Probing picture perception: Activation and emotion
PsychophysiologyPublished 1 March 1996
Bruce N. Cuthbert, Margaret M. Bradleym, Peter J. Lang
Citations411
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.26
SNIP1.22
Generate an AI Snapshot to get a quick, structured summary of this paper.
Study Snapshot
ObjectiveStudy objective
MethodsResearch methodology
PopulationPopulation studied
Sample sizeSample sizes
OutcomesStudy outcomes here
ResultsStudy results comes here
LimitationsResearch study limitations comes here
A concise AI-generated summary of the paper will appear here once you click Generate AI Snapshot.
TL;DR
Both blink potentiation during unpleasant content and blink diminution during pleasant content were clearly strongest for picture contents high in arousal.
Abstract
When acoustic startle probes are presented during picture viewing, the blink reflex is augmented for unpleasant foreground stimuli and reduced during pleasant stimuli. The present experiment assessed the hypothesis that this affect-startle effect increases as pictures are judged to be more arousing. Eyeblinks elicited by startle probes of three different intensities were recorded while subjects viewed pictures varying in both pleasure (pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant) and arousal (low, moderate, and high). Both blink potentiation during unpleasant content and blink diminution during pleasant content were clearly strongest for picture contents high in arousal. The effect was present for all probe intensities tested.
Keywords
Neuroscience
Journal of the American Medical AssociationThe Organization of Behavior: A Neuropsychological Theory
4,240 Citations1950Therese Mahoney, Margaret Halliday +339 more
PsychophysiologyLooking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions
3,197 Citations1993Peter J. Lang, Mark K. Greenwald +2 more
Responsibility specificity, particularly facial expressiveness, supported the view that specific affects have unique patterns of reactivity, and consistency of the dimensional relationships between evaluative judgments and physiological response emphasizes that emotion is fundamentally organized by these motivational parameters.
Psychological ReviewEmotion, attention, and the startle reflex.
2,118 Citations1990Peter J. Lang, Margaret M. Bradley +1 more
The startle response (an aversive reflex) is enhanced during a fear state and is diminished in a pleasant emotional context and the effect is found when affects are prompted by pictures or memory images, changes appropriately with aversive conditioning, and may be dependent on right-hemisphere processing.
Psychological BulletinAffect and memory: A review.
1,677 Citations1986Paul H. Blaney
A critical review of the empirical literature on the role of depression and elation in biasing mnemonic processing finds two classes of effects—state dependence and mood congruence—are examined.
PsychophysiologyThe Continuing Problem of False Positives in Repeated Measures ANOVA in Psychophysiology: A Multivariate Solution
1,069 Citations1987Michael W. Vasey, Julian F. Thayer
A discussion of the validity assumptions for both overall and sub-effect tests and a multivariate approach which allows exact analysis of such designs are offered and a modification of the univariate approach is also described.
Journal of Abnormal PsychologyEmotion in the criminal psychopath: Startle reflex modulation.
742 Citations1993Christopher J. Patrick, Margaret M. Bradley +1 more
Cognition & EmotionCognitive-Emotional Interactions in the Brain
601 Citations1989Joseph E. LeDoux
Emotional experiences, it is proposed, result when stimulus representations, affect representations, and self representations coincide in working memory.
Journal of Abnormal PsychologyThe startle probe response: A new measure of emotion?
548 Citations1988Scott R. Vrana, Ellen L. Spence +1 more
PsychophysiologyStartle Reflex Modification: Emotion or Attention?
406 Citations1990Margaret M. Bradley, Bruce N. Cuthbert +1 more
Analysis of reflex response and all ancillary measures supported the hypothesis that the primary determinant of startle modulation was the emotional valence of foreground content.
PsychophysiologyIndividual Differences in Autonomic Response: Conditioned Association or Conditioned Fear?
356 Citations1985Robert Hodes, Edwin W. Cook +1 more
Moderate Decelerators produced mixed results across the several psychophysiological and verbal measures of conditioning, resembling Accelerators in their verbal report change, and Decelerator in their rapid electrodermal extinction.
Behavioral NeuroscienceEmotion, novelty, and the startle reflex: Habituation in humans.
349 Citations1993Margaret M. Bradley, Peter Lang +1 more
PsychophysiologyFear and the startle reflex: Blink modulation and autonomic response patterns in animal and mutilation fearful subjects
313 Citations1997Alfons O. Hamm, Bruce N. Cuthbert +2 more
Exposure to pictures of feared objects resulted in a consistent startle reflex potentiation and behavioral avoidance in both fear groups, suggesting that the probe startle response indexes the organism's basic motivational disposition and add new information to the assessment of fear.
Behavioral NeurosciencePharmacological and anatomical analysis of fear conditioning using the fear-potentiated startle paradigm.
310 Citations1986Michael Davis
Behavioral, anatomical, physiological, and pharmacological analysis of fear conditioning using the fear-potentiated startle paradigm are reviewed, and it should soon be possible to determine each neural pathway that is required for a stimulus signaling fear to alter startle behavior.
Journal of Experimental Psychology Animal Behavior ProcessesConditioned fear and startle magnitude: Effects of different footshock or backshock intensities used in training.
280 Citations1978Michael Davis, David I. Astrachan
The results suggest that acoustic startle bears an inverted U-shaped relationship to fear and are discussed in relation to other studies concerned with this issue.
NeuropsychologyParsing affective space: Perspectives from neuropsychology and psychophysiology.
251 Citations1993Richard J. Davidson
Behavioral NeuroscienceSensitization of the acoustic startle reflex by footshock.
228 Citations1989Michael T. Davis
Footshocks increased startle in rats not previously given startle-eliciting stimuli, indicating sensitization rather than dishabituation, and may represent the unconditioned effect of shock that can become associated with a neutral stimulus to support classical fear conditioning.
PsychophysiologyDigital Filtering: Background and Tutorial for Psychophysiologists
191 Citations1992Edwin W. Cook, Gregory A. Miller
An introduction to digital filtering is offered here to foster the explicit design and use of digital filters and to clarify basic concepts important to both analog and digital filtering.
PsychophysiologyResting EEG in first‐episode and chronic schizophrenia
190 Citations1994Scott R. Sponheim, Brett A. Clementz +2 more
Psychological ScienceA Motivational Analysis of Emotion: Reflex-Cortex Connections
181 Citations1992Peter J. Lang, Margaret M. Bradley +1 more
The neurobehavioral foundations of this conception are presented, and the implications of probe analysis are elucidated for theories of emotion organization, the assessment of mood, and practical applications in psychopathology and neurological disorder.
PsychophysiologyFearfulness and Startle Potentiation during Aversive Visual Stimuli
158 Citations1992Edwin W. Cook, Tammy L. Davis +3 more
The results support the hypothesis that affective modulation of startle is enhanced among high fear compared to low fear subjects and suggest that this individual difference effect generalizes across psychophysiological components of the startle reflex and diverse procedures for manipulating affect.
PsychophysiologyStartle and Emotion: Lateral Acoustic Probes and the Bilateral Blink
120 Citations1991Margaret M. Bradley, Brucse N. Cuthbert +1 more
Findings suggest that the startle probe indexes emotional processing that is lateralized in the central nervous system, and is therefore likely to be independent of attention or interest.
Child DevelopmentAffective Influences on Startle in Five-Month-Old Infants: Reactions to Facial Expressions of Emotion
107 Citations1995Marie T. Balaban
Results suggest that, by 5 months, infants react to affective information conveyed by unfamiliar human faces, and potential mechanisms mediating the influence of affective stimuli on reflex excitability are considered.
Physiological PsychologyEarly selective attention effects on cutaneous and acoustic blink reflexes
106 Citations1983Steven A. Hackley, Frances K. Graham
In two experiments, selective modulation of the human blink reflex was examined by direct ing subjects to judge duration of the startling or nonstartling member of an acoustic-cutaneous stimulus pair, and Hillyard and Naatanen suggested that a selective state was "already prevailing" at the moment of stimulus de livery.
PsychophysiologyLateralized startle probes in the study of emotion
63 Citations1996Margaret M. Bradley, Bruce N. Cuthbert +1 more
Modulatory differences in reflex magnitude between pleasant and unpleasant stimuli were consistently large and reliable for reflexes elicited by left ear probes but weak and unreliable for Reflexes eliciting by right ear probes.
PsychophysiologyEngaging Visual Stimuli and Reflex Blink Modification
55 Citations1985Robert F. Simons, Michael F. Zelson
The successful use of EOG techniques to record the eyeblink component of the startle reflex and capture its sensitivity to the attentional manipulation suggests that the probe startle paradigm may be readily put to use in a wide variety of psychophysiological laboratories.
PsychophysiologyA Comparison Between Commercially Available Electrode Gels and Purpose‐Made Gel, in the Measurement of Electrodermal Activity
30 Citations1984Susan Grey, Brian L. Smith
Analysis of variance showed a significant between-gels effect for prestimulus conductance levels, with Beckman and Neptic giving higher levels than K-Y Jelly or 0.05M, as predicted.