Brain potentials show rapid activation of implicit attitudes towards young and old people

et al. 2015

Social Neuroscience

Self-esteem affects human life. A thorough examination of the cognitive processes and neural activations of implicit self-evaluation should aid our understanding of self-esteem. The current study examined electrophysiological correlates of implicit self-evaluation among 19 healthy participants using event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded during an Implicit Association Test (IAT). Behavioral results showed that participants responded faster in the compatible condition (compared to the incompatible condition) in which "self" was paired with "positive" traits and "others" was paired with "negative" traits, reflecting positive nature of implicit self-evaluation. ERP results showed that the incompatible condition elicited a larger N200 and a smaller P3 compared to the compatible condition. These findings indicated that both executive control and stimulus categorization were involved in implicit self-evaluation, reflected by N200 and P3, respectively. We accordingly suggested that implicit self-evaluation manifests in multiple cognitive processes.

Section: Eeg Recording and Data Analysissupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 51%

Electrophysiological evidence for executive control and efficient categorization involved in implicit self-evaluation

et al. 2015

Social Neuroscience

“…Based on the timing of the N200 difference wave, the authors inferred that automatic attitude information (i.e., fruit-good association ) was available about 250 ms after the onset of the stimuli, which is notably earlier than what was previously derived from behavioral data (i.e., between 600–700 ms). Similarly, in another study, examining the timing of Nogo negativity, van der Lugt et al [51] found that the implicit attitude toward young vs. old people was activated between 170–230 ms after the onset of the target stimuli. These studies suggested that N200 negativity across Nogo and Go trials is useful in studying the timing of automatic attitude activations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…Based on these studies [47], [51], we focused on the N200 in the present study, elicited by self -stimulus in a self-esteem GNAT. We aimed to examine how and when the self-positivity association would manifest on the N200 component.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neural Manifestations of Implicit Self-Esteem: An ERP Study

et al. 2014

PLoS ONE

Behavioral research has established that humans implicitly tend to hold a positive view toward themselves. In this study, we employed the event-related potential (ERP) technique to explore neural manifestations of positive implicit self-esteem using the Go/Nogo association task (GNAT). Participants generated a response (Go) or withheld a response (Nogo) to self or others words and good or bad attributes. Behavioral data showed that participants responded faster to the self paired with good than the self paired with bad, whereas the opposite proved true for others, reflecting the positive nature of implicit self-esteem. ERP results showed an augmented N200 over the frontal areas in Nogo responses relative to Go responses. Moreover, the positive implicit self-positivity bias delayed the onset time of the N200 wave difference between Nogo and Go trials, suggesting that positive implicit self-esteem is manifested on neural activity about 270 ms after the presentation of self-relevant stimuli. These findings provide neural evidence for the positivity and automaticity of implicit self-esteem.

“…We selected the Go/No-go Association Task (GNAT, [23]) because of its suitability for ERP studies (e.g., [24], [25]). More importantly, this paradigm is suitable for examining the attentional and evaluative processing of maternal stimuli by creating contrasts between different experimental blocks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Neural Response to Maternal Stimuli: An ERP Study

et al. 2014

PLoS ONE

Mothers are important to all humans. Research has established that maternal information affects individuals' cognition, emotion, and behavior. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine attentional and evaluative processing of maternal stimuli while participants completed a Go/No-go Association Task that paired mother or others words with good or bad evaluative words. Behavioral data showed that participants responded faster to mother words paired with good than the mother words paired with bad but showed no difference in response to these others across conditions, reflecting a positive evaluation of mother. ERPs showed larger P200 and N200 in response to mother than in response to others, suggesting that mother attracted more attention than others. In the subsequent time window, mother in the mother + bad condition elicited a later and larger late positive potential (LPP) than it did in the mother + good condition, but this was not true for others, also suggesting a positive evaluation of mother. These results suggest that people differentiate mother from others during initial attentional stage, and evaluative mother positively during later stage.