title: Cerebral patterns of attentional habituation to emotional visual stimuli.
abstract: Attentional habituation in response to emotional stimuli, an aspect of the interaction between cognitive and emotional processes that has received scant attention, was investigated. Event-related potentials were recorded using a 60-electrode array from 25 participants who attended to 120 presentations of three different picture types: emotionally negative (S-), positive (S+), and neutral (SO). The affective content of the stimulation was assessed, through questionnaires, by the participants themselves. N1 showed different patterns of habituation as a function of the stimulation: amplitudes indicated that S- was more resistant to habituation than SO and S+. This pattern, which reflects a greater capacity of S- to attract and maintain the participant's attention, is interpreted as a manifestation of the "negativity bias," a phenomenon that reflects an evolution-favored set of mechanisms that facilitate a rapid and intense response to aversive events.
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Psicologia, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain. carretie@uam.es
authors.forename: Luis
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Carretié
authors.forename: José Antonio
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Hinojosa
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Mercado
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006185:Habituation, Psychophysiologic / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation