Intensive self-reflection with affective imagery was expected to increase relative right hemispheric activation and intensify facial expressions of negative affect. Six individuals were encouraged to reflect on personal problems or concerns in two different ways. In one condition, they attended to feelings related to a personal problem and characterized their feelings using imagery. In a second condition, they explained a personal problem and characterized their thoughts using words. In the feeling-imagery condition, participants' parietal EEG indicated greater relative right hemispheric activation, resulting in a pattern of bilateral hemispheric activation. There were no differences between conditions in corrugator or zygomatic EMG. The increased involvement of the right hemisphere during intensive self-reflection may facilitate discrimination of affect-related physiological events and, thus, affective insight.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
KlingerE., Meaning and Void, North Central Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1977.
2.
ScheierM. F.CarverC. S., Self-focused Attention and the Experience of Emotion: Attraction, Repulsion, Elation, and Depression, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, pp. 625–636, 1977.
3.
SchwartzG. E.FairP. L.SaltP.MandelM. R.KlermanG. L., Facial Expression and Imagery in Depression: An Electromyographic Study, Psychosomatic Medicine, 38, pp. 337–347, 1976.
4.
LeightK. A.EllisH. C., Emotional Mood States, Strategies, and State Dependency in Memory, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, pp. 251–266, 1981.
5.
TeasdaleJ. D.FogartyS. J., Differential Effects of Induced Mood on Retrieval of Pleasant and Unpleasant Events from Episodic Memory, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 88, pp. 248–257, 1979.
6.
GendlinE. T.JennyR.SchleinJ. M., Counsellor Ratings of Process and Outcome in Client-Centered Therapy, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 16, pp. 210–213, 1960.
7.
KieslerD. J., Patient Experiencing and Successful Outcome in Individual Psychotherapy of Schizophrenics and Psychoneurotics, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 37, pp. 370–385, 1971.
8.
TomlinsonT. M.HartJ. T., A Validation of the Process Scale, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 26, pp. 74–78, 1962.
9.
TomlinsonT. M.StolerN., The Relationship between Affective Evaluation and Ratings of Therapy Process and Outcome with Schizophrenics, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 4, pp. 14–18, 1967.
10.
vanderVeenF., Basic Elements in the Process of Psychotherapy, Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31, pp. 295–301, 1967.
11.
WalkerA. M.RablenR. A.RogersC. R., Development of a Scale to Measure Process Changes in Psychotherapy, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 26, pp. 79–85, 1970.
12.
GendlinE. T., Focusing, Bantam Books, New York, 1981.
13.
GendlinE. T.OlsenL., The Use of Imagery in Experiential Focusing, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, and Practice, 7, pp. 221–223, 1970.
14.
WackD. L., An Exploratory Study of Experiential Focusing, Dissertation Abstracts International, 34-B, p. 1304, 1973–1974.
15.
KuikenD.CareyR.NielsenT., Moments of Affective Insight: Their Phenomenology and Relations to Selected Individual Differences, Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, in press.
16.
TellegenA.AtkinsonG., Openness to Absorbing and Self-altering Experiences (“Absorption”): A Trait Related to Hypnotic Susceptibility, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 83, pp. 268–277, 1974.
17.
BarberT. X.WilsonS. C., Guided Imagination and Hypnosis, in The Potential of Fantasy and Imagination, SheikhA.ShafferJ. T. (eds.), Brandon House, New York, pp. 67–88, 1979.
18.
EhrlichmanH.WienerM. S., EEG Asymmetry during Covert mental Imagery, Psychophysiology, 17, pp. 228–235, 1980.
19.
RobbinsK.McAdamsO., Interhemispheric Alpha Asymmetry and Imagery Mode, Brain and Language, 1, pp. 189–193, 1974.
20.
SchwartzG. E.DavidsonR. J.MaerF., Right Hemisphere Lateralization for Emotion in the Human Brain: Interactions with Cognition, Science, 190, pp. 286–288, 1975.
21.
TuckerD. M.RothR. S.ArnesonB. A.BuckinghamV., Right hemisphere Activation during Stress, Neuropsychologia, 15, pp. 697–700, 1977.
22.
DavidsonR. J.SchwartzG. E., Patterns of Cerebral Lateralization during Cardiac Biofeedback versus the Self-Regulation of Emotion: Sex Differences, Psychophysiology, 13, pp. 62–68, 1976.
23.
LeyR. G.BrydenM. P., Right hemispheric involvement in imagery and affect, in Cognitive Processing in the Right Hemisphere, PerecmanE. (ed.), Academic Press, New York, pp. 6–44, 1983.
24.
SchwartzG. E.DavidsonR. J.PugashE., Voluntary Control of Patterns of EEG Parietal Asymmetry: Cognitive Concomitants, Psychophysiology, 13, pp. 498–504, 1976.
25.
BanquetJ. P., Spectral Analysis of EEG in Meditation, Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 35, pp. 143–151, 1973.
26.
SchwartzG. E.AhernG. L.BrownS. L., Lateralized Facial Muscle Response to Positive and Negative Emotional Stimuli, Psychophysiology, 16, pp. 561–571, 1979.
27.
SchwartzG. E.BrownS. L.AhernG. L., Facial Muscle Patterning and Subjective Experience during Affective Imagery: Sex Differences, Psychophysiology, 17, pp. 75–82, 1980.
28.
BriggsG. G.NebesR. D., Patterns of Hand Preference in a Student Population, Cortex, 11, pp. 230–238, 1975.
29.
AnnettM., The Binomial Distribution of Right, Mixed, and Left-Handedness, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 19, pp. 327–333, 1967.
30.
BurgerD., Analysis of Electrophysiological Signals: A Comparative Study of Two Algorithms, Computers and Biomedical Research, 13, pp. 73–86, 1980.
31.
OthmerE.OthmerS. C.FishmanP. M.VannierM. W., Electromyogram processing for sleep research, International Journal of Bio-Medical Computing, 11, pp. 33–39, 1980.
32.
HantasM. W.KatkinE. S.ReedS. D., Cerebral Lateralization and Heartbeat Discrimination, Psychophysiology, 21, pp. 274–278, 1984.
33.
MontgomeryW. A.JonesG. E., Laterality, Emotionality, and Heartbeat Perception, Psychophysiology, 21, pp. 459–465, 1984.
34.
DonN. S., The Transformation of Conscious Experience and Its EEG Correlates, Journal of Altered States of Consciousness, 3, pp. 147–168, 1977.
35.
HaggardE. A.IsaacsF. S., Micromomentary Facial Expressions as Indicators of Ego Mechanisms in Psychotherapy, in Methods of Research in Psychotherapy, GottschalkL. A.AverbackA. H. (eds.), Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, pp. 154–165, 1966.
36.
FridlundA. J.SchwartzG. E.FowlerS. C., Pattern Recognition of Self-Reported Emotional States from Multiple-Site Facial EMG Activity during Affective Imagery, Psychophysiology, 21, pp. 622–637, 1984.
