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Moving toward reality: Electrocortical reactivity to naturalistic multimodal emotional videos
  • Dean Sabatinelli,
  • Andrew Farkas,
  • Matthew Gehr
Dean Sabatinelli
University of Georgia

Corresponding Author:sabat@uga.edu

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Andrew Farkas
University of Georgia
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Matthew Gehr
University of Georgia
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Abstract

While previous research has investigated the effects of emotional videos on peripheral physiological measures and conscious experience, this study extends the research to include cortical measures, specifically the steady-state visual evoked potential (ssVEP). A carefully curated set of 45 videos, designed to represent a wide range of emotional and neutral content, were presented with a flickering border. The videos featured a continuous single-shot perspective, natural soundtrack, and excluded elements associated with professional films, to enhance realism. The results demonstrate a consistent reduction in ssVEP amplitude during emotional videos which strongly correlates with the rated emotional intensity of the clips. This suggests that narrative audiovisual stimuli have the potential to track dynamic emotional processing in the cortex, providing new avenues for research in affective neuroscience. The findings highlight the potential of using realistic video stimuli to investigate how the human brain processes emotional events in a paradigm that increases ecological validity. Future studies can further develop this paradigm by expanding the video set, targeting specific cortical networks, and manipulating narrative predictability. Overall, this study establishes a foundation for investigating emotional perception using realistic video stimuli and has the potential to expand our understanding of real-world emotional processing in the human brain.
03 Aug 2023Submitted to Psychophysiology
04 Aug 2023Submission Checks Completed
04 Aug 2023Assigned to Editor
04 Aug 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
12 Aug 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned
11 Sep 2023Editorial Decision: Revise Minor
08 Nov 2023Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
08 Nov 20231st Revision Received
16 Nov 2023Reviewer(s) Assigned