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Abstract:
Emotional stimuli vary along two primary dimensions of
affective valence and arousal. The present research examined
whether dissociable neural subsystems process valence and arousal
in qualitatively different ways. Participants named laterally
presented scenes that varied along valence and arousal dimensions,
after encoding scenes in the central visual field. Test scenes were
either primed or unprimed, and memory was measured as greater
naming accuracy for primed compared to unprimed scenes. When test
scenes were presented directly to the right hemisphere, memory
performance depended on stimulus valence, but not on arousal level.
In contrast, when test scenes were presented directly to the left
hemisphere, memory performance depended on both stimulus valence
and arousal level. Hence, subsystems in the right and left
hemispheres may be differentially sensitive to valence and arousal
dimensions of emotional stimuli. These findings are related to
current theories of emotion and visual-form processing.
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