| Popis: |
The visceral system can influence consciousness and emotions. In this paper, we investigated whether the processing of short-term emotional stimuli along different phases of the cardiac cycle is selectively regulated. Emotional and neutral faces were presented to the volunteers during cardiac systole, when the release of blood from the heart causes arterial baroreceptors to centrally signal the strength and time of the heartbeat, and in diastole, the period between heartbeats when the baroreceptors are at rest. Participants passively observed the faces appearing in the oddball paradigm in immersive virtual reality (VR). Combining electroencephalography and electrocardiography, cardio synchronous ERP was recorded. The ERP data at the occipital Oz electrode demonstrate the dependence of emotional stimuli in respect to the cardiac cycle. ERP in VR were higher during diastole than systole. More specifically, the cardiac phase influenced late component P300 of the ERP, did not influence early P100 and affected P200 only to angry face. This new evidence that events related to cardiac function can modulate emotional perception in virtual reality might be one more prime example of how body feedback shapes emotions. |
