Encouraging Expressions Affect the Brain and Alter Visual Attention
Background Very often, encouraging or discouraging expressions are used in competitive contexts, such as sports practice, aiming at provoking an emotional reaction on the listener and, consequently, an effect on subsequent cognition and/or performance. However, the actual efficiency of these expressions has not been tested scientifically. Methodology/Principal Findings To fill this gap, we studied the effects of encouraging, discouraging, and neutral expressions on event-related brain electrical activity during a visual selective attention task in which targets were determined by location, shape, and color. Although the expressions preceded the attentional task, both encouraging and discouraging messages elicited a similar long-lasting brain emotional response present during the visuospatial task. In addition, encouraging expressions were able to alter the customary working pattern of the visual attention system for shape selection in the attended location, increasing the P1 and the SP modulations while simu
17 Jun 2009 ... Manuel Martín-Loeches ,. * E-mail: mmartinloeches@edu.ucm.es. Affiliations Center for Human Evolution and Behavior, UCM-ISCIII, Madrid, ...