Do emotions influence safe browsing? Toward an electroencephalography marker of affective responses to cybersecurity notifications

Cybersecurity notifications play an important role in encouraging users to use computers safely. Emotional reactions to such notifications are known to positively influence users’ adherence to these notifications, though it is challenging for researchers to identify and quantify users’ emotional reactions. In this study, we explored electroencephalography (EEG) signals that were elicited by the presentation of various emotionally charged image stimuli provided by the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) and compared signals to those elicited by images of cybersecurity notifications and other computer-related stimuli. Participants provided behavioral assessments of valence and arousal elicited by the images which were used to cross-reference the results. We found that EEG amplitudes corresponding to the late positive potential (LPP) were elevated in reaction to images of cybersecurity notifications as well as IAPS images known to elicit strong positive and negative valence, when compared to neutral valence or other computer-related stimuli. These findings suggest that the LPP may account for emotional deliberation about cybersecurity notifications, which could be a useful measure when conducting future studies into the role such emotional reactions play in encouraging safe computer behavior.