Neural Correlates of Preference: A Transmodal Validation Study

Author(s)

Akiba, Henrique T. ^{[1, 2]} ; Costa, Marcelo F. ^[2] ; Gomes, July S. ^[1] ; Oda, Eduardo ^[1] ; Simurro, Paula B. ^[1] ; Dias, Alvaro M. ^{[1, 3]}

Affiliation

^[1] Univ Fed Sao Paulo, Dept Psychiat, Sao Paulo - Brazil

^[2] Conselho Nacl Desenvolvimneto Tecn & Cient CNPq, Brasilia, DF - Brazil

^[3] FAPESP, Sao Paulo - Brazil

• Document type: Journal article
• Source: FRONTIERS IN HUMAN NEUROSCIENCE; v. 13, MAR 18 2019.
• Web of Science Citations: 0

Abstract

Liking is one of the most important psychological processes associated with the reward system, being involved in affective processing and pleasure/displeasure encoding. Currently, there is no consensus regarding the combination of physiological indicators which best predict liking, especially when applied to dynamic stimuli such as videos. There is a lack of a standard methodology to assess likeability over time and therefore in assessing narrative and semantic aspects of the stimulus. We developed a time-dependent method to evaluate the physiological correlates of likeability for three different thematic categories, namely: adventure (AV), comedy (CM), and nature landscape (LS). Twenty-eight healthy adults with ages ranging from 18 to 35 years (average: 23.85 years) were enrolled in the study. The participants were asked to provide likeability ratings for videos as they watched them, using a response box. Three 60-s videos were presented, one for each category, in randomized order while the participant's physiological data {[}electroencephalogram (EEG), electrocardiogram (ECG) and eye tracking (ET)] was recorded. The comedy video (CM) presented the smallest minimum accumulated normalized rating (ANR; p = 0.013) and the LS video presented the highest maximum ANR (p = 0.039). The LS video presented the longest time for first response (p < 0.001) and the AV video presented the shortest time for maximum response (p = 0.016). The LS video had the highest mean likeability rating with 1.43 +/- 2.31 points; and the CM video had the lowest with 0.57 +/- 1.77. Multiple linear regression models were created to predict the likeability of each video using the following physiological indicators; AV: power in beta band at C4 and P4 (p = 0.004, adj. R-2 = 0.301); CM: alpha power in Fp2 (p = 0.001, adj. R-2 = 0.326) and LS: alpha power in P4, F8, and Fp2; beta power in C4 and P4 and pupil size, (p = 0.002, adj. R-2 = 0.489). Despite its limitations (e.g., using one 1-min video per category) our findings suggest that there is a considerable difference in the psychophysiological correlates of stimuli with different contextual properties and that the use of time-dependent methods to assess videos should be considered as best practices. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/26818-2 - Development and implementation of visual evaluation methods: clinical applications and animal models
• Grantee: Dora Selma Fix Ventura
• Support Opportunities: Research Projects - Thematic Grants