title: Anticipation of Negative Pictures Enhances the P2 and P3 in Their Later Recognition.
abstract: Anticipation of emotional pictures has been found to be relevant to the encoding of the pictures as well as their later recognition performance. However, it is as yet unknown whether anticipation modulates neural activity in the later recognition of emotional pictures. To address this issue, participants in the present study were asked to view emotional (negative or neutral) pictures. The picture was preceded by a cue which indicated the emotional content of the picture in half of the trials (the anticipated condition) and without any cues in the other half (the unanticipated condition). Subsequently, participants had to perform an unexpected old/new recognition task in which old and novel pictures were presented without any preceding cues. Electroencephalography data was recorded during the recognition phase. Event-related potential results showed that for negative pictures, P2 and P3 amplitudes were larger in the anticipated as compared to the unanticipated condition; whereas this anticipation effect was not shown for neutral pictures. The present findings suggest that anticipation of negative pictures may enhance neural activity in their later recognition.
authors.affiliation: Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Center of Cooperative Innovation for Assessment and Promotion of National Mental Health, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University Tianjin, China ; Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster Muenster, Germany.
authors.forename: Huiyan
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: Shaxi Primary School Shenzhen, China ; Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Xiang
authors.affiliation: Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Saili
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University Guangzhou, China ; School of Education, Guangdong University of Education Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Jiafeng
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liang
authors.affiliation: Key Research Base of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education, Center of Cooperative Innovation for Assessment and Promotion of National Mental Health, Academy of Psychology and Behavior, Tianjin Normal University Tianjin, China ; Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University Guangzhou, China.
authors.forename: Hua
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jin
keywords: ERPs; P2; P3; anticipation; negative pictures; recognition