Origins of emotion effects in language and face processing

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Anne Schacht
• Subject Area: Biological Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience
• Term: from 2013 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 233070649

Human behaviour evolved in complex physical and social environments. Due to limited sensorimotor and cognitive resources, human perception needs to prioritise relevant information identified through salient and emotional content, allowing our brain to efficiently adapt to the ever-changing world. In order to adjust to novel relevant information, associative learning can tag a certain emotional/motivational valence to previously neutral objects. Our previous research suggests that these associations to entirely novel stimuli affect behaviour as well as very early neural responses in the visual cortex. However, it remains unknown how an already existing inert emotional and semantic content of familiar stimuli affects and presumably interacts with this learning mechanisms. Furthermore, substantial variation between subjects was detected in our previous studies that that may be attributed to personality traits.The current project aims at filling these gaps, by using a unique combination of Electroencephalography (EEG), computational modelling of learning trajectories, and personality measures in an established associative learning paradigm. Firstly, the role of visual features during associative learning will be isolated from general familiar content. Pseudowords will be associated with a certain salience through monetary outcome and neural responses will be investigated to identical pseudowords presented in the same or a different font type. This novel method alters low-level features but not the overall structure of stimuli, making it possible to disentangle the role of structural familiarity compared to simple visual features. For uncommon stimuli, like pseudowords, we expect visual features to play a greater role for associative learning than structure. Secondly, stimuli with an inert valence (emotional faces) will be associated with an additional external valence to directly investigate the interactions of inert emotional and associated motivational valence. The neural mechanisms underlying these associations of inertly emotional compared to neutral faces will provide novel insights to the neural processes while tagging a new valence to otherwise familiar objects. Finally, relations of associative learning to distinct motivational traits will be investigated through the behavioural inhibition and approach system to shed light on individual differences in neural mechanisms of learning. The proposed project will uncover differences in the physiological and behavioural mechanisms of valence association of novel compared to familiar stimuli, providing a clearer picture of the complex mechanisms affecting neural prioritising of information relevant for action. Individual differences in these mechanisms will draw attention to different strategies in place for an efficient adaptation to the changing attentional priorities in the world.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants