The Effects of Individuals' Mood State and Personality Trait on the Cognitive Processing of Emotional Stimuli

摘要

This study assessed the effects of individuals' personality trait and mood state on affective reactions toemotional stimuli. Resting electroencephalographic (EEG) was recorded from 11 healthy right-handedmales and questionnaires were administered to assess subject's mood state (total mood disturbance score)and personality trait (i.e. introvert or extravert), respectively. Along with baseline signals from the restingperiod, EEG was measured while subjects viewed pictures of three types of emotional stimuli (negativelyarousing, calm, and positively arousing) chosen from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Amajor question raised by the brain's response to emotional stimuli was whether these changes were relatedto preexistent differences in subjects' mood state and personality. Extraverted subjects and those withnormal mood disturbance scores showed a greater response to positive stimuli processing while brain areasof introverted subjects and those with high mood disturbance scores were highly responsive to negativeemotional pictures in the upper alpha frequency bands (10～12 Hz).