL is also associated with

The mere exposure effect with scene stimuli

OpenAIRE

八木　, 善彦

2016-01-01

　The mere exposure effect refers to the phenomenon where previous exposures to stimuli increasesubsequent affective preference for those stimuli. It has been indicated that with specific stimulus-category（i.e., paintings, matrices, and photographs of scene）, repeated exposure has little or oppositeeffect on affective ratings. In this study, two experiments were conducted in order to explore theeffect of stimulus-category on the mere exposure effects. Photographs of young woman’s（Experiment1）a...

Selective attention to affective value alters how the brain processes olfactory stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Rolls, Edmund T; Grabenhorst, Fabian; Margot, Christian; da Silva, Maria A A P; Velazco, Maria Ines

2008-10-01

How does selective attention to affect influence sensory processing? In a functional magnetic resonance imaging investigation, when subjects were instructed to remember and rate the pleasantness of a jasmine odor, activations were greater in the medial orbito-frontal and pregenual cingulate cortex than when subjects were instructed to remember and rate the intensity of the odor. When the subjects were instructed to remember and rate the intensity, activations were greater in the inferior frontal gyrus. These top-down effects occurred not only during odor delivery but started in a preparation period after the instruction before odor delivery, and continued after termination of the odor in a short-term memory period. Thus, depending on the context in which odors are presented and whether affect is relevant, the brain prepares itself, responds to, and remembers an odor differently. These findings show that when attention is paid to affective value, the brain systems engaged to prepare for, represent, and remember a sensory stimulus are different from those engaged when attention is directed to the physical properties of a stimulus such as its intensity. This differential biasing of brain regions engaged in processing a sensory stimulus depending on whether the cognitive demand is for affect-related versus more sensory-related processing may be an important aspect of cognition and attention. This has many implications for understanding the effects not only of olfactory but also of other sensory stimuli.

Hurricane Sandy Exposure Alters the Development of Neural Reactivity to Negative Stimuli in Children.

Science.gov (United States)

Kessel, Ellen M; Nelson, Brady D; Kujawa, Autumn; Hajcak, Greg; Kotov, Roman; Bromet, Evelyn J; Carlson, Gabrielle A; Klein, Daniel N

2018-03-01

This study examined whether exposure to Hurricane Sandy-related stressors altered children's brain response to emotional information. An average of 8 months (M age  = 9.19) before and 9 months after (M age  = 10.95) Hurricane Sandy, 77 children experiencing high (n = 37) and low (n = 40) levels of hurricane-related stress exposure completed a task in which the late positive potential, a neural index of emotional reactivity, was measured in response to pleasant and unpleasant, compared to neutral, images. From pre- to post-Hurricane Sandy, children with high stress exposure failed to show the same decrease in emotional reactivity to unpleasant versus neutral stimuli as those with low stress exposure. Results provide compelling evidence that exposure to natural disaster-related stressors alters neural emotional reactivity to negatively valenced information. © 2016 The Authors. Child Development © 2016 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

Associations between maternal negative affect and adolescent's neural response to peer evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patricia Z. Tan

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Parenting is often implicated as a potential source of individual differences in youths’ emotional information processing. The present study examined whether parental affect is related to an important aspect of adolescent emotional development, response to peer evaluation. Specifically, we examined relations between maternal negative affect, observed during parent–adolescent discussion of an adolescent-nominated concern with which s/he wants parental support, and adolescent neural responses to peer evaluation in 40 emotionally healthy and depressed adolescents. We focused on a network of ventral brain regions involved in affective processing of social information: the amygdala, anterior insula, nucleus accumbens, and subgenual anterior cingulate, as well as the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Maternal negative affect was not associated with adolescent neural response to peer rejection. However, longer durations of maternal negative affect were associated with decreased responsivity to peer acceptance in the amygdala, left anterior insula, subgenual anterior cingulate, and left nucleus accumbens. These findings provide some of the first evidence that maternal negative affect is associated with adolescents’ neural processing of social rewards. Findings also suggest that maternal negative affect could contribute to alterations in affective processing, specifically, dampening the saliency and/or reward of peer interactions during adolescence.

Transient emotional events and individual affective traits affect emotion recognition in a perceptual decision-making task.

Science.gov (United States)

Qiao-Tasserit, Emilie; Garcia Quesada, Maria; Antico, Lia; Bavelier, Daphne; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Pichon, Swann

2017-01-01

Both affective states and personality traits shape how we perceive the social world and interpret emotions. The literature on affective priming has mostly focused on brief influences of emotional stimuli and emotional states on perceptual and cognitive processes. Yet this approach does not fully capture more dynamic processes at the root of emotional states, with such states lingering beyond the duration of the inducing external stimuli. Our goal was to put in perspective three different types of affective states (induced affective states, more sustained mood states and affective traits such as depression and anxiety) and investigate how they may interact and influence emotion perception. Here, we hypothesized that absorption into positive and negative emotional episodes generate sustained affective states that outlast the episode period and bias the interpretation of facial expressions in a perceptual decision-making task. We also investigated how such effects are influenced by more sustained mood states and by individual affect traits (depression and anxiety) and whether they interact. Transient emotional states were induced using movie-clips, after which participants performed a forced-choice emotion classification task with morphed facial expressions ranging from fear to happiness. Using a psychometric approach, we show that negative (vs. neutral) clips increased participants' propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful during several minutes. In contrast, positive movies biased classification toward happiness only for those clips perceived as most absorbing. Negative mood, anxiety and depression had a stronger effect than transient states and increased the propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful. These results provide the first evidence that absorption and different temporal dimensions of emotions have a significant effect on how we perceive facial expressions.

Transient emotional events and individual affective traits affect emotion recognition in a perceptual decision-making task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Emilie Qiao-Tasserit

Full Text Available Both affective states and personality traits shape how we perceive the social world and interpret emotions. The literature on affective priming has mostly focused on brief influences of emotional stimuli and emotional states on perceptual and cognitive processes. Yet this approach does not fully capture more dynamic processes at the root of emotional states, with such states lingering beyond the duration of the inducing external stimuli. Our goal was to put in perspective three different types of affective states (induced affective states, more sustained mood states and affective traits such as depression and anxiety and investigate how they may interact and influence emotion perception. Here, we hypothesized that absorption into positive and negative emotional episodes generate sustained affective states that outlast the episode period and bias the interpretation of facial expressions in a perceptual decision-making task. We also investigated how such effects are influenced by more sustained mood states and by individual affect traits (depression and anxiety and whether they interact. Transient emotional states were induced using movie-clips, after which participants performed a forced-choice emotion classification task with morphed facial expressions ranging from fear to happiness. Using a psychometric approach, we show that negative (vs. neutral clips increased participants' propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful during several minutes. In contrast, positive movies biased classification toward happiness only for those clips perceived as most absorbing. Negative mood, anxiety and depression had a stronger effect than transient states and increased the propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful. These results provide the first evidence that absorption and different temporal dimensions of emotions have a significant effect on how we perceive facial expressions.

Transient emotional events and individual affective traits affect emotion recognition in a perceptual decision-making task

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia Quesada, Maria; Antico, Lia; Bavelier, Daphne; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Pichon, Swann

2017-01-01

Both affective states and personality traits shape how we perceive the social world and interpret emotions. The literature on affective priming has mostly focused on brief influences of emotional stimuli and emotional states on perceptual and cognitive processes. Yet this approach does not fully capture more dynamic processes at the root of emotional states, with such states lingering beyond the duration of the inducing external stimuli. Our goal was to put in perspective three different types of affective states (induced affective states, more sustained mood states and affective traits such as depression and anxiety) and investigate how they may interact and influence emotion perception. Here, we hypothesized that absorption into positive and negative emotional episodes generate sustained affective states that outlast the episode period and bias the interpretation of facial expressions in a perceptual decision-making task. We also investigated how such effects are influenced by more sustained mood states and by individual affect traits (depression and anxiety) and whether they interact. Transient emotional states were induced using movie-clips, after which participants performed a forced-choice emotion classification task with morphed facial expressions ranging from fear to happiness. Using a psychometric approach, we show that negative (vs. neutral) clips increased participants’ propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful during several minutes. In contrast, positive movies biased classification toward happiness only for those clips perceived as most absorbing. Negative mood, anxiety and depression had a stronger effect than transient states and increased the propensity to classify ambiguous faces as fearful. These results provide the first evidence that absorption and different temporal dimensions of emotions have a significant effect on how we perceive facial expressions. PMID:28151976

Repetition Enhancement of Amygdala and Visual Cortex Functional Connectivity Reflects Nonconscious Memory for Negative Visual Stimuli.

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Kark, Sarah M; Slotnick, Scott D; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2016-12-01

Most studies using a recognition memory paradigm examine the neural processes that support the ability to consciously recognize past events. However, there can also be nonconscious influences from the prior study episode that reflect repetition suppression effects-a reduction in the magnitude of activity for repeated presentations of stimuli-that are revealed by comparing neural activity associated with forgotten items to correctly rejected novel items. The present fMRI study examined the effect of emotional valence (positive vs. negative) on repetition suppression effects. Using a standard recognition memory task, 24 participants viewed line drawings of previously studied negative, positive, and neutral photos intermixed with novel line drawings. For each item, participants made an old-new recognition judgment and a sure-unsure confidence rating. Collapsed across valence, repetition suppression effects were found in ventral occipital-temporal cortex and frontal regions. Activity levels in the majority of these regions were not modulated by valence. However, repetition enhancement of the amygdala and ventral occipital-temporal cortex functional connectivity reflected nonconscious memory for negative items. In this study, valence had little effect on activation patterns but had a larger effect on functional connectivity patterns that were markers of nonconscious memory. Beyond memory and emotion, these findings are relevant to other cognitive and social neuroscientists that utilize fMRI repetition effects to investigate perception, attention, social cognition, and other forms of learning and memory.

Effect of nicotine on negative affect among more impulsive smokers.

Science.gov (United States)

Doran, Neal; McChargue, Dennis; Spring, Bonnie; VanderVeen, Joe; Cook, Jessica Werth; Richmond, Malia

2006-08-01

In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that nicotine would provide greater relief from negative affect for more impulsive smokers than for less impulsive smokers. Euthymic adult smokers (N=70) participated in 2 laboratory sessions, during which they underwent a negative mood induction (music + autobiographical memory), then smoked either a nicotinized or de-nicotinized cigarette. Mixed-effects regression yielded a significant Impulsivity x Condition (nicotinized vs. de-nicotinized) x Time interaction. Simple effects analyses showed that heightened impulsivity predicted greater negative affect relief after smoking a nicotinized cigarette but not after smoking a de-nicotinized cigarette. These data suggest that nicotine may be a disproportionately powerful negative reinforcer for highly impulsive smokers, promoting higher levels of nicotine dependence and inhibiting smoking cessation.

Narcissism dimensions differentially moderate selective attention to evaluative stimuli in incarcerated offenders.

Science.gov (United States)

Krusemark, Elizabeth A; Lee, Christopher; Newman, Joseph P

2015-01-01

Narcissistic personality disorder is associated with distinguishing traits including self-enhancement, arrogance, and intense reactivity to ego threat. Theoretical accounts of narcissism suggest these heterogeneous behaviors reflect a defensive motivational style that functions to both uphold and protect the self-concept. However, the notion that narcissism can be characterized by grandiose and vulnerable dimensions raises the possibility that these diverse behaviors represent distinct expressions of narcissistic defensiveness. The present study examined whether both dimensions exhibit a general defensive style marked by selective attention to evaluative stimuli or are differentially associated with selective attention to positive and negative information, respectively. Using a dot probe task consisting of valenced and neutral trait adjectives, we evaluated these hypotheses in a group of male offenders. Results indicated that vulnerable narcissism was associated with attention biases for both positive and negative stimuli, though the dimension was further distinguished by disengagement difficulties and a greater recognition memory bias in response to negative words. Conversely, grandiose narcissism was associated with increased accuracy when attending to positive stimuli and directing attention away from negative stimuli. Overall, these findings suggest narcissistic individuals share motivated selective attention in response to evaluative stimuli, while simultaneously highlighting important phenotypic differences between grandiose and vulnerable dimensions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Effect of Size Change and Brightness Change of Visual Stimuli on Loudness Perception and Pitch Perception of Auditory Stimuli

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Syouya Tanabe

2011-10-01

Full Text Available People obtain a lot of information from visual and auditory sensation on daily life. Regarding the effect of visual stimuli on perception of auditory stimuli, studies of phonological perception and sound localization have been made in great numbers. This study examined the effect of visual stimuli on perception in loudness and pitch of auditory stimuli. We used the image of figures whose size or brightness was changed as visual stimuli, and the sound of pure tone whose loudness or pitch was changed as auditory stimuli. Those visual and auditory stimuli were combined independently to make four types of audio-visual multisensory stimuli for psychophysical experiments. In the experiments, participants judged change in loudness or pitch of auditory stimuli, while they judged the direction of size change or the kind of a presented figure in visual stimuli. Therefore they cannot neglect visual stimuli while they judged auditory stimuli. As a result, perception in loudness and pitch were promoted significantly around their difference limen, when the image was getting bigger or brighter, compared with the case in which the image had no changes. This indicates that perception in loudness and pitch were affected by change in size and brightness of visual stimuli.

Perceived health in lung cancer patients: the role of positive and negative affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Hirsch, Jameson K; Floyd, Andrea R; Duberstein, Paul R

2012-03-01

To examine the association of affective experience and health-related quality of life in lung cancer patients, we hypothesized that negative affect would be positively, and positive affect would be negatively, associated with perceived health. A sample of 133 English-speaking lung cancer patients (33% female; mean age = 63.68 years old, SD = 9.37) completed a battery of self-report surveys. Results of our secondary analysis indicate that trait negative affect was significantly associated with poor physical and social functioning, greater role limitations due to emotional problems, greater bodily pain, and poor general health. Positive affect was significantly associated with adaptive social functioning, fewer emotion-based role limitations, and less severe bodily pain. In a full model, positive affect was significantly associated with greater levels of social functioning and general health, over and above the effects of negative affect. Reduction of negative affect is an important therapeutic goal, but the ability to maintain positive affect may result in greater perceived health. Indeed, engagement in behaviors that result in greater state positive affect may, over time, result in dispositional changes and enhancement of quality of life.

Resting-state functional connectivity remains unaffected by preceding exposure to aversive visual stimuli.

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Geissmann, Léonie; Gschwind, Leo; Schicktanz, Nathalie; Deuring, Gunnar; Rosburg, Timm; Schwegler, Kyrill; Gerhards, Christiane; Milnik, Annette; Pflueger, Marlon O; Mager, Ralph; de Quervain, Dominique J F; Coynel, David

2018-02-15

While much is known about immediate brain activity changes induced by the confrontation with emotional stimuli, the subsequent temporal unfolding of emotions has yet to be explored. To investigate whether exposure to emotionally aversive pictures affects subsequent resting-state networks differently from exposure to neutral pictures, a resting-state fMRI study implementing a two-group repeated-measures design in healthy young adults (N = 34) was conducted. We focused on investigating (i) patterns of amygdala whole-brain and hippocampus connectivity in both a seed-to-voxel and seed-to-seed approach, (ii) whole-brain resting-state networks with an independent component analysis coupled with dual regression, and (iii) the amygdala's fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations, all while EEG recording potential fluctuations in vigilance. In spite of the successful emotion induction, as demonstrated by stimuli rating and a memory-facilitating effect of negative emotionality, none of the resting-state measures was differentially affected by picture valence. In conclusion, resting-state networks connectivity as well as the amygdala's low frequency oscillations appear to be unaffected by preceding exposure to widely used emotionally aversive visual stimuli in healthy young adults. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Virtual reality stimuli for force platform posturography.

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Tossavainen, Timo; Juhola, Martti; Ilmari, Pyykö; Aalto, Heikki; Toppila, Esko

2002-01-01

People relying much on vision in the control of posture are known to have an elevated risk of falling. Dependence on visual control is an important parameter in the diagnosis of balance disorders. We have previously shown that virtual reality methods can be used to produce visual stimuli that affect balance, but suitable stimuli need to be found. In this study the effect of six different virtual reality stimuli on the balance of 22 healthy test subjects was evaluated using force platform posturography. According to the tests two of the stimuli have a significant effect on balance.

A facilitative effect of negative affective valence on working memory.

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Gotoh, Fumiko; Kikuchi, Tadashi; Olofsson, Ulrich

2010-06-01

Previous studies have shown that negatively valenced information impaired working memory performance due to an attention-capturing effect. The present study examined whether negative valence could also facilitate working memory. Affective words (negative, neutral, positive) were used as retro-cues in a working memory task that required participants to remember colors at different spatial locations on a computer screen. Following the cue, a target detection task was used to either shift attention to a different location or keep attention at the same location as the retro-cue. Finally, participants were required to discriminate the cued color from a set of distractors. It was found that negative cues yielded shorter response times (RTs) in the attention-shift condition and longer RTs in the attention-stay condition, compared with neutral and positive cues. The results suggest that negative affective valence may enhance working memory performance (RTs), provided that attention can be disengaged.

Alleged Approach-Avoidance Conflict for Food Stimuli in Binge Eating Disorder.

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Elisabeth J Leehr

Full Text Available Food stimuli are omnipresent and naturally primary reinforcing stimuli. One explanation for the intake of high amounts of food in binge eating disorder (BED is a deviant valuation process. Valuation of food stimuli is supposed to influence approach or avoidance behaviour towards food. Focusing on self-reported and indirect (facial electromyography valuation process, motivational aspects in the processing of food stimuli were investigated.We compared an overweight sample with BED (BED+ with an overweight sample without BED (BED- and with normal weight controls (NWC regarding their self-reported and indirect (via facial electromyography valuation of food versus non-food stimuli.Regarding the self-reported valuation, the BED+ sample showed a significantly stronger food-bias compared to the BED- sample, as food stimuli were rated as significantly more positive than the non-food stimuli in the BED+ sample. This self-reported valuation pattern could not be displayed in the indirect valuation. Food stimuli evoked negative indirect valuation in all groups. The BED+ sample showed the plainest approach-avoidance conflict marked by a diverging self-reported (positive and indirect (negative valuation of food stimuli.BED+ showed a deviant self-reported valuation of food as compared to BED-. The valuation process of the BED+ sample seems to be characterized by a motivational ambivalence. This ambivalence should be subject of further studies and may be of potential use for therapeutic interventions.

Difficulties in emotion regulation mediate negative and positive affects and craving in alcoholic patients.

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Khosravani, Vahid; Sharifi Bastan, Farangis; Ghorbani, Fatemeh; Kamali, Zoleikha

2017-08-01

The aim of this study was to assess the mediating effects of difficulties in emotion regulation (DER) on the relations of negative and positive affects to craving in alcoholic patients. 205 treatment-seeking alcoholic outpatients were included. DER, positive and negative affects as well as craving were evaluated by the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS), the Positive/Negative Affect Scales, and the Obsessive Compulsive Drinking Scale (OCDS) respectively. Clinical factors including depression and severity of alcohol dependence were investigated by the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) and the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) respectively. Results revealed that both increased negative affect and decreased positive affect indirectly influenced craving through limited access to emotion regulation strategies. It was concluded that limited access to emotion regulation strategies may be important in predicting craving for alcoholics who experience both increased negative affect and decreased positive affect. This suggests that treatment and prevention efforts focused on increasing positive affect, decreasing negative affect and teaching effective regulation strategies may be critical in reducing craving in alcoholic patients. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Associations among negative parenting, attention bias to anger, and social anxiety among youth.

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Gulley, Lauren D; Oppenheimer, Caroline W; Hankin, Benjamin L

2014-02-01

Theories of affective learning suggest that early experiences contribute to emotional disorders by influencing the development of processing biases for negative emotional stimuli. Although studies have shown that physically abused children preferentially attend to angry faces, it is unclear whether youth exposed to more typical aspects of negative parenting exhibit the same type of bias. The current studies extend previous research by linking observed negative parenting styles (e.g., authoritarian) and behaviors (e.g., criticism and negative affect) to attention bias for angry faces in both a psychiatrically enriched (ages 11-17 years; N = 60) and a general community (ages 9-15 years; N = 75) sample of youth. In addition, the association between observed negative parenting (e.g., authoritarian style and negative affect) and youth social anxiety was mediated by attention bias for angry faces in the general community sample. Overall, findings provide preliminary support for theories of affective learning and risk for psychopathology among youth.

Mothers’ Negative Affectivity During Pregnancy and Food Choices for Their Infants

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Hampson, Sarah E.; Tonstad, Serena; Irgens, Lorentz M.; Meltzer, Helle Margrete; Vollrath, Margarete

2009-01-01

Objective To investigate whether maternal negative affectivity assessed in pregnancy is related to subsequent infant food choices. Design Cohort study. Subjects Mothers (N = 37, 919) and their infants participating in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study conducted by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. Measurements Maternal negative affectivity assessed pre-partum (SCL-5 at week 17 and 30 of pregnancy), introduction of solid foods by month 3, and feeding of sweet drinks by month 6 (by mothers’ reports). Results Mothers with higher negative affectivity were 64% more likely (95% CI 1.5–1.8) to feed sweet drinks by month 6, and 79% more likely (95% CI 1.6–2.0) to introduce solid foods by month 3. These odds decreased to 41% and 30%, respectively, after adjusting for mother’s age, body mass index, and education. Conclusion The maternal trait of negative affectivity is an independent predictor of infant feeding practices that may be related to childhood weight gain, overweight, and obesity. PMID:19918247

Trait emotional intelligence and mental distress: the mediating role of positive and negative affect.

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Kong, Feng; Zhao, Jingjing; You, Xuqun

2012-01-01

Over the past decade, emotional intelligence (EI) has received much attention in the literature. Previous studies indicated that higher trait or ability EI was associated with greater mental distress. The present study focused on mediating effects of positive and negative affect on the association between trait EI and mental distress in a sample of Chinese adults. The participants were 726 Chinese adults (384 females) with an age range of 18-60 years. Data were collected by using the Wong Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale, and the General Health Questionnaire. Hierarchical regression analysis showed that EI was a significant predictor of positive affect, negative affect and mental distress. Further mediation analysis showed that positive and negative affect acted as partial mediators of the relationship between EI and mental distress. Furthermore, effect contrasts showed that there was no significant difference between the specific indirect effects through positive affect and through negative affect. This result indicated that positive affect and negative affect played an equally important function in the association between EI and distress. The significance and limitations of the results are discussed.

Fewer ups and downs: daily stressors mediate age differences in negative affect.

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Charles, Susan Turk; Luong, Gloria; Almeida, David M; Ryff, Carol; Sturm, Maggie; Love, Gayle

2010-05-01

The current study examined age differences in daily stressors, positive events (uplifts), and their associations with emotional experience among healthy older women. Women (N = 101, 63-93 years old) reported their daily experiences across 1 week. Older age was related to fewer stressors and less frequent negative affect. However, the association between negative affect and age was no longer significant after accounting for the occurrence of daily stressors. Older age was not significantly related to positive affect, although positive uplifts were reported less frequently with age. Findings provide a contextual explanation for emotional experience in very late life, where reduced exposure to stressors partially explains age-related reductions in negative affect.

Stimulus-category competition, inhibition, and affective devaluation: a novel account of the uncanny valley.

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Ferrey, Anne E; Burleigh, Tyler J; Fenske, Mark J

2015-01-01

Stimuli that resemble humans, but are not perfectly human-like, are disliked compared to distinctly human and non-human stimuli. Accounts of this "Uncanny Valley" effect often focus on how changes in human resemblance can evoke different emotional responses. We present an alternate account based on the novel hypothesis that the Uncanny Valley is not directly related to 'human-likeness' per se, but instead reflects a more general form of stimulus devaluation that occurs when inhibition is triggered to resolve conflict between competing stimulus-related representations. We consider existing support for this inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and further assess its feasibility through tests of two corresponding predictions that arise from the link between conflict-resolving inhibition and aversive response: (1) that the pronounced disliking of Uncanny-type stimuli will occur for any image that strongly activates multiple competing stimulus representations, even in the absence of any human-likeness, and (2) that the negative peak of an 'Uncanny Valley' should occur at the point of greatest stimulus-related conflict and not (in the presence of human-likeness) always closer to the 'human' end of a perceptual continuum. We measured affective responses to a set of line drawings representing non-human animal-animal morphs, in which each continuum midpoint was a bistable image (Experiment 1), as well as to sets of human-robot and human-animal computer-generated morphs (Experiment 2). Affective trends depicting classic Uncanny Valley functions occurred for all continua, including the non-human stimuli. Images at continua midpoints elicited significantly more negative affect than images at endpoints, even when the continua included a human endpoint. This illustrates the feasibility of the inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and the need for further research into the possibility that the strong dislike of Uncanny-type stimuli reflects the negative affective consequences of

Stimulus-category competition, inhibition and affective devaluation: A novel account of the Uncanny Valley

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Anne E. Ferrey

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Stimuli that resemble humans, but are not perfectly human-like, are disliked compared to distinctly human and nonhuman stimuli. Accounts of this Uncanny Valley effect often focus on how changes in human resemblance can evoke different emotional responses. We present an alternate account based on the novel hypothesis that the Uncanny Valley is not directly related to ‘human-likeness’ per se, but instead reflects a more general form of stimulus devaluation that occurs when inhibition is triggered to resolve conflict between competing stimulus-related representations. We consider existing support for this inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and further assess its feasibility through tests of two corresponding predictions that arise from the link between conflict-resolving inhibition and aversive response: 1 that the pronounced disliking of Uncanny-type stimuli will occur for any image that strongly activates multiple competing stimulus representations, even in the absence of any human-likeness, and 2 that the negative peak of an ‘Uncanny Valley’ should occur at the point of greatest stimulus-related conflict and not (in the presence of human-likeness always closer to the ‘human’ end of a perceptual continuum. We measured affective responses to a set of line drawings representing nonhuman animal-animal morphs, in which each continuum midpoint was a bistable image (Exp. 1, as well as to sets of human-robot and human-animal computer-generated morphs (Exp. 2. Affective trends depicting classic Uncanny Valley functions occurred for all continua, including the nonhuman stimuli. Images at continua midpoints elicited significantly more negative affect than images at endpoints, even when the continua included a human endpoint. This illustrates the feasibility of the inhibitory-devaluation hypothesis and the need for further research into the possibility that the strong dislike of Uncanny-type stimuli reflects the negative affective consequences of

Word Meaning Frequencies Affect Negative Compatibility Effects In Masked Priming.

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Brocher, Andreas; Koenig, Jean-Pierre

2016-01-01

Negative compatibility effects (NCEs)-that is, slower responses to targets in related than unrelated prime-target pairs, have been observed in studies using stimulus-response (S-R) priming with stimuli like arrows and plus signs. Although there is no consensus on the underlying mechanism, explanations tend to locate NCEs within the motor-response system. A characteristic property of perceptuo-motor NCEs is a biphasic pattern of activation: A brief period in which very briefly presented (typically) masked primes facilitate processing of related targets is followed by a phase of target processing impairment. In this paper, we present data that suggest that NCEs are not restricted to S-R priming with low-level visual stimuli: The brief (50 ms), backward masked (250 ms) presentation of ambiguous words (bank) leads to slower responses than baseline to words related to the more frequent (rob) but not less frequent meaning (swim). Importantly, we found that slowed responses are preceded by a short phase of response facilitation, replicating the biphasic pattern reported for arrows and plus signs. The biphasic pattern of priming and the fact that the NCEs were found only for target words that are related to their prime word's more frequent meaning has strong implications for any theory of NCEs that locate these effects exclusively within the motor-response system.

Affective picture processing and motivational relevance: arousal and valence effects on ERPs in an oddball task.

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Briggs, Kate E; Martin, Frances H

2009-06-01

There are two dominant theories of affective picture processing; one that attention is more deeply engaged by motivationally relevant stimuli (i.e., stimuli that activate both the appetitive and aversive systems), and two that attention is more deeply engaged by aversive stimuli described as the negativity bias. In order to identify the theory that can best account for affective picture processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 34 participants during a modified oddball paradigm in which levels of stimulus valence, arousal, and motivational relevance were systematically varied. Results were partially consistent with motivated attention models of emotional perception, as P3b amplitude was enhanced in response to highly arousing and motivationally relevant sexual and unpleasant stimuli compared to respective low arousing and less motivationally relevant stimuli. However P3b amplitudes were significantly larger in response to the highly arousing sexual stimuli compared to all other affective stimuli, which is not consistent with either dominant theory. The current study therefore highlights the need for a revised model of affective picture processing and provides a platform for further research investigating the independent effects of sexual arousal on cognitive processing.

When death is not a problem: Regulating implicit negative affect under mortality salience.

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Lüdecke, Christina; Baumann, Nicola

2015-12-01

Terror management theory assumes that death arouses existential anxiety in humans which is suppressed in focal attention. Whereas most studies provide indirect evidence for negative affect under mortality salience by showing cultural worldview defenses and self-esteem strivings, there is only little direct evidence for implicit negative affect under mortality salience. In the present study, we assume that this implicit affective reaction towards death depends on people's ability to self-regulate negative affect as assessed by the personality dimension of action versus state orientation. Consistent with our expectations, action-oriented participants judged artificial words to express less negative affect under mortality salience compared to control conditions whereas state-oriented participants showed the reversed pattern. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Influence of Various Distraction Stimuli on Affective Responses during Recumbent Cycle Ergometry

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Paul C. Miller

2016-03-01

Full Text Available (1 Background: Acute bouts of exercise have been associated with affective changes. Exercise supplemented with distraction may divert attention from unpleasant feelings commonly associated with exercise to more pleasant feelings. The purpose of this study was to compare affective responses to exercise with and without distraction. (2 Methods: 25 individuals volunteered for this investigation and completed all three conditions. This study included three 30 min cycle ergometry exercise conditions, a control condition with no stimuli and two test conditions; one supplemented with a self-selected video and the other self-selected music. The Feeling Scale (FS was administered prior to, every 10 min during, immediately following, and 10 min post exercise. (3 Results: These data demonstrate a significant condition effect for FS during exercise. The condition effect was due to FS being greater in the video and distraction conditions. There was no time by condition interaction seen during exercise. (4 Conclusion: These data indicate that distraction may be effective in supporting a more pleasant exercise experience and could potentially increase exercise adherence.

Chronic and Daily Stressors Along With Negative Affect Interact to Predict Daily Tiredness.

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Hartsell, Elizabeth N; Neupert, Shevaun D

2017-11-01

The present study examines the within-person relationship of daily stressors and tiredness and whether this depends on daily negative affect and individual differences in chronic stress. One hundred sixteen older adult participants were recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk for a 9-day daily diary study. Daily tiredness, daily stressors, and negative affect were measured each day, and chronic stress was measured at baseline. Daily stressors, daily negative affect, and chronic stress interacted to predict daily tiredness. People with high chronic stress who experienced an increase in daily negative affect were the most reactive to daily stressors in terms of experiencing an increase in daily tiredness. We also found that people with low levels of chronic stress were the most reactive to daily stressors when they experienced low levels of daily negative affect. Our results highlight the need for individualized and contextualized approaches to combating daily tiredness in older adults.

Positive and negative affect in individuals with spinal cord injuries.

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Salter, J E; Smith, S D; Ethans, K D

2013-03-01

Participants with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) and healthy controls completed standardized questionnaires assessing depression level, positive and negative affect, and personality traits. To identify the specific characteristics of emotional experiences affected by spinal cord injury. A Canadian rehabilitation center. Individuals with SCIs were recruited from a list of patients who had volunteered to participate in studies being conducted by the SCI clinic. Healthy controls were recruited from the community, but tested in the SCI clinic. Thirty-six individuals with complete (ASIA A) SCIs and 36 age-, gender- and education-matched controls participated in this study. SCI participants were classified as cervical (C1-C7), upper thoracic (T1-T5) or lower thoracic/upper lumbar (T6-L2). All participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Positive and Negative Affect Schedules, the NEO Neuroticism Questionnaire, and the harm avoidance scale of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire. Data were analyzed using independent-samples t-tests (when contrasting SCI and controls) and analysis of variance (when comparing across SCI groups). Participants with SCIs experienced significantly less positive affect than controls. The two groups did not differ in their experience of negative affect. Participants with SCIs also reported greater levels of depression. Depression scores improved with an increasing number of years post injury. Individuals with SCIs are characterized by specific emotional dysfunction related to the experience of positive emotions, rather than a tendency to ruminate on negative emotions. The results suggest that these individuals would benefit from rehabilitation programs that include training in positive psychology.

Positive erotic picture stimuli for emotion research in heterosexual females.

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Jacob, Gitta Anne; Arntz, Arnoud; Domes, Gregor; Reiss, Neele; Siep, Nicolette

2011-12-30

In most experimental studies, emotional pictures are widely used as stimulus material. However, there is still a lack of standardization of picture stimuli displaying erotic relationships, despite the association between a number of psychological problems and severe impairments and problems in intimate relationships. The aim of the study was to test a set of erotic stimuli, with the potential to be used in experimental studies, with heterosexual female subjects. Twenty International Affective Picture System (IAPS) pictures and an additional 100 pictures showing romantic but not explicitly sexual scenes and/or attractive single males were selected. All pictures were rated with respect to valence, arousal, and dominance by 41 heterosexual women and compared to pictures with negative, positive, and neutral emotional valence. Erotic IAPS pictures and our additional erotic pictures did not differ in any of the evaluation dimensions. Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) for valence, arousal, and dominance comparing different picture valence categories showed strong effects for category. However, valence was not significantly different between erotic and positive pictures, while arousal and control were not significantly different between positive and neutral pictures. The pictures of our new set are as positive for heterosexual women as highly positive IAPS pictures, but higher in arousal and dominance. The picture set can be used in experimental psychiatric studies requiring high numbers of stimuli per category. Limitations are the restriction of stimuli application to heterosexual females only and to self-report data. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trustworthiness and Negative Affect Predict Economic Decision-Making

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Nguyen, Christopher M.; Koenigs, Michael; Yamada, Torricia H.; Teo, Shu Hao; Cavanaugh, Joseph E.; Tranel, Daniel; Denburg, Natalie L.

2011-01-01

The Ultimatum Game (UG) is a widely used and well-studied laboratory model of economic decision-making. Here, we studied 129 healthy adults and compared demographic (i.e., age, gender, education), cognitive (i.e., intelligence, attention/working memory, speed, language, visuospatial, memory, executive functions), and personality (i.e., “Big Five”, positive affect, negative affect) variables between those with a “rational” versus an “irrational” response pattern on the UG. Our data indicated t...

The orbitofrontal cortex and beyond: from affect to decision-making.

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Rolls, Edmund T; Grabenhorst, Fabian

2008-11-01

The orbitofrontal cortex represents the reward or affective value of primary reinforcers including taste, touch, texture, and face expression. It learns to associate other stimuli with these to produce representations of the expected reward value for visual, auditory, and abstract stimuli including monetary reward value. The orbitofrontal cortex thus plays a key role in emotion, by representing the goals for action. The learning process is stimulus-reinforcer association learning. Negative reward prediction error neurons are related to this affective learning. Activations in the orbitofrontal cortex correlate with the subjective emotional experience of affective stimuli, and damage to the orbitofrontal cortex impairs emotion-related learning, emotional behaviour, and subjective affective state. With an origin from beyond the orbitofrontal cortex, top-down attention to affect modulates orbitofrontal cortex representations, and attention to intensity modulates representations in earlier cortical areas of the physical properties of stimuli. Top-down word-level cognitive inputs can bias affective representations in the orbitofrontal cortex, providing a mechanism for cognition to influence emotion. Whereas the orbitofrontal cortex provides a representation of reward or affective value on a continuous scale, areas beyond the orbitofrontal cortex such as the medial prefrontal cortex area 10 are involved in binary decision-making when a choice must be made. For this decision-making, the orbitofrontal cortex provides a representation of each specific reward in a common currency.

Effects of worry on physiological and subjective reactivity to emotional stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder and nonanxious control participants.

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Llera, Sandra J; Newman, Michelle G

2010-10-01

The present study examined the effect of worry versus relaxation and neutral thought activity on both physiological and subjective responding to positive and negative emotional stimuli. Thirty-eight participants with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 35 nonanxious control participants were randomly assigned to engage in worry, relaxation, or neutral inductions prior to sequential exposure to each of four emotion-inducing film clips. The clips were designed to elicit fear, sadness, happiness, and calm emotions. Self reported negative and positive affect was assessed following each induction and exposure, and vagal activity was measured throughout. Results indicate that worry (vs. relaxation) led to reduced vagal tone for the GAD group, as well as higher negative affect levels for both groups. Additionally, prior worry resulted in less physiological and subjective responding to the fearful film clip, and reduced negative affect in response to the sad clip. This suggests that worry may facilitate avoidance of processing negative emotions by way of preventing a negative emotional contrast. Implications for the role of worry in emotion avoidance are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Daily Emotional Labor, Negative Affect State, and Emotional Exhaustion: Cross-Level Moderators of Affective Commitment

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Hyewon Kong

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Employees’ emotional-labor strategies, experienced affects, and emotional exhaustion in the workplace may vary over time within individuals, even within the same day. However, previous studies on these relationships have not highlighted their dynamic properties of these relationships. In addition, although the effects of surface and deep acting on emotional exhaustion have been investigated in emotional-labor research, empirical studies on these relationships still report mixed results. Thus, we suggest that moderators may affect the relationship between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Also, this study examines the relationship between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion within individuals by repeated measurements, and verifies the mediating effect of a negative affect state. Finally, our study confirms the moderating effects that affective commitment has on the relationship between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Data was collected from tellers who had a high degree of interaction with clients at banks based in South Korea. A total of 56 tellers participated in the survey and responded for five working days. A total of 616 data entries were collected from the 56 respondents. We used a hierarchical linear model (HLM to examine our hypothesis. The results showed that surface-acting emotional labor increases emotional exhaustion; furthermore, the relationship between surface acting emotional labor and emotional exhaustion is mediated by a negative affect state within individuals. In addition, this study verified that affective commitment buffers the negative effects that surface acting emotional labor has on emotional exhaustion. These results suggest that emotional labor is a dynamic process within individuals, and that emotional exhaustion caused by emotional labor differs among individuals, and is dependent upon factors such as the individual’s level of affective commitment.

The role of perfectionism in daily self-esteem, attachment, and negative affect.

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Dunkley, David M; Berg, Jody-Lynn; Zuroff, David C

2012-06-01

This study of university students (64 men, 99 women) examined the role of self-critical (SC) and personal standards (PS) higher order dimensions of perfectionism in daily self-esteem, attachment, and negative affect. Participants completed questionnaires at the end of the day for 7 consecutive days. Trait and situational influences were found in the daily reports of self-esteem, attachment, and affect. In contrast to PS perfectionism, SC perfectionism was strongly related to aggregated daily reports of low self-esteem, attachment fears (fear of closeness, fear of dependency, fear of loss), and negative affect as well as instability indexes of daily self-esteem, attachment, and negative affect. Multilevel modeling indicated that both SC and PS perfectionists were emotionally reactive to decreases in self-esteem, whereas only SC perfectionists were emotionally reactive to increases in fear of closeness with others. These results demonstrate the dispositional and moderating influences of perfectionism dimensions on daily self-esteem, attachment, and negative affect. © 2011 The Authors. Journal of Personality © 2011, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The relationship between cognitive processing of affective verbal material and the basic personality structure

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Orlić Ana

2010-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between cognitive processing of affective verbal material and the basic personality structure. For the purposes of research a new experiment was created, where affective priming was measured in a lexical decision task. The term affective priming stands for facilitation in recognition of the stimuli that comes after the presentation of stimuli of the same valence. In this experiment, two words were presented on a screen in front of the subject (stimuli-prime and stimuli-target. Those two words were of the same or different affective valence, and the subject's were instructed to respond whether the second word on the screen had a meaning or not. The basic personality structure was defined by the 'Big five' model and the Disintegration model and measured by NEO PI-R and Delta 10 questionnaires. The results of the affective priming experiment indicated a strong effect of positive facilitation and much weaker effect off negative facilitation. Two significant functions were extracted by quasicanonical correlation analysis. The first function showed correlation between the effect of positive facilitation and all of the subscales of Neuroticism, Extraversion and Conscientiousness (NEO PI-R, as well as all sub dimensions of Disintegration (DELTA 10. The second one indicated to a correlation between the negative facilitation effect and some subscales of Neuroticism, Extraversion and Agreeableness (NEO PI-R, as well as all subscales of Disintegration (DELTA 10.

Effects of nicotine and nicotine expectancy on attentional bias for emotional stimuli.

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Adams, Sally; Attwood, Angela S; Munafò, Marcus R

2015-06-01

Nicotine's effects on mood are thought to enhance its addictive potential. However, the mechanisms underlying the effects of nicotine on affect regulation have not been reliably demonstrated in human laboratory studies. We investigated the effects of nicotine abstinence (Experiment 1), and nicotine challenge and expectancy (Experiment 2) on attentional bias towards facial emotional stimuli differing in emotional valence. In Experiment 1, 46 nicotine-deprived smokers were randomized to either continue to abstain from smoking or to smoke immediately before testing. In Experiment 2, 96 nicotine-deprived smokers were randomized to smoke a nicotinized or denicotinized cigarette and to be told that the cigarette did or did not contain nicotine. In both experiments participants completed a visual probe task, where positively valenced (happy) and negatively valenced (sad) facial expressions were presented, together with neutral facial expressions. In Experiment 1, there was evidence of an interaction between probe location and abstinence on reaction time, indicating that abstinent smokers showed an attentional bias for neutral stimuli. In Experiment 2, there was evidence of an interaction between probe location, nicotine challenge and expectation on reaction time, indicating that smokers receiving nicotine, but told that they did not receive nicotine, showed an attentional bias for emotional stimuli. Our data suggest that nicotine abstinence appears to disrupt attentional bias towards emotional facial stimuli. These data provide support for nicotine's modulation of attentional bias as a central mechanism for maintaining affect regulation in cigarette smoking. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Positive Affect, Negative Affect, and Physiological Hyperarousal among Referred and Nonreferred Youths

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Laurent, Jeff; Joiner, Thomas E., Jr.; Catanzaro, Salvatore J.

2011-01-01

The Positive and Negative Affect Scale for Children (PANAS-C) and the Physiological Hyperarousal Scale for Children (PH-C) seem ideal measures for school mental health screenings, because they are theory based, psychometrically sound, and brief. This study provides descriptive information and preliminary cutoff scores in an effort to increase the…

The indirect effect of emotion dysregulation in terms of negative affect and smoking-related cognitive processes.

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Johnson, Adrienne L; McLeish, Alison C

2016-02-01

Although negative affect is associated with a number of smoking-related cognitive processes, the mechanisms underlying these associations have yet to be examined. The current study sought to examine the indirect effect of emotion regulation difficulties in terms of the association between negative affect and smoking-related cognitive processes (internal barriers to cessation, negative affect reduction smoking motives, negative affect reduction smoking outcome expectancies). Participants were 126 daily cigarette smokers (70.4% male, Mage=36.5years, SD=13.0; 69.8% Caucasian) who smoked an average of 18.5 (SD=8.7) cigarettes per day and reported moderate nicotine dependence. Formal mediation analyses were conducted using PROCESS to examine the indirect effect of negative affect on internal barriers to cessation and negative affect reduction smoking motives and outcome expectancies through emotion regulation difficulties. After accounting for the effects of gender, daily smoking rate, and anxiety sensitivity, negative affect was indirectly related to internal barriers to cessation and negative affect reduction smoking motives through emotion regulation difficulties. There was no significant indirect effect for negative affect reduction smoking outcome expectancies. These findings suggest that greater negative affect is associated with a desire to smoke to reduce this negative affect and perceptions that quitting smoking will be difficult due to negative emotions because of greater difficulties managing these negative emotions. Thus, emotion regulation difficulties may be an important target for smoking cessation interventions. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Auditory-visual aversive stimuli modulate the conscious experience of fear.

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Taffou, Marine; Guerchouche, Rachid; Drettakis, George; Viaud-Delmon, Isabelle

2013-01-01

In a natural environment, affective information is perceived via multiple senses, mostly audition and vision. However, the impact of multisensory information on affect remains relatively undiscovered. In this study, we investigated whether the auditory-visual presentation of aversive stimuli influences the experience of fear. We used the advantages of virtual reality to manipulate multisensory presentation and to display potentially fearful dog stimuli embedded in a natural context. We manipulated the affective reactions evoked by the dog stimuli by recruiting two groups of participants: dog-fearful and non-fearful participants. The sensitivity to dog fear was assessed psychometrically by a questionnaire and also at behavioral and subjective levels using a Behavioral Avoidance Test (BAT). Participants navigated in virtual environments, in which they encountered virtual dog stimuli presented through the auditory channel, the visual channel or both. They were asked to report their fear using Subjective Units of Distress. We compared the fear for unimodal (visual or auditory) and bimodal (auditory-visual) dog stimuli. Dog-fearful participants as well as non-fearful participants reported more fear in response to bimodal audiovisual compared to unimodal presentation of dog stimuli. These results suggest that fear is more intense when the affective information is processed via multiple sensory pathways, which might be due to a cross-modal potentiation. Our findings have implications for the field of virtual reality-based therapy of phobias. Therapies could be refined and improved by implicating and manipulating the multisensory presentation of the feared situations.

Impact of physical maltreatment on the regulation of negative affect and aggression.

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Shackman, Jessica E; Pollak, Seth D

2014-11-01

Physically maltreated children are at risk for developing externalizing behavioral problems characterized by reactive aggression. The current experiment tested the relationships between individual differences in a neural index of social information processing, histories of child maltreatment, child negative affect, and aggressive behavior. Fifty boys (17 maltreated) performed an emotion recognition task while the P3b component of the event-related potential was recorded to index attention allocation to angry faces. Children then participated in a peer-directed aggression task. Negative affect was measured by recording facial electromyography, and aggression was indexed by the feedback that children provided to a putative peer. Physically maltreated children exhibited greater negative affect and more aggressive behavior, compared to nonmaltreated children, and this relationship was mediated by children's allocation of attention to angry faces. These data suggest that physical maltreatment leads to inappropriate regulation of both negative affect and aggression, which likely place maltreated children at increased risk for the development and maintenance of externalizing behavior disorders.

Acculturation Predicts Negative Affect and Shortened Telomere Length.

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Ruiz, R Jeanne; Trzeciakowski, Jerome; Moore, Tiffany; Ayers, Kimberly S; Pickler, Rita H

2016-10-12

Chronic stress may accelerate cellular aging. Telomeres, protective "caps" at the end of chromosomes, modulate cellular aging and may be good biomarkers for the effects of chronic stress, including that associated with acculturation. The purpose of this analysis was to examine telomere length (TL) in acculturating Hispanic Mexican American women and to determine the associations among TL, acculturation, and psychological factors. As part of a larger cross-sectional study of 516 pregnant Hispanic Mexican American women, we analyzed DNA in blood samples (N = 56) collected at 22-24 weeks gestation for TL as an exploratory measure using monochrome multiplex quantitative telomere polymerase chain reaction (PCR). We measured acculturation with the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans, depression with the Beck Depression Inventory, discrimination with the Experiences of Discrimination Scale, and stress with the Perceived Stress Scale. TL was negatively moderately correlated with two variables of acculturation: Anglo orientation and greater acculturation-level scores. We combined these scores for a latent variable, acculturation, and we combined depression, stress, and discrimination scores in another latent variable, "negative affectivity." Acculturation and negative affectivity were bidirectionally correlated. Acculturation significantly negatively predicted TL. Using structural equation modeling, we found the model had an excellent fit with the root mean square error of approximation estimate = .0001, comparative fit index = 1.0, Tucker-Lewis index = 1.0, and standardized root mean square residual = .05. The negative effects of acculturation on the health of Hispanic women have been previously demonstrated. Findings from this analysis suggest a link between acculturation and TL, which may indicate accelerated cellular aging associated with overall poor health outcomes. © The Author(s) 2016.

Basic Emotions in the Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL BE): New Method of Classifying Emotional Stimuli.

Science.gov (United States)

Wierzba, Małgorzata; Riegel, Monika; Wypych, Marek; Jednoróg, Katarzyna; Turnau, Paweł; Grabowska, Anna; Marchewka, Artur

2015-01-01

The Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL) has recently been introduced as a standardized database of Polish words suitable for studying various aspects of language and emotions. Though the NAWL was originally based on the most commonly used dimensional approach, it is not the only way of studying emotions. Another framework is based on discrete emotional categories. Since the two perspectives are recognized as complementary, the aim of the present study was to supplement the NAWL database by the addition of categories corresponding to basic emotions. Thus, 2902 Polish words from the NAWL were presented to 265 subjects, who were instructed to rate them according to the intensity of each of the five basic emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The general characteristics of the present word database, as well as the relationships between the studied variables are shown to be consistent with typical patterns found in previous studies using similar databases for different languages. Here we present the Basic Emotions in the Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL BE) as a database of verbal material suitable for highly controlled experimental research. To make the NAWL more convenient to use, we introduce a comprehensive method of classifying stimuli to basic emotion categories. We discuss the advantages of our method in comparison to other methods of classification. Additionally, we provide an interactive online tool (http://exp.lobi.nencki.gov.pl/nawl-analysis) to help researchers browse and interactively generate classes of stimuli to meet their specific requirements.

Stimulus control and affect in dietary behaviours. An intensive longitudinal study.

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Schüz, Benjamin; Bower, Jodie; Ferguson, Stuart G

2015-04-01

Dietary behaviours are substantially influenced by environmental and internal stimuli, such as mood, social situation, and food availability. However, little is known about the role of stimulus control for eating in non-clinical populations, and no studies so far have looked at eating and drinking behaviour simultaneously. 53 individuals from the general population took part in an intensive longitudinal study with repeated, real-time assessments of eating and drinking using Ecological Momentary Assessment. Eating was assessed as main meals and snacks, drinks assessments were separated along alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Situational and internal stimuli were assessed during both eating and drinking events, and during randomly selected non-eating occasions. Hierarchical multinomial logistic random effects models were used to analyse data, comparing dietary events to non-eating occasions. Several situational and affective antecedents of dietary behaviours could be identified. Meals were significantly associated with having food available and observing others eat. Snacking was associated with negative affect, having food available, and observing others eat. Engaging in activities and being with others decreased the likelihood of eating behaviours. Non-alcoholic drinks were associated with observing others eat, and less activities and company. Alcoholic drinks were associated with less negative affect and arousal, and with observing others eat. RESULTS support the role of stimulus control in dietary behaviours, with support for both internal and external, in particular availability and social stimuli. The findings for negative affect support the idea of comfort eating, and results point to the formation of eating habits via cue-behaviour associations. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A structural equation model of the relationship between insomnia, negative affect, and paranoid thinking.

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Alexander J Scott

Full Text Available A growing body of evidence points to relationships between insomnia, negative affect, and paranoid thinking. However, studies are needed to examine (i whether negative affect mediates the relation between insomnia and paranoid thinking, (ii whether different types of insomnia exert different effects on paranoia, and (iii to compare the impact of objective and self-reported sleeping difficulties.Structural equation modelling was therefore used to test competing models of the relationships between self-reported insomnia, negative affect, and paranoia. n = 348 participants completed measures of insomnia, negative affect and paranoia. A subset of these participants (n = 91 went on to monitor their sleep objectively (using a portable sleep monitor made by Zeo for seven consecutive nights. Associations between objectively recorded sleep, negative affect, and paranoia were explored using linear regression.The findings supported a fully mediated model where self-reported delayed sleep onset, but not self-reported problems with sleep maintenance or objective measures of sleep, was directly associated with negative affect that, in turn, was associated with paranoia. There was no evidence of a direct association between delayed sleep onset or sleep maintenance problems and paranoia.Taken together, the findings point to an association between perceived (but not objective difficulties initially falling asleep (but not maintaining sleep and paranoid thinking; a relationship that is fully mediated by negative affect. Future research should seek to disentangle the causal relationships between sleep, negative affect, and paranoia (e.g., by examining the effect of an intervention using prospective designs that incorporate experience sampling. Indeed, interventions might profitably target (i perceived sleep quality, (ii sleep onset, and / or (iii emotion regulation as a route to reducing negative affect and, thus, paranoid thinking.

Emotion regulation during the encoding of emotional stimuli: Effects on subsequent memory.

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Leventon, Jacqueline S; Bauer, Patricia J

2016-02-01

In the adult literature, emotional arousal is regarded as a source of the enhancing effect of emotion on subsequent memory. Here, we used behavioral and electrophysiological methods to examine the role of emotional arousal on subsequent memory in school-age children. Furthermore, we implemented a reappraisal instruction to manipulate (down-regulate) emotional arousal at encoding to examine the relation between emotional arousal and subsequent memory. Participants (8-year-old girls) viewed emotional scenes as electrophysiological (EEG) data were recorded and participated in a memory task 1 to 5days later where EEG and behavioral responses were recorded; participants provided subjective ratings of the scenes after the memory task. The reappraisal instruction successfully reduced emotional arousal responses to negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. Similarly, recognition performance in both event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavior was impaired for reappraised negative stimuli but not positive stimuli. The findings indicate that ERPs are sensitive to the reappraisal of negative stimuli in children as young as 8years. Furthermore, the findings suggest an interaction of emotion and memory during the school years, implicating the explanatory role of emotional arousal at encoding on subsequent memory performance in female children as young as 8years. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Trait anxiety and attenuated negative affect differentiation: a vulnerability factor to consider?

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Matt, Lindsey M; Fresco, David M; Coifman, Karin G

2016-11-01

Describing emotional experiences using distinct terms, or affect differentiation, has been associated with emotion regulation and adaptive behavior under stress. There is little data, however, examining the association between differentiation and dispositional factors underlying psychopathology. The current study examines the association between differentiation and trait anxiety (TA) given prior evidence of cognitive biases in TA relevant to higher order processing of emotional experiences. We examined cross-sectionally, via lab-based repeated assessment, the association between differentiation of negative and positive experiences and TA. Two hundred twenty-two adults completed an emotion reactivity task including repeated assessments of affect. We hypothesized that individuals higher in trait anxiety (HTA) would have greater difficulty differentiating their experiences. HTA individuals exhibited lower levels of negative affect (NA) differentiation even when controlling for depression. Although negative emotion intensity was consistently associated with lower differentiation, this did not account for the influence of HTA on differentiation. These data suggest that HTA individuals have greater difficulty differentiating negative emotions, regardless of negative emotion intensity and depression. As HTA is common to many emotional disorders; this evidence suggests that poor differentiation may also be an important transdiagnostic consideration in models of risk and of affective disease.

Hemispheric asymmetry in the processing of negative and positive words: a divided field study.

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Holtgraves, Thomas; Felton, Adam

2011-06-01

Research on the lateralisation of brain functions for emotion has yielded different results as a function of whether it is the experience, expression, or perceptual processing of emotion that is examined. Further, for the perception of emotion there appear to be differences between the processing of verbal and nonverbal stimuli. The present research examined the hemispheric asymmetry in the processing of verbal stimuli varying in emotional valence. Participants performed a lexical decision task for words varying in affective valence (but equated in terms of arousal) that were presented briefly to the right or left visual field. Participants were significantly faster at recognising positive words presented to the right visual field/left hemisphere. This pattern did not occur for negative words (and was reversed for high arousal negative words). These results suggest that the processing of verbal stimuli varying in emotional valence tends to parallel hemispheric asymmetry in the experience of emotion.

Impact of maternal negative affectivity on light alcohol use and binge drinking during pregnancy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Stene-Larsen, Kim; Torgersen, Leila; Strandberg-Larsen, Katrine

2013-01-01

To investigate whether maternal negative affectivity, a tendency to frequent negative emotions and views, is associated with light alcohol use and binge drinking during pregnancy.......To investigate whether maternal negative affectivity, a tendency to frequent negative emotions and views, is associated with light alcohol use and binge drinking during pregnancy....

A comparative analysis of global and local processing of hierarchical visual stimuli in young children (Homo sapiens) and monkeys (Cebus apella).

Science.gov (United States)

De Lillo, Carlo; Spinozzi, Giovanna; Truppa, Valentina; Naylor, Donna M

2005-05-01

Results obtained with preschool children (Homo sapiens) were compared with results previously obtained from capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) in matching-to-sample tasks featuring hierarchical visual stimuli. In Experiment 1, monkeys, in contrast with children, showed an advantage in matching the stimuli on the basis of their local features. These results were replicated in a 2nd experiment in which control trials enabled the authors to rule out that children used spurious cues to solve the matching task. In a 3rd experiment featuring conditions in which the density of the stimuli was manipulated, monkeys' accuracy in the processing of the global shape of the stimuli was negatively affected by the separation of the local elements, whereas children's performance was robust across testing conditions. Children's response latencies revealed a global precedence in the 2nd and 3rd experiments. These results show differences in the processing of hierarchical stimuli by humans and monkeys that emerge early during childhood. 2005 APA, all rights reserved

Positive and Negative Affect in Clinic-Referred Youth With ADHD.

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Okado, Izumi; Mueller, Charles W; Nakamura, Brad J

2016-01-01

To examine self-reported positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) among youth with ADHD (only and comorbid) and other non-ADHD-referred youth in an ethnically diverse clinical sample. Semi-structured interviews identified 80 pure ADHD, 284 ADHD plus one or more comorbidities, and 730 non-ADHD youth (e.g., other diagnoses or no diagnosis). The Positive and Negative Affect Scale-Children (PANAS-C) was used to assess affective states. Even after controlling for the influence of potential confounds, youth with only ADHD reported higher PA and lower NA than other clinic-referred youth. The ADHD-comorbid group reported higher PA than the "non-ADHD" group, but these groups did not differ on level of NA. ADHD subtype did not influence results. Among clinic-referred youth, ADHD is associated with higher levels of PA and when there are no comorbid disorders, lower levels of NA. © The Author(s) 2013.

Invisible Support: Effects on the Provider's Positive and Negative Affect.

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König, Claudia; Stadler, Gertraud; Knoll, Nina; Ochsner, Sibylle; Hornung, Rainer; Scholz, Urte

2016-07-01

Social support that goes unnoticed by receivers (i.e. invisible support) seems to be most beneficial for the receivers' well-being. The providers' well-being, however, has been neglected so far. This study examines how invisible support is related to the providers' well-being and whether this association is dependent on the providers' relationship satisfaction. Overall, 97 non-smoking partners of smokers who were about to quit smoking were examined. Invisible support was assessed dyadically: partners' reports on smoking-specific provided social support together with smokers' reports on received support were assessed at baseline. Partners' relationship satisfaction was also assessed at baseline. Partners' positive and negative affect were measured at baseline and six-week follow-up. No main effects of invisible instrumental or emotional support occurred. However, partners' relationship satisfaction moderated the association between invisible instrumental support and change in partners' negative and positive affect: For partners with lower relationship satisfaction more invisible instrumental support was related to increased negative affect and decreased positive affect, whereas for partners with higher relationship satisfaction the inverse effects occurred. The study's results emphasise that invisible instrumental support might have emotional costs for the providers. Relationship satisfaction seems to serve as a protective factor. © 2016 The International Association of Applied Psychology.

Emotional attention for erotic stimuli: Cognitive and brain mechanisms.

Science.gov (United States)

Sennwald, Vanessa; Pool, Eva; Brosch, Tobias; Delplanque, Sylvain; Bianchi-Demicheli, Francesco; Sander, David

2016-06-01

It has long been posited that among emotional stimuli, only negative threatening information modulates early shifts of attention. However, in the last few decades there has been an increase in research showing that attention is also involuntarily oriented toward positive rewarding stimuli such as babies, food, and erotic information. Because reproduction-related stimuli have some of the largest effects among positive stimuli on emotional attention, the present work reviews recent literature and proposes that the cognitive and cerebral mechanisms underlying the involuntarily attentional orientation toward threat-related information are also sensitive to erotic information. More specifically, the recent research suggests that both types of information involuntarily orient attention due to their concern relevance and that the amygdala plays an important role in detecting concern-relevant stimuli, thereby enhancing perceptual processing and influencing emotional attentional processes. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Affective monitoring: A generic mechanism for affect elicitation

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Hans ePhaf

2012-03-01

Full Text Available In this paper we sketch a new framework for affect elicitation, which is based on previous evolutionary and connectionist modeling and experimental work from our group. Affective monitoring is considered a local match-mismatch process within a module of the neural network. Negative affect is raised instantly by mismatches, incongruency, disfluency, novelty, incoherence, and dissonance, whereas positive affect follows from matches, congruency, fluency, familiarity, coherence, and resonance, at least when an initial mismatch can be solved quickly. Affective monitoring is considered an evolutionary-early conflict and change detection process operating at the same level as, for instance, attentional selection. It runs in parallel and imparts affective flavour to emotional behavior systems, which involve evolutionary-prepared stimuli and action tendencies related to for instance defensive, exploratory, attachment, or appetitive behavior. Positive affect is represented in the networks by high-frequency oscillations, presumably in the gamma band. Negative affect corresponds to more incoherent lower-frequency oscillations, presumably in the theta band. For affect to become conscious, large-scale synchronization of the oscillations over the network and the construction of emotional experiences are required. These constructions involve perceptions of bodily states and action tendencies, but also appraisals as well as efforts to regulate the emotion. Importantly, affective monitoring accompanies every kind of information processing, but conscious emotions, which result from the later integration of affect in a cognitive context, are much rarer events.

Daily events are important for age differences in mean and duration for negative affect but not positive affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Charles, Susan T; Mogle, Jacqueline; Urban, Emily J; Almeida, David M

2016-11-01

Across midlife and into old age, older adults often report lower levels of negative affect and similar if not higher levels of positive affect than relatively younger adults. Researchers have offered a simple explanation for this result: Age is related to reductions in stressors and increases in pleasurable activities that result in higher levels of well-being. The current study examines subjective reports of emotional experience assessed across 8 days in a large sample of adults (N = 2,022) ranging from 35 to 84 years old. By modeling age differences before and after adjusting for daily positive uplifts and negative stressors, this article assesses the extent to which daily events account for age differences in positive and negative affect reports. Consistent with previous research, the authors found that older age is related to lower mean levels and shorter duration of a negative emotional experience in a model only adjusting for gender, education, and ethnicity. After adjusting for daily events, however, the linear age-related effects were no longer significant. For positive affect, adjusting for daily events did not alter age-related patterns of experiencing higher mean levels and longer positive experience duration, suggesting that other factors underlie age-related increases in positive affect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Are affective events richly recollected or simply familiar? The experience and process of recognizing feelings past.

Science.gov (United States)

Ochsner, K N

2000-06-01

The author used the remember/know paradigm and the dual process recognition model of A. P. Yonelinas, N. E. A. Kroll, I. Dobbins, M. Lazzara, and R. T. Knight (1998) to study the states of awareness accompanying recognition of affective images and the processes of recollection and familiarity that may underlie them. Results from all experiments showed that (a) negative stimuli tended to be remembered, whereas positive stimuli tended to be known; (b) recollection, but not familiarity, was boosted for negative or highly arousing and, to a lesser extent, positive stimuli; and (c) across experiments, variations in depth of encoding did not influence these patterns. These data suggest that greater recollection for affective events leads them to be more richly experienced in memory, and they are consistent with the idea that the states of remembering and knowing are experientially exclusive, whereas the processes underlying them are functionally independent.

Associations among Negative Parenting, Attention Bias to Anger, and Social Anxiety among Youth

Science.gov (United States)

Gulley, Lauren D.; Oppenheimer, Caroline W.; Hankin, Benjamin L.

2014-01-01

Theories of affective learning suggest that early experiences contribute to emotional disorders by influencing the development of processing biases for negative emotional stimuli. Although studies have shown that physically abused children preferentially attend to angry faces, it is unclear whether youth exposed to more typical aspects of negative…

Associations between positive and negative affect and 12-month physical disorders in a national sample.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiser, Eric B

2012-06-01

Associations between positive and negative affect and a range of 12-month physical disorders were investigated in the Midlife Development in the United States Survey, a nationally representative sample of 3,032 adults ages 25-74. These associations were examined, controlling for relevant sociodemographic and psychiatric covariates. High positive affect was associated with decreased risk of physical disorders, whereas high negative affect was associated with increased risk. However, associations between positive affect and physical disorders were partially attenuated following adjustment for concurrent negative affect. Additionally, high affect balance was associated with decreased risk of physical disorders before and after adjustments. These findings underscore the relevance of affective disposition in health status, suggesting that both positive and negative affect may serve as viable health risk parameters.

Affective picture modulation: valence, arousal, attention allocation and motivational significance.

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Leite, Jorge; Carvalho, Sandra; Galdo-Alvarez, Santiago; Alves, Jorge; Sampaio, Adriana; Gonçalves, Oscar F

2012-03-01

The present study analyses the modulatory effects of affective pictures in the early posterior negativity (EPN), the late positive potential (LPP) and the human startle response on both the peripheral (eye blink EMG) and central neurophysiological levels (Probe P3), during passive affective pictures viewing. The affective pictures categories were balanced in terms of valence (pleasant; unpleasant) and arousal (high; low). The data shows that EPN may be sensitive to specific stimulus characteristics (affective relevant pictures versus neutral pictures) associated with early stages of attentional processing. In later stages, the heightened attentional resource allocation as well as the motivated significance of the affective stimuli was found to elicit enhanced amplitudes of slow wave processes thought to be related to enhanced encoding, namely LPP,. Although pleasant low arousing pictures were effective in engaging the resources involved in the slow wave processes, the highly arousing affective stimuli (pleasant and unpleasant) were found to produce the largest enhancement of the LPP, suggesting that high arousing stimuli may are associated with increased motivational significance. Additionally the response to high arousing stimuli may be suggestive of increased motivational attention, given the heightened attentional allocation, as expressed in the P3 probe, especially for the pleasant pictures. The hedonic valence may then serve as a mediator of the attentional inhibition to the affective priming, potentiating or inhibiting a shift towards defensive activation, as measured by the startle reflex. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Trait anxiety reduces affective fading for both positive and negative autobiographical memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Walker, W Richard; Yancu, Cecile N; Skowronski, John J

2014-01-01

The affect associated with negative events fades faster than the affect associated with positive events (the Fading Affect Bias; the FAB). The research that we report examined the relation between trait anxiety and the FAB. Study 1 assessed anxiety using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale; Studies 2 and 3 used the Beck Anxiety Inventory. Studies 1 and 2 used retrospective procedures to probe positive event memories and negative event memories while Study 3 used a diary procedure. The results of all 3 studies showed that increased anxiety was associated with both a lowered FAB and lower overall affect fading for both positive events and negative events. These results suggest that for people free of trait anxiety, the FAB reflects the operation of a healthy coping mechanism in autobiographical memory that is disrupted by trait anxiety.

Infant pain-related negative affect at 12 months of age: early infant and caregiver predictors.

Science.gov (United States)

Din Osmun, Laila; Pillai Riddell, Rebecca; Flora, David B

2014-01-01

To examine the predictive relationships of early infant and caregiver variables on expressed pain-related negative affect duration at the 12-month immunization. Infants and their caregivers (N = 255) were followed during immunization appointments over the first year of life. Latent growth curve modeling in a structural equation modeling context was used. Higher levels of initial infant pain reactivity at 2 months and caregiver emotional availability averaged across 2, 4, and 6 months of age were related to larger decreases in the duration of infant negative affect over the first 6 months of life. Longer duration of infant negative affect at 2 months and poorer regulation of infant negative affect over the first 6 months of life predicted longer durations of infant negative affect by 12 months. Infant negative affect at 12 months was a function of both infant factors and the quality of caregiver interactive behaviors (emotional availability) in early infancy.

False memories for affective information in Schizophrenia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Beth Fairfield

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the-to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, twenty-four patients and twenty-four healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls (p0.05 resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e. neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes. Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved.

False Memories for Affective Information in Schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Fairfield, Beth; Altamura, Mario; Padalino, Flavia A; Balzotti, Angela; Di Domenico, Alberto; Mammarella, Nicola

2016-01-01

Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, 24 patients and 24 healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative, or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls ( p  false memories ( p  > 0.05) resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e., neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes). Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved.

False Memories for Affective Information in Schizophrenia

Science.gov (United States)

Fairfield, Beth; Altamura, Mario; Padalino, Flavia A.; Balzotti, Angela; Di Domenico, Alberto; Mammarella, Nicola

2016-01-01

Studies have shown a direct link between memory for emotionally salient experiences and false memories. In particular, emotionally arousing material of negative and positive valence enhanced reality monitoring compared to neutral material since emotional stimuli can be encoded with more contextual details and thereby facilitate the distinction between presented and imagined stimuli. Individuals with schizophrenia appear to be impaired in both reality monitoring and memory for emotional experiences. However, the relationship between the emotionality of the to-be-remembered material and false memory occurrence has not yet been studied. In this study, 24 patients and 24 healthy adults completed a false memory task with everyday episodes composed of 12 photographs that depicted positive, negative, or neutral outcomes. Results showed how patients with schizophrenia made a higher number of false memories than normal controls (p false memories (p > 0.05) resulting from erroneous inferences but did interact with plausible, script consistent errors in patients (i.e., neutral episodes yielded a higher degree of errors than positive and negative episodes). Affective information reduces the probability of generating causal errors in healthy adults but not in patients suggesting that emotional memory impairments may contribute to deficits in reality monitoring in schizophrenia when affective information is involved. PMID:27965600

Basic Emotions in the Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL BE: New Method of Classifying Emotional Stimuli.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Małgorzata Wierzba

Full Text Available The Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL has recently been introduced as a standardized database of Polish words suitable for studying various aspects of language and emotions. Though the NAWL was originally based on the most commonly used dimensional approach, it is not the only way of studying emotions. Another framework is based on discrete emotional categories. Since the two perspectives are recognized as complementary, the aim of the present study was to supplement the NAWL database by the addition of categories corresponding to basic emotions. Thus, 2902 Polish words from the NAWL were presented to 265 subjects, who were instructed to rate them according to the intensity of each of the five basic emotions: happiness, anger, sadness, fear and disgust. The general characteristics of the present word database, as well as the relationships between the studied variables are shown to be consistent with typical patterns found in previous studies using similar databases for different languages. Here we present the Basic Emotions in the Nencki Affective Word List (NAWL BE as a database of verbal material suitable for highly controlled experimental research. To make the NAWL more convenient to use, we introduce a comprehensive method of classifying stimuli to basic emotion categories. We discuss the advantages of our method in comparison to other methods of classification. Additionally, we provide an interactive online tool (http://exp.lobi.nencki.gov.pl/nawl-analysis to help researchers browse and interactively generate classes of stimuli to meet their specific requirements.

Problematic smartphone use and relations with negative affect, fear of missing out, and fear of negative and positive evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolniewicz, Claire A; Tiamiyu, Mojisola F; Weeks, Justin W; Elhai, Jon D

2018-04-01

For many individuals, excessive smartphone use interferes with everyday life. In the present study, we recruited a non-clinical sample of 296 participants for a cross-sectional survey of problematic smartphone use, social and non-social smartphone use, and psychopathology-related constructs including negative affect, fear of negative and positive evaluation, and fear of missing out (FoMO). Results demonstrated that FoMO was most strongly related to both problematic smartphone use and social smartphone use relative to negative affect and fears of negative and positive evaluation, and these relations held when controlling for age and gender. Furthermore, FoMO (cross-sectionally) mediated relations between both fear of negative and positive evaluation with both problematic and social smartphone use. Theoretical implications are considered with regard to developing problematic smartphone use. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

If it bleeds, it leads: separating threat from mere negativity.

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Kveraga, Kestutis; Boshyan, Jasmine; Adams, Reginald B; Mote, Jasmine; Betz, Nicole; Ward, Noreen; Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Bar, Moshe; Barrett, Lisa F

2015-01-01

Most theories of emotion hold that negative stimuli are threatening and aversive. Yet in everyday experiences some negative sights (e.g. car wrecks) attract curiosity, whereas others repel (e.g. a weapon pointed in our face). To examine the diversity in negative stimuli, we employed four classes of visual images (Direct Threat, Indirect Threat, Merely Negative and Neutral) in a set of behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies. Participants reliably discriminated between the images, evaluating Direct Threat stimuli most quickly, and Merely Negative images most slowly. Threat images evoked greater and earlier blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activations in the amygdala and periaqueductal gray, structures implicated in representing and responding to the motivational salience of stimuli. Conversely, the Merely Negative images evoked larger BOLD signal in the parahippocampal, retrosplenial, and medial prefrontal cortices, regions which have been implicated in contextual association processing. Ventrolateral as well as medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortices were activated by both threatening and Merely Negative images. In conclusion, negative visual stimuli can repel or attract scrutiny depending on their current threat potential, which is assessed by dynamic shifts in large-scale brain network activity. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Harm avoidance in adolescents modulates late positive potentials during affective picture processing.

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Zhang, Wenhai; Lu, Jiamei; Ni, Ziyin; Liu, Xia; Wang, Dahua; Shen, Jiliang

2013-08-01

Research in adults has shown that individual differences in harm avoidance (HA) modulate electrophysiological responses to affective stimuli. To determine whether HA in adolescents modulates affective information processing, we collected event-related potentials from 70 adolescents while they viewed 90 pictures from the Chinese affective picture system. Multiple regressions revealed that HA negatively predicted late positive potential (LPP) for positive pictures and positively predicted for negative pictures; however, HA did not correlate with LPP for neutral pictures. The results suggest that at the late evaluative stage, high-HA adolescents display attentional bias to negative pictures while low-HA adolescents display attentional bias to negative pictures. Moreover, these dissociable attentional patterns imply that individual differences in adolescents' HA modulate the late selective attention mechanism of affective information. Copyright © 2013. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Marijuana’s Acute Effects on Cognitive Bias for Affective and Marijuana Cues

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Metrik, Jane; Aston, Elizabeth R.; Kahler, Christopher W.; Rohsenow, Damaris J.; McGeary, John E.; Knopik, Valerie S.

2015-01-01

Marijuana produces acute increases in positive subjective effects and decreased reactivity to negative affective stimuli, though may also acutely induce anxiety. Implicit attentional and evaluative processes may explicate marijuana’s ability to acutely increase positive and negative emotions. This within-subjects study examined whether smoked marijuana with 2.7–3.0 % delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), relative to placebo, acutely changed attentional processing of rewarding and negative affec...

Sleep-related attentional bias in poor versus good sleepers is independent of affective valence.

Science.gov (United States)

Barclay, Nicola L; Ellis, Jason G

2013-08-01

Contradictory evidence exists relating to the presence of an attention bias to sleep-related stimuli in poor sleepers/insomnia using the emotional Stroop task (EST). These inconsistencies may be due to methodological issues related to the affective valence of the sleep-related stimuli. Thus, individuals may attend differentially to sleep-related stimuli not because of their 'sleep' properties, but their negativity. The current study addresses this by controlling the affective valence of sleep-related words. A total of 107 participants [mean age = 33.22 years, standard deviation (SD) = 12.31 years; 61.7% female] were recruited during an evening event at the Newcastle Science Festival. Participants completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and a computerized EST containing 20 non-affective sleep-related, 20 neutral and 20 negatively valenced threat words. Good and poor sleepers were categorized using the PSQI. There were no significant differences between groups on response latency to sleep-related words (t(105) = -0.30, P = 0.76). However, the interaction between good versus poor sleepers and word-type on response latency was significant (F(2,210) = 3.06, P sleep-related words (mean = 723.35, SD = 172.55) compared to threat words (mean = 694.63, SD = 162.17) than good sleepers (mean = 713.20, SD = 166.32; and mean = 716.65, SD = 181.14). The results demonstrate the presence of an attention bias towards sleep-related stimuli compared to threat stimuli in poor sleepers. Accordingly, poor sleepers may be consumed by stimuli relevant to their specific difficulties, as well as being more highly attuned to negative cues that signal anxious states. Thus, the present research suggests that there are two opposing forces at play: one which facilitates performance (non-specific threats) and one which hinders performance (personally relevant threats). © 2013 European Sleep Research Society.

Perceptual Sensitivity and Response to Strong Stimuli Are Related

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Anna C. Bolders

2017-09-01

Full Text Available To shed new light on the long-standing debate about the (independence of sensitivity to weak stimuli and overreactivity to strong stimuli, we examined the relation between these tendencies within the neurobehavioral framework of the Predictive and Reactive Control Systems (PARCS theory (Tops et al., 2010, 2014. Whereas previous studies only considered overreactivity in terms of the individual tendency to experience unpleasant affect (punishment reactivity resulting from strong sensory stimulation, we also took the individual tendency to experience pleasant affect (reward reactivity resulting from strong sensory stimulation into account. According to PARCS theory, these temperamental tendencies overlap in terms of high reactivity toward stimulation, but oppose each other in terms of the response orientation (approach or avoid. PARCS theory predicts that both types of reactivity to strong stimuli relate to sensitivity to weak stimuli, but that these relationships are suppressed due to the opposing relationship between reward and punishment reactivity. We measured punishment and reward reactivity to strong stimuli and sensitivity to weak stimuli using scales from the Adult Temperament Questionnaire (Evans and Rothbart, 2007. Sensitivity was also measured more objectively using the masked auditory threshold. We found that sensitivity to weak stimuli (both self-reported and objectively assessed was positively associated with self-reported punishment and reward reactivity to strong stimuli, but only when these reactivity measures were controlled for each other, implicating a mutual suppression effect. These results are in line with PARCS theory and suggest that sensitivity to weak stimuli and overreactivity are dependent, but this dependency is likely to be obscured if punishment and reward reactivity are not both taken into account.

Attentional and Affective Processing of Sexual Stimuli in Women with Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder

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Brauer, Marieke; van Leeuwen, Matthijs; Janssen, Erick; Newhouse, Sarah K.; Heiman, Julia R.; Laan, Ellen

2012-01-01

Hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) is the most common sexual problem in women. From an incentive motivation perspective, HSDD may be the result of a weak association between sexual stimuli and rewarding experiences. As a consequence, these stimuli may either lose or fail to acquire a positive

Resilience in Adolescents with Cancer: Association of Coping with Positive and Negative Affect.

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Murphy, Lexa K; Bettis, Alexandra H; Gruhn, Meredith A; Gerhardt, Cynthia A; Vannatta, Kathryn; Compas, Bruce E

2017-10-01

To examine the prospective association between adolescents' coping with cancer-related stress and observed positive and negative affect during a mother-adolescent interaction task involving discussion of cancer-related stressors. Adolescents (age 10-15 years) self-reported about their coping and affect approximately 2 months after cancer diagnosis. Approximately 3 months later, adolescents and mothers were video recorded having a discussion about cancer, and adolescents were coded for expression of positive affect (positive mood) and negative affect (sadness and anxiety). Adolescents' use of secondary control coping (i.e., acceptance, cognitive reappraisal, and distraction) in response to cancer-related stress predicted higher levels of observed positive affect, but not negative affect, over time. Findings provide support for the importance of coping in the regulation of positive emotions. The potential role of coping in preventive interventions to enhance resilience in adolescents facing cancer-related stress is highlighted.

During the long way to Mars: effects of 520 days of confinement (Mars500 on the assessment of affective stimuli and stage alteration in mood and plasma hormone levels.

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Yue Wang

Full Text Available For future interplanetary manned spaceflight, mental issues, as well as physiological problems, must inevitably be considered and solved. Mars500 is a high-fidelity ground simulation experiment that involved 520 days of confined isolation for six multinational crewmembers. This experiment provided a good opportunity to perform psycho-physiological and psycho-social researches on such missions. To investigate emotional responses and psychological adaptation over long-term confinement, the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS was selected as the visual emotional stimuli in this study. Additional data collected and analyzed included the Profile of Mood States (POMS questionnaire and the levels of four types of plasma hormones: cortisol, 5-hydroxy tryptamine, dopamine, and norepinephrine. The results demonstrated an obvious bias on valence rating for unpleasant stimuli with time (p<0.05, and the correlation between psychological and biochemical data was identified (p<0.05. Overall, we concluded that the confined crew tended to assign positive ratings to negative pictures with time, which might be driven by a defensive system. There was a stage-changing pattern of psychological adaptation of the Mars500 crew, which is similar to the third-quarter phenomenon.

Socially anxious smokers experience greater negative affect and withdrawal during self-quit attempts.

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Buckner, Julia D; Langdon, Kirsten J; Jeffries, Emily R; Zvolensky, Michael J

2016-04-01

Despite evidence of a strong and consistent relation between smoking and elevated social anxiety, strikingly little empirical work has identified mechanisms underlying the smoking-social anxiety link. Persons with elevated social anxiety may rely on smoking to cope with more severe nicotine withdrawal and post-quit negative mood states; yet, no known studies have investigated the relation of social anxiety to withdrawal severity. The current study examined the relation of social anxiety to post-quit nicotine withdrawal severity among 51 (33.3% female, Mage = 34.6) community-recruited smokers during the first two weeks following an unaided (i.e., no treatment) cessation attempt. Ecological momentary assessment was used to collect multiple daily ratings of withdrawal and negative mood states. Baseline social anxiety was related to increases in negative affect during the monitoring period and remained significantly related to post-quit withdrawal after controlling for negative affect, gender, lapses, and substance use. Persons with elevated social anxiety experience more severe post-quit withdrawal symptoms and increases in negative affect during a cessation attempt and may therefore benefit from intervention and treatment strategies geared toward helping them learn to cope with withdrawal and negative affect to improve cessation rates among these vulnerable smokers.

Negative (but not Positive) Parenting Interacts with Infant Negative Affect to Predict Infant Approach: Evidence of Diathesis-Stress.

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Holzman, Jacob B; Burt, Nicole M; Edwards, Erin S; Rosinski, Leanna D; Bridgett, David J

2018-01-01

Temperament by parenting interactions may reflect that individuals with greater risk are more likely to experience negative outcomes in adverse contexts (diathesis-stress) or that these individuals are more susceptible to contextual influences in a 'for better or for worse' pattern (differential susceptibility). Although such interactions have been identified for a variety of child outcomes, prior research has not examined approach characteristics - excitement and approach toward pleasurable activities - in the first year of life. Therefore, the current study investigated whether 6-month maternal reported infant negative affect - a phenotypic marker of risk/susceptibility - interacted with 8-month observed parenting behaviors (positive parenting, negative parenting) to predict 12-month infant behavioral approach. Based a sample of mothers and their infants ( N =150), results indicated that negative parenting was inversely associated with subsequent approach for infants with high, but not low, levels of early negative affect. Similar results did not occur regarding positive parenting. These findings better fit a diathesis-stress model rather than a differential susceptibility model. Implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.

Affective health bias in older adults: Considering positive and negative affect in a general health context.

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Whitehead, Brenda R; Bergeman, C S

2016-09-01

Because subjective health reports are a primary source of health information in a number of medical and research-based contexts, much research has been devoted to establishing the extent to which these self-reports of health correspond to health information from more objective sources. One of the key factors considered in this area is trait affect, with most studies emphasizing the impact of negative affect (negative emotions) over positive affect (positive emotions), and focusing on high-arousal affect (e.g., anger, excitement) over moderate- or low-arousal affect (e.g., relaxed, depressed). The present study examines the impact of both Positive and Negative Affect (PA/NA)-measured by items of both high and low arousal-on the correspondence between objective health information and subjective health reports. Another limitation of existing literature in the area is the focus on samples suffering from a particular diagnosis or on specific symptom reports; here, these effects are investigated in a sample of community-dwelling older adults representing a broader spectrum of health. 153 older adults (Mage = 71.2) took surveys assessing Perceived Health and Affect and underwent an objective physical health assessment. Structural equation modeling was used to investigate the extent to which the relationship between Objective Health and Perceived Health was moderated by PA or NA, which would indicate the presence of affective health bias. Results reveal a significant moderation effect for NA, but not for PA; PA appeared to serve a more mediational function, indicating that NA and PA operate on health perceptions in distinct ways. These findings provide evidence that in our high-functioning, community-dwelling sample of older adults, a) affective health bias is present within a general health context, and not only within specific symptom or diagnostic categories; and b) that both PA and NA play important roles in the process. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights

Pain and Depressive Symptoms in Primary Care: Moderating Role of Positive and Negative Affect.

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Hirsch, Jameson K; Sirois, Fuschia M; Molnar, Danielle; Chang, Edward C

2016-07-01

Pain and its disruptive impact on daily life are common reasons that patients seek primary medical care. Pain contributes strongly to psychopathology, and pain and depressive symptoms are often comorbid in primary care patients. Not all those who experience pain develop depression, suggesting that the presence of individual-level characteristics, such as positive and negative affect, that may ameliorate or exacerbate this association. We assessed the potential moderating role of positive and negative affect on the pain-depression linkage. In a sample of 101 rural, primary care patients, we administered the Brief Pain Inventory, NEO Personality Inventory-Revised positive and negative affect subclusters, and the Center for Epidemiology Scale for Depression. In moderation models, covarying age, sex, and ethnicity, we found that positive affect, but not negative affect, was a significant moderator of the relation between pain intensity and severity and depressive symptoms. The association between pain and depressive symptoms is attenuated when greater levels of positive affects are present. Therapeutic bolstering of positive affect in primary care patients experiencing pain may reduce the risk for depressive symptoms.

The Affective Norms for Polish Short Texts (ANPST) Database Properties and Impact of Participants’ Population and Sex on Affective Ratings

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Imbir, Kamil K.

2017-01-01

The Affective Norms for Polish Short Texts (ANPST) dataset (Imbir, 2016d) is a list of 718 affective sentence stimuli with known affective properties with respect to subjectively perceived valence, arousal, dominance, origin, subjective significance, and source. This article examines the reliability of the ANPST and the impact of population type and sex on affective ratings. The ANPST dataset was introduced to provide a recognized method of eliciting affective states with linguistic stimuli more complex than single words and that included contextual information and thus are less ambiguous in interpretation than single word. Analysis of the properties of the ANPST dataset showed that norms collected are reliable in terms of split-half estimation and that the distributions of ratings are similar to those obtained in other affective norms studies. The pattern of correlations was the same as that found in analysis of an affective norms dataset for words based on the same six variables. Female psychology students’ valence ratings were also more polarized than those of their female student peers studying other subjects, but arousal ratings were only higher for negative words. Differences also appeared for all other measured dimensions. Women’s valence ratings were found to be more polarized and arousal ratings were higher than those made by men, and differences were also present for dominance, origin, and subjective significance. The ANPST is the first Polish language list of sentence stimuli and could easily be adapted for other languages and cultures. PMID:28611707

Frontal alpha asymmetry neurofeedback for the reduction of negative affect and anxiety.

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Mennella, Rocco; Patron, Elisabetta; Palomba, Daniela

2017-05-01

Frontal alpha asymmetry has been proposed to underlie the balance between approach and withdrawal motivation associated to each individual's affective style. Neurofeedback of EEG frontal alpha asymmetry represents a promising tool to reduce negative affect, although its specific effects on left/right frontal activity and approach/withdrawal motivation are still unclear. The present study employed a neurofeedback training to increase frontal alpha asymmetry (right - left), in order to evaluate discrete changes in alpha power at left and right sites, as well as in positive and negative affect, anxiety and depression. Thirty-two right-handed females were randomly assigned to receive either the neurofeedback on frontal alpha asymmetry, or an active control training (N = 16 in each group). The asymmetry group showed an increase in alpha asymmetry driven by higher alpha at the right site (p neurofeedback for the reduction of negative affect and anxiety in clinical settings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Improved emotional conflict control triggered by the processing priority of negative emotion.

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Yang, Qian; Wang, Xiangpeng; Yin, Shouhang; Zhao, Xiaoyue; Tan, Jinfeng; Chen, Antao

2016-04-18

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for emotional conflict resolution, and this control mechanism is affected by the emotional valence of distracting stimuli. In the present study, we investigated effects of negative and positive stimuli on emotional conflict control using a face-word Stroop task in combination with functional brain imaging. Emotional conflict was absent in the negative face context, in accordance with the null activation observed in areas regarding emotional face processing (fusiform face area, middle temporal/occipital gyrus). Importantly, these visual areas negatively coupled with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, the significant emotional conflict was observed in the positive face context, this effect was accompanied by activation in areas associated with emotional face processing, and the default mode network (DMN), here, DLPFC mainly negatively coupled with DMN, rather than visual areas. These results suggested that the conflict control mechanism exerted differently between negative faces and positive faces, it implemented more efficiently in the negative face condition, whereas it is more devoted to inhibiting internal interference in the positive face condition. This study thus provides a plausible mechanism of emotional conflict resolution that the rapid pathway for negative emotion processing efficiently triggers control mechanisms to preventively resolve emotional conflict.

Does Positive Affect Broaden and Negative Affect Narrow Attentional Scope? A New Answer to an Old Question

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Huntsinger, Jeffrey R.

2012-01-01

The current research challenges the common view that positive affect and negative affect generate a broadened or narrowed attentional focus, respectively. Contrary to this view, two studies found that the link between affect and attentional focus as measured by a traditional flanker task (Study 1) and a modified flanker task (Study 2) reflects…

On- and off-response ERGs elicited by sawtooth stimuli in normal subjects and glaucoma patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Pangeni, Gobinda; Lämmer, Robert; Tornow, Ralf P; Horn, Folkert K; Kremers, Jan

2012-06-01

-add ERG components were significantly correlated with the PhNR in the flash ERG (LN-off: p = 0.01; LN-add: p < 0.001) and with RNFLT (LN-off: p = 0.006; LN-add: p = 0.001). On- and off-response ERGs and their response asymmetries, elicited by sawtooth stimuli, are altered in the glaucoma patients. The late components are affected. Changes in the late negative components are correlated with structural and other functional changes.

Sensing the Worst: Neurophenomenological Perspectives on Neutral Stimuli Misperception in Schizophrenia Spectrum

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Mariateresa Sestito

2017-06-01

Full Text Available While investigating social cognitive impairments in schizophrenia, prominent evidence has been found that patients with schizophrenia show a tendency to misclassify neutral stimuli as negatively valenced. Within this population, patients presenting delusions are more prone to this phenomenon. In a previous study, Schizophrenia spectrum (SzSp patients rated positive, negative and neutral stimuli that were multimodally presented, while assessed with a checklist exploring anomalous subjective experiences and evaluated for positive and negative symptomatology. In the present work, we aimed to further explore the relationship between neutral stimuli misperception, anomalous experiences and positive/negative symptoms in SzSp patients. To this end, we adopted a dimensional approach by reconstructing from available data: (1 four a priori scales representing essential dimensions of SzSp experiential pathology following Parnas et al. (2005; and (2 five clinically meaningful factors to describe illness severity derived by Toomey et al. (1997. Results showed that although overall patients correctly recognized the target emotions, those who misinterpreted neutral auditory cues as negatively valenced also presented higher scores in Perplexity (PY, Bizarre Delusions (BD and Disorganization (Di dimensions. Moreover, a positive association between BD and both PY and Self-Disorder (SD dimensions emerged, suggesting that psychotic symptoms may be directly linked to patients’ subjectivity. In an attempt to comprehensively capture the multilayered neutral stimuli misperception phenomenon in SzSp, we aimed at bridging phenomenology and neurobiology by connecting the levels of molecular neurochemistry (i.e., altered dopaminergic neurotransmission, system neuroscience (aberrant salience of perceptual details and psychopathology (the chain involving hyper-reflexivity, self-disorders and the emergence of delusions.

Impaired down-regulation of negative emotion in self-referent social situations in bipolar disorder

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærstad, Hanne L; Vinberg, Maj; Goldin, Philippe R

2016-01-01

naturally or dampen their emotional response to positive and negative social scenarios and associated self-beliefs. They were also given an established experimental task for comparison, involving reappraisal of negative affective picture stimuli, as well as a questionnaire of habitual ER strategies. BD...... patients showed reduced ability to down-regulate emotional responses in negative, but not positive, social scenarios relative to healthy controls and UD patients. In contrast, there were no between-group differences in the established ER task or in self-reported habitual reappraisal strategies. Findings...

The role of sleep in adolescents' daily stress recovery: Negative affect spillover and positive affect bounce-back effects.

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Chue, Amanda E; Gunthert, Kathleen C; Kim, Rebecca W; Alfano, Candice A; Ruggiero, Aria R

2018-07-01

The present study examined the role of sleep in daily affective stress recovery processes in adolescents. Eighty-nine American adolescents recorded their emotions and stress through daily surveys and sleep with Fitbit devices for two weeks. Results show that objectively measured sleep (sleep onset latency and sleep debt) moderated negative affective responses to previous-day stress, such that stress-related negative affect spillover effects became more pronounced as amount of sleep decreased. Total sleep time and sleep debt moderated cross-day positive affect "bounce-back" effects. With more sleep, morning positive affect on days following high stress tended to bounce back to the levels that were common following low stress days. Conversely, if sleep was short following high stress days, positive affect remained low the next morning. No evidence for subjective sleep quality as a moderator of spillover/bounce-back effects was found. This research suggests that sleep quantity could relate to overnight affective stress recovery. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Neural Activations of Guided Imagery and Music in Negative Emotional Processing: A Functional MRI Study.

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Lee, Sang Eun; Han, Yeji; Park, HyunWook

2016-01-01

The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music uses music and imagery to access and explore personal emotions associated with episodic memories. Understanding the neural mechanism of guided imagery and music (GIM) as combined stimuli for emotional processing informs clinical application. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate neural mechanisms of GIM for negative emotional processing when personal episodic memory is recalled and re-experienced through GIM processes. Twenty-four healthy volunteers participated in the study, which used classical music and verbal instruction stimuli to evoke negative emotions. To analyze the neural mechanism, activated regions associated with negative emotional and episodic memory processing were extracted by conducting volume analyses for the contrast between GIM and guided imagery (GI) or music (M). The GIM stimuli showed increased activation over the M-only stimuli in five neural regions associated with negative emotional and episodic memory processing, including the left amygdala, left anterior cingulate gyrus, left insula, bilateral culmen, and left angular gyrus (AG). Compared with GI alone, GIM showed increased activation in three regions associated with episodic memory processing in the emotional context, including the right posterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, and AG. No neural regions related to negative emotional and episodic memory processing showed more activation for M and GI than for GIM. As a combined multimodal stimulus, GIM may increase neural activations related to negative emotions and episodic memory processing. Findings suggest a neural basis for GIM with personal episodic memories affecting cortical and subcortical structures and functions. © the American Music Therapy Association 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Direct Observations of Parenting and Real-time Negative Affect among Adolescent Smokers and Non-Smokers

Science.gov (United States)

Richmond, Melanie J.; Mermelstein, Robin J.; Wakschlag, Lauren S.

2012-01-01

Objective This longitudinal study examined how observations of parental general communication style and control with their adolescents predicted changes in negative affect over time for adolescent smokers and non-smokers. Method Participants were 9th and 10th grade adolescents (N = 111; 56.8% female) who had all experimented with cigarettes and were thus at risk for continued smoking and escalation; 36% of these adolescents (n = 40) had smoked in the past month at baseline and were considered smokers in the present analyses. Adolescents participated separately with mothers and fathers in observed parent-adolescent problem-solving discussions to assess parenting at baseline. Adolescent negative affect was assessed at baseline, 6- and 24-months via ecological momentary assessment. Results Among both smoking and non-smoking adolescents, escalating negative affect significantly increased risk for future smoking. Higher quality maternal and paternal communication predicted a decline in negative affect over 1.5 years for adolescent smokers but was not related to negative affect for non-smokers. Controlling maternal, but not paternal, parenting predicted escalation in negative affect for all adolescents. Conclusions Findings suggest that reducing negative affect among experimenting youth can reduce risk for smoking escalation. Therefore, family-based prevention efforts for adolescent smoking escalation might consider parental general communication style and control as intervention targets. However, adolescent smoking status and parent gender may moderate these effects. PMID:23153193

Attentional bias for positive emotional stimuli: A meta-analytic investigation.

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Pool, Eva; Brosch, Tobias; Delplanque, Sylvain; Sander, David

2016-01-01

Despite an initial focus on negative threatening stimuli, researchers have more recently expanded the investigation of attentional biases toward positive rewarding stimuli. The present meta-analysis systematically compared attentional bias for positive compared with neutral visual stimuli across 243 studies (N = 9,120 healthy participants) that used different types of attentional paradigms and positive stimuli. Factors were tested that, as postulated by several attentional models derived from theories of emotion, might modulate this bias. Overall, results showed a significant, albeit modest (Hedges' g = .258), attentional bias for positive as compared with neutral stimuli. Moderator analyses revealed that the magnitude of this attentional bias varied as a function of arousal and that this bias was significantly larger when the emotional stimulus was relevant to specific concerns (e.g., hunger) of the participants compared with other positive stimuli that were less relevant to the participants' concerns. Moreover, the moderator analyses showed that attentional bias for positive stimuli was larger in paradigms that measure early, rather than late, attentional processing, suggesting that attentional bias for positive stimuli occurs rapidly and involuntarily. Implications for theories of emotion and attention are discussed. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Coping, goal adjustment, and positive and negative affect in definitive infertility

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kraaij, V.; Garnefski, N.; Schroevers, M.J.

2009-01-01

The relationships between coping strategies, goal adjustment and positive and negative affect were studied in 83 definitive involuntary childless people. Self-report questionnaires were filled out. The findings suggested that positive ways to handle the childlessness were related to positive affect,

Emotion and memory: a recognition advantage for positive and negative words independent of arousal.

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Adelman, James S; Estes, Zachary

2013-12-01

Much evidence indicates that emotion enhances memory, but the precise effects of the two primary factors of arousal and valence remain at issue. Moreover, the current knowledge of emotional memory enhancement is based mostly on small samples of extremely emotive stimuli presented in unnaturally high proportions without adequate affective, lexical, and semantic controls. To investigate how emotion affects memory under conditions of natural variation, we tested whether arousal and valence predicted recognition memory for over 2500 words that were not sampled for their emotionality, and we controlled a large variety of lexical and semantic factors. Both negative and positive stimuli were remembered better than neutral stimuli, whether arousing or calming. Arousal failed to predict recognition memory, either independently or interactively with valence. Results support models that posit a facilitative role of valence in memory. This study also highlights the importance of stimulus controls and experimental designs in research on emotional memory. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Sex differences in brain activation to emotional stimuli: a meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies.

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Stevens, Jennifer S; Hamann, Stephan

2012-06-01

Substantial sex differences in emotional responses and perception have been reported in previous psychological and psychophysiological studies. For example, women have been found to respond more strongly to negative emotional stimuli, a sex difference that has been linked to an increased risk of depression and anxiety disorders. The extent to which such sex differences are reflected in corresponding differences in regional brain activation remains a largely unresolved issue, however, in part because relatively few neuroimaging studies have addressed this issue. Here, by conducting a quantitative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies, we were able to substantially increase statistical power to detect sex differences relative to prior studies, by combining emotion studies which explicitly examined sex differences with the much larger number of studies that examined only women or men. We used an activation likelihood estimation approach to characterize sex differences in the likelihood of regional brain activation elicited by emotional stimuli relative to non-emotional stimuli. We examined sex differences separately for negative and positive emotions, in addition to examining all emotions combined. Sex differences varied markedly between negative and positive emotion studies. The majority of sex differences favoring women were observed for negative emotion, whereas the majority of the sex differences favoring men were observed for positive emotion. This valence-specificity was particularly evident for the amygdala. For negative emotion, women exhibited greater activation than men in the left amygdala, as well as in other regions including the left thalamus, hypothalamus, mammillary bodies, left caudate, and medial prefrontal cortex. In contrast, for positive emotion, men exhibited greater activation than women in the left amygdala, as well as greater activation in other regions including the bilateral inferior frontal gyrus and right fusiform gyrus. These meta

Fewer Ups and Downs: Daily Stressors Mediate Age Differences in Negative Affect

OpenAIRE

Charles, Susan Turk; Luong, Gloria; Almeida, David M.; Ryff, Carol; Sturm, Maggie; Love, Gayle

2010-01-01

The current study examined age differences in daily stressors, positive events (uplifts), and their associations with emotional experience among healthy older women. Women (N = 101, 63--93 years old) reported their daily experiences across 1 week. Older age was related to fewer stressors and less frequent negative affect. However, the association between negative affect and age was no longer significant after accounting for the occurrence of daily stressors. Older age was not significantly re...

Associations between infant negative affect and parent anxiety symptoms are bidirectional: Evidence from mothers and fathers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rebecca J. Brooker

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Little is known about child-based effects on parents’ anxiety symptoms early in life despite the possibility that child characteristics may contribute to the quality of the early environment and children’s own long-term risk for psychological disorder. We examined bidirectional effects between parent anxiety symptoms and infant fear-based negative affect using a prospective adoption design. Infant fear-based negative affect and adoptive parent anxiety symptoms were assessed at child ages 9, 18, and 27 months. Birth parent negative affect was assessed at child age 18 months. More anxiety symptoms in adoptive parents at child age 9 months predicted more negative affect in infants 9 months later. More infant negative affect at child age 9 months predicted more anxiety symptoms in adoptive parents 18 months later. Patterns of results did not differ for adoptive mothers and adoptive fathers. Birth parent negative affect was unrelated to infant or adoptive parent measures. Consistent with expectations, associations between infant negative affect and rearing parents’ anxiety symptoms appear to be bidirectional. In addition to traditional parent-to-child effects, our results suggest that infants’ characteristics may contribute to parent qualities that are known to impact childhood outcomes.

Negative affect improves the quality of memories: trading capacity for precision in sensory and working memory.

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Spachtholz, Philipp; Kuhbandner, Christof; Pekrun, Reinhard

2014-08-01

Research has shown that negative affect reduces working memory capacity. Commonly, this effect has been attributed to an allocation of resources to task-irrelevant thoughts, suggesting that negative affect has detrimental consequences for working memory performance. However, rather than simply being a detrimental effect, the affect-induced capacity reduction may reflect a trading of capacity for precision of stored representations. To test this hypothesis, we induced neutral or negative affect and concurrently measured the number and precision of representations stored in sensory and working memory. Compared with neutral affect, negative affect reduced the capacity of both sensory and working memory. However, in both memory systems, this decrease in capacity was accompanied by an increase in precision. These findings demonstrate that observers unintentionally trade capacity for precision as a function of affective state and indicate that negative affect can be beneficial for the quality of memories. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Automatic associations with the sensory aspects of smoking: Positive in habitual smokers but negative in non-smokers

OpenAIRE

Huijding, Jorg; Jong, Peter

2006-01-01

textabstractTo test whether pictorial stimuli that focus on the sensory aspects of smoking elicit different automatic affective associations in smokers than in non-smokers, 31 smoking and 33 non-smoking students completed a single target IAT. Explicit attitudes were assessed using a semantic differential. Automatic affective associations were positive in smokers but negative in non-smokers. Only automatic affective associations but not self-reported attitudes were significantly correlated wit...

The Relationships Between Positive-Negative Affectivity and Individual-Organizational Level Aggressiveness: The Role of Physical Activity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mahmut ÖZDEVECİOĞLU

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The main aim of the present study is to find out the relationships between, positive and negative affectivity, physical activity, personal level aggressiveness - organization level aggressiveness and mediation effect of physical activity. The universe of the research is employees of Kayseri Organized Industrial Zone businesses in which physical activity is done. The size of the research is 273. According to the results, there is a significant and negative oriented relationship between positive affectivity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between negative affectivity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between positive affectivity and physical activity. There is a significant and negative oriented relationship between negative affectivity and physical activity. There is a significant and negative oriented relationship between physical activity and individual level aggressiveness. There is a significant and positive oriented relationship between individual level aggressiveness and organization level aggressiveness. Separately physical activity has a significant mediation role between positive-negative affectivity and individual level aggressiveness.

The effect of negative affect on cognition: Anxiety, not anger, impairs executive function.

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Shields, Grant S; Moons, Wesley G; Tewell, Carl A; Yonelinas, Andrew P

2016-09-01

It is often assumed that negative affect impairs the executive functions that underlie our ability to control and focus our thoughts. However, support for this claim has been mixed. Recent work has suggested that different negative affective states like anxiety and anger may reflect physiologically separable states with distinct effects on cognition. However, the effects of these 2 affective states on executive function have never been assessed. As such, we induced anxiety or anger in participants and examined the effects on executive function. We found that anger did not impair executive function relative to a neutral mood, whereas anxiety did. In addition, self-reports of induced anxiety, but not anger, predicted impairments in executive function. These results support functional models of affect and cognition, and highlight the need to consider differences between anxiety and anger when investigating the influence of negative affect on fundamental cognitive processes such as memory and executive function. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

The Effect of Negative Affect on Cognition: Anxiety, Not Anger, Impairs Executive Function

OpenAIRE

Shields, Grant S.; Moons, Wesley G.; Tewell, Carl A.; Yonelinas, Andrew P.

2016-01-01

It is often assumed that negative affect impairs the executive functions that underlie our ability to control and focus our thoughts. However, support for this claim has been mixed. Recent work has suggested that different negative affective states like anxiety and anger may reflect physiologically separable states with distinct effects on cognition. However, the effects of these two affective states on executive function have never been assessed. As such, we induced anxiety or anger in parti...

Motivation enhances control of positive and negative emotional distractions.

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Walsh, Amy T; Carmel, David; Harper, David; Grimshaw, Gina M

2018-01-03

Using cognitive control to ignore distractions is essential for successfully achieving our goals. In emotionally-neutral contexts, motivation can reduce interference from irrelevant stimuli by enhancing cognitive control. However, attention is commonly biased towards emotional stimuli, making them potent distractors. Can motivation aid control of emotional distractions, and does it do so similarly for positive and negative stimuli? Here, we examined how task motivation influences control of distraction from positive, negative, and neutral scenes. Participants completed a simple perceptual task while attempting to ignore task-irrelevant images. One group received monetary reward for fast and accurate task performance; another (control) group did not. Overall, both negative (mutilation) and positive (erotic) images caused greater slowing of responses than neutral images of people, but emotional distraction was reduced with reward. Crucially, despite the different motivational directions associated with negative and positive stimuli, reward reduced negative and positive distraction equally. Our findings suggest that motivation may encourage the use of a sustained proactive control strategy that can effectively reduce the impact of emotional distraction.

Distinct trajectories of positive and negative affect after colorectal cancer diagnosis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ciere, Yvette; Janse, Moniek; Almansa, Josué; Visser, Annemieke; Sanderman, Robbert; Sprangers, Mirjam A.G.; Ranchor, Adelita V.; Fleer, Joke

2017-01-01

Objective: Insight into trajectories of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) across the cancer continuum may improve understanding of the nature of adjustment problems. The primary aim of this study was to identify subgroups of patients with distinct trajectories of PA and NA following

Distinct Trajectories of Positive and Negative Affect After Colorectal Cancer Diagnosis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ciere, Yvette; Janse, Moniek; Almansa, Josué; Visser, Annemieke; Sanderman, Robbert; Sprangers, Mirjam A G; Ranchor, Adelita V; Fleer, Joke

OBJECTIVE: Insight into trajectories of positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) across the cancer continuum may improve understanding of the nature of adjustment problems. The primary aim of this study was to identify subgroups of patients with distinct trajectories of PA and NA following

Do hostile attributions and negative affect explain the association between authoritarian beliefs and harsh parenting?

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Crouch, Julie L; Irwin, Lauren M; Milner, Joel S; Skowronski, John J; Rutledge, Ericka; Davila, America L

2017-05-01

The present study examined the associations between authoritarian parenting beliefs, attributions of hostile intent, negative affect, and harsh parenting practices. General population parents (N=183; 31.1% fathers) completed self-report measures of authoritarian parenting beliefs and read vignettes describing children engaging in transgressions. Following each vignette, parents indicated the extent to which they would attribute hostile intent to the child, feel negative affect, and respond with harsh parenting practices (e.g., yelling, hitting). As hypothesized, parents who subscribed to higher levels of authoritarian beliefs attributed more hostile intent to the child and expected to feel more negative affect in response to the transgressions. In turn, higher levels of hostile attributions and negative affect were associated with increased likelihood of harsh parenting practices. Results from a path analysis revealed that the association between authoritarian parenting beliefs and harsh parenting practices was fully explained by attributions of hostile intent and negative affect. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Negative and positive affect are independently associated with patient-reported health status following percutaneous coronary intervention.

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Versteeg, Henneke; Pedersen, Susanne S; Erdman, Ruud A M; van Nierop, Josephine W I; de Jaegere, Peter; van Domburg, Ron T

2009-10-01

We examined the association between negative and positive affect and 12-month health status in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug-eluting stents. Consecutive PCI patients (n = 562) completed the Global Mood Scale at baseline to assess affect and the EuroQoL-5D (EQ-5D) at baseline and 12-month follow-up to assess health status. Negative affect [F(1, 522) = 17.14, P positive affect [F(1, 522) = 5.11, P = .02] at baseline were independent associates of overall health status at 12-month follow-up, adjusting for demographic and clinical factors. Moreover, there was a significant interaction for negative by positive affect [F(1, 522) = 6.11, P = .01]. In domain-specific analyses, high negative affect was associated with problems in mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and anxiety/depression with the risk being two to fivefold. Low positive affect was only associated with problems in self-care (OR: 8.14; 95% CI: 1.85-35.9; P = .006) and usual activities (OR: 1.87; 95% CI: 1.17-3.00; P = .009). Baseline negative and positive affect contribute independently to patient-reported health status 12 months post PCI. Positive affect moderated the detrimental effects of negative affect on overall health status. Enhancing positive affect might be an important target to improve patient-centered outcomes in coronary artery disease.

On the link between different combinations of Negative Affectivity (NA) and Positive Affectivity (PA) and job performance

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Yperen, N.W.

2003-01-01

Despite the assumed orthogonality of Negative Affectivity (NA) and Positive Affectivity (PA), the effects of the different combinations of NA and PA on work-related outcomes such as job performance have been neglected. The present study among 42 employees of a local social services department in the

A daily diary study of perceived social isolation, dietary restraint, and negative affect in binge eating.

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Mason, Tyler B; Heron, Kristin E; Braitman, Abby L; Lewis, Robin J

2016-02-01

Negative affect and dietary restraint are key predictors of binge eating, yet less is known about the impact of social factors on binge eating. The study sought to replicate and extend research on the relationships between negative affect, dietary restraint, perceived social isolation and binge eating using a daily diary methodology. College women (N = 54) completed measures of dietary restraint, negative affect, perceived social isolation, and binge eating daily for 14 days. Participants completed the measures nightly each day. A series of generalized estimating equations showed that dietary restraint was associated with less binge eating while controlling for negative affect and for perceived social isolation separately. Negative affect and perceived social isolation were associated with greater binge eating while controlling for restraint in separate analyses, but only perceived social isolation was significant when modeled simultaneously. All two-way interactions between negative affect, dietary restraint, and perceived social isolation predicting binge eating were nonsignificant. This study furthers our understanding of predictors of binge eating in a nonclinical sample. Specifically, these data suggest perceived social isolation, negative affect, and dietary restraint are important variables associated with binge eating in daily life and warrant further research. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Diffusion Model Analysis of Decision Biases Affecting Delayed Recognition of Emotional Stimuli

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Bowen, Holly J.; Spaniol, Julia; Patel, Ronak; Voss, Andreas

2016-01-01

Previous empirical work suggests that emotion can influence accuracy and cognitive biases underlying recognition memory, depending on the experimental conditions. The current study examines the effects of arousal and valence on delayed recognition memory using the diffusion model, which allows the separation of two decision biases thought to underlie memory: response bias and memory bias. Memory bias has not been given much attention in the literature but can provide insight into the retrieval dynamics of emotion modulated memory. Participants viewed emotional pictorial stimuli; half were given a recognition test 1-day later and the other half 7-days later. Analyses revealed that emotional valence generally evokes liberal responding, whereas high arousal evokes liberal responding only at a short retention interval. The memory bias analyses indicated that participants experienced greater familiarity with high-arousal compared to low-arousal items and this pattern became more pronounced as study-test lag increased; positive items evoke greater familiarity compared to negative and this pattern remained stable across retention interval. The findings provide insight into the separate contributions of valence and arousal to the cognitive mechanisms underlying delayed emotion modulated memory. PMID:26784108

Sleep Efficiency Modulates Associations Between Family Stress and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms and Negative Affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiang, Jessica J; Kim, Joanna J; Almeida, David M; Bower, Julienne E; Dahl, Ronald E; Irwin, Michael R; McCreath, Heather; Fuligni, Andrew J

2017-10-01

The goal of this study was to determine whether sleep moderates the associations between family-related stress and depressive symptoms and negative affect outcomes during adolescence. We combined traditional survey measures of stress and depressive symptoms with daily assessments of stress and negative affect to examine whether sleep differentially impacts the link between chronic and acute experiences of stress and affect. Participants were 316 adolescents from ethnically diverse backgrounds. Primary caregivers and adolescents reported on stressful family events during the past 12 and 3 months, respectively. Adolescents also reported on their daily experiences of family demands for 15 days and wore actigraph watches for the assessment of sleep during the first eight nights. Regression analyses revealed that more stressful family events were related to more depressive symptoms. This relation was stronger among adolescents with lower sleep efficiency. The same pattern emerged for the relation between daily family demands and negative affect aggregated across the 15 days. Daily-level analyses indicated that daily negative affect was related to daily family demands when sleep efficiency was higher than usual, but only among European American adolescents. These findings suggest that chronic experiences of lower sleep efficiency, but not sleep duration, may render adolescents more vulnerable to the negative effects of family stress on emotional adjustment. A more complex picture emerged for the role of prior night's sleep in the day-to-day variation in negative affect reactivity to family stress. Copyright © 2017 Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parenting stress mediates the association between negative affectivity and harsh parenting: A longitudinal dyadic analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Le, Yunying; Fredman, Steffany J; Feinberg, Mark E

2017-09-01

The current study examined parenting stress (disaggregated into personal distress and child rearing stress) at 12 months postpartum as a mediator of the longitudinal association between parental negative affectivity at 6 months postpartum and harsh parenting at 3 years postpartum for first-time parents with a child transitioning from late toddlerhood to the early preschool years. Analyses were conducted using Mediation for Actor Partner Interdependence Modeling in a sample of 164 couples who participated in a randomized controlled trial of a universal, couple-based transition to parenthood program. There were indirect actor effects of negative affect on a parent's own harsh parenting through both dimensions of parenting stress, with a stronger mediating effect for personal distress than child rearing stress. There were also indirect partner effects of negative affect on one's partner's harsh parenting through the partner's parenting stress, with a stronger indirect partner effect from mothers' negative affect to fathers' harsh parenting than vice versa. Specifically, the mediating effect of personal distress was found for both mothers and fathers, whereas the mediating effect of child rearing stress was found from mothers' negative affect to fathers' harsh parenting only. Findings highlight the importance of a dyadic approach in examining the longitudinal association between negative affect and harsh parenting and suggest that reducing parenting stress in the first year postpartum may decrease the risk of future harsh parenting among couples in which one or both partners experience negative affectivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion, working memory task demands and individual differences predict behavior, cognitive effort and negative affect.

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Storbeck, Justin; Davidson, Nicole A; Dahl, Chelsea F; Blass, Sara; Yung, Edwin

2015-01-01

We examined whether positive and negative affect motivates verbal and spatial working memory processes, respectively, which have implications for the expenditure of mental effort. We argue that when emotion promotes cognitive tendencies that are goal incompatible with task demands, greater cognitive effort is required to perform well. We sought to investigate whether this increase in cognitive effort impairs behavioural control over a broad domain of self-control tasks. Moreover, we predicted that individuals with higher behavioural inhibition system (BIS) sensitivities would report more negative affect within the goal incompatible conditions because such individuals report higher negative affect during cognitive challenge. Positive or negative affective states were induced followed by completing a verbal or spatial 2-back working memory task. All participants then completed one of three self-control tasks. Overall, we observed that conditions of emotion and working memory incompatibility (positive/spatial and negative/verbal) performed worse on the self-control tasks, and within the incompatible conditions individuals with higher BIS sensitivities reported more negative affect at the end of the study. The combination of findings suggests that emotion and working memory compatibility reduces cognitive effort and impairs behavioural control.

Performing a secondary executive task with affective stimuli interferes with decision making under risk conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Gathmann, Bettina; Pawlikowski, Mirko; Schöler, Tobias; Brand, Matthias

2014-05-01

Previous studies demonstrated that executive functions are crucial for advantageous decision making under risk and that therefore decision making is disrupted when working memory capacity is demanded while working on a decision task. While some studies also showed that emotions can affect decision making under risk, it is unclear how affective processing and executive functions predict decision-making performance in interaction. The current experimental study used a between-subjects design to examine whether affective pictures (positive and negative pictures compared to neutral pictures), included in a parallel executive task (working memory 2-back task), have an impact on decision making under risk as assessed by the Game of Dice Task (GDT). Moreover, the performance GDT plus 2-back task was compared to the performance in the GDT without any additional task (GDT solely). The results show that the performance in the GDT differed between groups (positive, negative, neutral, and GDT solely). The groups with affective pictures, especially those with positive pictures in the 2-back task, showed more disadvantageous decisions in the GDT than the groups with neutral pictures and the group performing the GDT without any additional task. However, executive functions moderated the effect of the affective pictures. Regardless of affective influence, subjects with good executive functions performed advantageously in the GDT. These findings support the assumption that executive functions and emotional processing interact in predicting decision making under risk.

The influence of various distracting stimuli on spatial working memory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martina Starc

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Protecting information from distraction is essential for optimal performance of working memory. We examined how the presence of distracting stimuli influences spatial working memory and compared the effect of both task-similar and negatively emotionally salient distractors. We checked the effect of distractors on the accuracy of high-resolution representations, as well as the maintenance of spatial categories, and more precisely defined not only the existence but also the direction of the distracting influences (towards or away from the position of the distractor. Participants (n = 25, 8 men, 19–31 years old were asked to remember the exact position of a target scrambled image and recall it with a joystick after a delay. In some trials an additional distracting image (scrambled, neutral or negative was shown during the delay. We measured the spread of responses (standard deviation of angular error and shifts of the average response towards the prototype angles (45° or towards the position of distractors. Distracting stimuli did not affect the spread of responses and decreased the tendency of participants to move the responses towards the prototype angle. Different types of distractors did not differ in this effect. Contrary to expectations, the participants moved their responses away from the position of distractors; this effect was more pronounced for negative distractors. In addition to memorizing the exact position and maintaining attention on the position of the stimulus, participants are likely to strategically use information about spatial category membership (quadrants and information about the position of the distractor. The repulsive effect of the distractor likely results from inhibition of its position and indicates the need to supplement computational models of spatial working memory and to take into account different strategies of working memory use.

Shame, Catastrophizing, and Negative Partner Responses Are Associated With Lower Sexual and Relationship Satisfaction and More Negative Affect in Men With Peyronie's Disease.

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Davis, Seth; Ferrar, Saskia; Sadikaj, Gentiana; Binik, Yitzchak; Carrier, Serge

2017-04-03

Peyronie's disease (PD) has a negative impact on men's sexual functioning and quality of life, but little is known about why some men cope better than others and what the effects of PD are on their relationships. The aims of the present study were to describe negative affect, pain, and relationship and sexual satisfaction in men with PD, and to explore their psychosocial correlates. Participants were 110 men diagnosed with PD. All men completed questionnaires. The main outcome measures were as follows: Global Measure of Sexual Satisfaction, Dyadic Adjustment Scale, McGill Pain Questionnaire, and Negative Affect Scale. The predictor variables were the following: Experience of Shame Scale, Body Esteem Scale, Body Image Self-Consciousness Scale, Index of Male Genital Image, a modified Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and a modified Multidimensional Pain Inventory. Although men with PD had mean sexual/relationship satisfaction and negative affect scores indicating mild impairment, there was a wide range of variation, with 42% to 52% scoring in the clinical range. Catastrophizing was significantly associated with reduced sexual satisfaction and increased negative affect and pain. Shame was also associated with increased negative affect. The significant associations of relationship satisfaction were partner responses and shame. Given the lack of curative treatment in PD, understanding why some men cope better than others may guide therapy. Shame, catastrophizing, and partner responses may be important therapeutic targets.

The blues broaden, but the nasty narrows: attentional consequences of negative affects low and high in motivational intensity.

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Gable, Philip; Harmon-Jones, Eddie

2010-02-01

Positive and negative affects high in motivational intensity cause a narrowing of attentional focus. In contrast, positive affects low in motivational intensity cause a broadening of attentional focus. The attentional consequences of negative affects low in motivational intensity have not been experimentally investigated. Experiment 1 compared the attentional consequences of negative affect low in motivational intensity (sadness) relative to a neutral affective state. Results indicated that low-motivation negative affect caused attentional broadening. Experiment 2 found that disgust, a high-motivation negative affect not previously investigated in attentional studies, narrowed attentional focus. These experiments support the conceptual model linking high-motivation affective states to narrowed attention and low-motivation affective states to broadened attention.

Measuring positive and negative affect in the voiced sounds of African elephants (Loxodonta africana).

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Soltis, Joseph; Blowers, Tracy E; Savage, Anne

2011-02-01

As in other mammals, there is evidence that the African elephant voice reflects affect intensity, but it is less clear if positive and negative affective states are differentially reflected in the voice. An acoustic comparison was made between African elephant "rumble" vocalizations produced in negative social contexts (dominance interactions), neutral social contexts (minimal social activity), and positive social contexts (affiliative interactions) by four adult females housed at Disney's Animal Kingdom®. Rumbles produced in the negative social context exhibited higher and more variable fundamental frequencies (F(0)) and amplitudes, longer durations, increased voice roughness, and higher first formant locations (F1), compared to the neutral social context. Rumbles produced in the positive social context exhibited similar shifts in most variables (F(0 )variation, amplitude, amplitude variation, duration, and F1), but the magnitude of response was generally less than that observed in the negative context. Voice roughness and F(0) observed in the positive social context remained similar to that observed in the neutral context. These results are most consistent with the vocal expression of affect intensity, in which the negative social context elicited higher intensity levels than the positive context, but differential vocal expression of positive and negative affect cannot be ruled out.

The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test: Validity and Relationship with Cardiovascular Stress-Responses.

Science.gov (United States)

van der Ploeg, Melanie M; Brosschot, Jos F; Thayer, Julian F; Verkuil, Bart

2016-01-01

Self-report, i.e., explicit, measures of affect cannot fully explain the cardiovascular (CV) responses to stressors. Measuring affect beyond self-report, i.e., using implicit measures, could add to our understanding of stress-related CV activity. The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT) was administered in two studies to test its ecological validity and relation with CV responses and self-report measures of affect. In Study 1 students (N = 34) viewed four film clips inducing anger, happiness, fear, or no emotion, and completed the IPANAT and the Positive And Negative Affect Scale at baseline and after each clip. Implicit negative affect (INA) was higher and implicit positive affect (IPA) was lower after the anger inducing clip and vice versa after the happiness inducing clip. In Study 2 students performed a stressful math task with (n = 14) or without anger harassment (n = 15) and completed the IPANAT and a Visual Analog Scale as an explicit measure afterwards. Systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) blood pressure, heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and total peripheral resistance (TPR) were recorded throughout. SBP and DBP were higher and TPR was lower in the harassment condition during the task with a prolonged effect on SBP and DBP during recovery. As expected, explicit negative affect (ENA) was higher and explicit positive affect (EPA) lower after harassment, but ENA and EPA were not related to CV activity. Although neither INA nor IPA differed between the tasks, during both tasks higher INA was related to higher SBP, lower HRV and lower TPR and to slower recovery of DBP after both tasks. Low IPA was related to slower recovery of SBP and DBP after the tasks. Implicit affect was not related to recovery of HR, HRV, and TPR. In conclusion, the IPANAT seems to respond to film clip-induced negative and positive affect and was related to CV activity during and after stressful tasks. These findings support the theory that implicitly measured affect

Negative affect is associated with development and persistence of chemical intolerance

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Skovbjerg, Sine; Christensen, Karl Bang; Ebstrup, Jeanette Frost

2015-01-01

. METHODS: A general population sample aged 19 to 72years was examined in 2006-2008 and again in 2011-2012. Longitudinal data on CI were analysed with the purpose of examining baseline negative affect as a risk factor for having developed CI at 5-year follow-up and for reporting persistent CI. Participants.......4% of the participants who had reported CI at baseline also reported CI at follow-up. In participants with no baseline CI, 15.5% reported CI at follow-up and 18.1% reported symptoms related to chemicals but no daily life adjustments. Baseline negative affect was positively and statistically significantly associated...

A Sorrow Halved? A Daily Diary Study on Talking About Experienced Workplace Incivility and Next-Morning Negative Affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Tremmel, Stephanie; Sonnentag, Sabine

2017-08-31

Incivility by coworkers and customers can have detrimental consequences for employees' affective well-being at work. However, little is known about whether incivility also impairs employees' affect at home and how long these negative effects may last. In this diary study, we examine whether incivility by coworkers and customers is related to next-morning negative affect via negative affect at the end of the workday and at bedtime, and investigate different modes of social sharing (i.e., conversations about experienced mistreatment) as day-level moderators of this relationship. Daily diary data collected over 10 workdays (N = 113 employees) revealed that coworker incivility was indirectly related to bedtime negative affect via negative affect at the end of the workday, and customer incivility was indirectly related to next-morning negative affect via negative affect at the end of the workday and at bedtime. Although we found no moderating effect for conversations in an affective sharing mode (i.e., conversation partners provide comfort and consolation), the relationship between workplace incivility and employees' negative affect was buffered by conversations in a cognitive sharing mode (i.e., conversation partners suggest alternative explanations or reappraisal of uncivil behavior). In line with social sharing theory, our results suggest that talking about experienced mistreatment can, under specific circumstances, offset the negative relationship of uncivil coworker and customer behavior and employees' negative affect. This study advances current research on workplace incivility by studying negative affect 3 times a day and thus sheds light on the mechanism connecting workplace incivility and employees' affective well-being at home. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

The wandering mood: psychological and neural determinants of rest-related negative affect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michal eGruberger

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Rest related negative affect (RRNA has gained scientific interest in the past decade. However, it is mostly studied within the context of mind-wandering (MW, and the relevance of other psychological and neural aspects of the resting state to its' occurrence has never been studied. Several indications associate RRNA with internally directed attention, yet the nature of this relation remains largely unknown. Moreover, the role of neural networks associated with rest related phenomenology - the default mode (DMN, executive (EXE and salience (SAL networks, has not been studied in this context. To this end, we explored two 5- (baseline and 15-minute resting-state simultaneous fMRI-EEG scans of 29 participants. As vigilance has been shown to affect attention, and thus its availability for inward allocation, EEG-based vigilance levels were computed for each participant. Questionnaires for affective assessment were administered before and after scans, and retrospective reports of MW were additionally collected. Results revealed increased negative affect following rest, but only among participants who retained high vigilance levels. Among low-vigilance participants, changes in negative affect were negligible, despite reports of MW occurrence in both groups. In addition, in the high-vigilance group only, a significant increase in functional connectivity (FC levels was found between the DMN-related ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC,associated with emotional processing, and the EXE-related dorsal ACC, associated with monitoring of self and other's behavior. These heightened FC levels further correlated with reported negative affect among this group. Taken together, these results demonstrate that, rather than an unavoidable outcome of the resting state, RRNA depends on internal allocation of attention at rest. Results are discussed in terms of two rest-related possible scenarios which defer in mental and neural processing, and subsequently, in the

The wandering mood: psychological and neural determinants of rest-related negative affect.

Science.gov (United States)

Gruberger, Michal; Maron-Katz, Adi; Sharon, Haggai; Hendler, Talma; Ben-Simon, Eti

2013-01-01

Rest related negative affect (RRNA) has gained scientific interest in the past decade. However, it is mostly studied within the context of mind-wandering (MW), and the relevance of other psychological and neural aspects of the resting state to its' occurrence has never been studied. Several indications associate RRNA with internally directed attention, yet the nature of this relation remains largely unknown. Moreover, the role of neural networks associated with rest related phenomenology - the default mode (DMN), executive (EXE), and salience (SAL) networks, has not been studied in this context. To this end, we explored two 5 (baseline) and 15-minute resting-state simultaneous fMRI-EEG scans of 29 participants. As vigilance has been shown to affect attention, and thus its availability for inward allocation, EEG-based vigilance levels were computed for each participant. Questionnaires for affective assessment were administered before and after scans, and retrospective reports of MW were additionally collected. Results revealed increased negative affect following rest, but only among participants who retained high vigilance levels. Among low-vigilance participants, changes in negative affect were negligible, despite reports of MW occurrence in both groups. In addition, in the high-vigilance group only, a significant increase in functional connectivity (FC) levels was found between the DMN-related ventral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), associated with emotional processing, and the EXE-related dorsal ACC, associated with monitoring of self and other's behavior. These heightened FC levels further correlated with reported negative affect among this group. Taken together, these results demonstrate that, rather than an unavoidable outcome of the resting state, RRNA depends on internal allocation of attention at rest. Results are discussed in terms of two rest-related possible scenarios which defer in mental and neural processing, and subsequently, in the occurrence of

Yes: The Symptoms of OCD and Depression Are Discrete and Not Exclusively Negative Affectivity

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Kathleen A. Moore

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Although Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD and Depression are classified as separate disorders, the high incidence of co-morbidity and the strong correlations between measures of each has led to debate about the nature of their relationship. Some authors have proposed that OCD is in fact a mood disorder while others have suggested that the two disorders are grounded in negative affectivity. A third proposition is that depression is an essential part of OCD but that OCD is a separate disorder from depression. The aim in this study was to investigate these diverse propositions in a non-clinical sample and also to determine whether factors implicated in each, that is anxious and depressive cognitions, hopelessness, and self-criticism, would demonstrate commonality as predictors of the symptoms of OCD and of depression. Two hundred participants (59% female (M age = 34 years, SD = 16 completed the Padua Inventory, Carroll Rating Scale, Cognitions Checklist, Self-Criticism Scale, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory-Revised and a Negative Affectivity Schedule. Results indicated a strong correlation between OCD and depression, depression, and negative affectivity but a weaker relationship between OCD and negative affectivity. Path analyses revealed that both anxious and depressive cognitions, as well as hostility predicted both disorders but the Beta-weights were stronger on OCD. Self-criticism predicted only depression while hopelessness failed to predict either disorder but was itself predicted by depressive cognitions. Depression was a stronger indicator of negative affect than OCD and while OCD positively predicted depression, depression was a negative indicator of OCD. These results support the hypothesis that OCD and depression are discrete disorders and indicate that while depression is implicated in OCD, the reverse does not hold. While both disorders are related to negative affectivity, this relationship is much stronger

Yes: The Symptoms of OCD and Depression Are Discrete and Not Exclusively Negative Affectivity.

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Moore, Kathleen A; Howell, Jacqui

2017-01-01

Although Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Depression are classified as separate disorders, the high incidence of co-morbidity and the strong correlations between measures of each has led to debate about the nature of their relationship. Some authors have proposed that OCD is in fact a mood disorder while others have suggested that the two disorders are grounded in negative affectivity. A third proposition is that depression is an essential part of OCD but that OCD is a separate disorder from depression. The aim in this study was to investigate these diverse propositions in a non-clinical sample and also to determine whether factors implicated in each, that is anxious and depressive cognitions, hopelessness, and self-criticism, would demonstrate commonality as predictors of the symptoms of OCD and of depression. Two hundred participants (59% female) ( M age = 34 years, SD = 16) completed the Padua Inventory, Carroll Rating Scale, Cognitions Checklist, Self-Criticism Scale, Beck Hopelessness Scale, Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory-Revised and a Negative Affectivity Schedule. Results indicated a strong correlation between OCD and depression, depression, and negative affectivity but a weaker relationship between OCD and negative affectivity. Path analyses revealed that both anxious and depressive cognitions, as well as hostility predicted both disorders but the Beta-weights were stronger on OCD. Self-criticism predicted only depression while hopelessness failed to predict either disorder but was itself predicted by depressive cognitions. Depression was a stronger indicator of negative affect than OCD and while OCD positively predicted depression, depression was a negative indicator of OCD. These results support the hypothesis that OCD and depression are discrete disorders and indicate that while depression is implicated in OCD, the reverse does not hold. While both disorders are related to negative affectivity, this relationship is much stronger for depression

MDMA enhances "mind reading" of positive emotions and impairs "mind reading" of negative emotions.

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Hysek, Cédric M; Domes, Gregor; Liechti, Matthias E

2012-07-01

3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, ecstasy) increases sociability. The prosocial effects of MDMA may result from the release of the "social hormone" oxytocin and associated alterations in the processing of socioemotional stimuli. We investigated the effects of MDMA (125 mg) on the ability to infer the mental states of others from social cues of the eye region in the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test. The study included 48 healthy volunteers (24 men, 24 women) and used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design. A choice reaction time test was used to exclude impairments in psychomotor function. We also measured circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels and subjective drug effects. MDMA differentially affected mind reading depending on the emotional valence of the stimuli. MDMA enhanced the accuracy of mental state decoding for positive stimuli (e.g., friendly), impaired mind reading for negative stimuli (e.g., hostile), and had no effect on mind reading for neutral stimuli (e.g., reflective). MDMA did not affect psychomotor performance, increased circulating oxytocin and cortisol levels, and produced subjective prosocial effects, including feelings of being more open, talkative, and closer to others. The shift in the ability to correctly read socioemotional information toward stimuli associated with positive emotional valence, together with the prosocial feelings elicited by MDMA, may enhance social approach behavior and sociability when MDMA is used recreationally and facilitate therapeutic relationships in MDMA-assisted psychotherapeutic settings.

Twice the negativity bias and half the positivity offset: Evaluative responses to emotional information in depression.

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Gollan, Jackie K; Hoxha, Denada; Hunnicutt-Ferguson, Kallio; Norris, Catherine J; Rosebrock, Laina; Sankin, Lindsey; Cacioppo, John

2016-09-01

Humans have the dual capacity to assign a slightly pleasant valence to neutral stimuli (the positivity offset) to encourage approach behaviors, as well as to assign a higher negative valence to unpleasant images relative to the positive valence to equally arousing and extreme pleasant images (the negativity bias) to facilitate defensive strategies. We conducted an experimental psychopathology study to examine the extent to which the negativity bias and the positivity offset differ in participants with and without major depression.. Forty-one depressed and thirty-six healthy participants were evaluated using a structured clinical interview for DSM-IV Axis I disorders, questionnaires, and a computerized task designed to measure implicit affective responses to unpleasant, neutral, and pleasant stimuli. The negativity bias was significantly higher and the positivity offset was significantly lower in depressed relative to healthy participants.. Entry criteria enrolling medication-free participants with minimal DSM-IV comorbidity may limit generalizability of the findings. This study advances our understanding of the positive and negative valence systems in depression, highlighting the irregularities in the positive valence system.. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neonicotinoid insecticides negatively affect performance measures of non‐target terrestrial arthropods: a meta‐analysis

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Main, Anson; Webb, Elisabeth B.; Goyne, Keith W.; Mengel, Doreen C.

2018-01-01

Neonicotinoid insecticides are currently the fastest‐growing and most widely used insecticide class worldwide. Valued for their versatility in application, these insecticides may cause deleterious effects in a range of non‐target (beneficial) arthropods. However, it remains unclear whether strong patterns exist in terms of their major effects, if broad measures of arthropod performance are negatively affected, or whether different functional groups are equally vulnerable. Here, we present a meta‐analysis of 372 observations from 44 field and laboratory studies that describe neonicotinoid effects on 14 arthropod orders across five broad performance measures: abundance, behavior, condition, reproductive success, and survival. Across studies, neonicotinoids negatively affected all performance metrics evaluated; however, magnitude of the effects varied. Arthropod behavior and survival were the most negatively affected and abundance was the least negatively affected. Effects on arthropod functional groups were inconsistent. Pollinator condition, reproductive success, and survival were significantly lower in neonicotinoid treatments compared to untreated controls; whereas, neonicotinoid effects on detritivores were not significant. Although magnitude of arthropod response to neonicotinoids varied among performance measures and functional groups, we documented a consistent negative relationship between exposure to neonicotinoid insecticides in published studies and beneficial arthropod performance.

Drinking to Cope Motivation as a Prospective Predictor of Negative Affect.

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Armeli, Stephen; Sullivan, Tami P; Tennen, Howard

2015-07-01

Consistent with research indicating that drinking to cope (DTC) motivation might exacerbate negative affective states within or immediately proximal to discrete drinking episodes, we examined whether yearly deviations in more global levels of DTC motivation prospectively predicted depressive and anxious affect over several weeks. College students (N = 521, 52% women) completed baseline measures of drinking motives, recent depression and anxiety symptoms, recent alcohol use, and alcohol use disorder symptoms on a secure website. Approximately 2 weeks after completing this survey, participants completed the 30-day daily diary portion of the study in which they reported on their current-day affective states. This yearly assessment burst in which participants completed a baseline survey and a daily diary assessment was repeated for 3 additional years. We found that changes in DTC motivation were positively associated with changes in depressive and anxious affect in the subsequent month, after we controlled for changes in concurrent anxiety and depressive symptoms, drinking level, enhancement drinking motivation, and alcohol use disorder symptoms. Our findings are consistent with the notion that DTC motivation confers a unique vulnerability for emotion dysregulation, and that drinking for such reasons possibly prolongs or exacerbates negative affective states.

Perfectionism and negative affect after repeated failure: Anxiety, depression, and anger

OpenAIRE

Stoeber, Joachim; Schneider, Natalia; Hussain, Rimi; Matthews, Kelly

2014-01-01

Perfectionists have shown increased negative affect after failure compared to nonperfectionists. However, little is known about how perfectionists react to repeated failure. This study investigated the effects of two forms of perfectionism--self-oriented perfectionism and socially prescribed perfectionism--on 100 university students’ reactions to repeated failure (versus repeated success) examining three negative emotions: anxiety, depression, and anger. Results showed that socially prescribe...

Deciphering molecular circuits from genetic variation underlying transcriptional responsiveness to stimuli.

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Gat-Viks, Irit; Chevrier, Nicolas; Wilentzik, Roni; Eisenhaure, Thomas; Raychowdhury, Raktima; Steuerman, Yael; Shalek, Alex K; Hacohen, Nir; Amit, Ido; Regev, Aviv

2013-04-01

Individual genetic variation affects gene responsiveness to stimuli, often by influencing complex molecular circuits. Here we combine genomic and intermediate-scale transcriptional profiling with computational methods to identify variants that affect the responsiveness of genes to stimuli (responsiveness quantitative trait loci or reQTLs) and to position these variants in molecular circuit diagrams. We apply this approach to study variation in transcriptional responsiveness to pathogen components in dendritic cells from recombinant inbred mouse strains. We identify reQTLs that correlate with particular stimuli and position them in known pathways. For example, in response to a virus-like stimulus, a trans-acting variant responds as an activator of the antiviral response; using RNA interference, we identify Rgs16 as the likely causal gene. Our approach charts an experimental and analytic path to decipher the mechanisms underlying genetic variation in circuits that control responses to stimuli.

The moderating effects of aging and cognitive abilities on the association between work stress and negative affect.

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Hyun, Jinshil; Sliwinski, Martin J; Almeida, David M; Smyth, Joshua M; Scott, Stacey B

2018-05-01

Given that the association between work stress and negative affect can exacerbate negative health and workplace outcomes, it is important to identify the protective and risk factors that moderate this association. Socioemotional aging and cognitive abilities might influence how people utilize emotion regulation skills and engage in practical problem solving to manage their work stress. The aim of this study is to examine whether age and cognitive abilities independently and interactively moderate the association between work-related stress and negative affect. A diverse working adult sample (N = 139, age 25-65, 69% of females) completed a cross-sectional survey that assessed chronic work stress, negative affect, and fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities. Results from regression analyses suggested that both fluid and crystallized cognitive abilities, but not age, moderated the association between work stress and negative affect. Further, we found that crystallized cognition had a stronger attenuating effect on the work stress-negative affect association for older compared to younger workers. The moderating effect of fluid cognition was invariant across age. Our findings demonstrate that cognitive abilities are an important personal resource that might protect individuals against the negative impacts of work stress and negative affect. Although the role that fluid cognition plays in work stress-negative affect association is comparably important for both younger and older workers, crystallized cognition might play a more valuable role for older than younger workers.

Negative affect promotes encoding of and memory for details at the expense of the gist: affect, encoding, and false memories.

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Storbeck, Justin

2013-01-01

I investigated whether negative affective states enhance encoding of and memory for item-specific information reducing false memories. Positive, negative, and neutral moods were induced, and participants then completed a Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) false-memory task. List items were presented in unique spatial locations or unique fonts to serve as measures for item-specific encoding. The negative mood conditions had more accurate memories for item-specific information, and they also had fewer false memories. The final experiment used a manipulation that drew attention to distinctive information, which aided learning for DRM words, but also promoted item-specific encoding. For the condition that promoted item-specific encoding, false memories were reduced for positive and neutral mood conditions to a rate similar to that of the negative mood condition. These experiments demonstrated that negative affective cues promote item-specific processing reducing false memories. People in positive and negative moods encode events differently creating different memories for the same event.

Distinct neural systems underlying reduced emotional enhancement for positive and negative stimuli in early Alzheimer's disease.

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Mistridis, Panagiota; Taylor, Kirsten I; Kissler, Johanna M; Monsch, Andreas U; Kressig, Reto W; Kivisaari, Sasa L

2013-01-01

Emotional information is typically better remembered than neutral content, and previous studies suggest that this effect is subserved particularly by the amygdala together with its interactions with the hippocampus. However, it is not known whether amygdala damage affects emotional memory performance at immediate and delayed recall, and whether its involvement is modulated by stimulus valence. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent more distributed neocortical regions involved in e.g., autobiographical memory, also contribute to emotional processing. We investigated these questions in a group of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), which affects the amygdala, hippocampus and neocortical regions. Healthy controls (n = 14), patients with AD (n = 15) and its putative prodrome amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 11) completed a memory task consisting of immediate and delayed free recall of a list of positive, negative and neutral words. Memory performance was related to brain integrity in region of interest and whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses. In the brain-behavioral analyses, the left amygdala volume predicted the immediate recall of both positive and negative material, whereas at delay, left and right amygdala volumes were associated with performance with positive and negative words, respectively. Whole-brain analyses revealed additional associations between left angular gyrus integrity and the immediate recall of positive words as well as between the orbitofrontal cortex and the delayed recall of negative words. These results indicate that emotional memory impairments in AD may be underpinned by damage to regions implicated in emotional processing as well as frontoparietal regions, which may exert their influence via autobiographical memories and organizational strategies.

Negative mood state enhances the susceptibility to unpleasant events: neural correlates from a music-primed emotion classification task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jiajin Yuan

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Various affective disorders are linked with enhanced processing of unpleasant stimuli. However, this link is likely a result of the dominant negative mood derived from the disorder, rather than a result of the disorder itself. Additionally, little is currently known about the influence of mood on the susceptibility to emotional events in healthy populations. METHOD: Event-Related Potentials (ERP were recorded for pleasant, neutral and unpleasant pictures while subjects performed an emotional/neutral picture classification task during positive, neutral, or negative mood induced by instrumental Chinese music. RESULTS: Late Positive Potential (LPP amplitudes were positively related to the affective arousal of pictures. The emotional responding to unpleasant pictures, indicated by the unpleasant-neutral differences in LPPs, was enhanced during negative compared to neutral and positive moods in the entire LPP time window (600-1000 ms. The magnitude of this enhancement was larger with increasing self-reported negative mood. In contrast, this responding was reduced during positive compared to neutral mood in the 800-1000 ms interval. Additionally, LPP reactions to pleasant stimuli were similar across positive, neutral and negative moods except those in the 800-900 ms interval. IMPLICATIONS: Negative mood intensifies the humans' susceptibility to unpleasant events in healthy individuals. In contrast, music-induced happy mood is effective in reducing the susceptibility to these events. Practical implications of these findings were discussed.

Impact of emotional intelligence on risk behaviour with mediating effect of positive and negative affect

OpenAIRE

Khan, I. (Iqra)

2017-01-01

Abstract Emotional intelligence and risk taking behaviour are considered as significant factors through which people engage in organizations and in daily life. This dissertation formulates the linkage between emotional intelligence, positive affect, negative affect and risk taking behavior. The underlying principle of this study was to develop a sense of relationship between emotional intelligence, positive affect, negative...

Conflict adaptation and congruency sequence effects to social-emotional stimuli in individuals with autism spectrum disorders.

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Worsham, Whitney; Gray, Whitney E; Larson, Michael J; South, Mikle

2015-11-01

The modification of performance following conflict can be measured using conflict adaptation tasks thought to measure the change in the allocation of cognitive resources in order to reduce conflict interference and improve performance. While previous studies have suggested atypical processing during nonsocial cognitive control tasks, conflict adaptation (i.e. congruency sequence effects) for social-emotional stimuli have not been previously studied in autism spectrum disorder. A total of 32 participants diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and 27 typically developing matched controls completed an emotional Stroop conflict task that required the classification of facial affect while simultaneously ignoring an overlaid affective word. Both groups showed behavioral evidence for emotional conflict adaptation based on response times and accuracy rates. However, the autism spectrum disorder group demonstrated a speed-accuracy trade-off manifested through significantly faster response times and decreased accuracy rates on trials containing conflict between the emotional face and the overlaid emotional word. Reduced selective attention toward socially relevant information may bias individuals with autism spectrum disorder toward more rapid processing and decision making even when conflict is present. Nonetheless, the loss of important information from the social stimuli reduces decision-making accuracy, negatively affecting the ability to adapt both cognitively and emotionally when conflict arises. © The Author(s) 2014.

The role of sense of coherence and physical activity in positive and negative affect of Turkish adolescents.

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Oztekin, Ceyda; Tezer, Esin

2009-01-01

This study investigated the role of sense of coherence and total physical activity in positive and negative affect. Participants were 376 (169 female, 206 male, and 1 missing value) student volunteers from different faculties of Middle East Technical University. Three questionnaires: Sense of Coherence Scale (SOC), Physical Activity Assessment Questionnaire (PAAQ), and Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) were administered to the students together with the demographic information sheet. Two separate stepwise multiple linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the predictive power of sense of coherence and total physical activity on positive and negative affect scores. Results revealed that both sense of coherence and total physical activity predicted the positive affect whereas only the sense of coherence predicted the negative affect on university students. Findings are discussed in light of sense of coherence, physical activity, and positive and negative affect literature.

Daily variability in working memory is coupled with negative affect: the role of attention and motivation.

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Brose, Annette; Schmiedek, Florian; Lövdén, Martin; Lindenberger, Ulman

2012-06-01

Across days, individuals experience varying levels of negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. We investigated whether this intraindividual variability was coupled with daily fluctuations in working memory (WM) performance. In 100 days, 101 younger individuals worked on a spatial N-back task and rated negative affect, control of attention, and motivation. Results showed that individuals differed in how reliably WM performance fluctuated across days, and that subjective experiences were primarily linked to performance accuracy. WM performance was lower on days with higher levels of negative affect, reduced control of attention, and reduced task-related motivation. Thus, variables that were found to predict WM in between-subjects designs showed important relationships to WM at the within-person level. In addition, there was shared predictive variance among predictors of WM. Days with increased negative affect and reduced performance were also days with reduced control of attention and reduced motivation to work on tasks. These findings are in line with proposed mechanisms linking negative affect and cognitive performance.

Negative affect as a mediator of the relationship between vigorous-intensity exercise and smoking.

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Tart, Candyce D; Leyro, Teresa M; Richter, Ashley; Zvolensky, Michael J; Rosenfield, David; Smits, Jasper A J

2010-06-01

The present cross-sectional study evaluated whether people who engage in vigorous-intensity exercise are better able to regulate negative affective states, thereby changing core maintenance factors of smoking. Participants were a community sample of adults (n = 270) who completed self-report measures of physical activity, cigarette smoking, anxiety sensitivity, and negative affect. Consistent with hypothesis, vigorous-intensity exercise was related to lower levels of cigarette smoking, accounting for 10% of the variance in smoking. Additionally, negative affect mediated the relationship between vigorous-intensity physical activity and cigarette smoking, accounting for about 12% of this relation. Furthermore, these relationships were stronger for individuals with high anxiety sensitivity than for those with low anxiety sensitivity; including anxiety sensitivity as a moderator of the mediated relationship increased the amount of variance accounted for by negative affect to 17%. The findings are discussed in relation to developing further scientific insight into the mechanisms and pathways relevant to understanding the association among vigorous-intensity exercise, smoking, and emotional vulnerability. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

How Negative Affectivity Moderates the Relationship between Shocks, Embeddedness and Worker Behaviors

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Holtom, Brooks C.; Burton, James P.; Crossley, Craig D.

2012-01-01

We integrated the unfolding model of turnover, job embeddedness theory and affective events theory to build and test a model specifying the relationship between negative shocks, on-the-job embeddedness and important employee behaviors. The results showed that embeddedness mediates the relationship between negative shocks and job search behaviors…

How Does Adult Attachment Affect Human Recognition of Love-related and Sex-related Stimuli: An ERP Study

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Hou, Juan; Chen, Xin; Liu, Jinqun; Yao, Fangshu; Huang, Jiani; Ndasauka, Yamikani; Ma, Ru; Zhang, Yuting; Lan, Jing; Liu, Lu; Fang, Xiaoyi

2016-01-01

In the present study, we investigated the relationship among three emotion-motivation systems (adult attachment, romantic love, and sex). We recorded event-related potentials in 37 healthy volunteers who had experienced romantic love while they viewed SEX, LOVE, FRIEND, SPORT, and NEUTRAL images. We also measured adult attachment styles, level of passionate love and sexual attitudes. As expected, results showed that, firstly, response to love-related image-stimuli and sex-related image-stimuli on the electrophysiological data significantly different on N1, N2, and positive slow wave (PSW) components. Secondly, the different adult attachment styles affected individuals’ recognition processing in response to love-related and sex-related images, especially, to sex-related images. Further analysis showed that voltages elicited by fearful attachment style individuals were significantly lower than voltages elicited by secure and dismissing attachment style individuals on sex-related images at frontal sites, on N1 and N2 components. Thirdly, from behavior data, we found that adult attachment styles were not significantly related to any dimension of sexual attitudes but were significantly related to passionate love scale (PLS) total points. Thus, the behavior results were not in line with the electrophysiological results. The present study proved that adult attachment styles might mediate individuals’ lust and attraction systems. PMID:27199830

The Impact of Positive and Negative Affect and Issue Framing on Issue Interpretation and Risk Taking.

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Mittal; Ross

1998-12-01

Two studies examined the influence of transient affective states and issue framing on issue interpretation and risk taking within the context of strategic decision making. In Study 1, participants in whom transient positive or negative affective states were induced by reading a short story showed systematic differences in issue interpretation and risk taking in a strategic decision making context. Compared to negative mood participants, those in a positive mood were more likely to interpret the strategic issue as an opportunity and displayed lower levels of risk taking. Study 2 replicated and extended these results by crossing affective states with threat and opportunity frames. Results showed that framing an issue (as a threat or an opportunity) had a stronger impact on issue interpretation among negative affect participants than among positive affect participants. Affective states also moderated the impact of issue framing on risk taking: the effect of framing on risk-taking was stronger under negative rather than positive affect. These results are interpreted via information-processing and motivational effects of affect on a decision maker. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.

Attentional bias to emotional stimuli is altered during moderate- but not high-intensity exercise.

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Tian, Qu; Smith, J Carson

2011-12-01

Little is known regarding how attention to emotional stimuli is affected during simultaneously performed exercise. Attentional biases to emotional face stimuli were assessed in 34 college students (17 women) using the dot-probe task during counterbalanced conditions of moderate- (heart rate at 45% peak oxygen consumption) and high-intensity exercise (heart rate at 80% peak oxygen consumption) compared with seated rest. The dot-probe task consisted of 1 emotional face (pleasant or unpleasant) paired with a neutral face for 1,000 ms; 256 trials (128 trials for each valence) were presented during each condition. Each condition lasted approximately 10 min. Participants were instructed to perform each trial of the dot-probe task as quickly and accurately as possible during the exercise and rest conditions. During moderate-intensity exercise, participants exhibited significantly greater attentional bias scores to pleasant compared with unpleasant faces (p bias scores to emotional faces did not differ at rest or during high-intensity exercise (p > .05). In addition, the attentional bias to unpleasant faces was significantly reduced during moderate-intensity exercise compared with that during rest (p emotional stimuli and away from unpleasant emotional stimuli. Future work is needed to determine whether acute exercise may be an effective treatment approach to reduce negative bias or enhance positive bias in individuals diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders, or whether attentional bias during exercise predicts adherence to exercise. (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved.

Relationship of aggression, negative affect, substance use problems, and childhood delinquency to DWI recidivism.

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Linn, Braden K; Nochajski, Thomas; Wieczorek, William

2016-01-01

Driving under the influence remains a pervasive problem. Approximately 30% of those arrested for impaired driving offenses each year are repeat offenders, suggesting that current rehabilitative efforts are not sufficiently effective for reducing driving while intoxicated (DWI) recidivism. Aggression, negative affect, substance use problems, and childhood delinquency have been noted in the population of impaired drivers, but study of these variables on recidivism has been limited. The aim of the current study was to examine the effects of aggression, negative affect, substance use problems, and childhood delinquency on DWI recidivism among first time offenders. In 1992, 6436 individuals in impaired driver programs in New York State were surveyed. A total of 3511 individuals provided names so that state driver abstracts could be reviewed in the future. A total of 2043 matches were found and 1770 remained after excluding those with previous DWI convictions. Driver records were reviewed in 2010 and 2012, providing between 18 and 20 years of follow-up. During the follow-up period, 16.5% of individuals were arrested for an impaired driving offense. Multivariate analysis suggested that recidivism was a function of several problems, including: alcohol problem severity, aggression, negative affect, drug problem severity, criminal history, and childhood delinquency. Impaired driving programs should assess for childhood delinquency, aggressive tendencies, and negative affect as these constructs, along with substance use, are evident among impaired drivers who recidivate. Interventions addressing aggression and negative affect may ultimately prove useful in reducing recidivism.

Negative affect and smoking motives sequentially mediate the effect of panic attacks on tobacco-relevant processes.

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Farris, Samantha G; Zvolensky, Michael J; Blalock, Janice A; Schmidt, Norman B

2014-05-01

Empirical work has documented a robust and consistent relation between panic attacks and smoking behavior. Theoretical models posit smokers with panic attacks may rely on smoking to help them manage chronically elevated negative affect due to uncomfortable bodily states, which may explain higher levels of nicotine dependence and quit problems. The current study examined the effects of panic attack history on nicotine dependence, perceived barriers for quitting, smoking inflexibility when emotionally distressed, and expired carbon monoxide among 461 treatment-seeking smokers. A multiple mediator path model was evaluated to examine the indirect effects of negative affect and negative affect reduction motives as mediators of the panic attack-smoking relations. Panic attack history was indirectly related to greater levels of nicotine dependence (b = 0.039, CI95% = 0.008, 0.097), perceived barriers to smoking cessation (b = 0.195, CI95% = 0.043, 0.479), smoking inflexibility/avoidance when emotionally distressed (b = 0.188, CI95% = 0.041, 0.445), and higher levels of expired carbon monoxide (b = 0.071, CI95% = 0.010, 0.230) through the sequential effects of negative affect and negative affect smoking motives. The present results provide empirical support for the sequential mediating role of negative affect and smoking motives for negative affect reduction in the relation between panic attacks and a variety of smoking variables in treatment-seeking smokers. These mediating variables are likely important processes to address in smoking cessation treatment, especially in panic-vulnerable smokers.

Negative Facial Expressions - But Not Visual Scenes - Enhance Human Working Memory in Younger and Older Participants.

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Belham, Flávia Schechtman; Tavares, Maria Clotilde H; Satler, Corina; Garcia, Ana; Rodrigues, Rosângela C; Canabarro, Soraya L de Sá; Tomaz, Carlos

2017-01-01

Many studies have investigated the influence of emotion on memory processes across the human lifespan. Some results have shown older adults (OA) performing better with positive stimuli, some with negative items, whereas some found no impact of emotional valence. Here we tested, in two independent studies, how younger adults (YA) and OA would perform in a visuospatial working memory (VSWM) task with positive, negative, and neutral images. The task consisted of identifying the new location of a stimulus in a crescent set of identical stimuli presented in different locations in a touch-screen monitor. In other words, participants should memorize the locations previously occupied to identify the new location. For each trial, the number of occupied locations increased until 8 or until a mistake was made. In study 1, 56 YA and 38 OA completed the task using images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Results showed that, although YA outperformed OA, no effects of emotion were found. In study 2, 26 YA and 25 OA were tested using facial expressions as stimuli. Data from this study showed that negative faces facilitated performance and this effect did not differ between age groups. No differences were found between men and women. Taken together, our findings suggest that YA and OA's VSWM can be influenced by the emotional valence of the information, though this effect was present only for facial stimuli. Presumably, this may have happened due to the social and biological importance of such stimuli, which are more effective in transmitting emotions than IAPS images. Critically, our results also indicate that the mixed findings in the literature about the influence of aging on the interactions between memory and emotion may be caused by the use of different stimuli and methods. This possibility should be kept in mind in future studies about memory and emotion across the lifespan.

Emotionally negative pictures increase attention to a subsequent auditory stimulus.

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Tartar, Jaime L; de Almeida, Kristen; McIntosh, Roger C; Rosselli, Monica; Nash, Allan J

2012-01-01

Emotionally negative stimuli serve as a mechanism of biological preparedness to enhance attention. We hypothesized that emotionally negative stimuli would also serve as motivational priming to increase attention resources for subsequent stimuli. To that end, we tested 11 participants in a dual sensory modality task, wherein emotionally negative pictures were contrasted with emotionally neutral pictures and each picture was followed 600 ms later by a tone in an auditory oddball paradigm. Each trial began with a picture displayed for 200 ms; half of the trials began with an emotionally negative picture and half of the trials began with an emotionally neutral picture; 600 ms following picture presentation, the participants heard either an oddball tone or a standard tone. At the end of each trial (picture followed by tone), the participants categorized, with a button press, the picture and tone combination. As expected, and consistent with previous studies, we found an enhanced visual late positive potential (latency range=300-700 ms) to the negative picture stimuli. We further found that compared to neutral pictures, negative pictures resulted in early attention and orienting effects to subsequent tones (measured through an enhanced N1 and N2) and sustained attention effects only to the subsequent oddball tones (measured through late processing negativity, latency range=400-700 ms). Number pad responses to both the picture and tone category showed the shortest response latencies and greatest percentage of correct picture-tone categorization on the negative picture followed by oddball tone trials. Consistent with previous work on natural selective attention, our results support the idea that emotional stimuli can alter attention resource allocation. This finding has broad implications for human attention and performance as it specifically shows the conditions in which an emotionally negative stimulus can result in extended stimulus evaluation. Copyright © 2011

Delinquency as a mediator of the relation between negative affectivity and adolescent alcohol use disorder.

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Shoal, Gavin D; Gudonis, Lauren C; Giancola, Peter R; Tarter, Ralph E

2007-12-01

This investigation examined mediators of the longitudinal relation between negative affectivity and the development of problematic drinking behavior in adolescent boys and girls. In the present study, 499 early adolescents completed inventories of negative affectivity, attitudes toward delinquency, personal delinquency, and affiliation with delinquent peers. Positive attitudes toward delinquency emerged as the most consistent mediator and strongly predicted drinking frequency in various situations. Compared with personal delinquency, both attitudes toward delinquency and peer delinquency were superior predictors of affect-related drinking. Our results also demonstrated that positive attitudes toward delinquency mediated the relation between negative affectivity and later development of an alcohol use disorder. These findings suggest that a proneness to unpleasant affect impacts adolescent drinking by heightening risk for general rejection of normative behavior, rather than by increasing drinking as a means of managing affect. The importance and implications of testing delinquency variables together in the same model are discussed.

Poor sleep quality is associated with a negative cognitive bias and decreased sustained attention.

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Gobin, Christina M; Banks, Jonathan B; Fins, Ana I; Tartar, Jaime L

2015-10-01

Poor sleep quality has been demonstrated to diminish cognitive performance, impair psychosocial functioning and alter the perception of stress. At present, however, there is little understanding of how sleep quality affects emotion processing. The aim of the present study was to determine the extent to which sleep quality, measured through the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, influences affective symptoms as well as the interaction between stress and performance on an emotional memory test and sustained attention task. To that end, 154 undergraduate students (mean age: 21.27 years, standard deviation = 4.03) completed a series of measures, including the Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index, the Sustained Attention to Response Task, an emotion picture recognition task and affective symptom questionnaires following either a control or physical stress manipulation, the cold pressor test. As sleep quality and psychosocial functioning differ among chronotypes, we also included chronotype and time of day as variables of interest to ensure that the effects of sleep quality on the emotional and non-emotional tasks were not attributed to these related factors. We found that poor sleep quality is related to greater depressive symptoms, anxiety and mood disturbances. While an overall relationship between global Pittsburg Sleep Quality Index score and emotion and attention measures was not supported, poor sleep quality, as an independent component, was associated with better memory for negative stimuli and a deficit in sustained attention to non-emotional stimuli. Importantly, these effects were not sensitive to stress, chronotype or time of day. Combined, these results suggest that individuals with poor sleep quality show an increase in affective symptomatology as well as a negative cognitive bias with a concomitant decrease in sustained attention to non-emotional stimuli. © 2015 European Sleep Research Society.

Effects of Auditory Stimuli on Visual Velocity Perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michiaki Shibata

2011-10-01

Full Text Available We investigated the effects of auditory stimuli on the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus. Previous studies have reported that the duration of visual events is perceived as being longer for events filled with auditory stimuli than for events not filled with auditory stimuli, ie, the so-called “filled-duration illusion.” In this study, we have shown that auditory stimuli also affect the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus. In Experiment 1, a moving comparison stimulus (4.2∼5.8 deg/s was presented together with filled (or unfilled white-noise bursts or with no sound. The standard stimulus was a moving visual stimulus (5 deg/s presented before or after the comparison stimulus. The participants had to judge which stimulus was moving faster. The results showed that the perceived velocity in the auditory-filled condition was lower than that in the auditory-unfilled and no-sound conditions. In Experiment 2, we investigated the effects of auditory stimuli on velocity adaptation. The results showed that the effects of velocity adaptation in the auditory-filled condition were weaker than those in the no-sound condition. These results indicate that auditory stimuli tend to decrease the perceived velocity of a moving visual stimulus.

Automatic evaluation isn't that crude! Moderation of masked affective priming by type of valence

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Wentura, D.; Degner, J.

2010-01-01

In two experiments, the automatic processing of evaluative information was investigated using a masked affective priming paradigm, varying valence (positive vs. negative) and relevance (other-relevant traits vs. possessor-relevant traits; Peeters, 1983) of prime and target stimuli. It was found that

Negative Emotion Weakens the Degree of Self-reference Effect: Evidence from ERPs

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Wei Fan

2016-09-01

Full Text Available We investigated the influence of negative emotion on the degree of self-reference effect using event-related potentials (ERPs. We presented emotional pictures and self-referential stimuli (stimuli that accelerate and improve processing and improve memory of information related to an individual’s self-concept in sequence. Participants judged the color of the target stimulus (self-referential stimuli. ERP results showed that the target stimuli elicited larger P2 amplitudes under neutral conditions than under negative emotional conditions. Under neutral conditions, N2 amplitudes for highly self-relevant names (target stimulus were smaller than those for any other names. Under negative emotional conditions, highly and moderately self-referential stimuli activated smaller N2 amplitudes. P3 amplitudes activated by self-referential processing under negative emotional conditions were smaller than neutral conditions. In the left and central sites, highly self-relevant names activated larger P3 amplitudes than any other names. But in the central sites, moderately self-relevant names activated larger P3 amplitudes than non-self-relevant names. The findings indicate that negative emotional processing could weaken the degree of self-reference effect.

Effects of a Brief Meditation Training on Negative Affect, Trait Anxiety and Concentrated Attention

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Carolina Baptista Menezes

2015-12-01

Full Text Available AbstractMeditation has been associated with positive psychological outcomes, but few studies have investigated brief interventions. This randomized controlled pilot study assessed the effects of five days of focused meditation on positive and negative affect, state and trait anxiety, as well as concentrated attention in a nonclinical sample distributed in two groups (experimental = 14, 51.8% female, Mage= 23.9; control = 19, 62% female, Mage= 24.9. The instruments used were the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scale, State and Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Concentrated Attention Test. The meditation group reduced negative affect and trait anxiety, and also improved correct responses on the attention test, relative to controls. These preliminary findings indicate that even short focused meditation training may help improve some psychological variables. It is discussed that the early manifestation of these benefits may be especially relevant to strengthen the motivation to continue and practice regularly.

Playing with fire: effects of negative mood induction and working memory on vocabulary acquisition.

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Miller, Zachary F; Fox, Jessica K; Moser, Jason S; Godfroid, Aline

2017-08-03

We investigated the impact of emotions on learning vocabulary in an unfamiliar language to better understand affective influences in foreign language acquisition. Seventy native English speakers learned new vocabulary in either a negative or a neutral emotional state. Participants also completed two sets of working memory tasks to examine the potential mediating role of working memory. Results revealed that participants exposed to negative stimuli exhibited difficulty in retrieving and correctly pairing English words with Indonesian words, as reflected in a lower performance on the prompted recall tests and the free recall measure. Emotional induction did not change working memory scores from pre to post manipulation. This suggests working memory could not explain the reduced vocabulary learning in the negative group. We argue that negative mood can adversely affect language learning by suppressing aspects of native-language processing and impeding form-meaning mapping with second language words.

Brief Emotion Regulation Training Facilitates Arousal Control During Sexual Stimuli.

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van Overveld, Mark; Borg, Charmaine

2015-01-01

Disgust, a negative emotion which evokes strong behavioral avoidance tendencies, has been associated with sexual dysfunction. Recently, it was postulated that healthy sexual functioning requires a balance between excitatory (increased sexual arousal) and inhibitory processes (lowered disgust levels). This suggests that amplification of excitatory processes (like sexual arousal) could be a valuable addition to treatments for affect-based sexual dysfunctions. The major aim of the present study was to establish whether up-regulation could effectively enhance arousal levels during sexual stimuli, and whether such a training would simultaneously reduce disgust. Students (N = 163, mean age = 20.73 years, SD = 2.35) were trained in up-regulation of affect using either a sexual arousal film (i.e., female-friendly erotic movie) or a threat arousal film clip (i.e., horror movie), while control groups viewed the films without training instructions. Following this, participants viewed and rated state emotions during a series of pictures (sexual, disgusting, or neutral). Up-regulation of mood successfully enhanced general arousal in both groups, yet these arousal levels were not paralleled by reductions in disgust. Overall, the findings indicate that emotion regulation training by maximizing positive affect and general arousal could be an effective instrument to facilitate affect-related disturbances in sexual dysfunctions.

Brain activation to negative stimuli mediates a relationship between adolescent marijuana use and later emotional functioning

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Mary M. Heitzeg

2015-12-01

Full Text Available This work investigated the impact of heavy marijuana use during adolescence on emotional functioning, as well as the brain functional mediators of this effect. Participants (n = 40 were recruited from the Michigan Longitudinal Study (MLS. Data on marijuana use were collected prospectively beginning in childhood as part of the MLS. Participants were classified as heavy marijuana users (n = 20 or controls with minimal marijuana use. Two facets of emotional functioning—negative emotionality and resiliency (a self-regulatory mechanism—were assessed as part of the MLS at three time points: mean age 13.4, mean age 19.6, and mean age 23.1. Functional neuroimaging data during an emotion-arousal word task were collected at mean age 20.2. Negative emotionality decreased and resiliency increased across the three time points in controls but not heavy marijuana users. Compared with controls, heavy marijuana users had less activation to negative words in temporal, prefrontal, and occipital cortices, insula, and amygdala. Activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to negative words mediated an association between marijuana group and later negative emotionality. Activation of the cuneus/lingual gyrus mediated an association between marijuana group and later resiliency. Results support growing evidence that heavy marijuana use during adolescence affects later emotional outcomes.

Erosion of belief and disbelief: effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural.

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Beck, R; Miller, J P

2001-04-01

The authors investigated the effects of religiosity and negative affect on beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural among 94 undergraduate students enrolled in psychology classes at a small, private U.S. university. They hypothesized that religiosity would predict differential beliefs in the supernatural versus the paranormal but that negative affect would attenuate these beliefs. In addition, the authors predicted that belief in the supernatural and negative affect would interact to predict belief in the paranormal. Overall, the results were consistent with predictions. The religious participants were skeptical of paranormal phenomena but were accepting of supernatural phenomena. In addition, increased reports of negative affect over the preceding year appeared to attenuate belief in the supernatural for the religious participants. By contrast, for the nonreligious participants, increased belief in both the supernatural and paranormal was predicted when reports of negative affect were high. Finally, the interaction of supernatural belief and negative affect significantly predicted belief in the paranormal.

Motivated prediction of future feelings: effects of negative mood and mood orientation on affective forecasts.

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Buehler, Roger; McFarland, Cathy; Spyropoulos, Vassili; Lam, Kent C H

2007-09-01

This article examines the role of motivational factors in affective forecasting. The primary hypothesis was that people predict positive emotional reactions to future events when they are motivated to enhance their current feelings. Three experiments manipulated participants' moods (negative vs. neutral) and orientation toward their moods (reflective vs. ruminative) and then assessed the positivity of their affective predictions for future events. As hypothesized, when participants adopted a reflective orientation, and thus should have been motivated to engage in mood-regulation processes, they predicted more positive feelings in the negative than in the neutral mood condition. This pattern of mood-incongruent affective prediction was not exhibited when participants adopted a ruminative orientation. Additionally, within the negative mood condition, generating affective forecasts had a more positive emotional impact on reflectors than on ruminators. The findings suggest that affective predictions are sometimes driven by mood-regulatory motives.

The Integration of Negative Affect, Pain, and Cognitive Control in the Cingulate Cortex

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Shackman, Alexander J.; Salomons, Tim V.; Slagter, Heleen A.; Fox, Andrew S.; Winter, Jameel J.; Davidson, Richard J.

2011-01-01

Preface It has been argued that emotion, pain, and cognitive control are functionally segregated in distinct subdivisions of the cingulate cortex. But recent observations encourage a fundamentally different view. Imaging studies indicate that negative affect, pain, and cognitive control activate an overlapping region of dorsal cingulate, the anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC). Anatomical studies reveal that aMCC constitutes a hub where information about reinforcers can be linked to motor centers responsible for expressing affect and executing goal-directed behavior. Computational modeling and other kinds of evidence suggest that this intimacy reflects control processes that are common to all three domains. These observations compel a reconsideration of dorsal cingulate’s contribution to negative affect and pain. PMID:21331082

Gender differences in negative affect during acute tobacco abstinence differ between African American and White adult cigarette smokers.

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Pang, Raina D; Bello, Mariel S; Liautaud, Madalyn M; Weinberger, Andrea H; Leventhal, Adam M

2018-06-15

Prior studies have found heightened negative affect following tobacco abstinence in women compared to men. However, experimental work addressing whether these findings generalize across racial groups is scarce. The current study investigated whether race (Non-Hispanic White vs. Non-Hispanic African American) moderated gender differences in abstinence-induced negative affect and smoking behavior. Data were collected from 2010 to 2017 from two separate laboratory studies investigating experimentally manipulated tobacco abstinence. Following a baseline session, adult daily smokers (10 cigarettes per day; women: n=297, 83.8% Non-Hispanic African American; men: n=492, 86.2% Non-Hispanic African American) attended two counterbalanced lab sessions (16 hours abstinent vs. non-abstinent) and completed self-report measures of negative affect followed by a laboratory analogue smoking reinstatement task. We found a gender race interaction for several negative affect states and composite negative affect (ßs=-.12 to -.16, psNon-Hispanic White women compared to Non-Hispanic White men exhibited greater abstinence-induced increases in anger, anxiety, and composite negative affect (ßs=-.20 to -.29, psNon-Hispanic African American smokers (ßs=.00 to -.04, ps>.05). These findings suggest that negative affect during acute tobacco abstinence may be a clinically important and intervenable factor that can inform cessation interventions specifically for Non-Hispanic White women smokers. Further empirical exploration of mechanisms underlying interactions of gender and race in tobacco addiction may benefit smoking cessation efforts in Non-Hispanic African American women smokers. The current study contributes to a scant body of research examining the intersectional influence of race and gender on abstinence-induced negative affect-a central, motivationally prepotent feature of tobacco withdrawal. Using a laboratory-based design to experimentally manipulate abstinence, we provide evidence

Negative Affect Mediates Effects of Psychological Stress on Disordered Eating in Young Chinese Women

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Chen, Jue; Wang, Zhen; Guo, Boliang; Arcelus, Jon; Zhang, Haiyin; Jia, Xiuzhen; Xu, Yong; Qiu, Jianyin; Xiao, Zeping; Yang, Min

2012-01-01

BACKGROUND: The bi-relationships between psychological stress, negative affect and disordered eating has been well studied in western culture, while tri-relationship among them, i.e. how some of those factors influence these bi-relationships, has rarely been studied. However, there has been little related study in the different Chinese culture. This study was conducted to investigate the bi-relationships and tri-relationship between psychological stress, negative affect, and disordered eating...

Gender differences in identifying emotions from auditory and visual stimuli.

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Waaramaa, Teija

2017-12-01

The present study focused on gender differences in emotion identification from auditory and visual stimuli produced by two male and two female actors. Differences in emotion identification from nonsense samples, language samples and prolonged vowels were investigated. It was also studied whether auditory stimuli can convey the emotional content of speech without visual stimuli, and whether visual stimuli can convey the emotional content of speech without auditory stimuli. The aim was to get a better knowledge of vocal attributes and a more holistic understanding of the nonverbal communication of emotion. Females tended to be more accurate in emotion identification than males. Voice quality parameters played a role in emotion identification in both genders. The emotional content of the samples was best conveyed by nonsense sentences, better than by prolonged vowels or shared native language of the speakers and participants. Thus, vocal non-verbal communication tends to affect the interpretation of emotion even in the absence of language. The emotional stimuli were better recognized from visual stimuli than auditory stimuli by both genders. Visual information about speech may not be connected to the language; instead, it may be based on the human ability to understand the kinetic movements in speech production more readily than the characteristics of the acoustic cues.

Daily interactions with aging parents and adult children: Associations with negative affect and diurnal cortisol.

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Birditt, Kira S; Manalel, Jasmine A; Kim, Kyungmin; Zarit, Steven H; Fingerman, Karen L

2017-09-01

Midlife adults report greater investment in their children than in their parents, and these ties have important implications for well-being. To date, little research has addressed daily experiences in these ties. The present study examines daily experiences (negative and positive) with aging parents and adult children and their associations with daily negative affect and diurnal cortisol rhythms. Participants were middle-aged adults (N = 156; 56% women) from Wave 2 of the Family Exchanges Study, conducted in 2013, who completed a 7-day daily diary study, which included assessments of daily negative and positive social encounters and negative affect, and 4 days of saliva collection, which was collected 3 times a day (upon waking, 30 min after waking, and at bedtime) and assayed for cortisol. Multilevel models revealed that individuals were more likely to have contact with adult children than with parents but more likely to have negative experiences (negative interactions, avoidance, negative thoughts) with parents than with adult children. Nevertheless, contact and negative experiences with adult children were more consistently associated with negative affect and daily cortisol patterns than were interactions with parents. Findings are consistent with the intergenerational stake hypothesis, which suggests that individuals have a greater stake in their children than in their parents. Indeed, negative experiences with adult children may be more salient because tensions with adult children occur less frequently than do tensions with parents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Oxidative stress negatively affects human sperm mitochondrial respiration.

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Ferramosca, Alessandra; Pinto Provenzano, Sara; Montagna, Daniela Domenica; Coppola, Lamberto; Zara, Vincenzo

2013-07-01

To correlate the level of oxidative stress in serum and seminal fluid and the level of sperm deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) fragmentation with sperm mitochondrial respiratory efficiency. Sperm mitochondrial respiratory activity was evaluated with a polarographic assay of oxygen consumption carried out in hypotonically treated sperm cells. A possible relationship between sperm mitochondrial respiratory efficiency, the level of oxidative stress, and the level of sperm DNA fragmentation was investigated. Sperm motility was positively correlated with mitochondrial respiration but negatively correlated with oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation. Interestingly, sperm mitochondrial respiratory activity was negatively affected by oxidative stress and DNA fragmentation. Our data indicate that sperm mitochondrial respiration is decreased in patients with high levels of reactive oxygen species by an uncoupling between electron transport and adenosine triphosphate synthesis. This reduction in mitochondrial functionality might be 1 of the reasons responsible for the decrease in spermatozoa motility. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Development of the Korean Facial Emotion Stimuli: Korea University Facial Expression Collection 2nd Edition

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Sun-Min Kim

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Background: Developing valid emotional facial stimuli for specific ethnicities creates ample opportunities to investigate both the nature of emotional facial information processing in general and clinical populations as well as the underlying mechanisms of facial emotion processing within and across cultures. Given that most entries in emotional facial stimuli databases were developed with western samples, and given that very few of the eastern emotional facial stimuli sets were based strictly on the Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System, developing valid emotional facial stimuli of eastern samples remains a high priority.Aims: To develop and examine the psychometric properties of six basic emotional facial stimuli recruiting professional Korean actors and actresses based on the Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System for the Korea University Facial Expression Collection-Second Edition (KUFEC-II.Materials And Methods: Stimulus selection was done in two phases. First, researchers evaluated the clarity and intensity of each stimulus developed based on the Facial Action Coding System. Second, researchers selected a total of 399 stimuli from a total of 57 actors and actresses, which were then rated on accuracy, intensity, valence, and arousal by 75 independent raters.Conclusion: The hit rates between the targeted and rated expressions of the KUFEC-II were all above 80%, except for fear (50% and disgust (63%. The KUFEC-II appears to be a valid emotional facial stimuli database, providing the largest set of emotional facial stimuli. The mean intensity score was 5.63 (out of 7, suggesting that the stimuli delivered the targeted emotions with great intensity. All positive expressions were rated as having a high positive valence, whereas all negative expressions were rated as having a high negative valence. The KUFEC II is expected to be widely used in various psychological studies on emotional facial expression. KUFEC-II stimuli can be obtained through

Processing of unattended facial emotions: a visual mismatch negativity study.

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Stefanics, Gábor; Csukly, Gábor; Komlósi, Sarolta; Czobor, Pál; Czigler, István

2012-02-01

Facial emotions express our internal states and are fundamental in social interactions. Here we explore whether the repetition of unattended facial emotions builds up a predictive representation of frequently encountered emotions in the visual system. Participants (n=24) were presented peripherally with facial stimuli expressing emotions while they performed a visual detection task presented in the center of the visual field. Facial stimuli consisted of four faces of different identity, but expressed the same emotion (happy or fearful). Facial stimuli were presented in blocks of oddball sequence (standard emotion: p=0.9, deviant emotion: p=0.1). Event-related potentials (ERPs) to the same emotions were compared when the emotions were deviant and standard, respectively. We found visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) responses to unattended deviant emotions in the 170-360 ms post-stimulus range over bilateral occipito-temporal sites. Our results demonstrate that information about the emotional content of unattended faces presented at the periphery of the visual field is rapidly processed and stored in a predictive memory representation by the visual system. We also found evidence that differential processing of deviant fearful faces starts already at 70-120 ms after stimulus onset. This finding shows a 'negativity bias' under unattended conditions. Differential processing of fearful deviants were more pronounced in the right hemisphere in the 195-275 ms and 360-390 ms intervals, whereas processing of happy deviants evoked larger differential response in the left hemisphere in the 360-390 ms range, indicating differential hemispheric specialization for automatic processing of positive and negative affect. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Negative Bias in the Perception and Memory of Emotional Information in Alzheimer Disease.

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Maria, Gomez-Gallego; Juan, Gomez-Garcia

2017-05-01

There is some controversy about the ability of patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) to experience and remember emotional stimuli. This study aims to assess the emotional experience of patients with AD and the existence of emotional enhancement of memory. We also investigated the influence of affective state on these processes. Sixty pictures from the International Affective Picture System were administered to 106 participants (72 patients with AD and 54 controls). Participants performed immediate free recall and recognition tasks. Positive and Negative Affect Schedule was used to assess the participants' current affect. Patients identified the valence of unpleasant pictures better than of others pictures and experienced them as more arousing. Patients and controls recalled and recognized higher number of emotional pictures than of neutral ones. Patients discriminated better the unpleasant pictures. A mood congruent effect was observed on emotional experience but not on memory. Positive affect was associated with better immediate recall and with a more liberal response bias. Patients with AD can identify the emotional content of the stimuli, especially of the unpleasant ones, and the emotional enhancement of memory is preserved. Affective state does not explain the differences in the processing and memory of emotional items between patients and controls.

Processing negative valence of word pairs that include a positive word.

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Itkes, Oksana; Mashal, Nira

2016-09-01

Previous research has suggested that cognitive performance is interrupted by negative relative to neutral or positive stimuli. We examined whether negative valence affects performance at the word or phrase level. Participants performed a semantic decision task on word pairs that included either a negative or a positive target word. In Experiment 1, the valence of the target word was congruent with the overall valence conveyed by the word pair (e.g., fat kid). As expected, response times were slower in the negative condition relative to the positive condition. Experiment 2 included target words that were incongruent with the overall valence of the word pair (e.g., fat salary). Response times were longer for word pairs whose overall valence was negative relative to positive, even though these word pairs included a positive word. Our findings support the Cognitive Primacy Hypothesis, according to which emotional valence is extracted after conceptual processing is complete.

Relationship between drug dreams, affect, and craving during treatment for substance dependence.

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Tanguay, Hélène; Zadra, Antonio; Good, Daniel; Leri, Francesco

2015-01-01

To explore the relationship between occurrence of drug dreams (DDs) and daytime negative affect and drug craving during the course of a 5-week treatment program for substance dependence. Using the dream journal methodology, 86 participants reported occurrence of dreams, dream content, and ratings of affect and drug craving. The relationships between the experience of DD, dream content ("active" vs "passive"), and affect and craving were analyzed using mixed model methods. The experience of DD was associated with higher levels of negative affect (P < 0.001) and craving (P < 0.001). The occurrence of DD did not decrease significantly over the 5 weeks of the study. Cocaine/crack users reported a higher occurrence of DD (P < 0.05) than the other drug groups (opiates and alcohol), and DD involving "active" drug use was associated with larger (P < 0.05) changes in negative affect. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that DD can act as drug-conditioned stimuli to elevate negative affect and craving in abstaining individuals. Although correlational, such findings support the implementation of psychological and pharmacological interventions aimed at minimizing the impact of DD on individuals in recovery from drug addiction.

Mindful attention predicts greater recovery from negative emotions, but not reduced reactivity.

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Cho, Sinhae; Lee, Hyejeen; Oh, Kyung Ja; Soto, José A

2017-09-01

This study investigated the role of dispositional mindful attention in immediate reactivity to, and subsequent recovery from, laboratory-induced negative emotion. One hundred and fourteen undergraduates viewed blocks of negative pictures followed by neutral pictures. Participants' emotional responses to negative pictures and subsequent neutral pictures were assessed via self-reported ratings. Participants' emotional response to negative pictures was used to index level of emotional reactivity to unpleasant stimuli; emotional response to neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures was used to index level of emotional recovery from pre-induced negative emotion (residual negativity). Results indicated that mindful attention was not associated with the emotional response to negative pictures, but it was associated with reduced negative emotion in response to the neutral pictures presented immediately after the negative pictures, suggesting better recovery as opposed to reduced reactivity. This effect was especially pronounced in later experimental blocks when the accumulation of negative stimuli produced greater negative emotion from which participants had to recover. The current study extends previous findings on the relationship between dispositional mindfulness and reduced negative emotion by demonstrating that mindful attention may facilitate better recovery from negative emotion, possibly through more effective disengagement from previous stimuli.

Brain activation to negative stimuli mediates a relationship between adolescent marijuana use and later emotional functioning.

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Heitzeg, Mary M; Cope, Lora M; Martz, Meghan E; Hardee, Jillian E; Zucker, Robert A

2015-12-01

This work investigated the impact of heavy marijuana use during adolescence on emotional functioning, as well as the brain functional mediators of this effect. Participants (n=40) were recruited from the Michigan Longitudinal Study (MLS). Data on marijuana use were collected prospectively beginning in childhood as part of the MLS. Participants were classified as heavy marijuana users (n=20) or controls with minimal marijuana use. Two facets of emotional functioning-negative emotionality and resiliency (a self-regulatory mechanism)-were assessed as part of the MLS at three time points: mean age 13.4, mean age 19.6, and mean age 23.1. Functional neuroimaging data during an emotion-arousal word task were collected at mean age 20.2. Negative emotionality decreased and resiliency increased across the three time points in controls but not heavy marijuana users. Compared with controls, heavy marijuana users had less activation to negative words in temporal, prefrontal, and occipital cortices, insula, and amygdala. Activation of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to negative words mediated an association between marijuana group and later negative emotionality. Activation of the cuneus/lingual gyrus mediated an association between marijuana group and later resiliency. Results support growing evidence that heavy marijuana use during adolescence affects later emotional outcomes. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Negative Facial Expressions – But Not Visual Scenes – Enhance Human Working Memory in Younger and Older Participants

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Flávia Schechtman Belham

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Many studies have investigated the influence of emotion on memory processes across the human lifespan. Some results have shown older adults (OA performing better with positive stimuli, some with negative items, whereas some found no impact of emotional valence. Here we tested, in two independent studies, how younger adults (YA and OA would perform in a visuospatial working memory (VSWM task with positive, negative, and neutral images. The task consisted of identifying the new location of a stimulus in a crescent set of identical stimuli presented in different locations in a touch-screen monitor. In other words, participants should memorize the locations previously occupied to identify the new location. For each trial, the number of occupied locations increased until 8 or until a mistake was made. In study 1, 56 YA and 38 OA completed the task using images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS. Results showed that, although YA outperformed OA, no effects of emotion were found. In study 2, 26 YA and 25 OA were tested using facial expressions as stimuli. Data from this study showed that negative faces facilitated performance and this effect did not differ between age groups. No differences were found between men and women. Taken together, our findings suggest that YA and OA’s VSWM can be influenced by the emotional valence of the information, though this effect was present only for facial stimuli. Presumably, this may have happened due to the social and biological importance of such stimuli, which are more effective in transmitting emotions than IAPS images. Critically, our results also indicate that the mixed findings in the literature about the influence of aging on the interactions between memory and emotion may be caused by the use of different stimuli and methods. This possibility should be kept in mind in future studies about memory and emotion across the lifespan.

Loneliness in late-life depression: structural and functional connectivity during affective processing.

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Wong, N M L; Liu, H-L; Lin, C; Huang, C-M; Wai, Y-Y; Lee, S-H; Lee, T M C

2016-09-01

Late-life depression (LLD) in the elderly was reported to present with emotion dysregulation accompanied by high perceived loneliness. Previous research has suggested that LLD is a disorder of connectivity and is associated with aberrant network properties. On the other hand, perceived loneliness is found to adversely affect the brain, but little is known about its neurobiological basis in LLD. The current study investigated the relationships between the structural connectivity, functional connectivity during affective processing, and perceived loneliness in LLD. The current study included 54 participants aged >60 years of whom 31 were diagnosed with LLD. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data and task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of an affective processing task were collected. Network-based statistics and graph theory techniques were applied, and the participants' perceived loneliness and depression level were measured. The affective processing task included viewing affective stimuli. Structurally, a loneliness-related sub-network was identified across all subjects. Functionally, perceived loneliness was related to connectivity differently in LLD than that in controls when they were processing negative stimuli, with aberrant networking in subcortical area. Perceived loneliness was identified to have a unique role in relation to the negative affective processing in LLD at the functional brain connectional and network levels. The findings increas our understanding of LLD and provide initial evidence of the neurobiological mechanisms of loneliness in LLD. Loneliness might be a potential intervention target in depressive patients.

Self-focused attention affects subsequent processing of positive (but not negative) performance appraisals.

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Holzman, Jacob B; Valentiner, David P

2016-03-01

Cognitive-behavioral models highlight the conjoint roles of self-focused attention (SFA), post-event processing (PEP), and performance appraisals in the maintenance of social anxiety. SFA, PEP, and biased performance appraisals are related to social anxiety; however, limited research has examined how SFA affects information-processing following social events. The current study examined whether SFA affects the relationships between performance appraisals and PEP following a social event.. 137 participants with high (n = 72) or low (n = 65) social anxiety were randomly assigned to conditions of high SFA or low SFA while engaging in a standardized social performance. Subsequent performance appraisals and PEP were measured. Immediate performance appraisals were not affected by SFA. High levels of SFA led to a stronger, inverse relationship between immediate positive performance appraisals and subsequent negative PEP. High levels of SFA also led to a stronger, inverse relationship between negative PEP and changes in positive performance appraisals.. Future research should examine whether the current findings, which involved a standardized social performance event, extend to interaction events as well as in a clinical sample. These findings suggest that SFA affects the processing of positive information following a social performance event. SFA is particularly important for understanding how negative PEP undermines positive performance appraisals.. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Um estudo dos relatos afetivos subjetivos a estímulos do International Affective Picture System em uma amostra geriátrica brasileira Subjective affective ratings to photographic stimuli of the International Affective Picture System in a Brazilian elderly sample

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Weyler Galvão Porto

2008-08-01

Manikin scale scores. METHOD: Forty-eight clinically and cognitively capable elderly volunteer subjects from the Third Age Open University evaluated 71 randomly chosen images of the International Affective Picture System in terms of arousal and affective valence. RESULTS: For the elderly, the greater the arousal, the smaller the pleasure resulting in a strong negative correlation (r = 0.93 observed between arousal and negative valence. A comparison with another similar normative experiment performed in young Brazilian and American individuals showed a possible cultural difference in subjective reports of emotional stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: This investigation indicates that there may be a difference between elderly and young individuals when affective reports of arousal are studied. A normalization of the International Affective Picture System for the elderly in a larger sample, representative of the population, might be useful to address this issue.

The Relationship Between Brain-Behavioral Systems and Negative and Positive Affect in Patients With Migraine

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Jovharifard

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Background Migraine is a chronic headache disorder that affects approximately 12% of the general population. Migraine is known as recurrent headache, pulsating, moderate with severe power, which lasts for 4 to 72 hours, aggravated by daily physical activity along with nausea, vomiting, photophobia or photophobia. Objectives The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between brain-behavioral systems and negative and positive affects in patients with migraine. Patients and Methods The research population included patients, who had referred to neurology clinics. One hundred and twenty cases were selected by accessible sampling based on the neurologist’s diagnosis of migraine headaches. They completed the Gray-Wilson (1989 Personality Questionnaire as well as Watson, Clark and Telligent (1988 positive and negative affect scale. The data were analyzed using the SPSS 19 software, correlation and stepwise regression. Results The results showed that positive affect had a significant positive correlation with active avoidance parameters and negative significant correlation with passive avoidance and extinction parameters. The findings also indicated that negative affect had a positive and significant relationship with passive avoidance and extinction. Conclusions It can be concluded that brain-behavioral systems may be the foundation of behavioral and emotional tendencies in patients with migraine headaches.

Negative affect impairs associative memory but not item memory.

OpenAIRE

Bisby, J. A.; Burgess, N.

2014-01-01

The formation of associations between items and their context has been proposed to rely on mechanisms distinct from those supporting memory for a single item. Although emotional experiences can profoundly affect memory, our understanding of how it interacts with different aspects of memory remains unclear. We performed three experiments to examine the effects of emotion on memory for items and their associations. By presenting neutral and negative items with background contexts, Experiment 1 ...

Daily Stress, Coping, and Negative and Positive Affect in Depression: Complex Trigger and Maintenance Patterns.

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Dunkley, David M; Lewkowski, Maxim; Lee, Ihno A; Preacher, Kristopher J; Zuroff, David C; Berg, Jody-Lynn; Foley, J Elizabeth; Myhr, Gail; Westreich, Ruta

2017-05-01

Major depressive disorder is characterized by emotional dysfunction, but mood states in daily life are not well understood. This study examined complex explanatory models of daily stress and coping mechanisms that trigger and maintain daily negative affect and (lower) positive affect in depression. Sixty-three depressed patients completed perfectionism measures, and then completed daily questionnaires of stress appraisals, coping, and affect for 7 consecutive days. Multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) demonstrated that, across many stressors, when the typical individual with depression perceives more criticism than usual, he/she uses more avoidant coping and experiences higher event stress than usual, and this is connected to daily increases in negative affect as well as decreases in positive affect. In parallel, results showed that perceived control, less avoidant coping, and problem-focused coping commonly operate together when daily positive affect increases. MSEM also showed that avoidant coping tendencies and ongoing stress, in combination, explain why people with depression and higher self-critical perfectionism maintain daily negative affect and lower positive affect. These findings advance a richer and more detailed understanding of specific stress and coping patterns to target in order to more effectively accomplish the two predominant therapy goals of decreasing patients' distress and strengthening resilience. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Mid-adolescent neurocognitive development of ignoring and attending emotional stimuli

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Nora C. Vetter

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Appropriate reactions toward emotional stimuli depend on the distribution of prefrontal attentional resources. In mid-adolescence, prefrontal top-down control systems are less engaged, while subcortical bottom-up emotional systems are more engaged. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to follow the neural development of attentional distribution, i.e. attending versus ignoring emotional stimuli, in adolescence. 144 healthy adolescents were studied longitudinally at age 14 and 16 while performing a perceptual discrimination task. Participants viewed two pairs of stimuli – one emotional, one abstract – and reported on one pair whether the items were the same or different, while ignoring the other pair. Hence, two experimental conditions were created: “attending emotion/ignoring abstract” and “ignoring emotion/attending abstract”. Emotional valence varied between negative, positive, and neutral. Across conditions, reaction times and error rates decreased and activation in the anterior cingulate and inferior frontal gyrus increased from age 14 to 16. In contrast, subcortical regions showed no developmental effect. Activation of the anterior insula increased across ages for attending positive and ignoring negative emotions. Results suggest an ongoing development of prefrontal top-down resources elicited by emotional attention from age 14 to 16 while activity of subcortical regions representing bottom-up processing remains stable.

Aboveground mechanical stimuli affect belowground plant-plant communication.

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Elhakeem, Ali; Markovic, Dimitrije; Broberg, Anders; Anten, Niels P R; Ninkovic, Velemir

2018-01-01

Plants can detect the presence of their neighbours and modify their growth behaviour accordingly. But the extent to which this neighbour detection is mediated by abiotic stressors is not well known. In this study we tested the acclimation response of Zea mays L. seedlings through belowground interactions to the presence of their siblings exposed to brief mechano stimuli. Maize seedling simultaneously shared the growth solution of touched plants or they were transferred to the growth solution of previously touched plants. We tested the growth preferences of newly germinated seedlings toward the growth solution of touched (T_solution) or untouched plants (C_solution). The primary root of the newly germinated seedlings grew significantly less towards T_solution than to C_solution. Plants transferred to T_solution allocated more biomass to shoots and less to roots. While plants that simultaneously shared their growth solution with the touched plants produced more biomass. Results show that plant responses to neighbours can be modified by aboveground abiotic stress to those neighbours and suggest that these modifications are mediated by belowground interactions.

Aboveground mechanical stimuli affect belowground plant-plant communication.

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Ali Elhakeem

Full Text Available Plants can detect the presence of their neighbours and modify their growth behaviour accordingly. But the extent to which this neighbour detection is mediated by abiotic stressors is not well known. In this study we tested the acclimation response of Zea mays L. seedlings through belowground interactions to the presence of their siblings exposed to brief mechano stimuli. Maize seedling simultaneously shared the growth solution of touched plants or they were transferred to the growth solution of previously touched plants. We tested the growth preferences of newly germinated seedlings toward the growth solution of touched (T_solution or untouched plants (C_solution. The primary root of the newly germinated seedlings grew significantly less towards T_solution than to C_solution. Plants transferred to T_solution allocated more biomass to shoots and less to roots. While plants that simultaneously shared their growth solution with the touched plants produced more biomass. Results show that plant responses to neighbours can be modified by aboveground abiotic stress to those neighbours and suggest that these modifications are mediated by belowground interactions.

Partial Sleep Deprivation Attenuates the Positive Affective System: Effects Across Multiple Measurement Modalities.

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Finan, Patrick H; Quartana, Phillip J; Remeniuk, Bethany; Garland, Eric L; Rhudy, Jamie L; Hand, Matthew; Irwin, Michael R; Smith, Michael T

2017-01-01

Ample behavioral and neurobiological evidence links sleep and affective functioning. Recent self-report evidence suggests that the affective problems associated with sleep loss may be stronger for positive versus negative affective state and that those effects may be mediated by changes in electroencepholographically measured slow wave sleep (SWS). In the present study, we extend those preliminary findings using multiple measures of affective functioning. In a within-subject randomized crossover experiment, we tested the effects of one night of sleep continuity disruption via forced awakenings (FA) compared to one night of uninterrupted sleep (US) on three measures of positive and negative affective functioning: self-reported affective state, affective pain modulation, and affect-biased attention. The study was set in an inpatient clinical research suite. Healthy, good sleeping adults (N = 45) were included. Results indicated that a single night of sleep continuity disruption attenuated positive affective state via FA-induced reductions in SWS. Additionally, sleep continuity disruption attenuated the inhibition of pain by positive affect as well as attention bias to positive affective stimuli. Negative affective state, negative affective pain facilitation, nor negative attention bias were altered by sleep continuity disruption. The present findings, observed across multiple measures of affective function, suggest that sleep continuity disruption has a stronger influence on the positive affective system relative to the negative affective affective system. © Sleep Research Society 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Sleep Research Society. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.

Delinquency as a Mediator of the Relation between Negative Affectivity and Adolescent Alcohol Use Disorder

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Shoal, Gavin D.; Gudonis, Lauren C.; Giancola, Peter R.; Tarter, Ralph E.

2007-01-01

This investigation examined mediators of the longitudinal relation between negative affectivity and the development of problematic drinking behavior in adolescent boys and girls. In the present study, 499 early adolescents completed inventories of negative affectivity, attitudes toward delinquency, personal delinquency, and affiliation with delinquent peers. Positive attitudes toward delinquency emerged as the most consistent mediator and strongly predicted drinking frequency in various situa...

Relationship between obesity, negative affect and basal heart rate in predicting heart rate reactivity to psychological stress among adolescents.

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Park, Andres E; Huynh, Pauline; Schell, Anne M; Baker, Laura A

2015-08-01

Reduced cardiovascular responses to psychological stressors have been found to be associated with both obesity and negative affect in adults, but have been less well studied in children and adolescent populations. These findings have most often been interpreted as reflecting reduced sympathetic nervous system response, perhaps associated with heightened baseline sympathetic activation among the obese and those manifesting negative affect. However, obesity and negative affect may themselves be correlated, raising the question of whether they both independently affect cardiovascular reactivity. The present study thus examined the separate effects of obesity and negative affect on both cardiovascular and skin conductance responses to stress (e.g., during a serial subtraction math task) in adolescents, while controlling for baseline levels of autonomic activity during rest. Both obesity and negative affect had independent and negative associations with cardiovascular reactivity, such that reduced stress responses were apparent for obese adolescents and those with high levels of negative affect. In contrast, neither obesity nor negative affect was related to skin conductance responses to stress, implicating specifically noradrenergic mechanisms rather than sympathetic mechanisms generally as being deficient. Moreover, baseline heart rate was unrelated to obesity in this sample, which suggests that heightened baseline of sympathetic activity is not necessary for the reduced cardiovascular reactivity to stress. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Distinct neural systems underlying reduced emotional enhancement for positive and negative stimuli in early Alzheimer’s disease

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Panagiota eMistridis

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Emotional information is typically better remembered than neutral content, and previous studies suggest that this effect is subserved particularly by the amygdala together with its interactions with the hippocampus. However, it is not known whether amygdala damage affects emotional memory performance at immediate and delayed recall, and whether its involvement is modulated by stimulus valence. Moreover, it is unclear to what extent more distributed neocortical regions involved in e.g. autobiographical memory, also contribute to emotional processing. We investigated these questions in a group of patients with Alzheimer’s disease (AD, which affects the amygdala, hippocampus and neocortical regions. Healthy controls (n = 14, patients with AD (n = 15 and its putative prodrome amnestic mild cognitive impairment (n = 11 completed a memory task consisting of immediate and delayed free recall of a list of positive, negative and neutral words. Memory performance was related to brain integrity in region of interest and whole-brain voxel-based morphometry analyses. In the brain-behavioral analyses, the left amygdala volume predicted the immediate recall of both positive and negative material, whereas at delay, left and right amygdala volumes were associated with performance with positive and negative words, respectively. Whole-brain analyses revealed additional associations between left angular gyrus integrity and the immediate recall of positive words as well as between the orbitofrontal cortex and the delayed recall of negative words. These results indicate that emotional memory impairments in AD may be underpinned by damage to regions implicated in emotional processing as well as frontoparietal regions, which may exert their influence via autobiographical memories and organizational strategies.

The Affective Bases of Risk Perception: Negative Feelings and Stress Mediate the Relationship between Mental Imagery and Risk Perception.

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Sobkow, Agata; Traczyk, Jakub; Zaleskiewicz, Tomasz

2016-01-01

Recent research has documented that affect plays a crucial role in risk perception. When no information about numerical risk estimates is available (e.g., probability of loss or magnitude of consequences), people may rely on positive and negative affect toward perceived risk. However, determinants of affective reactions to risks are poorly understood. In a series of three experiments, we addressed the question of whether and to what degree mental imagery eliciting negative affect and stress influences risk perception. In each experiment, participants were instructed to visualize consequences of risk taking and to rate riskiness. In Experiment 1, participants who imagined negative risk consequences reported more negative affect and perceived risk as higher compared to the control condition. In Experiment 2, we found that this effect was driven by affect elicited by mental imagery rather than its vividness and intensity. In this study, imagining positive risk consequences led to lower perceived risk than visualizing negative risk consequences. Finally, we tested the hypothesis that negative affect related to higher perceived risk was caused by negative feelings of stress. In Experiment 3, we introduced risk-irrelevant stress to show that participants in the stress condition rated perceived risk as higher in comparison to the control condition. This experiment showed that higher ratings of perceived risk were influenced by psychological stress. Taken together, our results demonstrate that affect-laden mental imagery dramatically changes risk perception through negative affect (i.e., psychological stress).

Sex moderates the effects of positive and negative affect on clinical pain in patients with knee osteoarthritis.

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Speed, Traci J; Richards, Jessica M; Finan, Patrick H; Smith, Michael T

2017-07-01

Sex differences in clinical pain severity and response to experimental pain are commonly reported, with women generally showing greater vulnerability. Affect, including state (a single rating) and stable (average daily ratings over two weeks) positive affect and negative affect has also been found to impact pain sensitivity and severity, and research suggests that affect may modulate pain differentially as a function of sex. The current study aimed to examine sex as a moderator of the relationships between affect and pain-related outcomes among participants with knee osteoarthritis (KOA). One hundred and seventy-nine participants (59 men) with KOA completed electronic diaries assessing clinical pain, positive affect, and negative affect. A subset of participants (n=120) underwent quantitative sensory testing, from which a single index of central sensitization to pain was derived. We used multiple regression models to test for the interactive effects of sex and affect (positive versus negative and stable versus state) on pain-related outcomes. We used mixed effects models to test for the moderating effects of sex on the relationships between state affect and pain over time. Sex differences in affect and pain were identified, with men reporting significantly higher stable positive affect and lower central sensitization to pain indexed by quantitative sensory testing, as well as marginally lower KOA-specific clinical pain compared to women. Moreover, there was an interaction between stable positive affect and sex on KOA-specific clinical pain and average daily non-specific pain ratings. Post hoc analyses revealed that men showed trends towards an inverse relationship between stable positive affect and pain outcomes, while women showed no relationship between positive affect and pain. There was also a significant interaction between sex and stable negative affect and sex on KOA-specific pain such that men showed a significantly stronger positive relationship between

Mere exposure revisited: The influence of growth versus security cues on evaluations of novel and familiar stimuli

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Gillebaart, M.; Förster, J.; Rotteveel, M.

2012-01-01

Combining regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) and novelty categorization theory (Förster, Marguc, & Gillebaart, 2010), we predicted that novel stimuli would be more positively evaluated when focused on growth as compared with security and that familiar stimuli would be more negatively evaluated

Effects of Marital and Co-Worker Relationships on Negative Affect: Testing the Central Role of Marriage.

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Beach, Steven R. H.; And Others

1993-01-01

Examined negative affect among 349 adults. Indices of salient social support and salient interpersonal stress irrespective of source were related to level of negative affective symptoms. Marital relationship was most frequently named source of support, but coworkers were named equally often as source of interpersonal stress. Marital satisfaction…

Auditory stimulus timing influences perceived duration of co-occurring visual stimuli

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Vincenzo eRomei

2011-09-01

Full Text Available There is increasing interest in multisensory influences upon sensory-specific judgements, such as when auditory stimuli affect visual perception. Here we studied whether the duration of an auditory event can objectively affect the perceived duration of a co-occurring visual event. On each trial, participants were presented with a pair of successive flashes and had to judge whether the first or second was longer. Two beeps were presented with the flashes. The order of short and long stimuli could be the same across audition and vision (audiovisual congruent or reversed, so that the longer flash was accompanied by the shorter beep and vice versa (audiovisual incongruent; or the two beeps could have the same duration as each other. Beeps and flashes could onset synchronously or asynchronously. In a further control experiment, the beep durations were much longer (tripled than the flashes. Results showed that visual duration-discrimination sensitivity (d' was significantly higher for congruent (and significantly lower for incongruent audiovisual synchronous combinations, relative to the visual only presentation. This effect was abolished when auditory and visual stimuli were presented asynchronously, or when sound durations tripled those of flashes. We conclude that the temporal properties of co-occurring auditory stimuli influence the perceived duration of visual stimuli and that this can reflect genuine changes in visual sensitivity rather than mere response bias.

Suppressing memories of words and familiar objects results in their affective devaluation: Evidence from Think/No-think tasks.

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De Vito, David; Fenske, Mark J

2017-05-01

Potentially distracting or otherwise-inappropriate stimuli, thoughts, or actions often must be inhibited to prevent interference with goal-directed behaviour. Growing evidence suggests that the impact of inhibition is not limited to reduced neurocognitive processing, but also includes negative affective consequences for any associated stimuli. The link between inhibition and aversive response has primarily been studied using tasks involving attentional- or response-related inhibition of external sensory stimuli. Here we show that affective devaluation also occurs when inhibition is applied to fully-encoded stimulus representations in memory. We first replicated prior findings of increased forgetting of words whose memories were suppressed in a Think/No-think procedure (Experiment 1). Incorporating a stimulus-evaluation task within this procedure revealed that suppressing memories of words (Experiment 2) and visual objects (Experiment 3) also results in their affective devaluation. Given the critical role of memory for guiding thoughts and actions, these results suggest that the affective consequences of inhibition may occur across a far broader range of situations than previously understood. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Bias to negative emotions: a depression state-dependent marker in adolescent major depressive disorder.

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Maalouf, Fadi T; Clark, Luke; Tavitian, Lucy; Sahakian, Barbara J; Brent, David; Phillips, Mary L

2012-06-30

The aim of the current research was to examine for the first time the extent to which bias to negative emotions in an inhibitory control paradigm is a state or trait marker in major depressive disorder (MDD) in adolescents. We administered the affective go/no go task which measures the ability to switch attention to or away from positive or negative emotional stimuli to 40 adolescents with MDD (20 in acute episode (MDDa) and 20 in remission (MDDr)) and 17 healthy controls (HC). MDDa were significantly faster on the shift to negative target blocks as compared to shift to positive target blocks while HC and MDDr displayed the opposite pattern as measured by an "emotional bias index" (EBI=latency (shift to negative targets)-latency (shift to positive targets)). There was also a trend for an effect of group on commission errors, suggesting more impulsive responding by MDDa than both MDDr and HC independently of stimulus valence throughout the task. Negative bias was not associated with depression severity or medication status. In conclusion, bias to negative emotional stimuli appears to be present in the acute stage of MDD and absent in remission suggesting that it is a depression state-specific marker of MDD in adolescents. Latency emerges as a better proxy of negative bias than commission errors and accuracy on this inhibitory control task in adolescents with MDD. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Approach motivation and cognitive resources combine to influence memory for positive emotional stimuli.

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Crowell, Adrienne; Schmeichel, Brandon J

2016-01-01

Inspired by the elaborated intrusion theory of desire, the current research tested the hypothesis that persons higher in trait approach motivation process positive stimuli deeply, which enhances memory for them. Ninety-four undergraduates completed a measure of trait approach motivation, viewed positive or negative image slideshows in the presence or absence of a cognitive load, and one week later completed an image memory test. Higher trait approach motivation predicted better memory for the positive slideshow, but this memory boost disappeared under cognitive load. Approach motivation did not influence memory for the negative slideshow. The current findings support the idea that individuals higher in approach motivation spontaneously devote limited resources to processing positive stimuli.

Negative Affect Intensity and Hostility in Individuals with Alcohol Use Disorder with or without Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

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Gandelman, Erin; Petrakis, Ismene; Kachadourian, Lorig; Ralevski, Elizabeth

2018-02-20

Negative affect intensity and hostility have both been implicated in alcohol use disorders (AUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when they occur separately, but have neither been compared nor explored among those with dual diagnosis AUD and PTSD. This study is a secondary analysis designed to compare levels of negative affect intensity and hostility among those with AUD to those with dual diagnosis AUD and PTSD. Participants (n = 113) were recruited from the placebo-controlled groups of two distinct 12-week clinical trials (NCT00342563 and NCT00744055). The Short Affect Intensity Scale and Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory were administered at weeks 0, 4, 8 and 12 to all study participants to assess negative affect intensity and hostility levels, respectively. Dual diagnosis AUD and PTSD individuals showed significantly higher levels of negative affect intensity and hostility than individuals with single diagnosis AUD. These levels remained relatively stable over the course of the study in spite of all study participants showing clinically significant improvements in AUD severity and PTSD symptomology (for those with dual diagnosis). Our results indicate that individuals with dual diagnosis AUD and PTSD have higher levels of negative affect and higher levels of hostility compared to individuals with single diagnosis AUD. In addition, these heightened levels of negative affect intensity and hostility appear to function somewhat independently of diagnosis severity and symptomology improvement. To our knowledge, this is the first study to compare negative affect intensity and hostility levels between single diagnosis AUD and dual diagnosis AUD and PTSD individuals.

Suggestibility and negative priming: two replication studies.

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David, Daniel; Brown, Richard J

2002-07-01

Research suggests that inhibiting the effect of irrelevant stimuli on subsequent thought and action (cognitive inhibition) may be an important component of suggestibility. Two small correlation studies were conducted to address the relationship between different aspects of suggestibility and individual differences in cognitive inhibition, operationalized as the degree of negative priming generated by to-be-ignored stimuli in a semantic categorization task. The first study found significant positive correlations between negative priming, hypnotic suggestibility, and creative imagination; a significant negative correlation was obtained between negative priming and interrogative suggestibility, demonstrating the discriminant validity of the study results. The second study replicated the correlation between negative priming and hypnotic suggestibility, using a different suggestibility measurement procedure that assessed subjective experience and hypnotic involuntariness as well as objective responses to suggestions. These studies support the notion that the ability to engage in cognitive inhibition may be an important component of hypnotic responsivity and maybe of other forms of suggestibility.

Work–Family Conflict and Mental Health Among Female Employees: A Sequential Mediation Model via Negative Affect and Perceived Stress

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Zhou, Shiyi; Da, Shu; Guo, Heng; Zhang, Xichao

2018-01-01

After the implementation of the universal two-child policy in 2016, more and more working women have found themselves caught in the dilemma of whether to raise a baby or be promoted, which exacerbates work–family conflicts among Chinese women. Few studies have examined the mediating effect of negative affect. The present study combined the conservation of resources model and affective events theory to examine the sequential mediating effect of negative affect and perceived stress in the relationship between work–family conflict and mental health. A valid sample of 351 full-time Chinese female employees was recruited in this study, and participants voluntarily answered online questionnaires. Pearson correlation analysis, structural equation modeling, and multiple mediation analysis were used to examine the relationships between work–family conflict, negative affect, perceived stress, and mental health in full-time female employees. We found that women’s perceptions of both work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict were significant negatively related to mental health. Additionally, the results showed that negative affect and perceived stress were negatively correlated with mental health. The 95% confidence intervals indicated the sequential mediating effect of negative affect and stress in the relationship between work–family conflict and mental health was significant, which supported the hypothesized sequential mediation model. The findings suggest that work–family conflicts affected the level of self-reported mental health, and this relationship functioned through the two sequential mediators of negative affect and perceived stress. PMID:29719522