Elsevier

Neuroscience Letters

Volume 505, Issue 3, 21 November 2011, Pages 233-237
Neuroscience Letters

The temporal features of self-referential processing evoked by national flag

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2011.10.017Get rights and content

Abstract

The present study explored the neural correlates underlying the psychological processing of self-national flag. Event-related potentials were recorded for national flags while subjects performed a three-stimulus oddball task. The results showed that self-referential stimulus (self-national flag) elicited longer N1 latency and larger N2 amplitude than did non-self-referential stimuli (the familiar and unfamiliar flags). Furthermore, larger P3 amplitudes were showed for self-referential stimulus than for familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. Moreover, in terms of lateralization, the self-referential effect was more obvious on the left region sites. Thus, the present study showed that the self-referential effect not only occurred in late P3 processing stage, but also in early N1 and N2 processing stages, and further demonstrated a left laterality for self-referential processing by using the self-national flag as the self-relevant stimulus.

Highlights

► Self-referential stimulus elicited longer N1 latency and larger N2 amplitude than that of non-self referential ones. ► Larger amplitudes were showed for self-referential stimulus than for familiar and unfamiliar stimuli. ► In terms of lateralization and caudality, the self-referential effect was more obvious on the left and front sites.

Section snippets

Acknowledgements

Project 31171003 supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China and by Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department. We thank Aiming Xu for editing English.

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