Challenging the negativity bias in affective scene viewing: The role of social content.

ABSTRACT: How does the brain prioritize information when visual scenes contain multiple sources of relevance? While emotionally evocative content has long been considered central to attentional capture, social content constitutes another key dimension of relevance. However, the neural mechanisms underlying the integration of these relevance dimensions remain unclear. We co-registered event-related potentials (ERPs) and eye movements while participants viewed complex scenes varying in social content (social, non-social) and emotional valence (positive, negative, neutral). Early ERP responses (P1) showed enhanced amplitudes for positive social images, suggesting that social relevance can mitigate the early-stage negativity bias. Social content also modulated the EPN, while emotional valence shaped lat

SUBMITTER: Fischer A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12706866 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature