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Ziereis A, Schacht A. Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study. Sci Rep 2024; 14:5574. [PMID: 38448642 PMCID: PMC10918072 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-55678-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/31/2023] [Accepted: 02/26/2024] [Indexed: 03/08/2024] Open
Abstract
Seeing an angry individual in close physical proximity can not only result in a larger retinal representation of that individual and an enhanced resolution of emotional cues, but may also increase motivation for rapid visual processing and action preparation. The present study investigated the effects of stimulus size and emotional expression on the perception of happy, angry, non-expressive, and scrambled faces. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses of N = 40 participants who performed a naturalness classification task on real and artificially created facial expressions. While the emotion-related effects on accuracy for recognizing authentic expressions were modulated by stimulus size, ERPs showed only additive effects of stimulus size and emotional expression, with no significant interaction with size. This contrasts with previous research on emotional scenes and words. Effects of size were present in all included ERPs, whereas emotional expressions affected the N170, EPN, and LPC, irrespective of size. These results imply that the decoding of emotional valence in faces can occur even for small stimuli. Supra-additive effects in faces may necessitate larger size ranges or dynamic stimuli that increase arousal.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Ziereis
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, 37073, Göttingen, Germany.
| | - Anne Schacht
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, 37073, Göttingen, Germany
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2
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Ziereis A, Schacht A. Gender congruence and emotion effects in cross-modal associative learning: Insights from ERPs and pupillary responses. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14380. [PMID: 37387451 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Revised: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 06/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
Social and emotional cues from faces and voices are highly relevant and have been reliably demonstrated to attract attention involuntarily. However, there are mixed findings as to which degree associating emotional valence to faces occurs automatically. In the present study, we tested whether inherently neutral faces gain additional relevance by being conditioned with either positive, negative, or neutral vocal affect bursts. During learning, participants performed a gender-matching task on face-voice pairs without explicit emotion judgments of the voices. In the test session on a subsequent day, only the previously associated faces were presented and had to be categorized regarding gender. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs), pupil diameter, and response times (RTs) of N = 32 subjects. Emotion effects were found in auditory ERPs and RTs during the learning session, suggesting that task-irrelevant emotion was automatically processed. However, ERPs time-locked to the conditioned faces were mainly modulated by the task-relevant information, that is, the gender congruence of the face and voice, but not by emotion. Importantly, these ERP and RT effects of learned congruence were not limited to learning but extended to the test session, that is, after removing the auditory stimuli. These findings indicate successful associative learning in our paradigm, but it did not extend to the task-irrelevant dimension of emotional relevance. Therefore, cross-modal associations of emotional relevance may not be completely automatic, even though the emotion was processed in the voice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Ziereis
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Anne Schacht
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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3
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Schindler S, Bruchmann M, Straube T. Beyond facial expressions: A systematic review on effects of emotional relevance of faces on the N170. Neurosci Biobehav Rev 2023; 153:105399. [PMID: 37734698 DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2023] [Revised: 09/15/2023] [Accepted: 09/17/2023] [Indexed: 09/23/2023]
Abstract
The N170 is the most prominent electrophysiological signature of face processing. While facial expressions reliably modulate the N170, there is considerable variance in N170 modulations by other sources of emotional relevance. Therefore, we systematically review and discuss this research area using different methods to manipulate the emotional relevance of inherently neutral faces. These methods were categorized into (1) existing pre-experimental affective person knowledge (e.g., negative attitudes towards outgroup faces), (2) experimentally instructed affective person knowledge (e.g., negative person information), (3) contingency-based affective learning (e.g., fear-conditioning), or (4) the immediate affective context (e.g., emotional information directly preceding the face presentation). For all categories except the immediate affective context category, the majority of studies reported significantly increased N170 amplitudes depending on the emotional relevance of faces. Furthermore, the potentiated N170 was observed across different attention conditions, supporting the role of the emotional relevance of faces on the early prioritized processing of configural facial information, regardless of low-level differences. However, we identified several open research questions and suggest venues for further research.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany.
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany
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4
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Ziereis A, Schacht A. Motivated attention and task relevance in the processing of cross-modally associated faces: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023; 23:1244-1266. [PMID: 37353712 PMCID: PMC10545602 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-023-01112-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/09/2023] [Indexed: 06/25/2023]
Abstract
It has repeatedly been shown that visually presented stimuli can gain additional relevance by their association with affective stimuli. Studies have shown effects of associated affect in event-related potentials (ERP) like the early posterior negativity (EPN), late positive complex (LPC), and even earlier components as the P1 or N170. However, findings are mixed as to the extent associated affect requires directed attention to the emotional quality of a stimulus and which ERP components are sensitive to task instructions during retrieval. In this preregistered study ( https://osf.io/ts4pb ), we tested cross-modal associations of vocal affect-bursts (positive, negative, neutral) to faces displaying neutral expressions in a flash-card-like learning task, in which participants studied face-voice pairs and learned to correctly assign them to each other. In the subsequent EEG test session, we applied both an implicit ("old-new") and explicit ("valence-classification") task to investigate whether the behavior at retrieval and neurophysiological activation of the affect-based associations were dependent on the type of motivated attention. We collected behavioral and neurophysiological data from 40 participants who reached the preregistered learning criterium. Results showed EPN effects of associated negative valence after learning and independent of the task. In contrast, modulations of later stages (LPC) by positive and negative associated valence were restricted to the explicit, i.e., valence-classification, task. These findings highlight the importance of the task at different processing stages and show that cross-modal affect can successfully be associated to faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Ziereis
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
| | - Anne Schacht
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Goßlerstraße 14, 37073 Göttingen, Germany
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Vakhrushev R, Cheng FPH, Schacht A, Pooresmaeili A. Differential effects of intra-modal and cross-modal reward value on perception: ERP evidence. PLoS One 2023; 18:e0287900. [PMID: 37390067 PMCID: PMC10313067 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0287900] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/30/2022] [Accepted: 06/15/2023] [Indexed: 07/02/2023] Open
Abstract
In natural environments objects comprise multiple features from the same or different sensory modalities but it is not known how perception of an object is affected by the value associations of its constituent parts. The present study compares intra- and cross-modal value-driven effects on behavioral and electrophysiological correlates of perception. Human participants first learned the reward associations of visual and auditory cues. Subsequently, they performed a visual discrimination task in the presence of previously rewarded, task-irrelevant visual or auditory cues (intra- and cross-modal cues, respectively). During the conditioning phase, when reward associations were learned and reward cues were the target of the task, high value stimuli of both modalities enhanced the electrophysiological correlates of sensory processing in posterior electrodes. During the post-conditioning phase, when reward delivery was halted and previously rewarded stimuli were task-irrelevant, cross-modal value significantly enhanced the behavioral measures of visual sensitivity, whereas intra-modal value produced only an insignificant decrement. Analysis of the simultaneously recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) of posterior electrodes revealed similar findings. We found an early (90-120 ms) suppression of ERPs evoked by high-value, intra-modal stimuli. Cross-modal stimuli led to a later value-driven modulation, with an enhancement of response positivity for high- compared to low-value stimuli starting at the N1 window (180-250 ms) and extending to the P3 (300-600 ms) responses. These results indicate that sensory processing of a compound stimulus comprising a visual target and task-irrelevant visual or auditory cues is modulated by the reward value of both sensory modalities, but such modulations rely on distinct underlying mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Roman Vakhrushev
- Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Felicia Pei-Hsin Cheng
- Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Anne Schacht
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-Elias-Müller-Institute of Psychology, Georg-August University, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Arezoo Pooresmaeili
- Perception and Cognition Lab, European Neuroscience Institute Goettingen- A Joint Initiative of the University Medical Center Goettingen and the Max-Planck-Society, Goettingen, Germany
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Chen NX, Wei P. Reward History Modulates the Processing of Task-Irrelevant Emotional Faces in a Demanding Task. Brain Sci 2023; 13:874. [PMID: 37371354 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13060874] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/30/2023] [Revised: 05/22/2023] [Accepted: 05/25/2023] [Indexed: 06/29/2023] Open
Abstract
The aim of the current study was to examine how reward-associated emotional facial distractors could capture attentional resources in a demanding visual task using event-related potentials (ERPs). In the learning phase, a high- or low-reward probability was paired with angry, happy, or neutral faces. Then, in the test phase, participants performed a face-irrelevant task with no reward at stake, in which they needed to discriminate the length of two lines presented in the center of the screen while faces that were taken from the learning phase were used as distractors presented in the periphery. The behavioral results revealed no effect of distractor emotional valence since the emotional information was task-irrelevant. The ERP results in the test phase revealed a significant main effect of distractor emotional valence for the parieto-occipital P200 (170-230 ms); the mean amplitudes in both the angry- and happy-face conditions were more positive than the neutral-face condition. Moreover, we found that the high-reward association enhanced both the N170 (140-180 ms) and EPN (260-330 ms) relative to the low-reward association condition. Finally, the N2pc (270-320 ms) also exhibited enhanced neural activity in the high-reward condition compared to the low-reward condition. The absence of emotional effects indicated that task-irrelevant emotional facial stimuli did not impact behavioral or neural responses in this highly demanding task. However, reward-associated information was processed when attention was directed elsewhere, suggesting that the processing of reward-associated information worked more in an automatic way, irrespective of the top-down task demand.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ning-Xuan Chen
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition and School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
| | - Ping Wei
- Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition and School of Psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
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Li Z, Lin H, Zhang Q, Shi R, Xu H, Yang F, Jiang X, Wang L, Han Y, Jiang J. Individual Proportion Loss of Functional Connectivity Strength: A Novel Individual Functional Connectivity Biomarker for Subjective Cognitive Decline Populations. BIOLOGY 2023; 12:564. [PMID: 37106764 PMCID: PMC10135935 DOI: 10.3390/biology12040564] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2023] [Revised: 04/04/2023] [Accepted: 04/04/2023] [Indexed: 04/29/2023]
Abstract
High individual variation in the subjective cognitive decline (SCD) population makes functional connectivity (FC) biomarkers unstable. This study proposed a novel individual FC index, named individual proportion loss of functional connectivity strength (IPLFCS), and explored potential biomarkers for SCD using this new index. We proposed an IPLFCS analysis framework and compared it with traditional FC in Chinese and Western cohorts. Post hoc tests were used to determine biomarkers. Pearson's correlation analysis was used to investigate the correlation between neuropsychological scores or cortical amyloid deposits and IPLFCS biomarkers. Receiver operating characteristic curves were utilized to evaluate the ability of potential biomarkers to distinguish between groups. IPLFCS of the left middle temporal gyrus (LMTG) was identified as a potential biomarker. The IPLFC was correlated with the traditional FC (r = 0.956, p < 0.001; r = 0.946, p < 0.001) and cortical amyloid deposition (r = -0.245, p = 0.029; r = -0.185, p = 0.048) in both cohorts. Furthermore, the IPLFCS decreased across the Alzheimer's disease (AD) continuum. Its diagnostic efficiency was superior to that of existing fMRI biomarkers. These findings suggest that IPLFCS of the LMTG could be a potential biomarker of SCD.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuoyuan Li
- School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
- Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Luzhou 646000, China
| | - Hua Lin
- Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China
| | - Qi Zhang
- School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
| | - Rong Shi
- School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
| | - Huanyu Xu
- School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
| | - Fan Yang
- School of Communication and Information Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
| | - Xueyan Jiang
- Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China
| | - Luyao Wang
- Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
| | - Ying Han
- Department of Neurology, Xuanwu Hospital of Capital Medical University, Beijing 100053, China
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, China
- Center of Alzheimer’s Disease, Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing 100053, China
- National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Beijing 100053, China
| | - Jiehui Jiang
- Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Luzhou 646000, China
- Institute of Biomedical Engineering, School of Life Science, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China
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Antono JE, Vakhrushev R, Pooresmaeili A. Value-driven modulation of visual perception by visual and auditory reward cues: The role of performance-contingent delivery of reward. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:1062168. [PMID: 36618995 PMCID: PMC9816136 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.1062168] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/05/2022] [Accepted: 12/06/2022] [Indexed: 12/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Perception is modulated by reward value, an effect elicited not only by stimuli that are predictive of performance-contingent delivery of reward (PC) but also by stimuli that were previously rewarded (PR). PC and PR cues may engage different mechanisms relying on goal-driven versus stimulus-driven prioritization of high value stimuli, respectively. However, these two modes of reward modulation have not been systematically compared against each other. This study employed a behavioral paradigm where participants' visual orientation discrimination was tested in the presence of task-irrelevant visual or auditory reward cues. In the first phase (PC), correct performance led to a high or low monetary reward dependent on the identity of visual or auditory cues. In the subsequent phase (PR), visual or auditory cues were not followed by reward delivery anymore. We hypothesized that PC cues have a stronger modulatory effect on visual discrimination and pupil responses compared to PR cues. We found an overall larger task-evoked pupil dilation in PC compared to PR phase. Whereas PC and PR cues both increased the accuracy of visual discrimination, value-driven acceleration of reaction times (RTs) and pupillary responses only occurred for PC cues. The modulation of pupil size by high reward PC cues was strongly correlated with the modulation of a combined measure of speed and accuracy. These results indicate that although value-driven modulation of perception can occur even when reward delivery is halted, stronger goal-driven control elicited by PC reward cues additionally results in a more efficient balance between accuracy and speed of perceptual choices.
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Yang H, Wang X, Lu A, Zhang M, Liu Y. How power and personality trait of others affect impression: Evidence from event-related potentials. COGENT PSYCHOLOGY 2022. [DOI: 10.1080/23311908.2022.2029246] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Hongling Yang
- School of Management, Guangdong Industry Polytechnic, Guangzhou, GD, China
| | - Xuebin Wang
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, China
| | - Aitao Lu
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, China
| | - Meifang Zhang
- School of Psychology, South China Normal University, China
- Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory of Reading and Development in Children and Adolescents (South China Normal University), Ministry of Education, China
| | - Yaozhong Liu
- School of Management, Jinan University, Guangzhou, GD, China
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Kulke L, Pasqualette L. Emotional content influences eye-movements under natural but not under instructed conditions. Cogn Emot 2021; 36:332-344. [PMID: 34886742 DOI: 10.1080/02699931.2021.2009446] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
ABSTRACTIn everyday life, people can freely decide if and where they would like to move their attention and gaze, often influenced by physical and emotional salience of stimuli. However, many laboratory paradigms explicitly instruct participants when and how to move their eyes, leading to unnatural instructed eye-movements. The current preregistered study compared eye-movements to peripherally appearing faces with happy, angry and neutral expressions under natural and instructed conditions. Participants reliably moved their eyes towards peripheral faces, even when they were not instructed to do so; however, eye-movements were significantly slower under natural than under instructed conditions. Competing central stimuli decelerated eye-movements independently of instructions. Unexpectedly, the emotional salience only affected eye-movements under natural conditions, with faster saccades towards emotional than towards neutral faces. No effects of emotional expression occurred when participants were instructed to move their eyes. The study shows that natural eye-movements significantly differ from instructed eye-movements and emotion-driven attention effects are reduced when participants are artificially instructed to move their eyes, suggesting that research should investigate eye-movements under natural conditions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen Germany
| | - Laura Pasqualette
- Neurocognitive Developmental Psychology, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen Germany
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Schindler S, Bruchmann M, Krasowski C, Moeck R, Straube T. Charged With a Crime: The Neuronal Signature of Processing Negatively Evaluated Faces Under Different Attentional Conditions. Psychol Sci 2021; 32:1311-1324. [DOI: 10.1177/0956797621996667] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Our brains rapidly respond to human faces and can differentiate between many identities, retrieving rich semantic emotional-knowledge information. Studies provide a mixed picture of how such information affects event-related potentials (ERPs). We systematically examined the effect of feature-based attention on ERP modulations to briefly presented faces of individuals associated with a crime. The tasks required participants ( N = 40 adults) to discriminate the orientation of lines overlaid onto the face, the age of the face, or emotional information associated with the face. Negative faces amplified the N170 ERP component during all tasks, whereas the early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) components were increased only when the emotional information was attended to. These findings suggest that during early configural analyses (N170), evaluative information potentiates face processing regardless of feature-based attention. During intermediate, only partially resource-dependent, processing stages (EPN) and late stages of elaborate stimulus processing (LPP), attention to the acquired emotional information is necessary for amplified processing of negatively evaluated faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Claudia Krasowski
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Robert Moeck
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster
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Bruchmann M, Schindler S, Heinemann J, Moeck R, Straube T. Increased early and late neuronal responses to aversively conditioned faces across different attentional conditions. Cortex 2021; 142:332-341. [PMID: 34343902 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.07.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/10/2021] [Revised: 05/26/2021] [Accepted: 07/02/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Faces with emotional information-by virtue of their expression or their history of affective learning-are prioritized during neuronal processing as compared to neutral faces. Classical conditioning studies have shown that aversively conditioned (CS+) faces potentiate different face processing stages as evidenced by increased early and late event-related potential (ERPs) components. However, it is unknown whether and how ERP modulations depend on certain attentional conditions. To examine this question, this preregistered study investigated ERPs to faces paired with aversive screams or neutral sounds under three tasks with increasing attention to CS + relevant features of the face: Participants (N = 40) had to discriminate either the orientation of superimposed lines, perceived gender, or the CS association. We found potentiation of the N170, the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN), and, most remarkably, the Late Positive Potential (LPP) to CS + faces regardless of task condition. This finding suggests that, in contrast to other types of emotional information and learning, classical conditioning boosts early and late processing stages, even if no explicit attention to the face information or the CS association is required.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany.
| | - Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany.
| | - Jana Heinemann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany
| | - Robert Moeck
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Germany
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Electrophysiological responses to negative evaluative person-knowledge: Effects of individual differences. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2021; 21:822-836. [PMID: 33846952 PMCID: PMC8354867 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-021-00894-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/16/2021] [Indexed: 01/16/2023]
Abstract
Faces transmit rich information about a unique personal identity. Recent studies examined how negative evaluative information affects event-related potentials (ERPs), the relevance of individual differences, such as trait anxiety, neuroticism, or agreeableness, for these effects is unclear. In this preregistered study, participants (N = 80) were presented with neutral faces, either associated with highly negative or neutral biographical information. Faces were shown under three different task conditions that varied the attentional focus on face-unrelated features, perceptual face information, or emotional information. Results showed a task-independent increase of the N170 component for faces associated with negative information, while interactions occurred for the Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and the Late Positive Potential (LPP), showing ERP differences only when paying attention to the evaluative information. Trait anxiety and neuroticism did not influence ERP differences. Low agreeableness increased EPN differences during perceptual distraction. Thus, we observed that low agreeableness leads to early increased processing of potentially hostile faces, although participants were required to attend to a face-unrelated feature.
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Emotion anticipation induces emotion effects in neutral words during sentence reading: Evidence from event-related potentials. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2020; 20:1294-1308. [DOI: 10.3758/s13415-020-00835-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/14/2020] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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15
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Schindler S, Bublatzky F. Attention and emotion: An integrative review of emotional face processing as a function of attention. Cortex 2020; 130:362-386. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.06.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 86] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/18/2020] [Revised: 05/28/2020] [Accepted: 06/29/2020] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
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16
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Qin N, Xue J, Chen C, Zhang M. The Bright and Dark Sides of Performance-Dependent Monetary Rewards: Evidence From Visual Perception Tasks. Cogn Sci 2020; 44:e12825. [PMID: 32180260 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12825] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2019] [Revised: 12/17/2019] [Accepted: 02/10/2020] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Studies have shown that performance-dependent monetary rewards facilitate visual perception. However, no study has examined whether such a positive effect is limited to the rewarded task or may be generalized to other tasks. In the current study, two groups of people were asked to perform two visual perception tasks, one being a reward-relevant task and the other being a reward-irrelevant task. For the reward-relevant task, the experimental group received performance-dependent monetary rewards, whereas the control group did not. For the reward-irrelevant task, both groups were not rewarded. The two tasks were randomly intermixed trial by trial (Experiment 1) or presented block by block (Experiment 2) or session by session (Experiments 3a, 3b, and 3c). Results showed that performance-dependent monetary rewards improved participants' performance on the relevant task in all experiments and impaired their performance on the irrelevant task in Experiments 2, 3a, 3b, and 3c. These results suggested that monetary rewards might incur a cost on reward-irrelevant tasks. Finally, the benefit of monetary rewards disappeared when they were no longer provided during the final session. This is the first study that reveals both the bright and dark sides of the performance-dependent monetary rewards in visual perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nan Qin
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology.,Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
| | - Jingming Xue
- Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University
| | - Chuansheng Chen
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California
| | - Mingxia Zhang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology
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Hoid D, Pan DN, Wang Y, Li X. Implicit emotion regulation deficits in individuals with high schizotypal traits: an ERP study. Sci Rep 2020; 10:3882. [PMID: 32127580 PMCID: PMC7054415 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-60787-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2019] [Accepted: 02/17/2020] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Schizotypy is associated with poor emotion regulation that is thought to contribute to the development of psychotic symptoms and to indicate a predisposition to schizophrenia. Having focused primarily on the relationship between schizotypy and explicit emotion regulation, existing studies have, until now, neglected to acknowledge the potentially important role of implicit emotion regulation. Our aim in the current study was to investigate implicit emotion regulation deficits in schizotypy. To this end, we used a newly developed Priming-Identification (PI) ERP paradigm, consisting of a priming phase and an emotion identification phase, to test 30 individuals with schizotypy and 30 healthy controls while also acquiring EEG data. During the priming phase, we aimed to manipulate emotion regulation goals (i.e., to bring about an intended emotional state) by presenting a category of words related to emotion regulation alongside a category of control words. Associated brain responses occurring during the subsequent stage were indexed according to three ERP components: N170, early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). Results showed that, in the control group, priming words associated with emotion regulation led to enhancements in the early N170 amplitude and the middle EPN during expression identification. The same pattern was not observed in the schizotypy group. In summary, our results suggest the presence of deficits in the early and middle stages of the implicit emotion regulation process among individuals with high schizotypal traits.
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Affiliation(s)
- Delhii Hoid
- Key laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10049, China
| | - Dong-Ni Pan
- Key laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10049, China
| | - Yi Wang
- Key laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10049, China
| | - Xuebing Li
- Key laboratory of Mental Health, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
- Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 10049, China.
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Zhou X, Du B, Wei Z, He W. Attention Capture of Non-target Emotional Faces: An Evidence From Reward Learning. Front Psychol 2020; 10:3004. [PMID: 32082205 PMCID: PMC7006031 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2019] [Accepted: 12/18/2019] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The aim of this study was to explore whether reward learning would affect the processing of targets when an emotional stimulus was task irrelevant. In the current study, using a visual search paradigm to establish an association between emotional faces and reward, an emotional face appeared as a task-irrelevant distractor during the test after reward learning, and participants were asked to judge the orientation of a line on the face. In experiment 1, no significant difference was found between the high reward-fear distractor condition and the no reward-neutral condition, but the response times of the high reward-fear condition were significantly longer than those of the low reward-happy condition. In experiment 2, there was no significant difference in participants' performance between high reward-happy and no reward-neutral responses. In addition, response times of the low reward-fear condition wear significantly longer than those of the high reward-happy and no reward-neutral conditions. The results show that reward learning affects attention bias of task-irrelevant emotional faces even when reward is absent. Moreover, the high reward selection history is more effective in weakening the emotional advantage of the processing advantage than the low reward.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xing Zhou
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Bixuan Du
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Zhiqing Wei
- School of Psychology, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou, China
| | - Weiqi He
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
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Zhang M, Siegle GJ, McNeil MR, Pratt SR, Palmer C. The role of reward and task demand in value-based strategic allocation of auditory comprehension effort. Hear Res 2019; 381:107775. [DOI: 10.1016/j.heares.2019.107775] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2019] [Revised: 07/30/2019] [Accepted: 07/31/2019] [Indexed: 12/19/2022]
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Ventura-Bort C, Wirkner J, Dolcos F, Wendt J, Hamm AO, Weymar M. Enhanced spontaneous retrieval of cues from emotional events: An ERP study. Biol Psychol 2019; 148:107742. [PMID: 31442479 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107742] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2018] [Revised: 08/07/2019] [Accepted: 08/19/2019] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
Recent evidence points to enhanced episodic memory retrieval not only for emotional items but also for neutral information encoded in emotional contexts. However, prior research only tested instructed explicit recognition, and hence here we investigated whether memory retrieval is also heightened for cues from emotional contexts when retrieval is not explicitly probed. During the first session of a two-session experiment, neutral objects were presented on different background scenes varying in emotional and neutral contents. One week later, objects were presented again (with no background) intermixed with novel objects. In both sessions, participants were instructed to attentively watch the stimuli (free viewing procedure), and during the second session, ERPs were also collected to measure the ERP Old/New effect, an electrophysiological correlate of episodic memory retrieval. Analyses were performed using cluster-based permutation tests in order to identify reliable spatio-temporal ERP differences. Based on this approach, old relative to new objects, were associated with larger ERP positivity in an early (364-744 ms) and late time window (760-1148 ms) over distinct central electrode clusters. Interestingly, significant late ERP Old/New differences were only observed for objects previously encoded with emotional, but not neutral scenes (504 to 1144 ms). Because these ERP differences were observed in a non-instructed retrieval context, our results indicate that long-term, spontaneous retrieval for neutral objects, is particularly heightened if encoded within emotionally salient contextual information. These findings may assist in understanding mechanisms underlying spontaneous retrieval of emotional associates and the utility of ERPs to study maladaptive involuntary memories in trauma- and stress-related disorders.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Janine Wirkner
- Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Florin Dolcos
- Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA; Psychology Department, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA; Neuroscience Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA
| | - Julia Wendt
- Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Alfons O Hamm
- Department of Psychology, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Mathias Weymar
- Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
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Kulke L. Neural Mechanisms of Overt Attention Shifts to Emotional Faces. Neuroscience 2019; 418:59-68. [PMID: 31442566 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2019.08.023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/08/2019] [Revised: 08/08/2019] [Accepted: 08/12/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Emotional faces draw attention and eye-movements towards them. However, the neural mechanisms of attention have mainly been investigated during fixation, which is uncommon in everyday life where people move their eyes to shift attention to faces. Therefore, the current study combined eye-tracking and Electroencephalography (EEG) to measure neural mechanisms of overt attention shifts to faces with happy, neutral and angry expressions, allowing participants to move their eyes freely towards the stimuli. Saccade latencies towards peripheral faces did not differ depending on expression and early neural response (P1) amplitudes and latencies were unaffected. However, the later occurring Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) was significantly larger for emotional than for neutral faces. This response appears after saccades towards the faces. Therefore, emotion modulations only occurred after an overt shift of gaze towards the stimulus had already been completed. Visual saliency rather than emotional content may therefore drive early saccades, while later top-down processes reflect emotion processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Kulke
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany; Leibniz ScienceCampus Primate Cognition, Göttingen, Germany.
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Peinkhofer C, Knudsen GM, Moretti R, Kondziella D. Cortical modulation of pupillary function: systematic review. PeerJ 2019; 7:e6882. [PMID: 31119083 PMCID: PMC6510220 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.6882] [Citation(s) in RCA: 28] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/30/2019] [Accepted: 03/26/2019] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND The pupillary light reflex is the main mechanism that regulates the pupillary diameter; it is controlled by the autonomic system and mediated by subcortical pathways. In addition, cognitive and emotional processes influence pupillary function due to input from cortical innervation, but the exact circuits remain poorly understood. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the mechanisms behind pupillary changes associated with cognitive efforts and processing of emotions and to investigate the cerebral areas involved in cortical modulation of the pupillary light reflex. METHODOLOGY We searched multiple databases until November 2018 for studies on cortical modulation of pupillary function in humans and non-human primates. Of 8,809 papers screened, 258 studies were included. RESULTS Most investigators focused on pupillary dilatation and/or constriction as an index of cognitive and emotional processing, evaluating how changes in pupillary diameter reflect levels of attention and arousal. Only few tried to correlate specific cerebral areas to pupillary changes, using either cortical activation models (employing micro-stimulation of cortical structures in non-human primates) or cortical lesion models (e.g., investigating patients with stroke and damage to salient cortical and/or subcortical areas). Results suggest the involvement of several cortical regions, including the insular cortex (Brodmann areas 13 and 16), the frontal eye field (Brodmann area 8) and the prefrontal cortex (Brodmann areas 11 and 25), and of subcortical structures such as the locus coeruleus and the superior colliculus. CONCLUSIONS Pupillary dilatation occurs with many kinds of mental or emotional processes, following sympathetic activation or parasympathetic inhibition. Conversely, pupillary constriction may occur with anticipation of a bright stimulus (even in its absence) and relies on a parasympathetic activation. All these reactions are controlled by subcortical and cortical structures that are directly or indirectly connected to the brainstem pupillary innervation system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Costanza Peinkhofer
- Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Medical Faculty, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
| | - Gitte M. Knudsen
- Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Neurobiology Research Unit, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Faculty of Health and Medical Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
| | - Rita Moretti
- Medical Faculty, University of Trieste, Trieste, Italy
- Department of Medical, Surgical and Health Sciences, Neurological Unit, Trieste University Hospital, Cattinara, Trieste, Italy
| | - Daniel Kondziella
- Department of Neurology, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen University Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Faculty of Health and Medical Science, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Department of Neuroscience, Norwegian University of Technology and Science, Trondheim, Norway
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Differential effects of learned associations with words and pseudowords on event-related brain potentials. Neuropsychologia 2019; 124:182-191. [PMID: 30571974 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.12.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2017] [Revised: 11/30/2018] [Accepted: 12/14/2018] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
Abstract
Associated stimulus valence affects neural responses at an early processing stage. However, in the field of written language processing, it is unclear whether semantics of a word or low-level visual features affect early neural processing advantages. The current study aimed to investigate the role of semantic content on reward and loss associations. Participants completed a learning session to associate either words (Experiment 1, N = 24) or pseudowords (Experiment 2, N = 24) with different monetary outcomes (gain-associated, neutral or loss-associated). Gain-associated stimuli were learned fastest. Behavioural and neural response changes based on the associated outcome were further investigated in separate test sessions. Responses were faster towards gain- and loss-associated than neutral stimuli if they were words, but not pseudowords. Early P1 effects of associated outcome occurred for both pseudowords and words. Specifically, loss-association resulted in increased P1 amplitudes to pseudowords, compared to decreased amplitudes to words. Although visual features are likely to explain P1 effects for pseudowords, the inversed effect for words suggests that semantic content affects associative learning, potentially leading to stronger associations.
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24
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Hammerschmidt W, Kulke L, Broering C, Schacht A. Money or smiles: Independent ERP effects of associated monetary reward and happy faces. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0206142. [PMID: 30359397 PMCID: PMC6201916 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0206142] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2018] [Accepted: 10/08/2018] [Indexed: 11/28/2022] Open
Abstract
In comparison to neutral faces, facial expressions of emotion are known to gain attentional prioritization, mainly demonstrated by means of event-related potentials (ERPs). Recent evidence indicated that such a preferential processing can also be elicited by neutral faces when associated with increased motivational salience via reward. It remains, however, an open question whether impacts of inherent emotional salience and associated motivational salience might be integrated. To this aim, expressions and monetary outcomes were orthogonally combined. Participants (N = 42) learned to explicitly categorize happy and neutral faces as either reward- or zero-outcome-related via an associative learning paradigm. ERP components (P1, N170, EPN, and LPC) were measured throughout the experiment, and separately analyzed before (learning phase) and after (consolidation phase) reaching a pre-defined learning criterion. Happy facial expressions boosted early processing stages, as reflected in enhanced amplitudes of the N170 and EPN, both during learning and consolidation. In contrast, effects of monetary reward became evident only after successful learning and in form of enlarged amplitudes of the LPC, a component linked to higher-order evaluations. Interactions between expressions and associated outcome were absent in all ERP components of interest. The present study provides novel evidence that acquired salience impacts stimulus processing but independent of the effects driven by happy facial expressions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Wiebke Hammerschmidt
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus “Primate Cognition”, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Louisa Kulke
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus “Primate Cognition”, Goettingen, Germany
| | - Christina Broering
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen, Germany
| | - Annekathrin Schacht
- Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, University of Goettingen, Germany
- Leibniz ScienceCampus “Primate Cognition”, Goettingen, Germany
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Associated valence impacts early visual processing of letter strings: Evidence from ERPs in a cross-modal learning paradigm. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2018; 19:98-108. [DOI: 10.3758/s13415-018-00647-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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