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Aldunate N, López V, Rojas-Thomas F, Villena-González M, Palacios I, Artigas C, Rodríguez E, Bosman CA. Emotional text messages affect the early processing of emoticons depending on their emotional congruence: evidence from the N170 and EPN event related potentials. Cogn Process 2024:10.1007/s10339-024-01223-y. [PMID: 39180634 DOI: 10.1007/s10339-024-01223-y] [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: 01/10/2024] [Accepted: 08/13/2024] [Indexed: 08/26/2024]
Abstract
Emoticons have been considered pragmatic cues that enhance emotional expressivity during computer-mediated communication. Yet, it is unclear how emoticons are processed in ambiguous text-based communication due to incongruences between the emoticon's emotional valence and its context. In this study, we investigated the electrophysiological correlates of contextual influence on the early emotional processing of emoticons, during an emotional congruence judgment task. Participants were instructed to judge the congruence between a text message expressing an emotional situation (positive or negative), and a subsequent emoticon expressing positive or negative emotions. We analyzed early event-related potentials elicited by emoticons related to face processing (N170) and emotional salience in visual perception processing (Early Posterior Negativity, EPN). Our results show that accuracy and Reaction Times depend on the interaction between the emotional valence of the context and the emoticon. Negative emoticons elicited a larger N170, suggesting that the emotional information of the emoticon is integrated at the early stages of the perceptual process. During emoticon processing, a valence effect was observed with enhanced EPN amplitudes in occipital areas for emoticons representing negative valences. Moreover, we observed a congruence effect in parieto-temporal sites within the same time-window, with larger amplitudes for the congruent condition. We conclude that, similar to face processing, emoticons are processed differently according to their emotional content and the context in which they are embedded. A congruent context might enhance the emotional salience of the emoticon (and therefore, its emotional expression) during the early stages of their processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nerea Aldunate
- Laboratorio de Comportamiento Animal y Humano, Centro de Investigación en Complejidad Social, Facultad de Gobierno, Universidad del Desarrollo, Santiago, Chile.
| | - Vladimir López
- Escuela de Psicología, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Felipe Rojas-Thomas
- Center for Social and Cognitive Neuroscience (CSCN), School of Psychology, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile
| | | | - Ismael Palacios
- Escuela de Psicología, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
- Centro de Estudios en Neurociencia Humana y Neuropsicología. Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile
| | - Claudio Artigas
- Departamento de Biología, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Eugenio Rodríguez
- Escuela de Psicología, Pontifica Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile
| | - Conrado A Bosman
- Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Group, Center for Neuroscience, Swammerdam Institute, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Research Priority Program Brain and Cognition, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
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2
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Gao Y, Lin W, Zhang M, Zheng L, Liu J, Zheng M, En Y, Chen Y, Mo L. Cognitive Mechanisms of the Face Context Effect: An Event Related Potential Study of the Effects of Emotional Contexts on Neutral Face Perception. Biol Psychol 2022; 175:108430. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108430] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/17/2022] [Revised: 09/25/2022] [Accepted: 09/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
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3
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Emotional violation of faces, emojis, and words: Evidence from N400. Biol Psychol 2022; 173:108405. [DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108405] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/12/2022] [Revised: 07/28/2022] [Accepted: 08/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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4
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Weidner EM, Schindler S, Grewe P, Moratti S, Bien CG, Kissler J. Emotion and attention in face processing: Complementary evidence from surface event-related potentials and intracranial amygdala recordings. Biol Psychol 2022; 173:108399. [PMID: 35850159 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2022] [Revised: 07/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Face processing is biased by emotional and voluntarily directed attention, both of which modulate processing in distributed cortical areas. The amygdala is assumed to contribute to an attentional bias for emotional faces, although its interaction with directed attention awaits further clarification. Here, we studied the interaction of emotion and attention during face processing via scalp EEG potentials of healthy participants and intracranial EEG (iEEG) recordings of the right amygdala in one patient. Three randomized blocks consisting of angry, neutral, and happy facial expressions were presented, and one expression was denoted as the target category in each block. Happy targets were detected fastest and most accurately both in the group study and by the iEEG patient. Occipital scalp potentials revealed emotion differentiation for happy faces in the early posterior negativity (EPN) around 300 ms after stimulus onset regardless of the target condition. A similar response to happy faces occurred in the amygdala only for happy targets. On the scalp, a late positive potential (LPP, around 600 ms) enhancement for targets occurred for all target conditions alike. A simultaneous late signal in the amygdala was largest for emotional targets. No late signal enhancements were found for neutral targets in the amygdala. Cortical modulations, by contrast, showed both attention-independent effects of emotion and emotion-independent effects of attention. These results demonstrate an attention-dependence of amygdala activity during the processing of facial expressions and partly independent cortical mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enya M Weidner
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
| | - Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Philip Grewe
- Clinical Neuropsychology and Epilepsy Research, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany; Department of Epileptology (Krankenhaus Mara), Bielefeld University, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Stephan Moratti
- Laboratory for Clinical Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology, Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Christian G Bien
- Department of Epileptology (Krankenhaus Mara), Bielefeld University, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Johanna Kissler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
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5
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Li S, Ding R, Zhao D, Zhou X, Zhan B, Luo W. Processing of emotions expressed through eye regions attenuates attentional blink. Int J Psychophysiol 2022; 182:1-11. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.07.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/22/2021] [Revised: 07/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/27/2022] [Indexed: 10/16/2022]
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6
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Schiano Lomoriello A, Sessa P, Doro M, Konvalinka I. Shared Attention Amplifies the Neural Processing of Emotional Faces. J Cogn Neurosci 2022; 34:917-932. [PMID: 35258571 DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01841] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/04/2022]
Abstract
Sharing an experience, without communicating, affects people's subjective perception of the experience, often by intensifying it. We investigated the neural mechanisms underlying shared attention by implementing an EEG study where participants attended to and rated the intensity of emotional faces, simultaneously or independently. Participants performed the task in three experimental conditions: (a) alone; (b) simultaneously next to each other in pairs, without receiving feedback of the other's responses (shared without feedback); and (c) simultaneously while receiving the feedback (shared with feedback). We focused on two face-sensitive ERP components: The amplitude of the N170 was greater in the "shared with feedback" condition compared to the alone condition, reflecting a top-down effect of shared attention on the structural encoding of faces, whereas the EPN was greater in both shared context conditions compared to the alone condition, reflecting an enhanced attention allocation in the processing of emotional content of faces, modulated by the social context. Taken together, these results suggest that shared attention amplifies the neural processing of faces, regardless of the valence of facial expressions.
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7
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Pell MD, Sethi S, Rigoulot S, Rothermich K, Liu P, Jiang X. Emotional voices modulate perception and predictions about an upcoming face. Cortex 2022; 149:148-164. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.12.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2021] [Revised: 09/15/2021] [Accepted: 01/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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8
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Hudson A, Durston AJ, McCrackin SD, Itier RJ. Emotion, Gender and Gaze Discrimination Tasks do not Differentially Impact the Neural Processing of Angry or Happy Facial Expressions-a Mass Univariate ERP Analysis. Brain Topogr 2021; 34:813-833. [PMID: 34596796 DOI: 10.1007/s10548-021-00873-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/31/2021] [Accepted: 09/20/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Facial expression processing is a critical component of social cognition yet, whether it is influenced by task demands at the neural level remains controversial. Past ERP studies have found mixed results with classic statistical analyses, known to increase both Type I and Type II errors, which Mass Univariate statistics (MUS) control better. However, MUS open-access toolboxes can use different fundamental statistics, which may lead to inconsistent results. Here, we compared the output of two MUS toolboxes, LIMO and FMUT, on the same data recorded during the processing of angry and happy facial expressions investigated under three tasks in a within-subjects design. Both toolboxes revealed main effects of emotion during the N170 timing and main effects of task during later time points typically associated with the LPP component. Neither toolbox yielded an interaction between the two factors at the group level, nor at the individual level in LIMO, confirming that the neural processing of these two face expressions is largely independent from task demands. Behavioural data revealed main effects of task on reaction time and accuracy, but no influence of expression or an interaction between the two. Expression processing and task demands are discussed in the context of the consistencies and discrepancies between the two toolboxes and existing literature.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Hudson
- Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Amie J Durston
- Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Sarah D McCrackin
- Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada
| | - Roxane J Itier
- Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, N2L 3G1, Canada.
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9
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Does gaze direction of fearful faces facilitate the processing of threat? An ERP study of spatial precuing effects. COGNITIVE AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2021; 21:837-851. [PMID: 33846951 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-021-00890-0] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/03/2021] [Indexed: 01/22/2023]
Abstract
Eye gaze is very important for attentional orienting in social life. By adopting the event-related potential (ERP) technique, we explored whether attentional orienting of eye gaze is modulated by emotional congruency between facial expressions and the targets in a spatial cuing task. Faces with different emotional expressions (fearful/angry/happy/neutral) directing their eye gaze to the left or right were used as cues, indicating the possible location of subsequent targets. Targets were line drawings of animals, which could be either threatening or neutral. Participants indicated by choice responses whether the animal would fit inside a shoebox in real life or not. Reaction times to targets were faster after valid compared with invalid cues, showing the typical eye gaze cuing effect. Analyses of the late positive potential (LPP) elicited by targets revealed a significant modulation of the gaze cuing effect by emotional congruency. Threatening targets elicited larger LPPs when validly cued by gaze in faces with negative (fearful and angry) expressions. Similarly, neutral targets showed larger LPPs when validly cued by faces with neutral expressions. Such effects were not present after happy face cues. Source localization in the LPP time window revealed that for threatening targets, the activity of right medial frontal gyrus could be related to a larger gaze-orienting effect for the fearful than the angry condition. Our findings provide electrophysiological evidence for the modulation of gaze cuing effects by emotional congruency.
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Nanayama Tanaka C, Higa H, Ogawa N, Ishido M, Nakamura T, Nishiwaki M. Negative Mood States Are Related to the Characteristics of Facial Expression Drawing: A Cross-Sectional Study. Front Psychol 2021; 11:576683. [PMID: 33391093 PMCID: PMC7773925 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.576683] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/26/2020] [Accepted: 11/12/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
An assessment of mood or emotion is important in developing mental health measures, and facial expressions are strongly related to mood or emotion. This study thus aimed to examine the relationship between levels of negative mood and characteristics of mouth parts when moods are drawn as facial expressions on a common platform. A cross-sectional study of Japanese college freshmen was conducted, and 1,068 valid responses were analyzed. The questionnaire survey consisted of participants’ characteristics, the Profile of Mood States (POMS), and a sheet of facial expression drawing (FACED), and the sheet was digitized and analyzed using an image-analysis software. Based on the total POMS score as an index of negative mood, the participants were divided into four groups: low (L), normal (N), high (H), and very high (VH). Lengths of drawn lines and between both mouth corners were significantly longer, and circularity and roundness were significantly higher in the L group. With increasing levels of negative mood, significant decreasing trends were observed in these lengths. Convex downward and enclosed figures were significantly predominant in the L group, while convex upward figures were significantly predominant and a tendency toward predominance of no drawn mouths or line figures was found in the H and VH groups. Our results suggest that mood states can be significantly related to the size and figure characteristics of drawn mouths of FACED on a non-verbal common platform. That is, these findings mean that subjects with low negative mood may draw a greater and rounder mouth and figures that may be enclosed and downward convex, while subjects with a high negative mood may not draw the line, or if any, may draw the line shorter and upward convex.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Hayato Higa
- Faculty of Medicine, University of Toyama, Toyama, Japan
| | - Noriko Ogawa
- Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka, Japan.,Faculty of Nursing, Setsunan University, Osaka, Japan
| | - Minenori Ishido
- Faculty of Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka, Japan
| | | | - Masato Nishiwaki
- Faculty of Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka, Japan
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11
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Feeling through another's eyes: Perceived gaze direction impacts ERP and behavioural measures of positive and negative affective empathy. Neuroimage 2020; 226:117605. [PMID: 33271267 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117605] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/11/2020] [Revised: 11/06/2020] [Accepted: 11/25/2020] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Looking at the eyes informs us about the thoughts and emotions of those around us, and impacts our own emotional state. However, it is unknown how perceiving direct and averted gaze impacts our ability to share the gazer's positive and negative emotions, abilities referred to as positive and negative affective empathy. We presented 44 participants with contextual sentences describing positive, negative and neutral events happening to other people (e.g. "Her newborn was saved/killed/fed yesterday afternoon."). These were designed to elicit positive, negative, or little to no empathy, and were followed by direct or averted gaze images of the individuals described. Participants rated their affective empathy for the individual and their own emotional valence on each trial. Event-related potentials time-locked to face-onset and associated with empathy and emotional processing were recorded to investigate whether they were modulated by gaze direction. Relative to averted gaze, direct gaze was associated with increased positive valence in the positive and neutral conditions and with increased positive empathy ratings. A similar pattern was found at the neural level, using robust mass-univariate statistics. The N100, thought to reflect an automatic activation of emotion areas, was modulated by gaze in the affective empathy conditions, with opposite effect directions in positive and negative conditions.. The P200, an ERP component sensitive to positive stimuli, was modulated by gaze direction only in the positive empathy condition. Positive and negative trials were processed similarly at the early N200 processing stage, but later diverged, with only negative trials modulating the EPN, P300 and LPP components. These results suggest that positive and negative affective empathy are associated with distinct time-courses, and that perceived gaze direction uniquely modulates positive empathy, highlighting the importance of studying empathy with face stimuli.
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12
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Rodríguez-Gómez P, Romero-Ferreiro V, Pozo MA, Hinojosa JA, Moreno EM. Facing stereotypes: ERP responses to male and female faces after gender-stereotyped statements. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 15:928-940. [PMID: 32901810 PMCID: PMC7647374 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa117] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/22/2020] [Revised: 08/03/2020] [Accepted: 09/02/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite gender is a salient feature in face recognition, the question of whether stereotyping modulates face processing remains unexplored. Event-related potentials from 40 participants (20 female) was recorded as male and female faces matched or mismatched previous gender-stereotyped statements and were compared with those elicited by faces preceded by gender-unbiased statements. We conducted linear mixed-effects models to account for possible random effects from both participants and the strength of the gender bias. The amplitude of the N170 to faces was larger following stereotyped relative to gender-unbiased statements in both male and female participants, although the effect was larger for males. This result reveals that stereotyping exerts an early effect in face processing and that the impact is higher in men. In later time windows, male faces after female-stereotyped statements elicited large late positivity potential (LPP) responses in both men and women, indicating that the violation of male stereotypes induces a post-perceptual reevaluation of a salient or conflicting event. Besides, the largest LPP amplitude in women was elicited when they encountered a female face after a female-stereotyped statement. The later result is discussed from the perspective of recent claims on the evolution of women self-identification with traditionally held female roles.
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Affiliation(s)
- Pablo Rodríguez-Gómez
- Human Brain Mapping Unit, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Processes and Speech Therapy, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
| | - Verónica Romero-Ferreiro
- Human Brain Mapping Unit, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Biomedical Research Center in Mental Health Network CIBERSAM, Spain
| | - Miguel A Pozo
- Human Brain Mapping Unit, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - José Antonio Hinojosa
- Human Brain Mapping Unit, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Cognitive Processes and Speech Therapy, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
- Languages and Education Department, Universidad de Nebrija, Madrid, Spain
| | - Eva M Moreno
- Human Brain Mapping Unit, Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Biomedical Research Center in Mental Health Network CIBERSAM, Spain
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13
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Schindler S, Bruchmann M, Steinweg AL, Moeck R, Straube T. Attentional conditions differentially affect early, intermediate and late neural responses to fearful and neutral faces. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 15:765-774. [PMID: 32701163 PMCID: PMC7511883 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa098] [Citation(s) in RCA: 41] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/04/2020] [Revised: 06/17/2020] [Accepted: 07/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
The processing of fearful facial expressions is prioritized by the human brain. This priority is maintained across various information processing stages as evident in early, intermediate and late components of event-related potentials (ERPs). However, emotional modulations are inconsistently reported for these different processing stages. In this pre-registered study, we investigated how feature-based attention differentially affects ERPs to fearful and neutral faces in 40 participants. The tasks required the participants to discriminate either the orientation of lines overlaid onto the face, the sex of the face or the face's emotional expression, increasing attention to emotion-related features. We found main effects of emotion for the N170, early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP). While N170 emotional modulations were task-independent, interactions of emotion and task were observed for the EPN and LPP. While EPN emotion effects were found in the sex and emotion tasks, the LPP emotion effect was mainly driven by the emotion task. This study shows that early responses to fearful faces are task-independent (N170) and likely based on low-level and configural information while during later processing stages, attention to the face (EPN) or-more specifically-to the face's emotional expression (LPP) is crucial for reliable amplified processing of emotional faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
| | - Maximilian Bruchmann
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
| | - Anna-Lena Steinweg
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
| | - Robert Moeck
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
| | - Thomas Straube
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
- Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Muenster, Münster D-48149, Germany
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14
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Clark GM, McNeel C, Bigelow FJ, Enticott PG. The effect of empathy and context on face-processing ERPs. Neuropsychologia 2020; 147:107612. [PMID: 32882241 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107612] [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: 02/19/2020] [Revised: 06/26/2020] [Accepted: 08/30/2020] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
The investigation of emotional face processing has largely used faces devoid of context, and does not account for within-perceiver differences in empathy. The importance of context in face perception has become apparent in recent years. This study examined the interaction of the contextual factors of facial expression, knowledge of a person's character, and within-perceiver empathy levels on face processing event-related potentials (ERPs). Forty-two adult participants learned background information about six individuals' character. Three types of character were described, in which the character was depicted as deliberately causing harm to others, accidently causing harm to others, or undertaking neutral actions. Subsequently, EEG was recorded while participants viewed the characters' faces displaying neutral or emotional expressions. Participants' empathy was assessed using the Empathy Quotient survey. Results showed a significant interaction of character type and empathy on the early posterior negativity (EPN) ERP component. These results suggested that for those with either low or high empathy, more attention was paid to the face stimuli, with more distinction between the different characters. In contrast, those in the middle range of empathy tended to produce smaller EPN with less distinction between character types. Findings highlight the importance of trait empathy in accounting for how faces in context are perceived.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gillian M Clark
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia.
| | - Claire McNeel
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
| | - Felicity J Bigelow
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
| | - Peter G Enticott
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, Geelong, Australia
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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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Rischer KM, Savallampi M, Akwaththage A, Salinas Thunell N, Lindersson C, MacGregor O. In context: emotional intent and temporal immediacy of contextual descriptions modulate affective ERP components to facial expressions. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 15:551-560. [PMID: 32440673 PMCID: PMC7328032 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsaa071] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/07/2019] [Revised: 05/04/2020] [Accepted: 05/11/2020] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
In this study, we explored how contextual information about threat dynamics affected the electrophysiological correlates of face perception. Forty-six healthy native Swedish speakers read verbal descriptions signaling an immediate vs delayed intent to escalate or deescalate an interpersonal conflict. Each verbal description was followed by a face with an angry or neutral expression, for which participants rated valence and arousal. Affective ratings confirmed that the emotional intent expressed in the descriptions modulated emotional reactivity to the facial stimuli in the expected direction. The electrophysiological data showed that compared to neutral faces, angry faces resulted in enhanced early and late event-related potentials (VPP, P300 and LPP). Additionally, emotional intent and temporal immediacy modulated the VPP and P300 similarly across angry and neutral faces, suggesting that they influence early face perception independently of facial affect. By contrast, the LPP amplitude to faces revealed an interaction between facial expression and emotional intent. Deescalating descriptions eliminated the LPP differences between angry and neutral faces. Together, our results suggest that information about a person’s intentions modulates the processing of facial expressions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katharina M Rischer
- Department of Behavioural and Cognitive Sciences, Research Institute of Health and Behaviour, University of Luxembourg, 4366 Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg
| | - Mattias Savallampi
- Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine (IKE), Center for Social and Affective Neuroscience (CSAN), Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
| | - Anushka Akwaththage
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, School of Bioscience, University of Skövde, 541 28 Skövde, Sweden
| | - Nicole Salinas Thunell
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, School of Bioscience, University of Skövde, 541 28 Skövde, Sweden
| | - Carl Lindersson
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, School of Bioscience, University of Skövde, 541 28 Skövde, Sweden
| | - Oskar MacGregor
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, School of Bioscience, University of Skövde, 541 28 Skövde, Sweden
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17
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Schindler S, Miller GA, Kissler J. Attending to Eliza: rapid brain responses reflect competence attribution in virtual social feedback processing. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2020; 14:1073-1086. [PMID: 31593232 PMCID: PMC7053263 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsz075] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/25/2019] [Revised: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 09/09/2019] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
In the age of virtual communication, the source of a message is often inferred rather than perceived, raising the question of how sender attributions affect content processing. We investigated this issue in an evaluative feedback scenario. Participants were told that an expert psychotherapist, a layperson or a randomly acting computer was going to give them online positive, neutral or negative personality feedback while high-density EEG was recorded. Sender attribution affected processing rapidly, even though the feedback was on average identical. Event-related potentials revealed a linear increase with attributed expertise beginning 150 ms after disclosure and most pronounced for N1, P2 and early posterior negativity components. P3 and late positive potential amplitudes were increased for both human senders and for emotionally significant (positive or negative) feedback. Strikingly, feedback from a putative expert prompted large P3 responses, even for inherently neutral content. Source analysis localized early enhancements due to attributed sender expertise in frontal and somatosensory regions and later responses in the posterior cingulate and extended visual and parietal areas, supporting involvement of mentalizing, embodied processing and socially motivated attention. These findings reveal how attributed sender expertise rapidly alters feedback processing in virtual interaction and have implications for virtual therapy and online communication.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sebastian Schindler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany.,Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany.,Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, 48149 Münster, Germany
| | - Gregory A Miller
- Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, P.O. Box 951563, CA 90095-1563, USA
| | - Johanna Kissler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 100131, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany.,Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC), Bielefeld University, 33619 Bielefeld, Germany
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18
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Bublatzky F, Kavcıoğlu F, Guerra P, Doll S, Junghöfer M. Contextual information resolves uncertainty about ambiguous facial emotions: Behavioral and magnetoencephalographic correlates. Neuroimage 2020; 215:116814. [PMID: 32276073 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.116814] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2018] [Revised: 03/17/2020] [Accepted: 04/01/2020] [Indexed: 02/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Environmental conditions bias our perception of other peoples' facial emotions. This becomes quite relevant in potentially threatening situations, when a fellow's facial expression might indicate potential danger. The present study tested the prediction that a threatening environment biases the recognition of facial emotions. To this end, low- and medium-expressive happy and fearful faces (morphed to 10%, 20%, 30%, or 40% emotional) were presented within a context of instructed threat-of-shock or safety. Self-reported data revealed that instructed threat led to a biased recognition of fearful, but not happy facial expressions. Magnetoencephalographic correlates revealed spatio-temporal clusters of neural network activity associated with emotion recognition and contextual threat/safety in early to mid-latency time intervals in the left parietal cortex, bilateral prefrontal cortex, and the left temporal pole regions. Early parietal activity revealed a double dissociation of face-context information as a function of the expressive level of facial emotions: When facial expressions were difficult to recognize (low-expressive), contextual threat enhanced fear processing and contextual safety enhanced processing of subtle happy faces. However, for rather easily recognizable faces (medium-expressive) the left hemisphere (parietal cortex, PFC, and temporal pole) showed enhanced activity to happy faces during contextual threat and fearful faces during safety. Thus, contextual settings reduce the salience threshold and boost early face processing of low-expressive congruent facial emotions, whereas face-context incongruity or mismatch effects drive neural activity of easier recognizable facial emotions. These results elucidate how environmental settings help recognize facial emotions, and the brain mechanisms underlying the recognition of subtle nuances of fear.
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Affiliation(s)
- Florian Bublatzky
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Medical Faculty Mannheim/Heidelberg University, Germany.
| | - Fatih Kavcıoğlu
- Chair of Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Würzburg, Germany
| | - Pedro Guerra
- Department of Personality, University of Granada, Spain
| | - Sarah Doll
- Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Markus Junghöfer
- Institute for Biomagnetism and Biosignalanalysis, University Hospital Münster, Münster, Germany; Otto Creutzfeldt Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Münster, Germany
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19
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Aguado L, Dieguez-Risco T, Villalba-García C, Hinojosa JA. Double-checking emotions: Valence and emotion category in contextual integration of facial expressions of emotion. Biol Psychol 2019; 146:107723. [PMID: 31255686 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.107723] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/24/2019] [Revised: 06/18/2019] [Accepted: 06/19/2019] [Indexed: 12/18/2022]
Abstract
Faces showing happy, angry or fearful expressions were presented in emotionally congruent or incongruent situational contexts (short sentences describing events that would usually provoke happiness, anger or fear). The participants were assigned the task of judging whether the expression was appropriate or not to the context (congruency judgment task). Effects of emotional congruency were observed at both the behavioral and electrophysiological levels. Behavioral results showed evidence of congruency effects based on specific emotion content (e.g., less accurate and slower responses to fear faces in angry contexts). Event-related-potentials (ERP) results also showed emotional congruency effects at different post-stimulus onset latencies, beginning with the face-sensitive N170 component. An effect of emotional congruency was also shown on the N400 component that is typically sensitive to semantic congruency. Finally, a late positive potential (LPP), appearing at 450-650 ms post-stimulus onset showed a complex pattern of effects with modulations driven by the different combinations of contexts and target expressions. These results are interpreted in terms of a double process of valence and emotion checking that is supposed to underlie affective processing and contextual integration of facial expressions of emotions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Luis Aguado
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain.
| | | | - Cristina Villalba-García
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain; Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain
| | - José Antonio Hinojosa
- Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain; Instituto Pluridisciplinar, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain; Facultad de Lenguas y Educación, Universidad de Nebrija, Madrid, Spain
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