title: How Does Adult Attachment Affect Human Recognition of Love-related and Sex-related Stimuli: An ERP Study.
abstract: In the present study, we investigated the relationship among three emotion-motivation systems (adult attachment, romantic love, and sex). We recorded event-related potentials in 37 healthy volunteers who had experienced romantic love while they viewed SEX, LOVE, FRIEND, SPORT, and NEUTRAL images. We also measured adult attachment styles, level of passionate love and sexual attitudes. As expected, results showed that, firstly, response to love-related image-stimuli and sex-related image-stimuli on the electrophysiological data significantly different on N1, N2, and positive slow wave (PSW) components. Secondly, the different adult attachment styles affected individuals' recognition processing in response to love-related and sex-related images, especially, to sex-related images. Further analysis showed that voltages elicited by fearful attachment style individuals were significantly lower than voltages elicited by secure and dismissing attachment style individuals on sex-related images at frontal sites, on N1 and N2 components. Thirdly, from behavior data, we found that adult attachment styles were not significantly related to any dimension of sexual attitudes but were significantly related to passionate love scale (PLS) total points. Thus, the behavior results were not in line with the electrophysiological results. The present study proved that adult attachment styles might mediate individuals' lust and attraction systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Anhui University Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hou
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Anhui University Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Xin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Anhui University Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Jinqun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Anhui University Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Fangshu
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.affiliation: Department of Philosophy, Anhui University Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Jiani
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Yamikani
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ndasauka
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Science, University of Science and Technology of China Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Ru
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, School of Life Science, University of Science and Technology of China Hefei, China.
authors.forename: Yuting
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Lan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Fang
keywords: adult attachment; emotion-motivation system; event-related potentials (ERPs); love; sex