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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Ester Benzaquen, Professor Tim GriffithsORCiD, Dr Sukhbinder Kumar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
© The Author(s) 2026. Published by Oxford University Press.Anticipatory EEG signals are characterized by the occurrence of negative slow cortical potentials. This negativity is posed to be enhanced when expecting highly emotional stimuli; however, the specific role attention plays in its generation is unclear, as emotional content is more salient and arousing, and thus recruits higher attentional resources. Here, affective anticipation signals were recorded in 35 participants with EEG, and their brain sources elucidated using multiple sparse priors algorithm. Using a cued-paradigm, the category of a sound being negatively valenced or neutral could be predicted with a 68.2% accuracy. To shift attentional resources away from the emotional content, participants were instructed to listen and respond to a burst of white noise that occurred on 9.1% of trials. Results showed slower reaction times following the aversive cue, yet no difference in EEG amplitude between aversive and neutral anticipation. Response times positively correlated with EEG amplitude—participants with stronger negativity were faster to respond. EEG source reconstruction demonstrated no differences between conditions, and showed activation of areas within the salience network including insula, somatosensory cortex, and thalamus. The current results suggest that anticipatory EEG negativity is an index of attentional resource-allocation during the anticipation period and does not reflect the emotional content of upcoming stimuli.
Author(s): Benzaquen E, Griffiths TD, Kumar S
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Cerebral Cortex
Year: 2026
Volume: 36
Issue: 1
Print publication date: 01/01/2026
Online publication date: 27/01/2026
Acceptance date: 04/11/2025
Date deposited: 09/02/2026
ISSN (print): 1047-3211
ISSN (electronic): 1460-2199
Publisher: Oxford University Press
URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhaf324
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaf324
Data Access Statement: The data underlying this article are available in Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://dx.doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/8PZVK
PubMed id: 41592084
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