Negative emotional context enhances auditory novelty processing.
We used an auditory-visual distraction task to investigate the functional relationship between distraction elicited by auditory novel events and a context of negative emotional processing, both at behavioural and electrophysiological (event-related brain potentials) levels in humans. Participants performed a decision task on pictures disclosing sceneries with a task-irrelevant emotional load or neutral, whereas ignoring sounds presented concomitantly. Our data showed that novel sounds yielded stronger behavioural disruption on participants' visual task performance in negative context compared to the neutral one. Accordingly, late novelty P3 responses to novel sounds were enhanced. These results demonstrate that the negative emotional context enhances the activation of neural networks in the auditory novelty system, enhancing auditory novelty processing under potentially threatening conditions.
Domínguez-Borràs
Judith
J
Cognitive Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Psychiatry and Clinical Psychobiology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Garcia-Garcia
Manuel
M
Escera
Carles
C
D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology; D005106:Exploratory Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D013997:Time Factors; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology