The neural response to maternal stimuli: an ERP study

PLoS One. 2014 Nov 6;9(11):e111391. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0111391. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Mothers are important to all humans. Research has established that maternal information affects individuals' cognition, emotion, and behavior. We measured event-related potentials (ERPs) to examine attentional and evaluative processing of maternal stimuli while participants completed a Go/No-go Association Task that paired mother or others words with good or bad evaluative words. Behavioral data showed that participants responded faster to mother words paired with good than the mother words paired with bad but showed no difference in response to these others across conditions, reflecting a positive evaluation of mother. ERPs showed larger P200 and N200 in response to mother than in response to others, suggesting that mother attracted more attention than others. In the subsequent time window, mother in the mother + bad condition elicited a later and larger late positive potential (LPP) than it did in the mother + good condition, but this was not true for others, also suggesting a positive evaluation of mother. These results suggest that people differentiate mother from others during initial attentional stage, and evaluative mother positively during later stage.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Attention / physiology*
  • Brain / physiology*
  • Cognition / physiology
  • Electroencephalography
  • Emotions / physiology*
  • Evoked Potentials / physiology*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mothers*
  • Neuropsychological Tests
  • Photic Stimulation
  • Reaction Time / physiology*
  • Young Adult

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants No. 31200789 and 31070919], the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [Grants No. KSCX2-EW-J-8], Hundred Talents Program [Y0C2024002] as well as the Scientific Foundation of Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences [Grants No. Y0CX363S01 and Y2CQ013005]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.