Analysis of EEG variables to measure the affective dimensions of arousal and valence related to the vision of emotional pictures

The present work aims to investigate the electroencephalographic (EEG) activity elicited by the observation of emotional pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) database. We analyzed the evoked activity within time intervals of increasing duration taking into account the related ratings of Valence and Arousal. The scalp statistical maps of Power Spectral Density (PSD), related to pictures with high valence, revealed an enhanced activity across frontal areas in the theta band and the involvement of fronto-parietal circuits in the alpha band. Difference in the processing of low and high arousing pictures, however, seems to be highly dependent on the valence dimension: for low valenced pictures, the difference in arousal was processed immediately after the observation of the picture, while for the high-valenced ones the processing took part in the second part of the observation. These results appear to be congruent with the literature, while the novelty of the current study is represented by the comparison of the activity elicited in different time windows by both the Arousal and Valence dimensions. It is possible, in this way, to observe how the processing of one variable influences the other, creating a dynamic description of the Valence-Arousal space.

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