Neural temporal dynamics of contingency judgement

Abstract

The present study captures the dynamics of neural processing across positively contingent, negatively contingent, and noncontingent relations. In the setting of a hypothetical chat room conversation, participants rated the contingency of emotional response between two individuals. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were time-locked to the onset of each emotional event. Although each event alone was ambiguous regarding contingency, its neural response was characteristic of the overall contingent relation and the subsequent contingency rating. Very early displays of contingency modified the ERP anterior N1 (AN1) component amplitude. In contrast, the ERP selection negativity (SN) component amplitude seemed to be more sensitive to display properties than contingency. Our results point to the recruitment of early attentional processes for contingency judgement and highlight the efficiency of statistical information processing.

Keywords:

• Contingency judgement
• Event-related potential
• anterior N1
• Selection negativity
• Attention

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) grant to L.G.A., NSERC grant to J.M.S., and NSERC Canadian Graduate Scholarship to J.J.H.

We would like to thank Shepard Siegel and Matthew Crump for their helpful suggestions and comments throughout all phases of this research. We would also like to thank Dan Bosnyak for his useful suggestions concerning data analysis.

Jennifer J. Heisz is now at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, Toronto, Canada. Samuel Hannah is now at the University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia.

Notes

¹ The first frame of each stream was excluded from analysis because it was the only frame that was not immediately preceded by another frame, and we saw this as a potential artefact.