Electrophysiology reveals semantic memory use in language comprehension

In this experiment, we combined the measurement of observable facial behavior with simultaneous measures of brain electrical activity to assess patterns of hemispheric activation in different regions during the experience of happiness and disgust. Disgust was found to be associated with right-sided activation in the frontal and anterior temporal regions compared with the happy condition. Happiness was accompanied by left-sided activation in the anterior temporal region compared with disgust. No differences in asymmetry were found between emotions in the central and parietal regions. When data aggregated across positive films were compared to aggregate negative film data, no reliable differences in brain activity were found. These findings illustrate the utility of using facial behavior to verify the presence of emotion, are consistent with the notion of emotion-specific physiological patterning, and underscore the importance of anterior cerebral asymmetries for emotions associated with approach and withdrawal.

http://www.gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych3131_spring2015/documents/7.2_Davidson_1990_Approachwithdrawal.pdf

Approach-Withdrawal and Cerebral Asymmetry: Emotional Expression and Brain Physiology I

From W.B. Cannon's identification of adrenaline with "fight or flight" to modern views of stress, negative views of peripheral physiological arousal predominate. Sympathetic nervous system (SNS) arousal is associated with anxiety, neuroticism, the Type A personality, cardiovascular disease, and immune system suppression; illness susceptibility is associated with life events requiring adjustments. "Stress control" has become almost synonymous with arousal reduction. A contrary positive view of peripheral arousal follows from studies of subjects exposed to intermittent stressors. Such exposure leads to low SNS arousal base rates, but to strong and responsive challenge- or stress-induced SNS-adrenal-medullary arousal, with resistance to brain catecholamine depletion and with suppression of pituitary adrenal-cortical responses. That pattern of arousal defines physiological toughness and, in interaction with psychological coping, corresponds with positive performance in even complex tasks, with emotional stability, and with immune system enhancement. The toughness concept suggests an opposition between effective short- and long-term coping, with implications for effective therapies and stress-inoculating life-styles.

/pdf/arousal-and-physiological-toughness-implications-for-mental-22b8eztja8.pdf

Arousal and physiological toughness: Implications for mental and physical health.

The idea of innate and universal facial expressions that have links with human emotions was given the status of scientific hypothesis by Darwin (1872/1965). Substantial evidence, old and new, supports his hypothesis. Much of the evidence is independent of language, but Russell's (1994) criticisms of the hypothesis focus on language-dependent data. In this article, it is argued that Russell's critique was off target in that his arguments relate only to a hypothesis of the universality of semantic attributions and overstated in that he used questionable logic in designing studies to support his claims. It is also argued that Russell misinterpreted the relation between the universality hypothesis and differential emotions theory. Finally, new evidence is presented that supports the Darwinian hypothesis of the innateness and universality of the facial expressions of a limited set of emotions and the efficacy of the most commonly used method of testing it.

Innate and universal facial expressions : evidence from developmental and cross-cultural research

https://www.oxcns.org/papers/452_Rolls+Grabenhorst08OFCreview.pdf

The orbitofrontal cortex and beyond: from affect to decision-making

This study reports a cross-modal, olfactory/visual event related potential (ERP) using odours as olfactory primes. The results show a difference in the ERP waveform for the N400 waveform when a visual image does not match the priming odour. An N400 peak was produced for both the matched and mismatched conditions but the peaks were significantly more negative for the mismatched condition. By the use of non-food odours this study extends an earlier finding by Grigor, who, using the same ERP paradigm, obtained similar results for food odours and photographs of food.

/pdf/the-effect-of-odour-priming-on-long-latency-visual-evoked-1xya0rk3x9.pdf

The effect of odour priming on long latency visual evoked potentials of matching and mismatching objects.

Emotion: Theory, research, and experience. Volume 3: Biological foundations of emotion : R. Plutchik and H. Kellerman (Eds.), (Academic Press, New York, 1986) pp. xxiv + 423, £40.50, £25.00 (paperback).

Brain electrical activity mapping: an exploratory study of infant response to odours

The sense of olfaction is still poorly understood, from both a biochemical and a cognitive point of view. However, the measurement of brain electrical activity using electroencephalograph (EEG) measurements is now providing interesting new information on how odour signals are processed by the brain.

The application of EEG measurements to the study of sensory responses to odours.

We describe three experiments attempting to model differences in cortical EEG following stimulation with different odors. The data used in these experiments was obtained in previous studies, described briefly here. Subjects sit in an environmentally stabilized low odor cubicle. Twenty-eight electrodes are placed on the scalp and connect the subject to a neurosciences brain imager, which digitizes cortical EEG response. In a given trial, a specific odor is introduced, and the response recorded. In the first experiment, alpha wave data from a subset of ten electrodes and a single subject was used. In the original experiment, the subject was presented with a number of odors and the resulting brain electrical activity was resolved into 16 time slices (5 preceding presentation, 4 during presentation and 7 following presentation). Only data from frames 6, 7 and 8 (during presentation) was used here. A model was constructed to discriminate morning from afternoon responses. The network used measurements from 10 electrodes as input, and backpropagation was used for training. During training, the network was presented with responses to just one odor. Generalization was demonstrated for five other odors. The weights in the network have been analyzed and indicate a role for a specific group of electrode sites in this discrimination. The second experiment involved constructing a network to discriminate cortical EEG responses to two odors. In the original experiment from which we drew our data, fourteen subjects were presented with each odor once. Data from only the frame at first presentation of the odor were used here. Data from three subjects (chosen pseudo-randomly) was selected for use in the generalization phase and dropped from the training set. Output targets were constructed that took account of subjective ratings of `pleasantness.' A feed-forward network with twenty-eight input units was trained using data from the eleven remaining subjects, using conjugate gradient descent. © (1995) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Steve Van Toller

Papers

The effect of odour priming on long latency visual evoked potentials of matching and mismatching objects.

Emotion: Theory, research, and experience. Volume 3: Biological foundations of emotion : R. Plutchik and H. Kellerman (Eds.), (Academic Press, New York, 1986) pp. xxiv + 423, £40.50, £25.00 (paperback).

Brain electrical activity mapping: an exploratory study of infant response to odours

The application of EEG measurements to the study of sensory responses to odours.

Neural network model of cortical EEG response to olfactory stimuli