Evoked cortical responses to affective visual stimuli.

The influence of affective meaning on visual evoked responses was investigated in male college students. By utilization of conditioning procedures, previously meaningless figures (CS) acquired affective loadings, e.g., positive, negative, and neutral. The semantic differential scale and critical flicker interval (CFI) were used as indices of conditioning. Although conditioning occurred without awareness, both measures of conditioning yielded results in the same direction, and all three affective conditions differed significantly from one another. Averaged evoked responses were obtained for each affective stimulus. Amplitudes were found to differ significantly from one another in all three conditions, the unpleasant stimulus eliciting the lowest evoked response, and the neutral condition evoking the highest amplitude. Significantly shorter latencies were obtained for the unpleasant stimulus, whereas the latencies of the positive and neutral stimuli did not differ significantly from each other. The results suggest a direct influence of the emotional centers (limbic system) on the visual perception of affective stimuli. Further studies were suggested to clarify the role of awareness and the specific modalities involved in conditioning.

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