BackgroundIntegration of compatible or incompatible emotional valence and semantic information is an essential aspect of complex social interactions. A modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) called Dual Valence Association Task (DVAT) was designed in order to measure conflict resolution processing from compatibility/incompatibly of semantic and facial valence. The DVAT involves two emotional valence evaluative tasks which elicits two forms of emotional compatible/incompatible associations (facial and semantic).MethodsBehavioural measures and Event Related Potentials were recorded while participants performed the DVAT.ResultsBehavioural data showed a robust effect that distinguished compatible/incompatible tasks. The effects of valence and contextual association (between facial and semantic stimuli) showed early discrimination in N170 of faces. The LPP component was modulated by the compatibility of the DVAT.ConclusionsResults suggest that DVAT is a robust paradigm for studying the emotional interference effect in the processing of simultaneous information from semantic and facial stimuli.

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Even among advocates of legalising physician-assisted death, many argue that this should be done only once palliative care has become widely available. Meanwhile, according to them, physician-assisted death should be banned. Four arguments are often presented to support this claim, which we call the argument of lack of autonomy, the argument of existing alternatives, the argument of unfair inequalities and the argument of the antagonism between physician-assisted death and palliative care. We argue that although these arguments provide strong reasons to take appropriate measures to guarantee access to good quality palliative care to everyone who needs it, they do not justify a ban on physician-assisted death until we have achieved this goal.