Self-Reference Emerges Earlier than Emotion during an Implicit Self-Referential Emotion Processing Task: Event-Related Potential Evidence

Self-referential emotion refers to the process of evaluating emotional stimuli with respect to the self. Processes indicative of a self-positivity bias are reflected in electroencephalogram (EEG) signals at ~400 ms when the task does not require a discrimination of self from other. However, when distinguishing between self-referential and other-referential emotions is required, previous studies have shown inconsistent temporal dynamics of EEG signals in slightly different tasks. Based on the observation of early self–other discrimination, we hypothesized that self would be rapidly activated in the early stage to modulate emotional processing in the late stage during an implicit self-referential emotion. To test this hypothesis, we employed an implicit task in which participants were asked to judge the order of Chinese characters of trait adjectives preceded by a self (“I”) or other pronoun (“He” or “She”). This study aimed to explore the difference of social-related emotional evaluation from self-reference; the other pronoun was not defined to a specific person, rather it referred to the general concept. Sixteen healthy Chinese subjects participated in the experiment. Event-related potentials (ERPs) showed that there were self-other discrimination effects in the N1 (80–110 ms) and P1 (170–200 ms) components in the anterior brain. The emotional valence was discriminated in the later component of N2 (220–250 ms). The interaction between self-reference and emotional valence occurred during the late positive potential (LPP; 400–500 ms). Moreover, there was a positive correlation between response time (RT) and N1 in the self-reference condition based on the positive-negative contrast, suggesting a modulatory effect of the self-positivity bias. The results indicate that self-reference emerges earlier than emotion and then combines with emotional processing in an implicit task. The findings extend the view that the self plays a highly integrated and modulated role in self-referential emotion processing.