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Probing affective pictures: Attended startle and tone probes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2001

BRUCE N. CUTHBERT ,
HARALD T. SCHUPP ,
MARGARET BRADLEY ,
MARK McMANIS  and
PETER J. LANG
BRUCE N. CUTHBERT
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
HARALD T. SCHUPP
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
MARGARET BRADLEY
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
MARK McMANIS
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
PETER J. LANG
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, USA
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Abstract

Reflexive eyeblinks to a startle probe vary with the pleasantness of affective pictures, whereas the corresponding P300 varies with emotional arousal. The impact of attention to the probe on these effects was examined by varying task and probe type. Probes were either nonstartling tones or startling noises presented during affective picture viewing. Half the participants performed a task requiring attention to the probes; the other participants were told to ignore the probes. Blinks to the startle probe varied with picture pleasantness for both task and nontask conditions. In contrast, P300 magnitudes for both startle and tone probes were reduced during emotionally arousing pictures, irrespective of pleasantness, in task and nontask conditions. Further, attending to the startle probe prompted an augmentation of N100 during unpleasant pictures. The data suggest that affective modulation of probe responses reflects obligatory processes in picture perception.

Keywords

Event-related potentialsP300StartleEmotionAttention
Type
BRIEF REPORTS
Information
Psychophysiology , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , May 1998 , pp. 344 - 347
Copyright
© 1998 Society for Psychophysiological Research

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