Autonomic and Frontal Electrocortical Responses That Differentiate Emotions elicited by the Affective Visual Stimulation

Cardiac, respiratory, electrodermal and frontal (F3, F4) EEG responses were analyzed and compared during to slides of International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in the study on 42 students. Physiological responses during 20s of exposure to slides intended to elicit happiness (nurturant and erotic), sadness, disgust, surprise, fear or anger emotions were quite similar and were expressed in heart rate (HR) deceleration, decreased HR variability (HRV), specific SCR, increased non-specific SCR frequency (N-SCR), and EEG changes exhibited in theta increase, alpha-blocking and increased beta activity, and frontal asymmetry. However, some emotions demonstrated variations of the response magnitudes, enabling to differentiate some paris of emotions by several physiological parameters. The profiles showed higher magnitudes of HRV and EEG responses in exciting (i.e., erotic) and higher cardiac and respiratory responses in surprise. The most different pairs were exciting-surprise (by HR, HRV, theta, and alpha asymmetry), exciting-sadness (by theta, alpha, and alpha asymmetry), and exciting-fear (by HRV, theta, F3 alpha, and alpha asymmetry). Nurturant happiness yielded the least differentiation. Differences were found as well within negative emotions, e.g., anger-sadness were differentiated by HRV and theta asymmetry, while disgust-fear by N-SCR and beta asymmetry. Obtained results suggest that magnitudes of profiles of physiological variables differentiate emotions evoked by affective pictures, despite that the patterns of most responses were featured by qualitative similarity in given passive viewing context.