Brain responses to disgusting and fearful pictures with and without high spatial frequencies
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1
University of Jaén, Psychology, Spain
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2
Mid Sweden University, Sweden
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3
University of Granada, Spain
Growing evidence indicates that negative emotional stimuli received a preferential treatment by the processing systems where time, and not precision, is the key factor in order to preserve survival. This fast processing is proposed to be mainly supported by the magnocellular pathway, that conveys mainly low spatial frequencies. However it is unclear whether this privilege is exclusive of fear relevant stimuli or whether it is shared with other types of negative stimuli such as disgusting stimuli. In the current study we presented forty participants with neutral, fear and disgust eliciting pictures in two formats: one containing only low frequencies ("filtered") and the other containing all spatial frequencies ("intact"). Fourteen pictures of each category were used and every picture was presented four times: twice "filtered" and twice "intact". Event-related potentials were recorded and temporal and spatial components were detected and quantified through Principal Component Analyses. Repeated-measures 3 (Emotion) x 2 (Spatial Frequency) ANOVAs were carried out. Emotion and Spatial Frequency, but not their interaction, were significant for the N200 component, being especially prominent in posterior regions. No differences were found between fear and disgust stimuli. Both negative categories provoked greater N200 amplitudes than neutral stimuli. This pattern was similar to both filtered and intact pictures. Thus, our results suggest that disgusting visual stimuli as well as fear related stimuli have a priority access to processing via the magnocellular pathway. The scalp activity distribution is consistent with previous studies showing activation in the visual cortex in response to low frequency emotional stimuli.
* The present research was supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI2012-37090).
Keywords:
Fear,
Visual Cortex,
disgust,
ERPs,
Magnocellular
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Emotional and Social Processes
Citation:
Ruiz-Padial
E,
Mendoza
M,
Esteves
F and
Mata-Martin
J
(2015). Brain responses to disgusting and fearful pictures with and without high spatial frequencies.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00331
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Received:
19 Feb 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Elisabeth Ruiz-Padial, University of Jaén, Psychology, Jaén, Spain, erpadial@ujaen.es