The early posterior negativity (EPN) is an event-related potential that can be modulated by the perception of emotionally arousing scenes relative to neutral scenes. In a recent study, we found nudist scenes that elicit low levels of pleasantness and arousal modulated the EPN greatly. Here we attempted to replicate and extend our recent findings by using nine scene categories and collecting additional measures of body exposure. Overall, we found body exposure predicts EPN modulation. Nudist scenes elicited the largest EPN amplitude and they were rated as having the most exposed body parts. Correlations of individual scenes found metrics of body exposure predicted the EPN amplitude of a scene better than the scenes pleasantness or arousal self-report. An auxiliary finding was the late positive potential is also predicted by depicted body exposure. This work indicates the perception of bodies may have a privilege status in the human perceptual system.
