Background
Little is known of the emergence of affect from the initial milliseconds to a conscious emotion. Also, it is not understood how cortical regions contribute to this process, and how different sensory systems interact during the emergence of affect. This study aims to address the above-mentioned aspects by comparing the patterns of activation in the visual and auditory cortices during perception of emotional, visual and auditory stimuli when primed with a stimulus from the opposing sensory domain. The study is hoped to contribute to the dynamical systems modelling of affect.
Research questions
Is there an interaction effect between visual and auditory cortices in relation to the primer modality (visual vs. auditory) and emotional arousal-valence dimension (low vs. high)? Are behavioural priming effects manifested differently depending on the target-primer combination?
Method
An affective priming paradigm with magnetoencephalography was used to measure whether semantically meaningful emotional pictures and sounds can be used to prime the pleasantness judgement of musical chords and black and white visual patterns. MEG (evoked field) and behavioural responses (reaction times) were measured in 20 participants.
Results
The data collection has been completed and the analysis is currently being conducted. It is hypothesized that the judgements of the auditory stimuli will be primed, as indexed by a shorter response latency and modification of the late ERP responses. It is also expected that the judgement of the visual stimuli is less susceptible to priming. Due to contradicting literature, the interaction effect of the visual and auditory cortices remains exploratory.