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Frontal EEG Activation Asymmetry Reflects Cognitive Biases in Anxiety: Evidence from an Emotional Face Stroop Task

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Abstract

Electroencephalography (EEG) has been extensively used in studies of the frontal asymmetry of emotion and motivation. This study investigated the midfrontal EEG activation, heart rate and skin conductance during an emotional face analog of the Stroop task, in anxious and non-anxious participants. In this task, the participants were asked to identify the expression of calm, fearful and happy faces that had either a congruent or incongruent emotion name written across them. Anxious participants displayed a cognitive bias characterized by facilitated attentional engagement with fearful faces. Fearful face trials induced greater relative right frontal activation, whereas happy face trials induced greater relative left frontal activation. Moreover, anxiety specifically modulated the magnitude of the right frontal activation to fearful faces, which also correlated with the cognitive bias. Therefore, these results show that frontal EEG activation asymmetry reflects the bias toward facilitated processing of fearful faces in anxiety.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Elena Geangu (St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Canada) for useful comments on a draft of this manuscript. This research was supported by a grant from National University Research Council of Romania (CNCSIS).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emotion and Cognition Neuroscience Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Babeş-Bolyai University, 37 Republicii, 400015, Cluj-Napoca, CJ, Romania

    Julia Avram, Felicia Rodica Balteş, Mircea Miclea & Andrei C. Miu

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  1. Julia Avram
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  2. Felicia Rodica Balteş
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Correspondence to Andrei C. Miu.

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Avram, J., Balteş, F.R., Miclea, M. et al. Frontal EEG Activation Asymmetry Reflects Cognitive Biases in Anxiety: Evidence from an Emotional Face Stroop Task. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 35, 285–292 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10484-010-9138-6

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