title: Emotional expectancy: brain electrical activity associated with an emotional bias in interpreting life events.
abstract: University students in either an optimistic or pessimistic mood state read brief stories of daily life events as event-related brain potentials were collected during the final word of each story. For subjects in a pessimistic mood, a bias to expect negative outcomes was seen as an N400/P300 effect over posterior scalp regions. For subjects in an optimistic mood, a differentiation between good and bad outcomes was also observed, but it was specific to medial frontal areas. Analysis of single-trial P300 latencies suggested that semantically incongruent and mood-incongruent outcome words resulted in increased median latency of the late positive complex (LPC) and resulted in increased variability of LPC latency across trials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Oregon, Eugene 97403, USA.
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Tucker
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: West
authors.forename: G F
authors.initials: GF
authors.lastname: Potts
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Liotti
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Luu
authors.forename: A L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Hartry
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D008416:Mastoid / Q000502:physiology; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales