ERP Research On Emotional Influence Perception

Under normal conditions, if the physical properties of the external stimuli did not change, then our vision of the world is also stable. In 1983, the Swiss crystallographer Necker found out when observing a transparent geometric cube that it could produce two distinct image perceptions. The graphics that generate two different perceptions is called Ambiguous Images, and the way individuals transform between two different image perceptions is called perceptual reversal phenomenon. Since then researchers found various kinds of ambiguous images, such as Vase-Face, Staircase, Old Woman-Young Woman, etc. Ambiguous images presented an interesting phenomenon that when focusing on it for a long time, like the Necker Cube, we could percept distinct image perceptions at different times, despite its stable physical propertiesDue to the particularity of this phenomenon, ambiguous images and perceptual reversal becomes an important tool for researchers to explore the cognitive mechanism of visual perception. In decades, there has been extensive research on perceptual reversal in behavior performance, influencing factors, neurophysiology performance, etc. Among many ERP studies, researchers noticed a significant negative component evoked by perceptual reversal, about 300ms after presence of ambiguous image, which named as Reversal Negativity (RN). But due to the differences in aspects of research methods, technical means, stimulus type, etc., at present there is two controversial theory about perceptual reversal opposing to each other-the bottom-up and top-down processing. In the meanwhile, few researches focused on combining behavioral indicators and neurophysiology indexes to explore the influence of higher cognitive functions on perceptual reversal.Emotion, as a higher cognitive function, has a certain effect on attention, inhibition, memory. Effects of emotion on the cognition and behaviors have become a research focus in recent years, while there is no neurophysiological evidence of emotional impact on individual perceptual reversal.This study applies a high time resolution ERP technology to female Chinese college students. It has explored the effect of emotion on perceptual reversal with behavioral indicators and electrophysiological index, using emotional picture materials from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and the Internet to evoke emotion, and using Staircase as the perceptual reversal stimulus materials with discontinuous stimulus presentation paradigm.Results are as following:(1) There is significant difference among any two kinds of valence of positive, neutral, negative emotional pictures used in this study. The valence of positive emotional pictures is significantly higher than that of neutral emotional pictures, while the latter is also significantly higher than negative emotional pictures. No significant difference about the arousal of positive and negative emotional pictures. This study choose effective emotional pictures(2) Behavioral performance:no significant difference among the positive, neutral, negative emotional conditions was found on the rate of perceptual reversal.(3) Electrophysiology performance:Three-factor repeated measures analysis of variance revealed-whether perceptual reversal or not, emotion, brain regions (frontal, central, parietal, occipital)-main effect (perceptual reversal) is significant, and so is the interaction of the three factors. Two-factor repeated measures analysis of variance aimed at four brain areas revealed that there is interaction of emotion and whether reversal only in occipital region. Using Simple analysis shows that under reversal/non-reversal conditions, no significant difference among the positive, neutral, negative emotion. Analysis of the difference wave of N2 component in occipital region shows:positive/negative emotion condition has significant difference with neutral emotion condition in regard with the disparity of wave of reversal/non-reversal; under positive/negative emotion condition, the amplitude of the disparity of wave is significantly smaller than in neutral emotion condition, that is positive/negative emotion condition induced stronger reversal effect.