Skip Navigation



Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Advance Access published online on January 17, 2009
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, doi:10.1093/scan/nsn048
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Data
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
4/2/127    most recent
nsn048v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ewbank, M. P.
Right arrow Articles by Calder, A. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Ewbank, M. P.
Right arrow Articles by Calder, A. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

The amygdala response to images with impact

Michael P. Ewbank1, Philip J. Barnard1, Camilla J. Croucher2, Cristina Ramponi1 and Andrew J. Calder1

1MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge, and 2Department of Psychology, City University, London, UK

Effective photojournalism provokes an emotional reaction and leaves a lasting impression upon the viewer. Striking and memorable images are often said to possess ’impact’. Within cognitive neuroscience memorable emotional images evoke a greater amygdala response. Research to date has focused on arousal as a causative factor, while the contribution of appraisal dimensions relating to salience of an item, goal relevance, or impact are yet to be addressed. We explored how differences in ratings of impact influenced amygdala activity to negative emotional images matched for valence, arousal and other factors. Increased amygdala activation was found to high impact when compared to neutral images, or high impact when compared to low impact images (matched for arousal). Our findings demonstrate that the amygdala response to emotional stimuli is not a function of arousal (or valence) alone and accord more with the proposal that the amygdala responds to the significance or relevance of an event.

Keywords: Emotion; Arousal; Attention; Appraisal; fMRI

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Andrew J. Calder, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge, CB2 7EF, UK. E-mail: andy.calder{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk

Received August 6, 2008. Accepted November 13, 2008.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 BrainHome page
C. Cristinzio, K. N'Diaye, M. Seeck, P. Vuilleumier, and D. Sander
Integration of gaze direction and facial expression in patients with unilateral amygdala damage
Brain, October 14, 2009; (2009) awp255v1.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.