EMOTIONAL CONTEXT AND AUDITORY PROCESSING. AN EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS STUDY

The emotional content of either stimuli or contexts can affect simultaneous cognitive task performance, but relationships between theses processes are still unclear. The present study evaluated the electrophysiological responses of sixteen subjects while passively listening to successive brief (50 ms) binaurally-administered auditory frequent (1000 Hz; p= .80) or deviant (1100 Hz; p = .20) stimuli, appearing within three emotionally different contexts (positive, neutral and negative) according to a self-report scale, cardiac frequency, skin electrical conductance and corporal temperature measurements. The results showed significant changes in P50' voltage amplitude for the negative emotional context, interpreted as an increase in attentional filtering threshold or as attenuation of habituation mechanisms without influencing MMN amplitude, which points out the MMN' automation nature.