Evaluative and Psychophysiological Responses to Short Film Clips of Different Emotional Content

Abstract

Abstract. The study presents self-report and psychophysiological data obtained in response to short film clips representing scenes related to different emotions. This was done in order to obtain evidence on the structure of positive and negative affective states following a combined dimensional/categorical approach to emotion and based on responses to stimuli that are more realistic than the static pictures usually employed in the study of emotion. Affective ratings and self-report measures showed a differential structure of the response to positive and negative films (Experiment 1). While all negative films were rated as low in valence and high in arousal, positive films were differentiated into arousing (happy and pleasure contents) and de-arousing (relax contents) categories. A more complex pattern emerged in Experiment 2, using two psychophysiological measures that are differentially sensitive to the main affective dimensions of valence and arousal, skin conductance response (SCR) and facial electromyography (fEMG). First, high arousal positive and negative films produced larger skin conductance responses. Second, fEMG measures showed differentiated response patterns within the positive and negative film categories. Within the positive category, happy and relaxing films had opposed effects, with happy films increasing and relax films decreasing activity over the zygomaticus muscle region. In the case of negative films, only those eliciting disgust produced a differentiated pattern of fEMG activity characterized by large corrugator responses and a modest increase of zygomatic responses. These results are discussed in relation to the adequacy of the dimensional and categorical approaches to emotion, the usefulness of combining subjective and psychophysiological measures, and the advantages of using realistic, dynamic stimuli for the study of emotion.

LATEMO-E: A Film Database to Elicit Discrete Emotions and Evaluate Emotional Dimensions in Latin-Americans

“…increases in arousal. Consistent with these previous studies (Aguado, Fernández-Cahill, Román, Blanco, & Echegaray, 2016;Irrazabal et al, 2015;Moltó et al, 2013;Zupan & Babbage, 2016), the boomerang placed neutral fi lm clips in a neutral and calm center, and the rest of the clips were distributed at the poles. The negative pole (anger, disgust, fear, and sadness) has more arousal than the positive pole (amusement and tenderness).…”

“…The LATEMO-E set of fi lm clips includes both intense and discrete stimuli. Extensive evidence shows the existence of specifi c patterns of responses in subjective emotional reports and central and peripheral nervous system activity in response to specifi c emotions (Aguado et al, 2016). Several studies have shown that the impact of each discrete emotion on cognition, together with other factors (e.g., age and sex), emotional experience (Bradley & Lang, 2007).…”

Trial‐wise exposure to visual emotional cues increases physiological arousal but not temporal discounting

“…First, although our data indicate alterations of ANS‐activity following erotic and aversive cues (Wang et al, 2018), we did not directly assess subjective arousal. However, psychophysiological ANS‐measures and subjective measures tend to co‐vary (Aguado et al, 2018; Lang et al, 1990). Moreover, pupil dilation during mental imagery covaries with subjective arousal (Henderson et al, 2018).…”

Trial-wise exposure to visual appetitive cues increases physiological arousal but not temporal discounting

“…First, although our data indicate alterations of ANS-activity following erotic and aversive cues (Wang et al, 2018), we did not directly assess subjective arousal. However, psychophysiological ANS-measures and subjective measures tend to co-vary (Aguado et al, 2018; Lang et al, 1990). Moreover, pupil dilation during mental imagery covaries with subjective arousal (Henderson et al, 2018).…”