Human brain function in emotional perception

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The aim of this project is to investigate the brain s response to affective stimuli: 1) to assess the validity of the animal model of motivation defined by Davis, LeDoux, Morgenson, and others, as a design for human brain function in emotion; 2) to evaluate current views of differential cortical activation in human emotion, and examine their relationship to the motivational view; 3) to determine the brain s response to stimuli that vary along the motivational parameters of pleasure and arousal, and 4) to assess differences and covariations between spatially sensitive (fMRI) and temporally sensitive (EEG measures of motivational activation in the brain. An integrative analytic effort will aim to capitalize on each measures unique advantages. In this procedure, emotionally evocative stimuli are presented in different media (i.e., pictures, sounds, or texts) that share the same affective content, in order to define consistently active neuroanatomical regions that reflect affective processes, as opposed to sites unique to modality of input or language mediation. Affect content is operationally defined both by scaled evaluative judgements of pleasure and arousal and by psychophysiological response.