Linking Emotional Reactivity Between Laboratory Tasks and Immersive Environments Using Behavior and Physiology

Abstract

An event or experience can induce different emotional responses between individuals, including strong variability based on task parameters or environmental context. Physiological correlates of emotional reactivity, as well as related constructs of stress and anxiety, have been found across many physiological metrics, including heart rate and brain activity. However, the interdependances and interactions across contexts and between physiological systems are not well understood. Here, we recruited military and law enforcement to complete two experimental sessions across two different days. In the laboratory session, participants viewed high-arousal negative images while brain activity electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from the scalp, and functional connectivity was computed during the task and used as a predictor of emotional response during the other experimental session. In an immersive simulation session, participants performed a shoot-don’t-shoot scenario while heart rate electrocardiography (ECG) was recorded. Our analysis examined the relationship between the sessions, including behavioral responses (emotional intensity ratings, task performance, and self-report anxiety) and physiology from different modalities [brain connectivity and heart rate variability (HRV)]. Results replicated previous research and found that behavioral performance was modulated within-session based on varying levels of emotional intensity in the laboratory session ( t (24) = 4.062, p < 0.0005) and stress level in the simulation session ( Z = 2.45, corrected p -value = 0.0142). Both behavior and physiology demonstrated cross-session relationships. Behaviorally, higher intensity ratings in the laboratory was related to higher self-report anxiety in the immersive simulation during low-stress ( r = 0.465, N = 25, p = 0.019) and high-stress ( r = 0.400, N = 25, p = 0.047) conditions. Physiologically, brain connectivity in the theta band during the laboratory session significantly predicted low-frequency HRV in the simulation session ( p < 0.05); furthermore, a frontoparietal connection accounted for emotional intensity ratings during the attend laboratory condition ( r = 0.486, p = 0.011) and self-report anxiety after the high-stress simulation condition ( r = 0.389, p = 0.035). Interestingly, the predictive power of the brain activity occurred only for the conditions where participants had higher levels of emotional reactivity, stress, or anxiety. Taken together, our findings describe an integrated behavioral and physiological characterization of emotional reactivity.

How do word valence and classes influence lexical processing? Evidence from virtual reality emotional contexts

“…However, what should be noted is that the emotion-cognition relation has been mainly explored within a controlled laboratory setting where emotion invoking stimuli were exposed very briefly. It is still unclear regarding how well stationary laboratory behavior predicts task performance when the stimuli have features more typical of real-world environments (Pavlenko, 2008;Roy et al, 2019). Therefore, the potential differences between laboratory settings and real environments call for further research to address the effects of real emotional contexts on lexical processing.…”

“…Virtual reality digital technology can enable its users to be immersed in a 3D virtual environment, and accordingly activate active interaction between the simulated reality and users. Virtual reality can also allow for the use of multiple senses that function simultaneously during information processing (Roy et al, 2019). In a VR context, the addition of living objects such as virtual people or animals can more realistically imitate the real world, so users could have a virtual sense of immersion (Fisher and Fraser, 1998).…”

“…Therefore, it is highly necessary to explore emotional words processing under real emotional contexts. Virtual reality digital technology has a lot to offer to an individual's enhanced experience and cognition because of its immersive and authentic/real-life environment (Parsons, 2015;Roy et al, 2019) which could affect the execution of motor responses (Sell and Kaschak, 2011;Zhang and Zhang, 2015). Given that galvanic skin responses are important indicators of an individual's stimulated responses (Bai and Yue, 2013), it is also necessary to explore whether there are some changes in an individual's galvanic skin responses under different VR contexts.…”

Online Left-Hemispheric In-Phase Frontoparietal Theta tACS for the Treatment of Negative Symptoms of Schizophrenia

“…The EEG data will be in a separate manuscript. Studies have reported that HRV is significantly correlated both with negative symptoms [21] and with frontoparietal network connectivity [22,23]. Here, we report the methods of collecting and analyzing the data of HRV.…”

Scale-specific dynamics of large-amplitude bursts in EEG capture behaviorally meaningful variability

“…Participants used the numeric keypad on the keyboard to rate their emotional intensity in response to each image, for a total of 60 images, on a scale ranging from 1 (low emotional intensity) to 9 (high emotional intensity). Experimental timelines for these tasks are shown in Figure 1A and further details can be found in reference [39].…”