EEG Correlates of Ten Positive Emotions.
Compared with the well documented neurophysiological findings on negative emotions, much less is known about positive emotions. In the present study, we explored the EEG correlates of ten different positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love). A group of 20 participants were invited to watch 30 short film clips with their EEGs simultaneously recorded. Distinct topographical patterns for different positive emotions were found for the correlation coefficients between the subjective ratings on the ten positive emotions per film clip and the corresponding EEG spectral powers in different frequency bands. Based on the similarities of the participants' ratings on the ten positive emotions, these emotions were further clustered into three representative clusters, as 'encouragement' for awe, gratitude, hope, inspiration, pride, 'playfulness' for amusement, joy, interest, and 'harmony' for love, serenity. Using the EEG spectral powers as features, both the binary classification on the higher and lower ratings on these positive emotions and the binary classification between the three positive emotion clusters, achieved accuracies of approximately 80% and above. To our knowledge, our study provides the first piece of evidence on the EEG correlates of different positive emotions.
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Xin
X
Hu
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Jianwen
J
Yu
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Mengdi
M
Song
Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Chun
C
Yu
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Fei
F
Wang
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Pei
P
Sun
School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University Beijing, China.
Daifa
D
Wang
Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, Tsinghua University Beijing, China.
Dan
D
Zhang
EEG; classification; film clips; positive emotion; spectral power