Frontal brain asymmetry and affective style: A conceptual replication

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated that positive and negative affective reactivity can be predicted by resting electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry in frontal brain regions. These studies used different methods to assess asymmetry and affectivity. The goal of the present study was a conceptual replication of these results and to investigate their independence of employed procedures. Resting EEG of 37 subjects was recorded and affective slides were presented to obtain ratings of subjects' emotional reactions. Different procedures were applied to the data to assess the relation between asymmetries and affective reactivity. Depending on the particular analysis procedure, there were associations between anterior asymmetry and affectivity in line with the published findings, opponent to those findings, or no relation between anterior asymmetry and affective reactivity.