Cross-cultural Differences In The Neural Responses Of Positive Stimuli

In the process of human evolution,negative stimuli are often closely related to events that threaten human life.Human beings have special sensitivity to negative stimuli for the purpose of protecting life and adapting to survival.Negative stimuli have a certain priority in cognitive processing and are often of widespread concern to researchers.With the rise of positive psychology,positive stimuli are getting more and more attention.Positive stimuli are of great significance to the development of individuals and their adaptation to social life.They can usually promote cognitive processing in individuals.Therefore,in recent years,positive stimuli and cognition and other related topics have been widely researched by researchers.However,how people from different cultures react to positive stimulus similarly and differently has not been adequately studied.To fill this gap in the field,we conducted two parallel experiments in the present study to examine cross-cultural differences in positive stimuli(positive emotions in social contexts and positive feedback)by using event-related potentials(ERPs)and behavior measurements.In study 1,A total of 29 Chinese and 23 White Caucasian participants were recruited.Results showed that in the Chinese and Caucasian positive emotion in social context conditions,P2 amplitudes were larger in Chinese than in Caucasians.There were no significant differences in P2 amplitudes when processing positive emotion and neutral stimuli.For Chinese,the amplitudes of LPP 600-1000 of Chinese positive emotion in social context stimuli were larger than positive emotion stimuli.For Caucasians,there was no significant difference among different stimuli.The higher P2 and LPP 600-1000 amplitudes suggested the salience and significance of positive emotions in social contexts for Chinese.Findings indicated that neural activation occurring during the processing of different positive emotions is moderated by participants’ own cultural background.In study 2,A total of 28 Chinese and 24 White Caucasian participants wererecruited.Results showed that negative feedback elicited a more negative average amplitudes of FRN than in positive feedback condition.There were no significant differences in the area amplitudes of FRN between two groups.The average amplitudes of P3 were larger in positive feedback condition than in negative feedback condition.For Chinese,the average amplitudes of P3 were lager in positive feedback condition than in negative feedback condition.For Caucasians,there was no significant difference among different stimuli.In positive feedback condition,the area amplitudes of P3 were lager in Chinese than in Caucasians.In negative feedback condition,there were no significant differences in the area amplitudes of P3 between two groups.Findings indicated that Chinese are more concerned about positive feedback stimuli and more cognitive resources were needed to process them.The significantly different electrical response characteristics show that the processing for positive and negative feedback stimuli are closely related to the culture context.