Behavioral modulation by mutilation pictures in women

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that women are more emotionally expressive than men. It is unclear, however, if women are also more susceptible to the emotional modulation of behavior imposed by an affective stimulus. To investigate this issue, we devised a task in which female subjects performed six sequential trials of visual target detection following the presentation of emotional (mutilation and erotic) or neutral pictures (domestic utensils and objects) and compared the data obtained in the present study with those described in a previous study with male subjects. The experiment consisted of three blocks of 24 pictures and each block had an approximate duration of 4 min. Our sample consisted of 36 subjects (age range: 18 to 26 years) and each subject performed all blocks. Trials following the presentation of mutilation pictures (283 ms) had significantly slower reaction times than those following neutral (270 ms) pictures. None of the trials in the "pleasant block" (271 ms) was significantly different from those in the "neutral block". The increase in reaction time observed in the unpleasant block may be related in part to the activation of motivational systems leading to an avoidance behavior. The interference effect observed in this study was similar to the pattern previously described for men. Thus, although women may be more emotionally expressive, they were not more reactive to aversive stimuli than men, as measured by emotional interference in a simple reaction time task.

Load-dependent modulation of affective picture processing

“…In particular, the viewing of pictures of mutilated bodies is especially powerful (Azevedo et al, 2005;Bradley et al, 2003;Pereira et al, 2004). The results of the present experiments strengthen the view that the processing of emotional stimuli is prioritized, as is indicated by the interference of unpleasant pictures.…”

Regulation of negative emotions in high trait anxious individuals: An ERP study.

“…Moreover, epidemiological studies indicate that women are at a higher risk for affective disorders, such as anxiety and depression, suggesting a higher incidence of negative affect (Sachs-Ericsson & Ciarlo, 2000). On the other hand, other studies have shown that women exhibit a pattern of behavior and physiological response similar to that observed in men when exposed to the same emotional stimuli (Kring & Gordon, 1998;Pereira et al, 2004). As suggested by Pereira and colleagues (2004), one possibility is that women and men differ only in the expression of emotion, but that the responses and influences of emotional stimulation are the same in both sexes.…”

Passively viewing negatively valenced baby faces attenuates left amygdala activity in healthy females scoring high on ‘Harm Avoidance’

“…When viewing pictures of 'mutilation', women, especially, show marked psychophysiological reactions [31]. Our behavioral observations demonstrated that our negatively valenced baby faces were not evaluated as emotionally ambiguous stimuli (infants in distress might elicit approach-related behavior and the image of a crying child may invoke the desire to console rather than the desire to abandon…”

“…We calculated a mean maximum t defined as the mean of those 5% highest t-values for each left and right amygdala. The final ROIs contained the voxels in the masked maps with a t-value above 20% of the mean maximum t. This When viewing pictures of 'mutilation', women, especially, show marked psychophysiological reactions [31]. Our behavioral observations demonstrated that our negatively valenced baby faces were not evaluated as emotionally ambiguous stimuli (infants in distress might elicit approach-related behavior and the image of a crying child may invoke the desire to console rather than the desire to abandon [10]).…”