The effect of top-down attention on empathy fatigue.

Prolonged exposure to others' suffering can lead to empathy fatigue, especially when individuals struggle to effectively regulate their empathic capacity. Shifting active attention away from emotional components toward cognitive components of others' suffering is an effective strategy for mitigating empathy fatigue. This research investigated how top-down attentional manipulation modulates empathy fatigue in both auditory (Study 1) and visual (Study 2) modalities. Participants completed two tasks in both studies: (i) the attention to cognitive empathy task (A-C task) and (ii) the attention to emotional empathy task (A-E task). Each task included three blocks (Time Block 1, Time Block 2, and Time Block 3) designed to induce empathy fatigue. Study 1 revealed that the A-C task reduced empathy fatigue and N1 amplitudes than the A-E task in Time Block 3, indicating that attention to cognitive empathy might decrease auditory empathy fatigue. Study 2 indicates that the A-C task caused a longer N2 latency than the A-E task, signifying a decelerated emotional empathic response when attention was on cognitive empathy in the visual modality. Overall, prioritizing cognitive empathy seems to conserve mental resources and reduce empathy fatigue. This research documented the relationship between top-down attention and empathy fatigue and the possible neural mechanism.

Memory-related brain potentials for visual objects in early AD show impairment and compensatory mechanisms.

Impaired episodic memory is the primary feature of early Alzheimer's disease (AD), but not all memories are equally affected. Patients with AD and amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI) remember pictures better than words, to a greater extent than healthy elderly. We investigated neural mechanisms for visual object recognition in 30 patients (14 AD, 16 aMCI) and 36 cognitively unimpaired healthy (19 in the "preclinical" stage of AD). Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a visual object recognition task. Hippocampal occupancy (integrity), amyloid (florbetapir) PET, and neuropsychological measures of verbal & visual memory, executive function were also collected. A right-frontal ERP recognition effect (500-700 ms post-stimulus) was seen in cognitively unimpaired participants only, and significantly correlated with memory and executive function abilities. A later right-posterior negative ERP effect (700-900 ms) correlated with visual memory abilities across participants with low verbal memory ability, and may reflect a compensatory mechanism. A correlation of this retrieval-related negativity with right hippocampal occupancy (r = 0.55), implicates the hippocampus in the engagement of compensatory perceptual retrieval mechanisms. Our results suggest that early AD patients are impaired in goal-directed retrieval processing, but may engage compensatory perceptual mechanisms which rely on hippocampal function.

Implicit weight bias: shared neural substrates for overweight and angry facial expressions revealed by cross-adaptation.

The perception of facial expression plays a crucial role in social communication, and it is known to be influenced by various facial cues. Previous studies have reported both positive and negative biases toward overweight individuals. It is unclear whether facial cues, such as facial weight, bias facial expression perception. Combining psychophysics and event-related potential technology, the current study adopted a cross-adaptation paradigm to examine this issue. The psychophysical results of Experiments 1A and 1B revealed a bidirectional cross-adaptation effect between overweight and angry faces. Adapting to overweight faces decreased the likelihood of perceiving ambiguous emotional expressions as angry compared to adapting to normal-weight faces. Likewise, exposure to angry faces subsequently caused normal-weight faces to appear thinner. These findings were corroborated by bidirectional event-related potential results, showing that adaptation to overweight faces relative to normal-weight faces modulated the event-related potential responses of emotionally ambiguous facial expression (Experiment 2A); vice versa, adaptation to angry faces relative to neutral faces modulated the event-related potential responses of ambiguous faces in facial weight (Experiment 2B). Our study provides direct evidence associating overweight faces with facial expression, suggesting at least partly common neural substrates for the perception of overweight and angry faces.

Group membership modulates empathic neural responses to pain in deaf individuals.

Empathy deficiencies are prevalent among deaf individuals. It has yet to be determined whether they exhibit an ingroup bias in empathic responses. This study employed explicit and implicit empathy tasks (i.e. attention-to-pain-cue [A-P] task and attention-to-nonpain-cue [A-N] task) to explore the temporal dynamics of neural activities when deaf individuals were processing painful/nonpainful stimuli from both ingroup models (deaf people) and outgroup models (hearing people), which aims to not only assist deaf individuals in gaining a deeper understanding of their intergroup empathy traits but also to aid in the advancement of inclusive education. In the A-P task, we found that (i) ingroup priming accelerated the response speed to painful/nonpainful pictures; (ii) the N2 amplitude of painful pictures was significantly more negative than that of nonpainful pictures in outgroup priming trials, whereas the N2 amplitude difference between painful and nonpainful pictures was not significant in ingroup priming trials. For N1 amplitude of the A-N task, we have similar findings. However, this pattern was reversed for P3/late positive component amplitude of the A-P task. These results suggest that the deaf individuals had difficulty in judging whether hearing individuals were in pain. However, their group identification and affective responses could shape the relatively early stage of pain empathy.

The influence of self-esteem on interpersonal and competence evaluations: electrophysiological evidence from an ERP study.

Using event-related potentials, this study examined how self-esteem affects neural responses to competence (interpersonal) feedback when the need for relatedness (competence) is thwarted or met. Participants with low and high self-esteem acted as advisors who selected one of two options for a putative advisee. Subsequently, they passively observed the advisee, accepted, or rejected their advice (i.e. interpersonal feedback) and received correct or incorrect outcomes (i.e. competence feedback). When interpersonal feedback was followed by competence feedback, high self-esteem participants showed a smaller P3 following incorrect than correct outcomes, irrespective of whether the advice had been accepted or rejected. However, low self-esteem participants showed this P3 effect only when the advice was rejected, and the P3 difference disappeared when the advice was accepted. When competence feedback was followed by interpersonal feedback, both low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals showed a larger P2 for rejection than for acceptance and a larger late potential component for incorrect than correct outcomes. These findings suggest that when interpersonal feedback is followed by competence feedback, low self-esteem and high self-esteem individuals have a desire for self-positivity. When competence feedback is followed by interpersonal feedback, they may have motives for self-change. Our findings shed light on the motivational mechanisms for self-esteem and feedback.

High- and low-social-anxiety individuals process the outcomes of ability comparisons differently: an event-related potential study.

Individuals engage in upward or downward comparisons with superiors or inferiors, respectively. Social comparison is associated with social anxiety. Utilizing event-related potentials, we investigated how individuals with high social anxiety (HSA) and low social anxiety (LSA) evaluate self- versus other-outcomes in upward and downward comparison contexts. We found significant valence effects of self- or other-outcomes on feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P300 for both groups, with loss inducing larger FRN and smaller P300 than gain. In the early stage, the valence effect of other-outcomes was significant when LSA participants gained money, but not when they lost money, revealing a social comparison effect on FRN. Conversely, this valence effect was significant whether HSA participants gained or lost money. At the late stage, the valence effect of other-outcomes was significant when HSA or LSA participants gained money but not when they lost, revealing social comparison effects on the P300. Notably, only the social comparison effect in the LSA group was further moderated by comparison direction. These findings suggest that LSA participants engaged in social comparison throughout all evaluation stages, whereas HSA participants started at the late stage. Moreover, LSA participants were more sensitive to different comparison directions in the late stage.

An event-related potential study of prepotent motor activity and response inhibition deficits in schizophrenia.

Response inhibition deficits in schizophrenia (SZ) are accompanied by reduced neural activities using event-related potential (ERP) measurements. However, it remains unclear whether the reduction in inhibition-related ERPs in SZ is contingent upon prepotent motor tendencies. This study aimed to examine the relationship between ERP markers of prepotent motor activity (lateralised readiness potential, LRP) and response inhibition (P3) by collecting behavioural and EEG data from healthy control (HC) subjects and SZ patients during a modified Go/No-Go task. A trial-averaged analysis revealed that SZ patients made more commission errors in No-Go trials compared with HC subjects, although there was no significant difference in the inhibition-related P3 effect (i.e. larger P3 amplitudes in No-Go compared with Go trials) between the two groups. Subsequently, No-Go trials were sorted and median-split into bins of stronger and weaker motor tendencies. Both HC and SZ participants made more commission errors when faced with stronger motor tendencies. The LRP-sorted P3 data indicated that HC subjects exhibited larger P3 effects in response to stronger motor tendencies, whereas this trial-by-trial association between P3 and motor tendencies was absent in SZ patients. Furthermore, SZ patients displayed diminished P3 effects in No-Go trials with stronger motor tendencies but not in trials with weaker motor tendencies, relative to HC subjects. Taken together, these findings suggest that SZ patients are unable to dynamically adjust inhibition-related neural activities in response to changing inhibitory control demands and emphasise the importance of considering prepotent motor activity when investigating the neural mechanisms underlying response inhibition deficits in SZ.

Beneficial effects of communicating intentions when delivering moral criticism: Cognitive and neural responses.

People often do not accept criticism on their morality, especially when delivered by outgroup members. In two preregistered studies, we investigated whether people become more receptive to such negative feedback when feedback senders communicate their intention to help. Participants received negative feedback from ostensible others on their selfish (rather than altruistic) decisions in a donation task. We manipulated the identity of a feedback sender (ingroup vs. outgroup) and the intention that they provided for giving feedback. A sender either did not communicate any intentions, indicated the intention to help the feedback receiver improve, or communicated the intention to show moral superiority. We measured participants' self-reported responses to the feedback (Study 1, N = 44) and additionally recorded an EEG in Study 2 (N = 34). Results showed that when no intentions were communicated, participants assumed worse intentions from outgroup senders than ingroup senders (Study 1). However, group membership had no significant effect once feedback senders made their intentions explicit. Moreover, across studies, when feedback senders communicated their intention to help, participants perceived feedback as less unfair compared with when senders tried to convey their moral superiority. Complementing these results, exploratory event-related potential results of Study 2 suggested that communicating the intention to help reduced participants' attentional vigilance toward negative feedback messages on their morality (i.e., decreased P200 amplitudes). These results demonstrate the beneficial effects of communicating the intention to help when one tries to encourage others' moral growth through criticism.

Electrophysiological correlates of self-related processing in adults with autism.

The term "self-bias" refers to the human propensity to prioritize self- over other-related stimuli and is believed to influence various stages of the processing stream. By means of event-related potentials (ERPs), it was recently shown that the self-bias in a shape-label matching task modulates early as well as later phases of information processing in neurotypicals. Recent claims suggest autism-related deficits to specifically impact later stages of self-related processing; however, it is unclear whether these claims hold based on current findings. Using the shape-label matching task while recording ERPs in individuals with autism can clarify which stage of self-related processing is specifically affected in this condition. Therefore, this study sought to investigate the temporal course of self-related processing in adults with and without autism. Thirty-two adults with autism and 27 neurotypicals completed a shape-label matching task while ERPs were concomitantly recorded. At the behavioral level, results furnished evidence for a comparable self-bias across groups, with no differences in task performance between adults with and without autism. At the ERP level, the two groups showed a similar self-bias at early stages of self-related information processing (the N1 component). Conversely, the autism group manifested a lessened differentiation between self- and other-related stimuli at later stages (the parietal P3 component). In line with recent claims of later phases of self-related processing being altered in autism, we found an equivalent self-bias between groups at an early, sensory stage of processing, yet a strongly diminished self-bias at a later, cognitive stage in adults with autism.

The impact of social comparison on self-deception: An event-related potentials study.

Self-deception refers to an individual holding inflated beliefs about their abilities, and it plays a crucial role in human behavior and decision-making. The present study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) technique to explore the neural responses to the impacts of social comparison direction and comparison gap on self-deceptive behavior. They were instructed to predict their performance in the forward-looking paradigm. Behavioral responses and neural reactions during the decision-making process were documented. The behavioral results indicated that, in contrast to the downward comparison condition, participants engaged in upward comparison exhibited more occurrences of self-deception. However, within the context of upward comparison, participants demonstrated a higher frequency of self-deception in the large gap condition compared with the small gap condition. The ERP results showed that induced self-deception under conditions with a large comparative gap between participants and their paired counterparts stimulated larger P300 and smaller N400 amplitude than under conditions with a small gap. However, when participants were in the upward comparison situation, the late positive potential (LPP) amplitude induced by self-deception behavior in the condition of a large comparison gap between participants and paired opponents was larger than that in the condition of a small comparison gap. These results indicated that individuals in the large gap group feel strong unfairness and negative emotions. More importantly, the self-deception induced by the large gap group in the upward comparison situation used fewer cognitive resources than the small gap condition, whereas the individuals in the downward comparison situation did not show the difference in cognitive resources.

Modulation of audiovisual integration in the left and right sides: effects of side and spatial coherency.

BACKGROUND: Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we aimed to investigate audiovisual integration neural mechanisms during a letter identification task in the left and right sides. Unimodal (A,V) and bimodal (AV) stimuli were presented on either side, with ERPs from unimodal (A,V) stimuli on the same side being compared to those from simultaneous bimodal stimuli (AV). Non-zero results of the AV-(A + V) difference waveforms indicated audiovisual integration on the left/right side. RESULTS: When spatially coherent AV stimuli were presented on the right side, two significant ERP components in the integrated differential wave were noted. The N134 and N262, present in the first 300 ms of the AV-(A + V) integration difference wave, indicated significant audiovisual integration effects. However, when these stimuli were presented on the left side, there were no significant integration components. This audiovisual integration difference may stem from left/right asymmetry of cerebral hemisphere language processing. CONCLUSIONS: Audiovisual letter information presented on the right side was easier to integrate, process, and represent. Additionally, only one significant integrative component peaked at 140 ms in the parietal cortex for spatially non-coherent AV stimuli and provided audiovisual multisensory integration, which could be attributed to some integrative neural processes that depend on the spatial congruity of the auditory and visual stimuli.

Long-term memory formation for voices during sleep in three-month-old infants.

The ability to form long-term memories begins in early infancy. However, little is known about the specific mechanisms that guide memory formation during this developmental stage. We demonstrate the emergence of a long-term memory for a novel voice in three-month-old infants using the EEG mismatch response (MMR) to the word "baby". In an oddball-paradigm, a frequent standard, and two rare deviant voices (novel and mother) were presented before (baseline), and after (test) familiarizing the infants with the novel voice and a subsequent nap. Only the mother deviant but not the novel deviant elicited a late frontal MMR (∼850 ms) at baseline, possibly reflecting a long-term memory representation for the mother's voice. Yet, MMRs to the novel and mother deviant significantly increased in similarity after voice familiarization and sleep. Moreover, both MMRs showed an additional early (∼250 ms) frontal negative component that is potentially related to deviance processing in short-term memory. Enhanced spindle activity during the nap predicted an increase in late MMR amplitude to the novel deviant and increased MMR similarity between novel and mother deviant. Our findings indicate that the late positive MMR in infants might reflect emergent long-term memory that benefits from sleep spindles.

Cannabidiol-enriched oil for adult patients with drug-resistant epilepsy: Prospective clinical and electrophysiological study.

OBJECTIVE: Cannabidiol-enriched oil (CBDO) is being used increasingly to improve seizure control in adult patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE), despite the lack of large-scale studies supporting its efficacy in this patient population. We aimed to assess the effects of add-on CBDO on seizure frequency as well as on gait, cognitive, affective, and sleep-quality metrics, and to explore the electrophysiological changes in responder and non-responder DRE patients treated with add-on CBDO. METHODS: We prospectively recruited adult DRE patients who were treated with add-on CBDO. Patients were evaluated prior to treatment and following 4 weeks of a maintenance daily dose of ≈260 mg CBD and ≈12 mg Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). The outcome measures included seizure response to CBDO (defined as ≥50% decrease in seizures compared to pre-CBDO baseline), gait testing, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and sleep-quality questionnaire assessments. Patients underwent electroencephalography (EEG) recording during rest as well as event-related potentials (ERPs) during visual Go/NoGo task while sitting and while walking. RESULTS: Nineteen patients were recruited, of which 16 finished pre- and post-CBDO assessments. Seven patients (43.75%) were responders demonstrating an average reduction of 82.4% in seizures, and nine patients (56.25%) were non-responders with an average seizure increase of 30.1%. No differences in demographics and clinical parameters were found between responders and non-responders at baseline. However, responders demonstrated better performance in the dual-task walking post-treatment (p = .015), and correlation between increase in MoCA and seizure reduction (r = .810, p = .027). Post-CBDO P300 amplitude was lower during No/Go-sitting in non-responders (p = .028) and during No/Go-walking in responders (p = .068). SIGNIFICANCE: CBDO treatment can reduce seizures in a subset of patients with DRE, but could aggravate seizure control in a minority of patients; yet we found no specific baseline clinical or electrophysiological characteristics that are associated with response to CBDO. However, changes in ERPs in response to treatment could be a promising direction to better identify patients who could benefit from CBDO treatment.

Unpredictable threat increases early event-related potential amplitudes and cardiac acceleration: A brain-heart coupling study.

In the face of unpredictable threat, rapid processing of external events and behavioral mobilization through early psychophysiological responses are crucial for survival. While unpredictable threat generally enhances early processing, it would seem adaptive to particularly increase sensitivity for unexpected events as they may signal danger. To examine this possibility, n = 77 participants performed an auditory oddball paradigm and received unpredictable shocks in threat but not in safe contexts while a stream of frequent (standard) and infrequent (deviant) tones was presented. We assessed event-related potentials (ERP), heart period (HP), and time-lagged within-subject correlations of single-trial EEG and HP (cardio-EEG covariance tracing, CECT) time-locked to the tones. N1 and P2 ERP amplitudes were generally enhanced under threat. The P3 amplitude was enhanced to deviants versus standards and this effect was reduced in the threat condition. Regarding HP, both threat versus safe and unexpected versus expected tones led to stronger cardiac acceleration, suggesting separate effects of threat and stimulus expectancy on HP. Finally, CECTs revealed two correlation clusters, indicating that single-trial EEG magnitudes in the N1/P2 and P3 time-windows predicted subsequent cardiac acceleration. The current results show that an unpredictable threat context enhances N1 and P2 amplitudes and cardiac acceleration to benign auditory stimuli. They further suggest separable cortical correlates of different effects on cardiac activity: an early N1/P2 correlate associated with threat-effects on HP and a later P3 correlate associated with expectedness-effects. Finally, the results indicate that unpredictable threat attenuates rather than enhances the processing of unexpected benign events during the P3 latency.

Reward positivity affects temporal interval production in a continuous timing task.

The neural circuits of reward processing and interval timing (including the perception and production of temporal intervals) are functionally intertwined, suggesting that it might be possible for momentary reward processing to influence subsequent timing behavior. Previous animal and human studies have mainly focused on the effect of reward on interval perception, whereas its impact on interval production is less clear. In this study, we examined whether feedback, as an example of performance-contingent reward, biases interval production. We recorded EEG from 20 participants while they engaged in a continuous drumming task with different realistic tempos (1728 trials per participant). Participants received color-coded feedback after each beat about whether they were correct (on time) or incorrect (early or late). Regression-based EEG analysis was used to unmix the rapid occurrence of a feedback response called the reward positivity (RewP), which is traditionally observed in more slow-paced tasks. Using linear mixed modeling, we found that RewP amplitude predicted timing behavior for the upcoming beat. This performance-biasing effect of the RewP was interpreted as reflecting the impact of fluctuations in reward-related anterior cingulate cortex activity on timing, and the necessity of continuous paradigms to make such observations was highlighted.

Inhibitory P300 subprocesses and neural compensation in genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease: The case for temporal-spatial principal component analysis.

The P300 event-related potential (ERP) is widely investigated in cognitive neuroscience, including related to aging, with smaller amplitudes and delayed latency consistently reported in Alzheimer's disease (AD). Given that AD-related neurological changes begin years before symptom onset, ERPs in asymptomatic elders with AD risk may characterize early changes. ERPs are seldom studied in this population. Yet, healthy carriers of apolipoprotein-E (APOE) ε4 have evidenced delayed P300 latencies, while P300 amplitude differences are seldom found. However, despite its frequent study, the specific cognitive processes reflected by P300 remain unclear. We propose that these challenges are due to the relatively long P300 window, which likely encompasses multiple underlying subprocesses that overlap in time. Temporal-spatial principal component analysis (tsPCA) maintains the high temporal resolution of EEG and is better suited to isolate processes that overlap in time. Thus, we interrogated APOE ε4 differences in P300 activity during successful stop-signal inhibitory control in healthy, cognitively intact older adults (25 ε4-, 20 ε4+), using both conventional ERP metrics (i.e., mean and peak amplitude) and P300 tsPCA factors. P300 amplitudes did not differ by ε4 using conventional metrics. tsPCA revealed two P300 factors in each ε4 group: first, a Posterior P300 (attention allocation) factor, and second, a relatively Anterior P300 (performance monitoring, evaluating, and updating) factor. tsPCA uniquely revealed greater activity in ε4+ vs. ε4- in Anterior P300. ε4 groups had comparable task performance, suggesting that greater P300 activity in ε4+ likely reflects neural compensation for ε4-related deficits, thereby enabling the maintenance of good task performance.

The relationship between cardiorespiratory fitness and inhibitory control following acute stress: An ERP study.

Although the relationships among acute stress, cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), and cognitive function have been examined, whether CRF is related to behavioral and neuroelectric indices of inhibitory control following acute stress remains unknown. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the combined influence of acute stress and CRF on inhibitory control. Participants, aged 20-30 years, were stratified into the Higher-Fit (n = 31) and the Lower-Fit (n = 32) groups, and completed a Stroop task following the modified Maastricht Acute Stress Test (MAST) in the stress condition and the sham-MAST in the non-stress condition, during which electroencephalography was recorded. Behavioral (i.e., response time and accuracy) and neuroelectric (N2 and P3b components of the event-related potential) outcomes of inhibitory control were obtained. While the Higher-Fit group demonstrated shorter response times and higher accuracy than the Lower-Fit group following both the MAST and the sham-MAST, they also exhibited selective benefits of acute stress on inhibitory control performance (i.e., decreased response times and diminished interference scores). CRF-dependent alterations in neuroelectric indices were also observed, with the Higher-Fit group displaying smaller N2 and greater P3b amplitudes than the Lower-Fit group following the sham-MAST, and increased N2 and attenuated P3b amplitudes following the MAST. Collectively, these findings not only confirm the positive relationship between CRF and inhibitory control but also provide novel insights into the potential influence of CRF on inhibitory control and associated neuroelectric activity following acute stress.

A meta-analysis of electrophysiological biomarkers of reward and error monitoring in substance misuse.

Substance use disorders are characterized by marked changes in reward and error processing. The primary objective of this meta-analysis was to estimate effect sizes for the reward positivity (RewP) and error-related negativity (ERN), two event-related potential indicators of outcome monitoring, in substance users compared to controls. The secondary objective was to test for moderation by demographic, substance type, and EEG experiment parameters. Final PubMed searches were performed in August 2023. Inclusion criteria were substance use disorder/dependence or validated self-report of substance misuse, RewP/ERN means available, healthy control comparison group, non-acute drug study, peer-reviewed journal, English language, and human participants. Selection bias was tested through modified Egger's regression and exploratory 3-parameter selection model tests. The RewP results (19 studies, 1641 participants) did not support an overall effect (Hedges' g = 0.07, 95% CI [-0.44, 0.58], p = .777) and nor effect of any moderators. The ERN results (20 studies, 1022 participants) indicated no significant overall effect (g = 0.41, 95%CI [-0.05, 0.88]). Subgroup analyses indicated that cocaine users had a blunted ERN compared to controls (g = 1.12, 95%CI [0.77, 1.47]). There was limited evidence for publication/small study bias. Although the results indicate a potential dissociation between substance types, this meta-analysis revealed the need for additional research on the RewP/ERN in substance using populations and for better designed experiments that adequately address research questions.

Losses disguised as wins evoke the reward positivity event-related potential in a simulated machine gambling task.

Electronic gambling machines include a suite of design characteristics that may contribute to gambling-related harms and require more careful attention of regulators and policymakers. One strategy that has contributed to these concerns is the presentation of "losses disguised as wins" (LDWs), a type of salient losing outcome in which a gambling payout is less than the amount wagered (i.e., a net loss), but is nonetheless accompanied by the celebratory audio-visual stimuli that typically accompany a genuine win. These events could thereby be mistaken for gains, or otherwise act as a reward signal, reinforcing persistent gambling, despite being a loss. This study aimed to determine whether LDWs evoke a reward positivity component in a task modeled on slot machine gambling. A prominent account of the reward positivity event-related potential suggests that it is evoked during the positive appraisal of task-related feedback, relative to neutral or negative events, or that it is evoked by neural systems that implement the computation of a positive reward prediction error. We recruited 32 individuals from university recruitment pools and asked them to engage in a simple gambling task designed to mimic key features of a slot machine design. The reward positivity was identified using temporospatial principal components analysis. Results indicated a more positive reward positivity following LDWs relative to clear losses, consistent with the theory that LDWs contribute to positive reinforcement of continued gambling, despite being net losses.

Generalization of savoring to novel positive stimuli.

Savoring is a positive emotion up-regulation technique that can increase electrocortical and self-reported valence and arousal to positive and neutral pictures, with effects persisting to increase response to the same stimuli when encountered later. Outside of the lab, emotion regulation techniques that persist to affect not just encounters with the same stimuli but also encounters with similar, but previously unencountered stimuli should save individuals time and effort. Here, we used event-related potentials and picture ratings to test whether savoring would generalize to similar, but previously unseen positive pictures. To this end, 89 participants (56 female; M age = 18.96 years, SD = 1.87) were asked to savor positive pictures from one category (e.g., happy people) and to view positive pictures from another category (e.g., cute animals), as well as to view neutral pictures (e.g., plants). In a subsequent passive picture viewing task, participants viewed novel pictures from all three categories (i.e., happy people, cute animals, plants). In the first task, savoring was effective for pictures of animals throughout picture presentation, but only for pictures of people during the later part of picture presentation. In the second task, savoring generalized to novel pictures of animals, though this was only evident in the early portion of picture processing (and for self-reported ratings). Therefore, savoring holds promise as a useful technique for increasing positive emotion in everyday life, though more work is needed to understand whether effects may vary depending on different types of picture content.