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Event-related frontal alpha asymmetries: electrophysiological correlates of approach motivation

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Abstract

Over the last decades, frontal alpha asymmetries observed during resting state periods of several minutes have been used as a marker of affective–motivational states. To date, there is no evidence that alpha asymmetries can be observed in response to brief affective–motivational stimuli, as typically presented in event-related designs. As we argue, frontal alpha asymmetry might indeed be elicited by brief events if they are salient enough. In an event-related design, we used erotic pictures, i.e., highly salient incentives to elicit approach motivation, and contrasted them with pictures of dressed attractive women. As expected, we found significant alpha asymmetries for erotic pictures as compared to control pictures. Our findings suggest that the highly reactive reward system can lead to immediate, phasic changes in frontal alpha asymmetries. We discuss the findings with respect to the notion that high salience of erotic pictures derives from their potential of satisfying an individuals’ need by mere visual inspection, which is not the case for pictures showing other types of motivational stimuli such as food.

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Notes

  1. Pictures were matched according to their red, green and blue values. Each color value is the mean value of the respective color pixels (values 0–255). The luminance value is the mean value of the corresponding gray scale picture. All values were compared with each six uncorrected T tests. Descriptive values as well as aggregated statistics are reported below:

    Erotic: red = 122.72, green = 125.56, blue = 122.37, luminance = 124.35

    Dressed women: red = 123.19, green = 125.31, blue = 123.07, luminance = 124.41

    Daily activities: red = 122.08, green = 125.27, blue = 122.02, luminance = 123.95

    Extreme sports: red = 122.24, green = 125.80, blue = 123.25, luminance = 124.45

    Statistics for red: p mean = 0.93, p min = 0.88, p max = 0.99

    Statistics for green: p mean = 0.96, p min = 0.94, p max = 0.99

    Statistics for blue: p mean = 0.87, p min = 0.94, p max = 0.98

    Statistics for luminance: p mean = 0.97, p min = 0.94, p max = 0.99.

  2. Valence, arousal and desire ratings were analyzed with a one-factorial repeated measurement analyses of variance with the levels nude women, dressed women, extreme sports and daily activities followed by pairwise comparisons. Significant differences were found for arousal, F(2.44, 40) = 62.98, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.8, valence, F(2.14, 34.25) = 14.22, p < 0.001, η 2 = 0.47 and desire F(2.36, 37.73) = 14.39, p < 0.001, η2 = 0.47. As expected, the pairwise comparisons showed that erotic pictures were higher in desire compared to pictures of extreme sports (p < 0.05), dressed women (p < 0.001) and daily activities (p < 0.001). Most importantly, no significant difference was found between erotic pictures and extreme sport pictures with respect to valence and arousal (cf. Kuhr 2013).

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Acknowledgments

We thank Playboy Germany as well as Leon Sütfeld Photography for providing us with picture material. Additionally, we thank Rainer Düsing, Sebastian Gasse, Jakob Kaiser and Carina Krause for their assistance in stimulus selection and data collection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Osnabrück University, Seminarstraße 20, 49074, Osnabrück, Germany

    Benjamin Schöne, Jessica Schomberg, Thomas Gruber & Markus Quirin

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  1. Benjamin Schöne
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  2. Jessica Schomberg
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Correspondence to Benjamin Schöne.

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Schöne, B., Schomberg, J., Gruber, T. et al. Event-related frontal alpha asymmetries: electrophysiological correlates of approach motivation. Exp Brain Res 234, 559–567 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-015-4483-6

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