At neutral rating 4, EEG and fMRI tests did not confirm extremity geometry; one object set the 26-object contrast

We tested a relation between pleasantness extremity and visual neural pattern distances after specified controls. Neutral was fixed at rating 4 on a 1 to 7 scale. Separate public studies supplied EEG and BOLD fMRI. A 447-concept panel used eight EEG adults and three MRI adults. A 26-concept test reused the EEG adults and added 18 adults from another MRI study. A local code lock preceded the final-panel scores. First-panel mean partial correlations were +0.00019 and -0.00157. Second-panel means were +0.00749 and -0.00464. All four primary 95% person Student intervals included zero. Both shared tests failed two-panel Holm correction. The fixed rule also required a positive relation after 78 property difference-product controls. A later rating audit found one below-neutral concept in the second panel: slug. All 25 pairs that distinguish absolute-extremity and signed-valence squared distances include slug. Without slug, the models coincide. Of 999 object draws, 363 EEG draws and 347 MRI draws lack concepts on both neutral sides. Their coefficient is undefined. Rounding error gave incorrect finite coefficients in 21 and 17 of those draws. An exact count check corrected them. All observed and defined scores stayed unchanged. A gain model shows why a failed pattern-distance test cannot bound an extremity signal in amplitude. These results concern selected processed data and fixed concept norms. Cohort differences, measurement filters and source selection limit scope. Positive neural generalization, absent affect coding and causality were not established. The package contains a negative benchmark, a support-audit tool, permitted inputs, source pins and terms, code, all results, figures and repeat steps.

EEG · fMRI · valence · pleasantness · extremity · representational geometry · stimulus sampling · negative result · reproducibility