title: Predicting Subjective Affective Salience from Cortical Responses to Invisible Object Stimuli.
abstract: The affective value of a stimulus substantially influences its potency to gain access to awareness. Here, we sought to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying such affective salience in a combined behavioral and fMRI experiment. Healthy individuals with varying degrees of spider phobia were presented with pictures of spiders and flowers suppressed from view by continuous flash suppression. Applying multivoxel pattern analysis, we found that the average time that spider stimuli took relative to flowers to gain access to awareness in each participant could be decoded from fMRI signals evoked by suppressed spider versus flower stimuli in occipitotemporal and orbitofrontal cortex. Our results indicate neural signals during unconscious processing of complex visual information in orbitofrontal and ventral visual areas predict access to awareness of this information, suggesting a crucial role for these higher-level cortical regions in mediating affective salience.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin 10117, Germany.
authors.forename: Katharina
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schmack
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin 10117, Germany.
authors.forename: Julia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Burk
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany Graduate School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: John-Dylan
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Haynes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin 10117, Germany Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin, Germany Graduate School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Philipp
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sterzer
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010698:Phobic Disorders / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000503:physiopathology; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011601:Psychophysics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013997:Time Factors; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: continuous flash suppression; functional magnetic resonance imaging; orbitofrontal cortex; unconscious processing; ventral visual cortex