Stimuli encountered in the environment are continuously evaluated according to their affective stimulus significance. Numerous event‐related potential studies have shown that the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive potential (LPP) are larger for pictures high in emotional arousal compared to low arousing images. Here, we used a case‐by‐case approach to determine the emotional modulation of the EPN and LPP at the level of the individual case. We probed the effect in three studies regarding behavior systems of predator fear, disease avoidance, and sexual reproduction. In each study, high and low arousing pictures from the respective behavior system were presented and event‐related brain potentials measured. At the group level, previous findings regarding an enhanced EPN and LPP for high compared to low arousing stimuli were replicated. Novel findings were observed when analyzing each case individually. The majority of participants showed significantly larger EPN and LPP amplitudes to pictures showing threatening compared to harmless animals (15 and 16 out of 16 tests, respectively), images of disease and mutilation compared to neutral people (15 and 17 out of 18 tests, respectively), and high‐arousing erotic compared to romantic pictures (17 and 17 out of 17 tests, respectively). Further analyses exploring the tradeoff between specificity and sensitivity suggest reliance on picture categories of sexual reproduction and disease avoidance. Overall, the present findings demonstrate that the case‐by‐case approach can be useful for revealing a general principle of emotional stimulus processing common‐to‐all. Implications for the reproducibility of the findings and biomarker development are discussed.

中文翻译：

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个案：情绪刺激的重要性和 EPN 和 LPP 的调制

环境中遇到的刺激会根据它们的情感刺激意义不断进行评估。许多事件相关电位研究表明，与低唤醒图像相比，情绪唤醒高的图片的早期后负电位（EPN）和晚期正电位（LPP）更大。在这里，我们使用逐案方法来确定在个别情况下 EPN 和 LPP 的情绪调制。我们在三项关于捕食者恐惧、疾病避免和有性生殖的行为系统的研究中探讨了这种影响。在每项研究中，都展示了来自各自行为系统的高和低唤醒图片，并测量了与事件相关的大脑电位。在集团层面，重复了先前关于增强的 EPN 和 LPP 与低唤醒刺激相比的高唤醒刺激的发现。在单独分析每个案例时观察到新发现。与无害动物相比，大多数参与者在显示威胁的图片中显示出明显更大的 EPN 和 LPP 振幅（16 次测试中分别有 15 和 16 次），与中性人相比的疾病和残害图像（18 次测试中分别有 15 次和 17 次） )，以及与浪漫图片相比的高唤起情色（17 项测试中分别有 17 项和 17 项）。探索特异性和敏感性之间权衡的进一步分析表明，依赖于有性生殖和疾病避免的图片类别。全面的，目前的研究结果表明，逐案方法可用于揭示普遍适用的情绪刺激处理的一般原则。讨论了对研究结果的可重复性和生物标志物开发的影响。