title: Decomposing valence intensity effects in disgusting and fearful stimuli: an event-related potential study.
abstract: We are sensitive to valence intensity in negative emotional stimuli, but not in positive emotional stimuli, a phenomenon known as the valence intensity effect. However, whether this valence intensity effect is processed similarly within different negative stimuli, e.g., fear-inducing and disgust-inducing, remains unclear. In the present study, we investigated whether the valence intensity effects for fearful and disgusting stimuli were perceived in a unique way by using event-related potentials (ERPs). Electroencephalogram was recorded from 22 participants as they performed a standard/deviant categorization task using extremely disgusting pictures, moderately disgusting pictures, extremely fearful pictures, moderately fearful pictures, and neutral pictures. The ERP analysis revealed that the extremely fearful stimuli elicited a larger amplitude N2 than moderately fearful stimuli, whereas the extremely disgusting stimuli elicited a smaller amplitude late positive component than moderately disgusting stimuli. This study is the first to provide evidence that fear and disgust may have different valence intensity effects, which was revealed at early attention allocation stages for fearful stimuli and at late emotional evaluation stages for disgusting stimuli.
authors.affiliation: a School of Kinesiology , Shanghai University of Sport , Shanghai 200438 , China.
authors.forename: Yingzhi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: b School of Education Science , Guizhou Normal University , Guiyang 550001 , China.
authors.forename: Yu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.affiliation: c Research Center of Brain Function and Psychological Science , Shenzhen University , Shenzhen 518052 , China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Lei
authors.affiliation: a School of Kinesiology , Shanghai University of Sport , Shanghai 200438 , China.|d Department of Kinesiology , University of Maryland , College Park , MD 20742 , USA.
authors.forename: Kyle J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Jaquess
authors.affiliation: a School of Kinesiology , Shanghai University of Sport , Shanghai 200438 , China.
authors.forename: Chenglin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: c Research Center of Brain Function and Psychological Science , Shenzhen University , Shenzhen 518052 , China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Disgusting stimuli; event-related potential (ERP); fearful stimuli; valence intensity effect