Emotional words obtain priority in processing : Evidence from event-related brain potential and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies

Abstract

Basic research in the field of affective neuroscience shows how emotional stimuli influence our perception, thoughts and behaviour. However, in relation to neurophysiologic studies investigating the processing of emotionally concrete stimuli such as emotional pictures or faces comparatively little is known about the cerebral processes associated with the processing of verbal emotional stimuli. The current doctoral thesis aimed to provide systematic research concerning the selective processing of emotional words in healthy subjects. Precise information about the time course of emotional word processing as well as its functional representation in the brain was acquired by means of electrocortical event-related potentials (ERP-EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods. Additional research questions concerned the influence of emotional word processing on long-term memory and on the modulation of emotional responses such as the defensive startle reflex. This multidimensional approach allowed both the comparison of emotional processes elicited by emotional words with those reported for emotionally concrete picture stimuli and the interpretation of the current findings in terms of assumptions derived from the bio-informational theory of emotion.