Personality modulation of P300 wave recorded within an emotional oddball protocol.

OBJECTIVES Several studies reported that personality modulates responses to emotional stimuli, including cognitive and attentional aspects of the emotional response. The aim of this study was to refine these results while using visual event-related potentials (ERPs) and referring to Cloninger's personality model. METHODS ERPs were recorded in 46 normal subjects within a visual oddball protocol with checkerboards as the standard stimuli and pictures selected as neutral, pleasant or unpleasant from the International Affective Picture System as the target stimuli. RESULTS N200 amplitude was smaller and P300 amplitude was larger following the presentation of pleasant pictures in low-harm avoidance but not high-harm avoidance subjects. CONCLUSIONS These results support the idea that both automatic and selective cognitive processing of emotional pictures is modulated by personality.