title: Prefrontal asymmetry predicts affect, but not beliefs about affect.
abstract: Self-reported emotional feelings are easily biased by situational or identity-related beliefs. Such biases vary as a function of memory. Recent memories draw more on veridical felt affective experience whereas distant memories draw more on situational or identity-related biases. For this study, frontal EEG asymmetry was used to predict feeling- versus belief-based self-reports of freshmen year homesickness in college freshmen and sophomores. Relatively greater right frontal EEG asymmetry predicted greater feeling-based, experiential reports of freshman year homesickness, whereas no associations were found between frontal EEG asymmetry and belief-based, retrospective reports of freshman year homesickness. These results support the status of frontal EEG asymmetry as a measure of affective vulnerability and suggest that links between frontal EEG asymmetry and self-reported affect are detectable to the extent that self-reports capture current emotional feelings and not situational or identity-related beliefs about what one ought to have felt.
authors: University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. arw6z@virginia.edu
authors: Amanda R W
authors: AR
authors: Steiner
authors: James A
authors: JA
authors: Coan
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D015982:Bias; D058256:Brain Waves / Q000502:physiology*; D003469:Culture; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004585:Electrooculography; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult