The influence of emotional context on attention in anxious subjects: neurophysiological correlates

Visual emotional context modulates brain potentials elicited by unattended tones

“…However, this finding has not been replicated in other studies using similar protocols (Bradley et al, 2006;Cuthbert et al, 1998). Using an oddball counting task that contained nonstartle standard (1000 Hz, p = .80) and target tones (1500 Hz, p = .20), Mercado et al (2006) reported that the P2 amplitude was larger when participants were viewing a negative slide (wolf jaw) than when viewing a positive (opposite sex nude) or a relaxing slide (landscape). This effect was found only for participants with high state anxiety.…”

Sex differences in memory of emotional images: A behavioral and electrophysiological investigation

“…Conversely, the influence of arousal is most likely interacting with sustained encoding. Dolcos and Cabeza (2002) also proposed a prefrontal contributor to the valence effect and suggested that the arousal effect on memory may reflect amygdala-cortical interactions (Mercado et al, 2006).…”

Anxiety, cognitive self-evaluation and performance: ERP correlates

“…In line with the results by Roche et al (2005), we hypothesized that electrical brain activity may reflect individual differences in anxiety dimensions and cognitive evaluation but not necessarily the performance level of each individual. In particular we expected that N2 component is modulated by the anxiety level (Carretié , Mercado, Hinojosa, Martin-Loeches, & Sotillo, 2004;Mercado, Carretié , Tapia, & Gomez-Jarabo, 2006;Weinstein, 1995). Whereas cognitive self-evaluation, related to attentional resource allocation and cognitive demands during task processing, may be associated to later components (P3) (Polich, 2007).…”