The thematic Apperception Test: Facial, autonomic, and behavioral affective responses in normal adults

Social cognitive neuroscience (SCN) is a fledgling, interdisciplinary field making many new discoveries. Questions remain unanswered regarding domain specificity of social cognition, the overlap of social cognition and emotion, and the best methods for research in SCN (Adolphs, 2001, 2003b). This study used a method proposed by Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, and Hamm (1993) to measure psychophysiological reactions (e.g., facial electromyography, EMG, and skin conductance response, SCR) in 30 graduate students to 6 Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) cards with the following research goals in mind: (a) to gain better understanding of the normal emotional impact of social information in TAT cards; (b) to gather information about whether it is possible to determine the nature of emotional responses to the social significance of TAT pictures independent of verbal narratives; (c) to look for consistent patterns of physiological and reported affective response for use as an index of normal socioemotional processing; and (d) to help establish a reliable methodology for investigating social difficulties in people with brain abnormalities. Data revealed that TAT cards elicit emotions as measured by verbal ratings of affective valence and arousal as well as by facial EMG and SCR measures. Elimination of people in the cards reduced emotion, while presence of people in them increased affect intensity and arousal. TAT cards were mostly rated as unpleasant and significant differences were found for the interaction of card and social information for the left side of the face (e.g., hemiface). These findings support right hemispheric involvement with negative emotional experiences, and provide support for use of psychophysiological responses to TAT cards as a new methodology for addressing questions regarding processing social information.