The on-line processing of socio-emotional information in prototypical scenarios: inferences from brain potentials.

ABSTRACT: Little is known about the time course of the mechanisms involved in the on-line processing of socio-emotional information. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate this issue using vignettes that described prototypical, social scenarios. An initial sentence established the social context and the following target sentence ended with a critical word that informed the reader of the character's socio-emotional response to the situation. Critical words that mismatched rather than matched with a character's expected feelings elicited a larger ERP negativity (N400) ~200-500 ms after word onset, followed by a larger frontal positivity. Dipole source modeling results indicated that an anterior temporal lobe source accounted for the N400-like effect, which we attribute to the inc

SUBMITTER: Leuthold H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3324574 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature