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    Emotional experiences involve dynamic multi-sensory perception, yet most
EEG research uses unimodal stimuli such as photographs. However, a
recent study found that realistic emotional videos reliably reduce the
amplitude of a steady state visual evoked potential (ssVEP) elicited by
a flickering border. It is unknown how the video-ssVEP measure compares
to the well-established Late Positive Potential (LPP) that is reliably
larger for emotional scenes. To address this question, 45 participants
viewed 90 matched pairs of realistic videos and scenes. Replicating the
previous study, emotional videos reduced ssVEP amplitude more than
neutral videos. At the group level, the video-ssVEP and scene-LPP
measures produced similarly large differences per category (pleasant,
neutral, unpleasant), and both measures strongly correlated with arousal
ratings. However, trial-based Bayesian multilevel models suggest that
the group-level results mask important differences. Consistent with
previous research, the scene-LPP was sensitive to specific emotional
contents (erotica and gore) more than would be predicted by arousal
ratings. In contrast, the video-ssVEP did not show this specific
sensitivity, and was better explained by individual arousal ratings
collected for each stimulus trial. These results suggest that the 2
measures index partially distinct aspects of emotional perception, with
the LPP reflecting the discrimination of emotional features, while the
ssVEP indexes emotional engagement. Taken together, the results suggest
that a video-ssVEP paradigm has comparable single-trial reliability and
may better reflect a more diverse range of experienced emotional states
relative to scene-LPP paradigms.