ABSTRACT
The previous chapter covered psychophysiological measures used to index cognitive processes engaged during media exposure. We now turn to discussing the unique theoretical, conceptual, and operational issues associated with using psychophysiological measures to index emotional/motivational processes. The embodied motivated processing theoretical framework—discussed in the early pages of Chapter 4—provides a general conceptualization of emotion and cognition as highly integrated mental processes serving adaptive functions and accompanied by distinct patterns of measurable physiological activity. It is important for media psychology researchers who study how the human brain processes emotional media content to understand the distinct function and nature of emotion as well as the conceptual and operational details of specific psychophysiological measures of emotional processing. Thus, similar to Chapter 4, we begin with a theoretical consideration of human emotion and motivation in the context of media exposure and then proceed to discussing two specific psychophysiological measures of emotional processing—galvanic skin conductance and facial EMG—that are commonly applied in media psychology research.
