Case-by-case: neural markers of emotion and task stimulus significance

The present study assessed the hypothesis that electrophysiological markers of emotional and task stimulus significance can be demonstrated in concert at the level of the individual case. Participants (n = 18, 9 females) viewed low and high-arousing pictures selected from behavior systems of sexual reproduction, disease avoidance, and predator fear. Furthermore, to concurrently manipulate task relevance, participants performed an explicit emotion categorization task with either low or high-arousing pictures alternating as target stimuli in separate experimental blocks. Pooled across behavior systems, event-related components sensitive to emotional significance reached statistical significance in 100% of the tests for the early posterior negativity and in 96% of the tests for the late positive potential. Regarding explicit task relevance, the target P3 effect was significant in 96% of the tests. These findings demonstrate that neural markers of stimulus significance driven by emotional picture content and explicit task demands can be assessed at the individual level. Replicating an effect case-after-case provides strong support for an effect common-to-all and may support individual inferences. Contributions of the case-by-case approach to reveal reproducible effects and implications for the development of neural biomarkers for specific affective and cognitive component processes are discussed.