情绪标注对情绪的抑制发生在何时:一项ERPs研究

When does Inhibition of Affect Labeling Occur: ERP Study

研究采用了ERPs技术,以正性和负性面孔为实验材料,选择16名大学生为被试,探讨情绪标注是在何时抑制了情绪。结果发现:(1)情绪标注完成前:在负性情绪下,情绪标注和性别标注在早期LPP波幅上没有差异;在正性情绪下,情绪标注和性别标注在早期LPP波幅上出现差异,且情绪标注比性别标注时的LPP波幅值更大。(2)情绪标注完成后:不管是在正性情绪还是在负性情绪下,情绪标注在晚期LPP波幅值上比性别标注值更小。上述结果提示情绪标注对情绪的抑制发生在对情绪形成明确概念之后。

Affect labeling refers to the processing of emotional stimuli, with words describing the stimuli. Many studies using fMRI have found that affect reactions are weakened when they are being tested in an affect labeling condition. However, studies using ERP technology have found dissimilar results. Given this contradiction, this study uses ERPs technology to study the change of affect labeling at two stages of the EEG to test this issue. The present study used positive and negative emotional faces as experimental materials, with happy emotional face images as positive stimuli and angry emotional face images as negative stimuli. Half of these faces were male, and half were female. The research used a 2 （labeling types） x 2 （emotion types） experimental design, in which there were two levels of labeling types： affect labeling and gender labeling. And emotion types had two levels： anger and happiness. In the Experiment, the affect labeling condition referred to observing the facial emotion expressed in the description given below the face, and then selecting the appropriate word （angry or happy）. Gender labeling refers to observing the face pictures, and then choosing the right words for the face＇s gender （Li Na or Zhang Tao）. If the subject believed the face images are men, they should choose the marked word ＂Zhang Tao＂, or ＂Li Na＂ if they believe the images are women. The dependent variables were accuracy rate, reaction time, and the subjects to perform tasks during EEG. The results show that： （1） before the end of affect labeling： in the negative emotion condition, the amplitudes have no differences between affect labeling and gender labeling in the late positive potential （LPP）, however the amplitudes of affect labeling were higher under the positive emotion condition in the LPP; （2） after the affect labeling： the amplitudes of affect labeling in the LPP were lower, compared with gender labeling, regardless of positive emotion or negative emotion. The above results reveal that the inhibition of the affect labeling on emotions occurs when subjects label emotional stimuli. In the process of emotional labeling the positive emotion was enhanced, and then was weakened.