Abstract
In the present study event-related potentials were used to shed further light on the neural signatures of active inhibition of the (affective) content of written words. Intentional inhibition was implemented by simply asking participants (N = 32) to ignore single words that served as primes in an affective priming (AP) task. In AP, evaluations about a priori neutral targets typically tend to shift towards the valence of preceding primes, denoting an AP effect (APE). To create a plausible cover-context emphasizing the usefulness of word inhibition, participants were asked to avoid this shift, that is, to make unbiased target evaluations. Ignoring the prime words was suggested as the most efficient strategy to achieve this aim. Effective inhibition of the words’ (affective) content, as suggested by a significant APE present for words processed without any further instruction, but not for ignored ones, affected multiple stages of processing. On the neuronal level, word inhibition was characterized by reduced early perceptual (left-lateralized word-specific N170), later attentional (parietal P300), and affective-semantic processing (reduced posterior semantic asymmetry). Furthermore, an additional recruitment of top-down inhibitory control processes, which was mirrored in increased amplitudes of medial-frontal negativity, showed to be critically involved in intentional word inhibition.
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Notes
Note that given systematic differences in processing across the modalities, we will mainly focus on findings on written words, leaving aside other stimulus categories (e.g., pictures; see Bayer and Schacht 2014).
In general the efficiency of a parallel task in altering the processing of task-irrelevant stimuli (or stimulus dimensions) critically depends on a sufficiently high task load that approaches overall processing capacity. That is because perceptual processing, although being capacity-limited, proceeds automatically until it runs out of capacity (see Lavie and Tsal 1994).
Note that in looking for a word-specific indicator of semantic processing, we did not expect any effects on centro-parietal N400 that is not specific to words. N400 is typically elicited by violations of context-induced expectations (Kutas and Federmeier 2011; Lau et al. 2013). Context violation, however, is not part of our design, presenting participants with single words.
For the purpose of the AP cover task, words differed significantly in mean valence (all t(58) > 26.80, p < .001), but neither in word frequency nor word length (all t(58) < 0.96, p > .34). Emotional words were matched for arousal, t(58) = 0.40, p = .70, but were more arousing than neutral ones (both ts > 9.30, ps < .001). Note that for subsequent analyses, data were collapsed across word valence, as no differential effects were expected (see also Kissler et al. 2009). This assumption was verified by additional control analyses that ensured instruction effects on ERPs to indeed not depend on word valence (see Supplementary material 1).
Prime valence was balanced within blocks, with primes drawn randomly from a combined list of 30 negative, neutral, and positive adjectives each. After emptying the list, primes were replaced and drawn again. During the course of the experiment each prime word was presented four times. Target stimuli were drawn randomly and rated exactly once.
We carefully monitored the recorded data during data acquisition to ensure that participants in fact adhered to the instruction. Furthermore ensuring that our ERP (between instruction) effects were not simply due to mere eye-movement artifacts a direct comparison of vEOG and hEOG channel activity for the duration of prime presentation (0–800 ms) between the None and the Ignore condition revealed no significant differences between conditions, both t(31) < 1.13, p > .270.
Although up to now reports of the PSA are limited to work of our research group, this replication of timing and topography is worth mentioning given the ongoing debate on reproducibility of major findings in psychological science, calling for replication studies (Makel et al. 2012; Maxwell et al. 2015; Open Science Collaboration, 2012, 2015).
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The authors wish to thank Lena Erwig, Helena Fileccia, Merle Herzog, Caroline Heydenbluth, Hannah Kirsten, and Rebekka Schröder for help with data acquisition.
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Seib-Pfeifer, LE., Koppehele-Gossel, J. & Gibbons, H. On ignoring words—exploring the neural signature of inhibition of affective words using ERPs. Exp Brain Res 237, 2397–2409 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05597-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-019-05597-w