The Conflict Reaction Of Mixed Emotions Processing

Mixed emotions is a psychological phenomenon about affective. We may analyze this term from the courses and mechanisms of emotional processing:the brain first received two conflicting emotional cues from external or internal part, and then identify them and make the perceptual analysis. On the basis of systematic processing of sub cortical structures and cortical brain regions, we begin to have a series of emotional reactions, including physiological responses, behavioral responses, subjective experience etc.Our research is based on the processing of emotions. It reveals the conflict reactions and the mechanism regulated by attention of the mixed emotions from the aspect of the behavioral responses and electrophysiological responses. We also explore the time course and processing stages of the brain, as well as how much does the processing depend on the level of consciousness. To examine the problems above, six studies have been designed in this article. Study1is the pilot experiment. It is focused on the localized revision and standardized assessment of the pictures picked up from the International Affective Picture System (LAPS) and partly non-standardized pictures. Then the appropriate pictures screened could be used for the subsequent series of experiments. Study2, study3and study4mainly explore the conflict effect and the mechanism regulated by attention in the processing of mixed emotions. Study5and study6examine the processing mechanisms of brain when participants are exposed to mixed emotional stimuli in subliminal and supraliminal conditions separately.Firstly, we focus on the localized revision and standardized assessment of the pictures picked up from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the other non-standardized pictures. The result of study1suggests that IAPS has good international versatility, but there are cultural differences in the specific evaluation results. Among pictures of IAPS, neutral and negative pictures are stable and versatile. We have to consider about the cultural differences some of the positive pictures are applied, that is to say these pictures should be screened in accordance with the local assessment results.In study2and study3, the word-face Stroop paradigm is applied. The results suggest that both the single judgment task and the valence consistency judgment task show emotional conflict effect obviously. In study4, we apply the emotional picture-pairs paradigm. The participants have to determine their feelings on the whole, and then make their choice as fast and accurate as possible after the stimuli disappear. The reaction time of participants is significantly slower when the stimuli are conflict ones. It reveals that the opposite emotional representation is activated by the conflict emotional stimuli, which results in the competition about the same neural resources. Reaction time of the subjects is longer and the accuracy is lower. This is the so-called emotional conflict effect.We apply the single judgment task and the valence consistency judgment task to study3to make the attention allocated. The results demonstrate that both the bias and the equivalent allocations of attention generate the emotional conflict effect. But in the latter condition, the effect is stronger. In study4, we allocate the attention with the spatial cues. Attention is instructed to be allocated unequally by the bias cues and be equivalent allocated by the neutral cues. Eventually, we got the same conclusion to study4. It reveals that the provocation of mixed emotions is adjusted by the resources of attention. The similar attention resources of two conflict stimuli get, the conflict effect is stronger, and the intensity of mixed emotions is stronger, too.In Study5and study6, we use the event-related potentials (ERPs) with high temporal resolution to explore how the mixed emotional stimuli processed in the conscious level and subliminal level. The results of study5demonstrate that in the early stage of the Nl and P2components, the brain mainly discerns and analyzes the physical characteristics of the stimuli. While during the stage of N2, the emotional information is processed initially. It illustrates the "emotional effect". But the emotional conflict effect does not appear until the Conflict SP component of the late stage. The results of study6show that the processing of the mixed emotion stimuli in the subliminal level does not generate emotional conflict effect obviously. It suggests that the processing of the mixed emotions depends on the levels of consciousness. In the subliminal level, the attention is very deficient, thus the emotional reactions induced by conflicting stimuli are limited and the emotional conflict effect is too weak to reach to the consciousness. However, the studies prompt that the brain is automatically sensitive to the conflicting emotional stimuli, and it mainly reflects in the sequential effect in the late processing stage (550-900ms).Generally speaking, we get several conclusions in this article.First, the conflicting emotional stimuli may induce mixed emotions. It generates emotional conflict effect, which is common and stable. Even though a small part of the conflict emotion stimuli get processed in the level of consciousness, emotional conflict effect can be elicitedSecond, the induction and the intensity of mixed emotions are adjusted by the resources of attention. The more adequate attention do the emotional stimuli get, the stronger emotional reaction do they elicit. The more similar resources of attention do the conflict stimuli get, the stronger is the mixed emotions.Third, both in the word-face Stroop paradigm and the subliminal processing studies, we find the reverse sequential adjustment effect of the emotional conflict. It suggests that the processing of conflicting stimuli in mind is affected by several factors, such as experimental task, the characteristics of stimuli and the level of consciousness.Fourth, the brain discerns and processes the emotional information of the stimuli in the middle stage (i.e. the N2component, in230-260ms), but the conflicting effect of mixed emotions mainly shows in the late stage of the processing (i.e. the Conflict SP component, in the700-1000ms)Fifth, the processing of mixed emotions depends on the level of consciousness, but the brain is automatically sensitive to the conflicting emotional information.