Abstract: ERP technique helps much in researches of emotion. Normal people and patients with mode disorders can be recruited as subjects in these studies. Experimenters give stimuli through visual and/or auditory modality, then observe the varieties of components, such as N2, P3 and N400, etc. Studying results suggest that emotion can enhance attention intensity and novel emotional stimuli can be detected more easily. In normal subjects, emotional words can arouse bigger old-new effects than neutral words. Depressive patients can not present the same effects as the normal, but their recognizing achievements can be improved by emotional words. When studying the influence of emotion toward decision-making, researchers observed changes of medial frontal negativity (MFN). Lateralization of brain functions also exists in emotional activities.

Key words: emotion, mood disorder, ERP