Authors:
Stefania Coelli
;
Pierluigi Reali
and
Anna Maria Bianchi
Affiliation:
Department of Electronics Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Keyword(s):
Event-Related Potential, Heart Rate, Emotions.
Abstract:
Emotions are psychological responses to stimuli that can induce measurable variations in physiological parameters. While actual emotions span a continuum spectrum, they can be grouped into a finite number of classes or modeled in terms of independent dimensions, the most common of which are arousal (low to high) and valence (positive, neutral, and negative). In this work, we investigated the modulation of physiological parameters related to both the central (CNS) and the autonomic (ANS) nervous systems induced by passive and sustained affective stimulation. Specifically, an Event-Related Potential (ERP) analysis was conducted to explore the effect of the arousal and valence dimensions on cortical activation. Meanwhile, their influence on the ANS activity was evaluated through time-domain heart rate (HR) parameters. When high arousal stimuli are delivered, the experiment revealed that specific ERP components (i.e., P300 and the late positive potential, LPP) are modulated by the valenc
e dimension, with positive and negative images inducing a stronger response than neutral stimuli. Instead, the early posterior negativity (EPN) was found to be influenced by the stimulus arousal but not by the valence of the processed pictures. Finally, HR parameters were principally modulated by the valence of the stimulation, in line with the observed ERP changes and expectations from the literature.
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