Emotionally-Charged Music Influences Attentional Bias Towards Positive Colors

Emotionally-Charged Music Influences Attentional Bias Towards Positive Colors Abigail Mitchell & Carole Scherling, PhD. Abstract Early-on, humans perceive music as happy or sad, and demonstrate concordant emotional responses (Dalla Bella, 2001). Colors themselves are also intrinsic to emotional experiences. Respectively, bright and dark colors associate with positive and negative emotions, and people are attracted to stimuli matching current mood (Becker & Leinenger, 2011). The current study used a modified Color Dot-Probe task to examined the influence of emotional music on color biases. The task involved looking at the central screen, where 2 color squares would appear to the right and left, followed by the appearance of a target behind one color. Reaction times were recorded from target appearance to location identification through a button press, with shorter reaction times indicating a higher attentional draw. Subjects completed the task three times, first without background music and then randomized with positive and negative music. Pilot data from 32 participants indicates slower reaction times when the probe appeared behind negative colors, during both positive and negative musical trials (t= -2.17, p \u3c 0.05; t= -2.13, p \u3c 0.05). No differences in reaction times were shown between musical types when behind positive colors, nor between color-types during the non-musical trials (p\u3e0.05). Data collection is ongoing, but preliminary results indicate that background music, regardless of valence, biases attention towards positive colors. Therefore, it suggests that music itself introduces a color biases. These findings may be useful in future affective studies and may have applications in advertising

Coming Face-To-Face with the Influence of Priming and Attentional Bias on Perception of Emotional Faces

Unconscious emotional facial priming may affect subsequent actions, thoughts, and feelings in individuals (LeMoult et al., 2012). Previous work has shown that positive and negative emotional priming leads to subsequent judgments of neutral faces as positive and negative, respectively (Fazio et al., 1986). Further, emotional engagement levels of approach (ex. happiness, anger) and withdrawal (ex: sadness) elicit different affective responses (Lang, 1977). The current study subliminally primed participants with a 3x4 image matrix, either presenting 12 positive approach (happy), negative approach (angry), or negative withdrawal (sad) faces for 200 ms. Each matrix was followed by a single neutral face image for emotional rating. Attentional biases were assessed by an Emotional Dot Probe task and a Rosenberg self-esteem scale. Data collection is still ongoing. It is hypothesized that more positive valence, higher approachability, and happy discrete emotion judgements will be observed when primed with positive (happy) matrices compared to negative matrices (angry and sad) as well as when primed with approach emotions (happy and angry) compared to withdrawal ones (sadness). Finally, a larger priming effect is expected on concordant judgements of neutral faces for individuals who score more negatively on measures of attentional bias. The current study’s findings may contribute to emotional-priming literature, offering insight into attentional biases as well as the influence of impersonal and personal involvement when answering questions probing discrete emotions versus valence and approachability judgements

Can your past predict your future behaviors? Investigating the Impact of Childhood Experiences.

“Experiences shape the brain, but the brain shapes the way we view experiences (Fisher).” This quote accurately captures the impact of childhood past experiences where negative experiences have been shown to influence psychology, physiology and behavior (Boullier & Blair, 2018). The California Surgeon General’s Clinical Advisory Committee defines experiences in childhood related to categories of abuse, neglect and household dysfunction as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs impact attentional bias as higher ACEs score is correlated with a more negative attentional bias (McElwain, 2008) and higher physiological activity (Deighton, 2018; Aimie-Salleh, 2019). Many studies assess ACEs impact on the child and adolescent population, yet there is a void in literature when examining the emerging adult population (age 18-29). The current study investigated differences in intentionality-based hostility biases between participants with high and low ACEs reports. The Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire (Coombs, 2007) presented a set of scenarios with varying levels of fault clarity, requiring participants to attribute the level of fault. Participants completed this task while connected to psychophysiological sensors of pulse and skin conductance which were used as markers of stress reactivity. We hypothesize higher fault attribution with higher ACEs scores mirrored by concurrent higher pulse and skin conductance rates. A second task assessed attentional bias differences between high and low ACEs groups, using an emotional facial stimuli DotProbe task. We expect faster reaction times for angry faces for participants with high ACEs. Data is currently being collected and analyzed. Results will be presented and discussed in full during the oral presentation. This study seeks to modulate the effort to prevent ACEs as well as promote resiliency for those who have been affected

Pre-Chemotherapy Differences in Visuospatial Working Memory in Breast Cancer Patients Compared to Controls: An fMRI Study

Introduction: Cognitive deficits are a side-effect of chemotherapy, however pre-treatment research is limited. This study examines neurofunctional differences during working memory between breast cancer (BC) patients and controls, prior to chemotherapy. Methods: Early stage BC females (23), scanned after surgery but before chemotherapy, were individually matched to non-cancer controls. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while performing a Visuospatial N-back task and data was analyzed by multiple group comparisons. fMRI task performance, neuropsychological tests, hospital records, and salivary biomarkers were also collected. Results: There were no significant group differences on neuropsychological tests, estrogen, or cortisol. Patients made significantly fewer commission errors but had less overall correct responses and were slower than controls during the task. Significant group differences were observed for the fMRI data, yet results depended on the type of analysis. BC patients presented with increased activations during working memory compared to controls in areas such as the inferior frontal gyrus, insula, thalamus, and midbrain. Individual group regressions revealed a reverse relationship between brain activity and commission errors. Conclusion: This is the first fMRI investigation to reveal neurophysiological differences during visuospatial working memory between BC patients pre-chemotherapy and controls. These results also increase the knowledge about the effects of BC and related factors on the working memory network. Significance: This highlights the need to better understand the pre-chemotherapy BC patient and the effects of associated confounding variables

Can you HAND-le these emotions? An investigation on hemispheric dominance with exposure to visual stimuli.

Understanding dominant handedness has important implications for surgery planning and patient groups like stroke (Agarwal, 2016; Harris & Eng, 2006). Right-handers predominantly present left-hemisphere language dominance (Knecht, 2000), while left-handers present bilateral or right hemisphere language dominance (Bidula, 2017). Hemispheric lateralization of function also extends to other cognitive domains, such as emotional processing, where there is one major theory. The valence lateralization hypothesis, looking at positive or negative emotional qualities, suggests left hemispheric dominance for positive emotions and right dominance for negative ones (Palomero-Gallagher, 2022). Similar to language hemispheric dominance, emotional processing may be lateralized in the brain according to handedness. The current study aims to better understand this emotional hemispheric lateralization, in conjunction with handedness. We hypothesize that right-handers will show higher functional activity in the left hemisphere for positively-valenced. The study uses a novel forced-choice emotional facial judgment task presented on the Inquisit platform (Inquisit 6, 2022), with information on hemispheric lateralization being obtained from the fNIRS infrared neuroimaging environment (https://nirx.net/) during the emotional judgment task. Data is currently being collected and analyzed. Results will be presented and discussed in full during the oral presentation. The results are expected to guide targeted interventions for clinical groups experiencing emotional deficits after a neural assault and/or degeneration

Opening up the Window into “Chemobrain”: A Neuroimaging Review

As more chemotherapy-treated cancer patients are reaching survivorship, side-effects such as cognitive impairment warrant research attention. The advent of neuroimaging has helped uncover a neural basis for these deficits. This paper offers a review of neuroimaging investigations in chemotherapy-treated adult cancer patients, discussing the benefits and limitations of each technique and study design. Additionally, despite the assumption given by the chemobrain label that chemotherapy is the only causative agent of these deficits, other factors will be considered. Suggestions are made on how to more comprehensively study these cognitive changes using imaging techniques, thereby promoting generalizability of the results to clinical applications. Continued investigations may yield better long-term quality of life outcomes by supporting patients’ self-reports, and revealing brain regions being affected by chemotherapy

What Happens Before Chemotherapy?! Neuro-anatomical and -functional MRI Investigations of the Pre-chemotherapy Breast Cancer Brain.

The side-effects of chemotherapy treatment are an increasingly important research focus as more cancer patients are reaching survivorship. While treatment allows for survival, it can also lead to problems which can significantly affect quality of life. Cognitive impairments after chemotherapy treatment are one such factor. First presented as anecdotal patient reports, over the last decade empirical evidence for this cognitive concern has been obtained. Much attention has been focused on post-chemotherapy research, yet little attention has been granted to these same patients’ cognition before treatment commences. Breast cancer (BC) patients face many obstacles before chemotherapy treatment such as: surgery and side-effects of anesthesia, increased cytokine activity, stress of a new disease diagnosis and upcoming challenges, and emotional burdens such as depression and anxiety. Many of these factors have independently been shown to affect cognitive abilities in both healthy populations as well as other patient groups. Therefore, the pre-treatment (or baseline) BC patient status warrants systematic study. This would then reduce mistakenly attributing carried-over cognitive deficits to side effects of chemotherapy. As well, it is possible that certain confounding variables may have neural manifestations at baseline that could be exacerbated by chemotherapy agents. The following thesis first presents a review paper which critically describes the current literature examining chemotherapy-related cognitive impairments (CRCIs), as well as possible confound variables affecting this population. Subsequently, three original research papers present pre-chemotherapy data showing significant neuroanatomical and neurofunctional differences in BC patients compared to controls. In particular, these neural differences are present in brain regions that have been reported in post-chemotherapy papers. This, as well as the effects of variables such as the number of days since surgery, depression and anxiety scores and more, support the initiative that research attention should increase focus on these patients at baseline in order to better understand their post-chemotherapy results