Decoding subjective emotional arousal from EEG during an immersive virtual reality experience

eLife

Simon M Hofmann¹  Vadim Nikulin²  Michael Gaebler³  Felix Klotzsche³  Arno Villringer³  Alberto Mariola⁴ 

[1]Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

[2]Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

[3]Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany

[4]Department of Neurology, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany

[5]Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Faculty of Philosophy, Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Berlin, Germany

[6]Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, School of Engineering and Informatics, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

[7]Sussex Neuroscience, School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

关键词: machine learning;    affective computing;    deep learning;    ecological validity;    naturalistic stimuli;    computational affective neuroscience;    Human;   

DOI  :  10.7554/eLife.64812

来源: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd

【 摘 要 】

Immersive virtual reality (VR) enables naturalistic neuroscientific studies while maintaining experimental control, but dynamic and interactive stimuli pose methodological challenges. We here probed the link between emotional arousal, a fundamental property of affective experience, and parieto-occipital alpha power under naturalistic stimulation: 37 young healthy adults completed an immersive VR experience, which included rollercoaster rides, while their EEG was recorded. They then continuously rated their subjective emotional arousal while viewing a replay of their experience. The association between emotional arousal and parieto-occipital alpha power was tested and confirmed by (1) decomposing the continuous EEG signal while maximizing the comodulation between alpha power and arousal ratings and by (2) decoding periods of high and low arousal with discriminative common spatial patterns and a long short-term memory recurrent neural network. We successfully combine EEG and a naturalistic immersive VR experience to extend previous findings on the neurophysiology of emotional arousal towards real-world neuroscience.

【 授权许可】

CC BY