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Journal ArticleDOI

Effects of mood on the speed of conscious perception: behavioural and electrophysiological evidence

TL;DR: The effect of mood on the speed of conscious perception seems to depend on changes in oscillatory brain activity, rendering the cognitive system more or less sensitive to incoming stimuli.
Abstract: When a visual stimulus is quickly followed in time by a second visual stimulus, we are normally unable to perceive it consciously. This study examined how affective states influence this temporal limit of conscious perception. Using a masked visual perception task, we found that the temporal threshold for access to consciousness is decreased in negative mood and increased in positive mood. To identify the brain mechanisms associated with this effect, we analysed brain oscillations. The mood-induced differences in perception performance were associated with differences in ongoing alpha power (around 10 Hz) before stimulus presentation. Additionally, after stimulus presentation, the better performance during negative mood was associated with enhanced global coordination of neuronal activity of theta oscillations (around 5 Hz). Thus, the effect of mood on the speed of conscious perception seems to depend on changes in oscillatory brain activity, rendering the cognitive system more or less sensitive to incoming stimuli.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The present article reviews recent findings on the role of prestimulus alpha oscillatory activity for visual perception and incorporates these results into a neurocognitive model that is able to account for various findings in temporal attention paradigms, specifically the attentional blink.

316 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors used principal component analysis (PCA), reliability analyses, and linear regression analysis to study the relationship between personal, social and building factors and perceived comfort.

228 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that during ongoing visual perception, the brain is generating top-down predictions to facilitate, guide and constrain the processing of incoming sensory input, and that these predictions are drawn from a diverse range of cognitive processes, in order to generate the richest and most informative prediction signals.

120 citations


Cites background from "Effects of mood on the speed of con..."

  • ...The temporal course for visual information entering conscious awareness is also found to be modulated by positive versus negative mood induction (Kuhbandner et al., 2009)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It appears that emotional processing of social stimuli involves elaborative processing requiring frontal lobe activity, and the interconnection between the amygdala and visual cortex supports enhanced attention allocation to biological stimuli.
Abstract: The present study addressed the hypothesis that emotional stimuli relevant to survival or reproduction (biologically emotional stimuli) automatically affect cognitive processing (eg, attention, memory), while those relevant to social life (socially emotional stimuli) require elaborative processing to modulate attention and memory Results of our behavioral studies showed that (1) biologically emotional images hold attention more strongly than do socially emotional images, (2) memory for biologically emotional images was enhanced even with limited cognitive resources, but (3) memory for socially emotional images was enhanced only when people had sufficient cognitive resources at encoding Neither images’ subjective arousal nor their valence modulated these patterns A subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging study revealed that biologically emotional images induced stronger activity in the visual cortex and greater functional connectivity between the amygdala and visual cortex than did socially emotional images These results suggest that the interconnection between the amygdala and visual cortex supports enhanced attention allocation to biological stimuli In contrast, socially emotional images evoked greater activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and yielded stronger functional connectivity between the amygdala and MPFC than did biological images Thus, it appears that emotional processing of social stimuli involves elaborative processing requiring frontal lobe activity

95 citations


Additional excerpts

  • ...In terms of valence, positive and negative emotions differ in how they affect various kinds of cognitive processing: memory encoding (Kensinger, 2009; Mather & Carstensen, 2005; Mickley & Kensinger, 2008; Ochsner, 2000; Talmi, Schimmack, Paterson, & Moscovitch, 2007), the scope of attention (Fenske & Eastwood, 2003; Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005; Rowe, Hirsh, & Anderson, 2007), cognitive flexibility (Isen & Daubman, 1984; Isen, Johnson, Mertz, & Robinson, 1985), creative problem solving (Isen, Daubman, & Nowicki, 1987; Subramaniam, Kounios, Parrish, & JungBeeman, 2009), cognitive control (Dreisbach, 2006), knowledge retrieval (Bäum & Kuhbandner, 2007), and perceptual processing (Kuhbandner et al., 2009)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors performed a literature review on the emotional effects of multisensory stimulation and proposed a conceptual framework that describes how environmental interventions are likely to affect human emotional responses.
Abstract: How we perceive our environment affects the way we feel and behave. The impressions of our ambient environment are influenced by its entire spectrum of physical characteristics (e.g., luminosity, sound, scents, temperature) in a dynamic and interactive way. The ability to manipulate the sensory aspects of an environment such that people feel comfortable or exhibit a desired behavior is gaining interest and social relevance. Although much is known about the sensory effects of individual environmental characteristics, their combined effects are not a priori evident due to a wide range of non-linear interactions in the processing of sensory cues. As a result, it is currently not known how different environmental characteristics should be combined to effectively induce desired emotional and behavioral effects. To gain more insight into this matter, we performed a literature review on the emotional effects of multisensory stimulation. Although we found some interesting mechanisms, the outcome also reveals that empirical evidence is still scarce and haphazard. To stimulate further discussion and research, we propose a conceptual framework that describes how environmental interventions are likely to affect human emotional responses. This framework leads to some critical research questions that suggest opportunities for further investigation.

90 citations


Cites background from "Effects of mood on the speed of con..."

  • ...This means that the human response is not only a function of stimulus patterns but also affected by personal traits, knowledge, expectations, and the initial emotional state of a person (Kuhbandner et al., 2009)....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.
Abstract: In this article, the author describes a new theoretical perspective on positive emotions and situates this new perspective within the emerging field of positive psychology. The broaden-and-build theory posits that experiences of positive emotions broaden people's momentary thought-action repertoires, which in turn serves to build their enduring personal resources, ranging from physical and intellectual resources to social and psychological resources. Preliminary empirical evidence supporting the broaden-and-build theory is reviewed, and open empirical questions that remain to be tested are identified. The theory and findings suggest that the capacity to experience positive emotions may be a fundamental human strength central to the study of human flourishing.

9,580 citations


"Effects of mood on the speed of con..." refers background in this paper

  • ...In contrast, positive mood usually signals safe situations wherein fast and accurate monitoring of the external word is not necessary, implying that we can impose our internalized representations derived from past experiences on our perception of the environment (Fredrickson, 2001)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is argued that whereas long‐scale effects do reflect cognitive processing, short‐scale synchronies are likely to be due to volume conduction, and ways to separate such conduction effects from true signal synchrony are discussed.
Abstract: This article presents, for the first time, a practical method for the direct quantification of frequency-specific synchronization (i.e., transient phase-locking) between two neuroelectric signals. The motivation for its development is to be able to examine the role of neural synchronies as a putative mechanism for long-range neural integration during cognitive tasks. The method, called phase-locking statistics (PLS), measures the significance of the phase covariance between two signals with a reasonable time-resolution (,100 ms). Unlike the more traditional method of spectral coherence, PLS separates the phase and amplitude components and can be directly interpreted in the framework of neural integration. To validate synchrony values against background fluctuations, PLS uses surrogate data and thus makes no a priori assumptions on the nature of the experimental data. We also apply PLS to investigate intracortical recordings from an epileptic patient performing a visual discrimination task. We find large-scale synchronies in the gamma band (45 Hz), e.g., between hippocampus and frontal gyrus, and local synchronies, within a limbic region, a few cm apart. We argue that whereas long-scale effects do reflect cognitive processing, short-scale synchronies are likely to be due to volume conduction. We discuss ways to separate such conduction effects from true signal synchrony. Hum Brain Mapping 8:194-208, 1999. r 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

3,397 citations


"Effects of mood on the speed of con..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Several prior studies have shown that such an approach largely diminishes the contribution of volume conduction (e.g. Lachaux et al., 1999)....

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  • ...The PLV is a measure of phase coupling between two electrodes and ranges from 0 (no phase coupling) to 1 (perfect phase coupling; Lachaux et al., 1999)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The general conclusion is that alpha ERS plays an active role for the inhibitory control and timing of cortical processing whereas ERD reflects the gradual release of inhibition associated with the emergence of complex spreading activation processes.

3,261 citations


"Effects of mood on the speed of con..." refers background in this paper

  • ...Several studies suggest that the amplitude of ongoing activity in the alpha frequency range (around 10 Hz) modulates the way incoming information is processed (Ray and Cole, 1985; Klimesch et al., 2007)....

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  • ...Together, these findings have led to the hypothesis that alpha oscillations represent an active top-down driven filter mechanism by regulating excitation and inhibition of the cortex (Klimesch et al., 2007)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Two experiments with 104 college students tested the broaden‐and‐build theory, which hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought‐action repertoires and negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought‐ action repertoires.
Abstract: The broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001) hypothesises that positive emotions broaden the scope of attention and thought-action repertoires. Two experiments with 104 college students tested these hypotheses. In each, participants viewed a film that elicited (a) amusement, (b) contentment, (c) neutrality, (d) anger, or (e) anxiety. Scope of attention was assessed using a global-local visual processing task (Experiment 1) and thought-action repertoires were assessed using a Twenty Statements Test (Experiment 2). Compared to a neutral state, positive emotions broadened the scope of attention in Experiment 1 and thought-action repertoires in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrowed thought-action repertoires. Implications for promoting emotional well-being and physical health are discussed.

2,905 citations


"Effects of mood on the speed of con..." refers background in this paper

  • ...For instance, individuals in positive moods have been shown to process incoming information in a global manner at the expense of local details (e.g. Fredrickson and Branigan, 2005), to use schemas and stereotypes to fill in blanks during information processing (e.g. Bodenhausen, 1993; Bless et al.,…...

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A new study builds on classic studies of divided visual attention to examine inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes and suggests that the likelihood of noticing an unexpected object depends on the similarity of that object to other objects in the display and on how difficult the priming monitoring task is.
Abstract: With each eye fixation, we experience a richly detailed visual world. Yet recent work on visual integration and change direction reveals that we are surprisingly unaware of the details of our environment from one view to the next: we often do not detect large changes to objects and scenes ('change blindness'). Furthermore, without attention, we may not even perceive objects ('inattentional blindness'). Taken together, these findings suggest that we perceive and remember only those objects and details that receive focused attention. In this paper, we briefly review and discuss evidence for these cognitive forms of 'blindness'. We then present a new study that builds on classic studies of divided visual attention to examine inattentional blindness for complex objects and events in dynamic scenes. Our results suggest that the likelihood of noticing an unexpected object depends on the similarity of that object to other objects in the display and on how difficult the priming monitoring task is. Interestingly, spatial proximity of the critical unattended object to attended locations does not appear to affect detection, suggesting that observers attend to objects and events, not spatial positions. We discuss the implications of these results for visual representations and awareness of our visual environment.

2,470 citations

Trending Questions (1)
What are the effects of mood on perception?

Negative mood can speed up the formation of a conscious percept, while positive mood can slow it down. This is based on mood-induced changes in ongoing alpha activity, affecting how information is processed.