Personality effects on attentional shifts to emotional charged cues: ERP, behavioural and HR data

Three orthogonal personality factors were derived from a joint analysis of EPQ and SSS-V questionnaires: (1) extraversion — sensation seeking (E-SS); (2) psychoticism — sensation seeking (P-SS); (3) anxiety (Anx). P300 amplitude, heart rate (HR) and reaction times (RTs) and emotional ratings were obtained from 59 subjects during a spatially cued stimulus recognition task. Pleasant, unpleasant and neutral words served as cues in a covert attention spatial orienting task. Split plot ANOVAs were performed between high and low level groups selected on the basis of three orthogonal factors. High E-SS subjects displayed more intense feeling for pleasant words than did low E-SS subjects. There were higher P300 peaks in high E-SS subjects compared to low E-SS ones for stimuli delivered in the left hemifield over frontal and parietal cortical regions. Low P-SS subjects, compared to high P-SS ones, had greater HR acceleration responses and greater P300 peaks across neutral- and pleasant-cued targets. The Anx dimension was independent from other personality factors and sensitive in detecting larger HR accelerations for unpleasant cueing in high Anx subjects as compared to the low ones. High Anx scores had slower RTs in detecting both pleasant and neutral cued targets. Results are discussed in terms of Eysenckʹs, Grayʹs and Zuckermanʹs models.