Driver-response relationships between frontal EEG and respiration during affective audiovisual stimuli

The complementary nature and the coordinative tendencies of brain and body are essential to the way humans function. Although static features from brain and body signals have been shown to reflect emotions, the dynamic interrelation of the two systems during emotional processes is still in its infancy. This study aims at investigating the way brain signals captured by Electroencephalography (EEG) and bodily responses reflected in respiration interact when watching music clips. A non-linear measure is applied to frontal EEG and respiration to determine the driver/driven relationship between these two modalities. The results reveal a unidirectional dependence from respiration to EEG which adds evidence to the bodily-feedback theory.