Internal valence modulates the speed of object recognition.
Brain regions that process affect are strongly connected with visual regions, but the functional consequences of this structural organization have been relatively unexplored. How does the momentary affect of an observer influence perception? We induced either pleasant or unpleasant affect in participants and then recorded their neural activity using magnetoencephalography while they completed an object recognition task. We hypothesized, and found, that affect influenced the speed of object recognition by modulating the speed and amplitude of evoked responses in occipitotemporal cortex and regions important for representing affect. Furthermore, affect modulated functional interactions between affective and perceptual regions early during perceptual processing. These findings indicate that affect can serve as an important contextual influence on object recognition processes.
Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton, NJ, USA. mfp2@princeton.edu.
Matthew F
MF
Panichello
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA.
Kestutis
K
Kveraga
Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Maximilien
M
Chaumon
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA.|Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel.
Moshe
0000-0003-3362-3709
M
Bar
Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA. l.barrett@neu.edu.|Interdisciplinary Affective Science Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. l.barrett@neu.edu.|Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA, USA. l.barrett@neu.edu.
Lisa Feldman
0000-0003-4478-2051
LF
Barrett
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015225:Magnetoencephalography; D008297:Male; D009778:Occipital Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult