Modification of activation and evaluation properties of narratives by weak complex magnetic field patterns that simulate limbic burst firing.

In two separate experiments a total of 71 volunteers were asked to generate spontaneous narratives that were scored automatically by the Whissell Dictionary of Affect. During the narratives, weak (1 microT; 10 mG) magnetic fields were applied briefly through the temporal planes. In Experiment I, subjects who were exposed to simple sine wave or pulsed fields generated more scorable words that indicated lower activation and evaluation than sham-field conditions. In Experiment II subjects exposed to a computer-generated wave form, designed to simulate neuronal burst firing, generated narratives dominated by more pleasantness and less activation than a reference group. The possibility that this approach could be utilized to study the affective dimension of language selection was indicated.