The Adjustment Effect Of Arousal On The Effect Of Valence Consistency Caused By Subthreshold Emotional Information

Researches have shown that unseen fearful facial expressions can not only be processed, but also promote the perception of seen fearful expressions in the opposite hemi-field, while such valence congruency effects can not happen in the terms of happy expressions. In fact, human affective responses are determined by at least two dimensions:arousal and valence, and the two dimensions are often correlated with each other. However, in the past, researchers often ignored the role of arousal in the process of unseen emotional stimuli. So the purpose of the current study is to further explore the effects of arousal in the online interaction of unseen and seen emotional faces.Method:Using the emotional faces came from Chinese Affective Picture System as experimental materials, and using backward masking paradigms and tachistoscopic visual half-field technique to explore how the arousal level impacts the valence congruency effects between unseen and seen emotional expressions.Results:1) In the high-arousal level, the valence congruency effects happens between unseen and seen fearful expression; while in the low-arousal level, the valence congruency effects still happens between unseen and seen happy expression. 2) Arousal level affects the advantages of right hemisphere in the recognition of seen emotional faces.Conclusions:1) Not only valence, but also arousal of the stimuli can be processed through the sub-cortical pass way.2) Arousal levels influences the valence congruency between the online interaction of seen and unseen emotional faces, which may be because of whether arousal and valence of the stimuli evoke the congruent approach or withdrawal tendencies.3) Right amygdala has advantage in the process of arousal, so the right hemisphere superiority in current study may be result from the control of the arousal level of unseen and seen emotional expressions.