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Objective: The aim of the present study was to evaluate psychophysiological responses to expressions of surprise, sadness, and disgust and the possible effect of the expresser's sex. Method: The startle reflex, the skin conductance response (SCR), and heart rate (HR) were recorded in 50 participants while they viewed male and female expressions of surprise, sadness, and disgust. Results: The results showed enhanced startle reflex potentiation and greater HR deceleration in response to disgust expressions and a larger SCR and greater HR deceleration in response to male expressions of disgust. Conclusions: These results suggest higher activation of the defensive motivational system and an orienting response to expressions of disgust, especially those of male faces. K E Y W O R D S emotion, faces, heart rate, skin conductance response, startle reflex

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Most studies of emotional responses have used unimodal stimuli (e.g., pictures or sounds) or congruent bimodal stimuli (e.g., video clips with sound), but little is known about the emotional response to incongruent bimodal stimuli. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of congruence between auditory and visual bimodal stimuli on heart rate and self-reported measures of emotional dimension, valence and arousal. Subjects listened to pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant sounds, accompanied by videos with and without content congruence, and heart rate was recorded. Dimensions of valence and arousal of each bimodal stimulus were then self-reported. The results showed that heart rate depends of the valence of the sounds but not of the congruence of the bimodal stimuli. The valence and arousal scores changed depending on the congruence of the bimodal stimuli. These results suggest that the congruence of bimodal stimuli affects the subjective perception of emotion.