The mediation effect of menstrual phase on negative emotion processing: Evidence from N2

Abstract

Numerous studies have shown a ‘negativity bias’ in emotion processing and effect of menstrual phase on emotion processing. Most of these results, however, did not match the arousal of different types of stimuli. The present study examined the time course of negative emotion processing across different menstrual phases (e.g., late luteal/premenstrual phase and follicular phase) when the arousal level of negative and neutral stimuli was equal. Following previous studies, an oddball paradigm was utilized in present study. Participants viewed neutral and negative (highly (HN) and moderately negative (MN)) stimuli with matched arousal and were asked to make deviant vs. standard judgments. The behavioral results showed a higher accuracy for HN stimuli than neutral stimuli, and the other comparisons were not significant. The major event-related potential (ERP) finding was that N2 amplitude was larger for MN than neutral in the late luteal phase, whereas such difference was absent during the follicular phase. Moreover, The N2 for HN stimuli was larger in late luteal phase than in follicular phase. Therefore, female may be with higher sensitivity to MN stimuli during late luteal phase than during follicular phase when the arousal of stimuli was well controlled. These results provide additional insight to premenstrual affective syndrome and affective disorder.

Keywords:

• Menstrual phase
• Negative emotion
• ERP

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Corrigendum

We acknowledge Dr Jiajin Yuan giving valuable suggestions on our revision. And, the author also wants to thank Dr Qingqing Qu for her suggestions on the manuscript. This research was supported by the 973 Program [2014CB744603], the foundation of National Key Lab of Human Factors Engneering [HF2012-K-03], National Basic Research Program of China [2011CB711000], NSFC [91132704], and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2012YBXS01].