In the past decade several film sets for the induction of emotions have been developed. These film sets mainly consist of emotional clips from feature films. Since the neutral stimuli in these sets were abstract scenes, documentary or television excerpts, the aim of the present study was to develop a set that includes comparable neutral stimuli from commercially available feature films that match the emotional ones in their content. Furthermore, the capacity of the emotional film clips to elicit a specific target emotion was evaluated. Four neutral clips were selected and shown to 38 subjects, together with 16 emotional clips from earlier studies on emotion induction. Four clips were selected to elicit anger, and three clips to elicit each of the target emotions disgust, fear, sadness, and amusement. The participants rated their feelings on 21 emotion scales. Cluster analysis confirmed the six a priori groups of films. ANOVA further revealed that the four neutral clips, were rated neutral on the valence and low on the intensity dimension. Most of the emotional film clips primarily elicited their respective target emotion. In summary, at least two clips for each target emotion were able to elicit that emotion selectively.

Previous studies have identified a negative potential in the event-related potential (ERP), the error-related negativity (ERN), which is claimed to be triggered by a deviation from a reward expectation. Furthermore, this negativity is related to shifts in risk taking, strategic behavioral adjustments, and inhibition. We used a computer Blackjack gambling task to further examine the process associated with the ERN. Our findings are in line with the view that the ERN process is related to the degree of reward expectation. Furthermore, increased ERN amplitude is associated with the negative evaluation of ongoing decisions, and the amplitude of the ERN is directly related to risk-taking and decision-making behavior. However, the findings suggest that an explanation exclusively based on the deviation from a reward expectation may be insufficient and that the intention of the participants and the importance of a negative event for learning and behavioral change are crucial to the understanding of ERN phenomena.

The model of anterior asymmetry and emotion proposes an asymmetric representation of approach and withdrawal systems in the left and right anterior brain regions. Within this framework, 3 different concepts have been related to anterior asymmetry: affective valence, motivational direction, and behavioral activation. The aim of the present study was an empirical investigation into the relation between anterior cortical activity and questionnaire measures related to the 3 dimensions positive versus negative affect, approach versus withdrawal motivation, and behavioral activation versus inhibition. Subjects with relative greater left than right frontal cortical activity showed higher anger-out scores and lower anger-control scores. These results support the hypothesis that motivational direction is related to frontal asymmetry (approach-left and withdrawal-right). Furthermore, subjects with greater bilateral (left and right) frontal cortical activity showed higher behavioral activation scores. This finding might suggest that behavioral activation is related to approach and withdrawal motivation.