Frontal interhemispheric asymmetry: self regulation and individual differences in humans

Abstract Sixteen subjects naive to biofeedback learned lateralised interhemispheric control of slow cortical potentials (SCPs) across electrode sites F3–F4 during three sessions of visual electroencephalograph (EEG) biofeedback. Subjects were required to generate slow negativity shifts either towards the left or the right hemisphere in sixty pseudorandomly ordered trials per session. Group 1 ( n =8) were told to use emotional strategies in the task (positive emotions for left hemisphere activation, negative emotion for right hemisphere activation), group 2 received no guidance. Both groups received feedback in the form of an on-screen rocket-ship, initially centrally placed, which rose to indicate an increase in left hemisphere negativity (relative to the right hemisphere) and fell to indicate an increase in right hemisphere negativity (relative to the left hemisphere). A 2×3×3×2 ANOVA (group×session×block×trial) showed no performance differences between the strategy and no strategy groups. Both groups learned to produce correct direction shifts in the final third of each session during both trial types ( P P