Electrophysiological correlates of remembering emotional pictures (original) (raw)
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Event-related potentials of emotional memory: Encoding pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2002
Emotional events tend to be remembered better than nonemotional events. We investigated this phenomenon by measuring two event-related potential (ERP) effects: the emotion effect (more positive ERPs for pleasant or unpleasant stimuli than for neutral stimuli) and the subsequent memory effect (more positive ERPs for subsequently remembered items than for subsequently forgotten items). ERPs were measured while subjects rated the emotional content of pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures. As was expected, subsequent recall was better for pleasant and unpleasant pictures than for neutral pictures. The emotion effect was sensitive to arousal in parietal electrodes and to both arousal and valence in frontocentral electrodes. The subsequent memory effect at centroparietal electrodes was greater for emotional pictures than for neutral pictures during an early epoch (400-600 msec). This result suggests that emotional information has privileged access to processing resources, possibly leading to better memory formation.
Emotional memory of images and ERPs
However, the cortical mechanisms underlying the episodic recall of emotional scenes are still poorly understood. Our main aim was to compare the magnitude of the Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP) old-new effect related to emotionally unpleasant, pleasant and neutral photographic images. As expected, correct recognition of all types of images elicited three topographically distinct ERP components sensitive to the classical old-new recognition effect. The results revealed that the behavioral performances were mainly sensitive to arousal, while the ERP old/new effect over posterior regions (300 -1000 ms) was exclusively affected by unpleasantness. A later component (1000 -1400 ms) showed an inverted old/ new effect at parietal sites, which was also sensitive to unpleasantness. These results imply that ERP reflecting episodic conscious recollection and post-retrieval monitoring are clearly affected both by valence and arousal.
Psychophysiology, 2018
Previous research found that memory is not only better for emotional information but also for neutral information that has been encoded in the context of an emotional event. In the present ERP study, we investigated two factors that may influence memory for neutral and emotional items: temporal proximity between emotional and neutral items during encoding, and retention interval (immediate vs. delayed). Fortynine female participants incidentally encoded 36 unpleasant and 108 neutral pictures (36 neutral pictures preceded an unpleasant picture, 36 followed an unpleasant picture, and 36 neutral pictures were preceded and followed by neutral pictures) and participated in a recognition memory task either immediately (N 5 24) or 1 week (N 5 25) after encoding. Results showed better memory for emotional pictures relative to neutral pictures. In accordance, enhanced centroparietal old/new differences (500-900 ms) during recognition were observed for unpleasant compared to neutral pictures, most pronounced for the 1-week interval. Picture position effects, however, were only subtle. During encoding, late positive potentials for neutral pictures were slightly lower for neutral pictures following unpleasant ones, but only at trend level. To summarize, we could replicate and extend previous ERP findings showing that emotionally arousing events are better recollected than neutral events, particularly when memory is tested after longer retention intervals. Picture position during encoding, however, had only small effects on elaborative processing and no effects on memory retrieval.
Affective recognition memory processing and event-related brain potentials
Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2011
Recognition memory was examined for visual affective stimuli using behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures. Images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) that varied systematically in arousal level (low, high) and valence direction (unpleasant, pleasant) were first viewed passively. Then, during a response phase, the original images were intermixed with an equal number of new images and presented, and participants were instructed to press a button to indicate whether each stimulus picture was previously viewed (target) or new (foil). Participants were more sensitive to unpleasant- than to pleasant-valence stimuli and were biased to respond to high-arousal unpleasant stimuli as targets, whether the stimuli were previously viewed or new. Response times (RTs) to target stimuli were systematically affected by valence, whereas RTs to foil stimuli were influenced by arousal level. ERP component amplitudes were generally larger for high than for low arousal levels. The P300 (late positive component) amplitude was largest for high-arousal unpleasant target images. These and other amplitude effects suggest that high-arousal unpleasant stimuli engage a privileged memory-processing route during stimulus processing. Theoretical relationships between affective and memory processes are discussed.
Explicit and spontaneous retrieval of emotional scenes: Electrophysiological correlates
Emotion, 2013
When event-related potentials (ERP) are measured during a recognition task, items that have previously been presented typically elicit a larger late (400 -800 ms) positive potential than new items. Recent data, however, suggest that emotional, but not neutral, pictures show ERP evidence of spontaneous retrieval when presented in a free-viewing task . In two experiments, we further investigated the brain dynamics of implicit and explicit retrieval. In Experiment 1, brain potentials were measured during a semantic categorization task, which did not explicitly probe episodic memory, but which, like a recognition task, required an active decision and a button press, and were compared to those elicited during recognition and free viewing. Explicit recognition prompted a late enhanced positivity for previously presented, compared with new, pictures regardless of hedonic content. In contrast, only emotional pictures showed an old-new difference when the task did not explicitly probe episodic memory, either when making an active categorization decision regarding picture content, or when simply viewing pictures. In Experiment 2, however, neutral pictures did prompt a significant old-new ERP difference during subsequent free viewing when emotionally arousing pictures were not included in the encoding set. These data suggest that spontaneous retrieval is heightened for salient cues, perhaps reflecting heightened attention and elaborative processing at encoding.
Enhanced long-term recollection for emotional pictures: Evidence from high-density ERPs
Psychophysiology, 2009
The present study used behavioral and electrophysiological measures to investigate the processes mediating long-term recognition memory for emotional and neutral pictures. The results show enhanced memory recollection for emotional arousing pictures compared to neutral low arousing pictures. In accordance with the behavioral data, we observed enhanced old/new effects in the ERPs for emotionally arousing pictures in the recollection-sensitive old/new component at centro-parietal sites (500-800 ms). Moreover, early old/new effects were present over frontal and parietal sites (300-500 ms) irrespective of picture contents. Analysis of the subjective awareness, indexed by the confidence ratings, showed that the late parietal old/new effect was increased for high confidence responses whereas the early component (300-500 ms) was mainly driven by low confidence responses, an indication for familiarity based recognition processes.
2010
Retrieval Orientation refers to the differential processing of memory retrieval cues according to the sought after information (Rugg & Wilding, 2000). The study manipulated the orientation effect by varying the retrieval demand on a block basis using two emotional source recognition conditions and a non-emotional old-new recognition condition. Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) evoked by new faces in the two emotional conditions differed reliably from those of the non-emotional condition. The ERPs of the former conditions were more negative than those of the latter non-emotional condition from 200-400 and 500-700msec post-stimulus, showing a frontal and mid centre parietal distribution respectively. From 900-1100msec the critical ERPs from the former conditions were more positive going than the later non-emotional condition, showing a frontal distribution. Valence congruent relationships were additionally found between emotional retrieval orientation, emotional memory retrieval and degrees of wellbeing. I would like to thank my supervisor Mikael Johansson for giving me the opportunity to conduct this study as well as for his patience, creative and much appreciated comments. I would also like to thank Arthur Schneider for his helpful linguistic comments and Kenneth Holmqvist at Lund University's Humanist laboratory for allowing me to conduct my study at their EEG/ERP lab.
Differential effects of emotional cues on components of prospective memory: an ERP study
Frontiers in human neuroscience, 2015
So far, little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms associated with emotion effects on prospective memory (PM) performance. Thus, this study aimed at disentangling possible mechanisms for the effects of emotional valence of PM cues on the distinct phases composing PM by investigating event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants were engaged in an ongoing N-back task while being required to perform a PM task. The emotional valence of both the ongoing pictures and the PM cues was manipulated (pleasant, neutral, unpleasant). ERPs were recorded during the PM phases, such as encoding, maintenance, and retrieval of the intention. A recognition task including PM cues and ongoing stimuli was also performed at the end of the sessions. ERP results suggest that emotional PM cues not only trigger an automatic, bottom-up, capture of attention, but also boost a greater allocation of top-down processes. These processes seem to be recruited to hold attention toward the emotional stimuli an...
Emotional memories are resilient to time: Evidence from the parietal ERP old/new effect
Human Brain Mapping, 2011
Emotional memories can be extremely robust and long-lasting and can contribute to the development of anxiety disorders. Despite tremendous work on neural responses underlying the memory formation of emotional events, less is known about long-term retention. In the present study, behavioral and electrophysiological measures were used to investigate long-term recognition memory for emotional (unpleasant and pleasant) and neutral pictures after two retention intervals (1 week vs. 1 year) in 21 male subjects. The results show enhanced recognition performance for emotional relative to neutral pictures for both test delays. On the neural side, the retrieval of emotional pictures compared to neutral pictures was accompanied after 1 week by an enhanced old/new effect (500-800 ms), originating in the parietal cortex. After 1-year retention delay, only unpleasant but not pleasant pictures were different from neutral pictures in the recollection-sensitive ERP component. Analysis of the subjective awareness (confidence ratings) during recognition indicated that behavioral and electrocortical response patterns were exclusively driven by high confidence responses, an indication for recollectionbased recognition. These results suggest that high arousing emotional memories were highly consistent over time relative to neutral memories. Hum Brain Mapp 32:632-640,
International Journal of Psychophysiology, 2008
Emotional stimuli are better remembered than neutral stimuli. Most of the studies taking into account this emotional bias refer to explicit memory, use behavioral measures of the recall and predict better recall of negative stimuli. The few studies taking into account implicit memory and the valence emotional dimension are inconclusive on the effect of the stimulus' emotional valence. In the present study, 120 pictures (30 positive, 30 negative, 30 relaxing and 30 neutral) were shown to, and assessed by, 28 participants (study phase). Subsequently, event related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the presentation of 120 new (shown for the first time) and 120 old (already shown in the study phase) pictures (test phase). No explicit instructions or clues related to recovery were given to participants, and a distractor task was employed, in order to maintain implicit the memory assessment. As expected from other studies' data, our results showed that old stimuli elicited an enhanced late positive component 450 ms after stimulus onset (repetition effect). Moreover, this effect was modulated by the stimuli's emotional valence, since the most positively valenced stimuli were associated with a decreased repetition effect with respect to the most negatively valenced stimuli. This effect was located at ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These results suggest the existence of a valence-mediated bias in implicit memory.