NEURAL CORRELATES OF AFFECTIVE PRIMACY

情感优先是指情感反应不依赖于认知中介的概念，因此情感和认知评价在某种程度上依赖于具有不同行为动力学的功能独立的信息处理流。 一般认为情感信息处理具有特殊的特征：它在很大程度上是预先注意/自动的，可以在意识之外发生，并且在更一般的认知和感知特征的评估之前。 情感处理的这些特征可以被称为情感自动性。 本研究的主要目的是应用功能性磁共振成像（MRI），通过测试以下假设来检查情感自动性的神经基础：1）情感而非神经刺激维度的感知加工独立于注意力资源分配而完成，2）对情感显著但非中性刺激的神经反应在感知意识之前且独立于感知意识而被诱发，对情感显著性刺激的神经反应支持无意识的情感辨别。

Affective primacy refers to the notion that affective reactions are not dependent upon cognitive mediation, and thus affective and cognitive evaluations are to some degree dependent on functionally independent information processing streams with different behavioral dynamics. It is generally thought that affective information processing is endowed with special features: It is largely preattentive/automatic, can occur outside of awareness and prior to the appraisal of more general cognitive and perceptual features. These features of affective processing may be referred to as affective automaticity. The primary aim of this proposal is to apply functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to examine the neural basis of affective automaticity by testing the following hypotheses: 1) Perceptual processing of affective but not neural stimulus dimensions is accomplished independent of attentional resource allocation, 2) Neural responses to affectively significant but not neutral stimuli are evoked prior to and independent of perceptual awareness, and 3) Neural responses to affectively significant stimuli support affective discriminations without awareness.