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THE INTENTION TO CONCEAL RECRUITS THE RIGHT

PREFRONTAL CORTEX ACTIVITY IN THE CONCEALED

INFORMATION TEST

Izumi Matsuda

National Research Institute of Police Science

In Japan, the concealed information test (CIT) has been applied to real criminal

investigations. To increase its probative value, it is important to elucidate cogni-

tive processes underlying physiological responses during the CIT. In the CIT, a

perpetrator recognizes crime-relevant information and intentionally conceals its

recognition. It has been repeatedly confirmed that the recognition of the crime-

relevant information elicits an orienting response, such as skin conductance re-

sponse and P300. However, the effect of the intention to conceal has rarely been

investigated. In the present study, thirty participants committed a mock theft of

two items and then received two CITs: one for an item they had to conceal and

the other for an item they had already disclosed. Only when the participants in-

tended to conceal the crime-relevant item, a late positive potential (LPP) with a

parietal-occipital dominant distribution occurred in a latency range of 500–1000

ms. The sLORETA estimated its cortical sources in the right prefrontal cortex,

the region which has been argued to be associated with cognitive control and

withdrawal motivation. In the CIT, encountering crime-relevant information to be

concealed would recruit withdrawal-motivated controlled processing reflected by

the right prefrontal cortex activity.

FUNCTIONAL EEG SPECTRAL FIELD POWER IN TONIC

CUFF-PRESSURE PAIN: IN SEARCH OF THE VIABLE

BIOMARKER FOR HUMAN PAIN

Andrew CN Chen

Capital Medical University

The global cost of suffering of human pain is estimated to be 500 billion dollars

annually. Currently, pain is assessed solely in subjective terms, but no objective

physiology is established. The biomarker of human pain obviously becomes a

grave challenge in contemporary psychophysiological research. 15 young male

adults were recorded with 128-ch high density EEG, analyzed in 3 stages, during

eyes-open (EO) and eyes-closed (EC) conditions: pain-free baseline, slight-pain,

and severe-pain. In each stage 2 min of EEG was analyzed in a patented spectral

field power (SFP), unit of spatial EEG quantity. One-way ANOVA was used for

statistical analysis. SFP in the EC condition showed significant change across 3

stages (p<0.01). In the severe-pain stage, the subjective pain rating was found to

correlate with objective alpha-1 EEG SFP significantly (r=0.41, p=0.03). How-

ever, such a psychophysiological association between pain rating and EEG was

no longer present when the physical stimulation pain threshold dimension was

partialed out (i=1.49, p=0.16). In searching for biomarkers of human pain, the

subjective pain level and EEG alpha-1 field power in an eyes-closed condition

seem significantly associated. Nevertheless, the physical dimension of stimulation

energy has to be taken into account in analyzing the biomarker of experimental

pain. In clinical pain, how to measure the neurobiological pathology in cognitive

li. However, the cross-modal enhancement occurs only when the auditory stimuli

are in the same stimulus sequence as task-relevant visual stimuli.

RACIAL IN-GROUP BIAS IN NEURAL RESPONSES TO

OTHERS’ SUFFERING

Shihui Han

Peking University

Humans empathize for others’ pain but do not empathize everyone equally. They

exhibit greater empathy for racial in-group than out-group individuals’ suffering.

What are the neural mechanisms underlying racial in-group bias in empathy?

What sociocultural and biological factors influence the racial in-group bias in em-

pathic neural responses? Can we reduce racial in-group bias in empathic neural

responses by laboratory manipulation and real life experiences? Our recent brain

imaging research will be presented, that (1) shows neuroscience evidence for ra-

cial in-group bias in empathic neural responses in multiple brain regions (e.g.,

anterior cingulate and anterior insula) and in different time windows (e.g., the P2

and P3 components of ERPs); (2) reveals distinct neural responses to racial in-

group and out-group members’ pain at the levels of neural population and neural

transmitter; (3) suggests an association between oxytocin receptor gene and racial

in-group bias in empathic neural responses; and (4) uncovers how experiences

(e.g., real life experience and laboratory manipulation) can reduce racial in-group

bias in empathic neural responses. Taken together, our findings indicate that ra-

cial in-group bias in empathy is mediated by multiple level mechanisms. Under-

standing the neural, cognitive, and genetic mechanisms underlying racial in-

group bias in empathy helps us to reduce the racial in-group bias that is not toler-

ated by the current society. Implications of our findings will be discussed.

8:30 A.M.–10:00 A.M.

Symposium 5.3

EMOTION AND LANGUAGE IN INTERACTION – WHY

AND HOW CONTEXT MATTERS

Chair: Cornelia Herbert, University of UIm

Discussant: Cornelia Herbert, University of UIm

We text, post, blog, and tweet. Language increasingly dominates our communica-

tion behavior and the way we express emotions. Still, written language has long

been considered a purely cognitive phenomenon bearing no relation to bodily, af-

fective or sensorimotor processing. In recent years, embodiment theories and neu-

roscience have proven otherwise. This symposium aims to demonstrate how

emotion and language construe each other in contexts as diverse as communica-

tion in daily life. To start with, neurophysiologic data will be presented investigat-

ing how emotions are decoded from written words when these are embedded in

social settings. It will be shown that words related to own and other people’s

emotions trigger differential responses in emotional brain systems and expressive

behavior. Even a variety of imaginary communicative contexts as encountered in

virtual communication can modulate the affective quality of words and influence

2015 SPR Abstracts S21

MY EMOTION – YOUR EMOTION: BRAIN AND BODY IN

EMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION

Cornelia Herbert

University of Ulm

Language is embodied and closely related to the self. This has been shown for

the processing of words and sentences. What does this relationship between

words, self, body and the brain imply for the verbal communication of emotions?

Evidence from a series of studies will be reviewed that used electroencephalogra-

phy (EEG), functional imaging and psychophysiological methods to explore how

emotions are decoded from words when these refer to the reader’s own or other

people‘s emotions (e.g., my vs. his fear, pleasure). EEG, memory and reaction

time data suggest that healthy subjects intuitively respond to positive self-related

content but that discrimination between own and other-related emotions is an ela-

borate process appearing at later cortical processing stages. Functional imaging

reveals activation in a large-scale network involved in relevance detection (amyg-

dala), integration of bodily and sensory signals (insula), and self-referential pro-

cessing (VMPFC). Physiologically, evaluation of own and other-related emotion

words compared to words of neutral meaning increases autonomous-nervous sys-

tem activity (heart rate, skin conductance). However, participants are facially

more expressive when they evaluate positive emotions of other people. Crucially,

selective blocking of facial muscle activity impairs evaluation of words describ-

ing other people’s emotion but has little effect on the evaluation of own emotions.

Together, the results argue in favor of a differentiated view of embodiment when

processing own and other-related emotions from language stimuli.

This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG-

HE5880/3-1).

SENDER IDENTITY AND SENDER COMPETENCE ENHANCE

PROCESSING OF SOCIO-EMOTIONAL LANGUAGE

FEEDBACK

Sebastian Schindler, & Johanna Kissler

University of Bielefeld

The personal significance of a language statement depends on its context. Three

studies are presented that investigate how the implied source of evaluative state-

ments alters their processing. Participants’ brain event-related potentials (ERPs)

were recorded in response to word-streams consisting of positive, negative, and

neutral trait adjectives, stated to either represent personal feedback from a human

or to be generated by a computer. In experiment 1 the computer was portrayed as

acting randomly, in experiment 2 it was portrayed as a socially intelligent system.

In experiment 3, human sender competence was further manipulated in that feed-

back was said to be given by either an expert psychotherapist or a na

€

ıve rater (in

addition to a random computer). All experiments revealed strong effects of per-

ceived sender. In experiment 1, feedback from a human amplified the early pos-

terior negativity (EPN) and the Late Positive Potential (LPP). Emotional content

enhanced the LPP. In contrast, in experiment 2, EPN was modulated by emotional

content only, while P3a and LPP responded to both sender and content. Experi-

ment 3 replicated the effects from experiment 1 and further revealed a larger N1

when the human sender was thought to be an expert. Evidently, both perceived so-

cial competence and perceived humaneness amplify visual processing at distinct

processing stages. For humans, feedback by others is vital as belonging to a com-

munity reflects a strong motivational desire. This has robust repercussions even

for processing single word messages in imaginary communicative context.

EMOTIONAL FACIAL PRIMING OF LANGUAGE

COMPREHENSION

Pia Knoeferle, & Katja M€

unster

University of Bielefeld

In a series of visual-world eye-tracking studies, we investigated the effects of fa-

cial emotions and of action depictions on spoken language comprehension in

5-year olds, younger, and older adults. The action depictions modulated

comprehension in all three age groups in a qualitatively similar manner, albeit

with different time courses. Emotional facial priming affected the young and old-

er adults’ comprehension (in a qualitatively different manner depending on va-

lence). Moreover, the type of prime face (e.g., schematic faces such as smileys

vs. natural faces) mattered, with somewhat more pronounced effects of natural

faces than for smileys.

LANGUAGE CONSTRUCTS EMOTION

Kristen Lindquist

University of North Carolina

In this talk, I present evidence for the psychological constructionist hypothesis

that language plays a constitutive role in emotion by shaping affective percep-

tions and experiences into instances of discrete emotions (e.g., anger, fear, dis-

gust). I first present evidence that healthy participants and patients with

neurodegenerative disease cannot perceive discrete emotions on faces when they

cannot access the meaning of emotion words. Next, I present meta-analytic data

from neuroimaging experiments demonstrating that brain regions associated with

emotional experiences and perceptions (e.g., inferior frontal gyrus, dorsomedial

prefrontal cortex, lateral temporal cortex) overlap with regions involved in se-

mantics. Finally, I close with meta-analytic evidence showing different brain ac-

tivity when emotion words are included versus not included in studies of emotion

experiences. Neuroimaging studies that include emotion words in the experimen-

tal task find greater activity within the inferior frontal gyrus and thalamus when

participants experience emotions, regions associated with semantic retrieval and

sensory processing. By comparison, studies that do not include emotion words

find greater amygdala activity when participants experience emotions, a region

associated with processing uncertain stimuli. These findings are consistent with

the psychological constructionist view that words prompt retrieval of emotion

concept knowledge that is used to disambiguate the discrete emotional meaning

of otherwise ambiguous affective feelings.

S22 SPR Abstracts 2015