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Shedding Light on Emotional Perception: Interaction of Brightness and Semantic Content in Extrastriate Visual Cortex

The rapid extraction of affective cues from the visual environment is crucial for flexible behavior. Previous studies have reported emotion-dependent amplitude modulations of two event-related potential (ERP) components - the N1 and EPN - reflecting …

Involuntary Attentional Orienting in the Absence of Awareness Speeds up Early Sensory Processing

A long-standing controversy in the field of human neuroscience has revolved around the question whether attended stimuli are processed more rapidly compared to unattended stimuli. We conducted two event-related potential (ERP) experiments employing a …

Semi-Parametric Proportional Hazards Models with Crossed Random Effects for Psychometric Response Times

The semi-parametric proportional hazards model with crossed random effects has two important characteristics: it avoids explicit specification of the response time distribution by using semi-parametric models, and it captures heterogeneity that is …

Multiple Synergistic Effects of Emotion and Memory on Proactive Processes Leading to Scene Recognition

Visual scene recognition is a proactive process through which contextual cues and top-down expectations facilitate the extraction of invariant features. Whether the emotional content of the scenes exerts a reliable influence on these processes or …

No Prior Entry for Threat-Related Faces: Evidence from Temporal Order Judgments

Previous research showed that threat-related faces, due to their intrinsic motivational relevance, capture attention more readily than neutral faces. Here we used a standard temporal order judgment (TOJ) task to assess whether negative (either angry …

Brain Mechanisms for Emotional Influences on Perception and Attention: What Is Magic and What Is Not

The rapid and efficient selection of emotionally salient or goal-relevant stimuli in the environment is crucial for flexible and adaptive behaviors. Converging data from neuroscience and psychology have accrued during the last decade to identify …

Valence-Specific Modulation in the Accumulation of Perceptual Evidence Prior to Visual Scene Recognition

Visual scene recognition is a dynamic process through which incoming sensory information is iteratively compared with predictions regarding the most likely identity of the input stimulus. In this study, we used a novel progressive unfolding task to …

Brain Dynamics of Upstream Perceptual Processes Leading to Visual Object Recognition: A High Density ERP Topographic Mapping Study

Recent studies suggest that visual object recognition is a proactive process through which perceptual evidence accumulates over time before a decision can be made about the object. However, the exact electrophysiological correlates and time-course of …

The Comprehension of Idiomatic Expressions in Schizophrenic Patients

Recent fMRI and TMS studies on idiom comprehension have shown that the prefrontal cortex is involved in idiom processing. Since schizophrenic patients exhibit prefrontal structural changes and dysexecutive behavioural deficits, we hypothesised an …