Open AccessElectrophysiological Correlation of the Degree of Self-Reference Effect
Author(s) -
Wei Fan,
Jie Chen,
Xiaoyan Wang,
Ronghua Cai,
Qianbao Tan,
Yun Chen,
Qingsong Yang,
Shanming Zhang,
Wu Yun,
Zilu Yang,
Xi-ai Wang,
Yiping Zhong
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0080289
Subject(s) - electrophysiology , oddball paradigm , event related potential , stimulus (psychology) , psychology , self , self consistent , degree (music) , correlation , task (project management) , audiology , cognitive psychology , electroencephalography , neuroscience , medicine , physics , mathematics , social psychology , quantum electrodynamics , geometry , management , acoustics , economics
The present study investigated neural correlations underlying the psychological processing of stimuli with various degrees of self-relevance. Event-related potentials were recorded for names that differ in their extent of relevance to the study participant. Participants performed a three-stimulus oddball task. ERP results showed larger P2 averaged amplitudes for highly self-relevant names than for moderately self-relevant, minimally self-relevant, and non-self-relevant names. N2 averaged amplitudes were larger for the highly self-relevant names than for the moderately self-relevant, minimally self-relevant, and non-self-relevant names. Highly self-relevant names elicited larger P3 averaged amplitudes than the moderately self-relevant names which, in turn, had larger P3 values than for minimally self-relevant names. Minimally self-relevant stimuli elicited larger P3 averaged amplitudes than non-self-relevant stimuli. These results demonstrate a degree effect of self-reference, which was indexed using electrophysiological activity.