title: Emotional content modulates response inhibition and perceptual processing.
abstract: In this study, event-related potentials were used to investigate the effect of emotion on response inhibition. Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task that required responses to human faces associated with a "go" valence (i.e., emotional, neutral) and response inhibition to human faces associated with a "no-go" valence. Emotional content impaired response inhibition, as evidenced by decreased response accuracy and N2 amplitudes in no-go trials. More importantly, emotional expressions elicited larger N170 amplitudes than neutral expressions, and this effect was larger in no-go than in go trials, indicating that the perceptual processing of emotional expression had priority in inhibitory trials. In no-go trials, correlation analysis showed that increased N170 amplitudes were associated with decreased N2 amplitudes. Taken together, our findings suggest that emotional content impairs response inhibition due to the prioritization of emotional content processing.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Exercise and Health Sciences of Ministry of Education, Shanghai University of Sport, Shanghai, China; State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Suyong
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.forename: Wenbo
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Xiangru
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Lucas S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Broster
authors.forename: Taolin
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Jinzhen
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Yuejia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Emotion; Event-related potentials (ERPs); N170; N2; Perceptual processing; Response inhibition