Event-related frontal alpha asymmetries: electrophysiological correlates of approach motivation

Over the last decades, frontal alpha asymmetries observed during resting state periods of several minutes have been used as a marker of affective-motivational states. To date, there is no evidence that alpha asymmetries can be observed in response to brief affective-motivational stimuli, as typically presented in event-related designs. As we argue, frontal alpha asymmetry might indeed be elicited by brief events if they are salient enough. In an event-related design, we used erotic pictures, i.e., highly salient incentives to elicit approach motivation, and contrasted them with pictures of dressed attractive women. As expected, we found significant alpha asymmetries for erotic pictures as compared to control pictures. Our findings suggest that the highly reactive reward system can lead to immediate, phasic changes in frontal alpha asymmetries. We discuss the findings with respect to the notion that high salience of erotic pictures derives from their potential of satisfying an individuals' need by mere visual inspection, which is not the case for pictures showing other types of motivational stimuli such as food.