The sequence of stimuli for the two experimental paradigms.

<p>The duration of each stimulus was 200 ms. The inter-stimulus interval (ISI) was altered within 800–1000 ms. (A) The two sequences for Experiment 1. Strongly positive (negative) deviants and weakly positive (negative) deviants were infrequently presented in a sequence of neutral standards. All types of Japanese kanji consisting of standards and deviants were presented in the same frequency in the sequence. (B) The positive and negative sequences for Experiment 2. Positive deviants and negative deviants were infrequently presented in a sequence of standards. In the sequence of positive standards, positive deviants served as emotionally congruent deviants and negative deviants served as emotionally incongruent deviants. In the sequence of negative standards, negative deviants served as emotionally congruent deviants and positive deviants served as emotionally incongruent deviants.