Lateralized startle probes in the study of emotion
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Updated: Oct 20, 2026

Brain Imaging Investigation of the Impairing Effect of Emotion on Cognition
Published on: February 1, 2012
M M Bradley1, B N Cuthbert, P J Lang
1NIMH Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention, University of Florida, Gainesville 32610-0165, USA.
Abstract:
Two experiments are reported in which affective modulation of the startle reflex elicited by monaurally presented acoustic probes was further examined. An earlier study in our laboratory obtained significant modulation by affect for probes presented to the left ear, but no significant effect for probes presented to the right ear. Experiment 1 replicated the procedures used in that experiment and obtained the same pattern of effects. Experiment 2 changed the presentation of monaural probes from a blocked to a mixed presentation and again obtained a similar pattern. Modulatory differences in reflex magnitude between pleasant and unpleasant stimuli were consistently large and reliable for reflexes elicited by left ear probes but weak and unreliable for reflexes elicited by right ear probes.
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