Emotion, Gender and Gaze Discrimination Tasks do not Differentially Impact the Neural Processing of Angry or Happy Facial Expressions—a Mass Univariate ERP Analysis

Hudson, Anna; Durston, Amie J.; McCrackin, Sarah D.; Itier, Roxane J.

doi:10.1007/s10548-021-00873-x

Cited by 18 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…For the EPN, no differential ERP modulations to fearful versus neutral faces were found during peripheral or central stimulation. This is in contrast to previous studies using perceptual discrimination tasks that show intact EPN differences (Durston & Itier, 2021; Hudson et al, 2021), and studies using oddball tasks combined with short (50 ms) face presentation durations (Bruchmann et al, 2020; Schindler et al, 2019). On the other hand, the combination of short presentation durations and perceptual discrimination tasks or peripheral detection tasks has shown to decrease or abolish EPN effects (e.g., see Schindler, Bruchmann, et al, 2020; Holmes et al, 2006; Schindler, Tirloni, et al, 2021; Schindler, Caldarone, et al, 2020).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 96%

“…In contrast to the N170, the EPN is found to be modulated by attentional conditions. EPN differences between fearful and neutral faces can be attenuated or abolished in tasks that direct attention away from the faces (e.g., see Schindler, Bruchmann, et al, 2020; Holmes et al, 2006; Schindler, Tirloni, et al, 2021; Schindler, Caldarone, et al, 2020; but see Durston & Itier, 2021; Hudson et al, 2021).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Fearful faces straight ahead or in the periphery: Early neuronal responses independently of trait anxiety.

Schindler¹,

Meyer²,

Bruchmann³

et al. 2023

Emotion

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For humans, it is vitally important to rapidly detect potentially threatening stimuli such as fearful faces in the periphery. Trait anxiety has been related to biased responses to threatening faces, which might be more pronounced for peripheral stimuli. We examined the impact of spatial location and trait anxiety on event-related potentials to fearful faces (ERPs) in a large sample (N = 80). Using a face-unrelated oddball detection task and online eye-tracking, we ensured central fixation but sustained attention to the location of fearful and neutral faces at central or peripheral locations (12° left or right). Manipulation checks showed high task performance and successful shifts of visuospatial attention indexed by prestimulus alpha lateralization of the EEG spectra. Concerning ERPs, we observed increased P1 amplitudes for fearful compared to neutral faces, independent of the spatial location. In contrast, the N170 to fearful faces was only potentiated for centrally presented faces. Finally, fearful and neutral faces did not differ during the EPN window at any spatial location. Trait anxiety was unrelated to fearful-neutral ERP differences for each examined location. Our findings show that differential P1 responses are less constrained by the stimulus location, possibly due to coarse low-level stimulus information processing. However, the relative N170 increase for fearful faces depends on the central stimulus location. Furthermore, findings support the view that differential processing at the stage of the EPN depends on attentional conditions. Finally, our results question the hypothesis that trait anxiety differences correlate with mandatorily altered processing of threatening stimuli.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 96%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fearful faces straight ahead or in the periphery: Early neuronal responses independently of trait anxiety.

Schindler¹,

Meyer²,

Bruchmann³

et al. 2023

Emotion

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“…Although bilateral, the effect was largest on right posterior sites, in agreement with a wealth of research 72 . Importantly, and as predicted, the between-subject factor of task did not interact with expression, replicating recent MUA studies using within-subjects tasks 57 , 58 . These results suggest, in contrast to recent claims, that the early (up to 350 ms) processing of facial expressions occurs regardless of the attentional and cognitive demands imposed by the tasks 25 , 73 , 74 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…1 ). We expected that task would not significantly interact with facial expression 57 , 58 , an important result to replicate given the still largely inconsistent literature 25 , 63 . However, Task should interact with feature integration 42 and thus with fixation location.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Mass-univariate analysis of scalp ERPs reveals large effects of gaze fixation location during face processing that only weakly interact with face emotional expression

Itier,

Durston

2023

Sci Rep

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Decoding others’ facial expressions is critical for social functioning. To clarify the neural correlates of expression perception depending on where we look on the face, three combined gaze-contingent ERP experiments were analyzed using robust mass-univariate statistics. Regardless of task, fixation location impacted face processing from 50 to 350 ms, maximally around 120 ms, reflecting retinotopic mapping around C2 and P1 components. Fixation location also impacted majorly the N170-P2 interval while weak effects were seen at the face-sensitive N170 peak. Results question the widespread assumption that faces are processed holistically into an indecomposable perceptual whole around the N170. Rather, face processing is a complex and view-dependent process that continues well beyond the N170. Expression and fixation location interacted weakly during the P1-N170 interval, supporting a role for the mouth and left eye in fearful and happy expression decoding. Expression effects were weakest at the N170 peak but strongest around P2, especially for fear, reflecting task-independent affective processing. Results suggest N170 reflects a transition between processes rather than the maximum of a holistic face processing stage. Focus on this peak should be replaced by data-driven analyses of the epoch using robust statistics to fully unravel the early visual processing of faces and their affective content.

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“…Several studies investigated how task load and spatial attention affect ERPs to threat‐related faces. Most studies showed that perceptual load or distraction tasks neither influenced P1 nor N170 emotional modulations (Durston & Itier, 2021; Holmes et al, 2008; Hudson et al, 2021; Itier & Neath‐Tavares, 2017; Müller‐Bardorff et al, 2018; Rellecke et al, 2012; Schindler, Bruchmann, et al, 2020, 2021; but see Santos et al, 2008). In contrast, increased EPN amplitudes to fearful faces disappeared or were partially reversed when participants attended face‐unrelated visual tasks (Schindler, Bruchmann, et al, 2020, 2021; Schindler, Tirloni, et al, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of task load, spatial attention, and trait anxiety on neuronal responses to fearful and neutral faces

et al. 2022

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Facial emotional expressions constitute a significant part of communication as they transfer non-verbal signals to others. Especially for expressions signaling threat or danger, distinct early and mid-latency event-related potentials (ERPs) modulations are reported (e.g., see Mühlberger et al., 2009;Schupp et al., 2004;Yoon et al., 2016), even if facial emotion remains task-irrelevant, suggesting high automaticity of emotion discrimination by specific ERP components Smith, 2012).

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Emotion, Gender and Gaze Discrimination Tasks do not Differentially Impact the Neural Processing of Angry or Happy Facial Expressions—a Mass Univariate ERP Analysis

Cited by 18 publications

References 76 publications

Fearful faces straight ahead or in the periphery: Early neuronal responses independently of trait anxiety.

Fearful faces straight ahead or in the periphery: Early neuronal responses independently of trait anxiety.

Mass-univariate analysis of scalp ERPs reveals large effects of gaze fixation location during face processing that only weakly interact with face emotional expression

Effects of task load, spatial attention, and trait anxiety on neuronal responses to fearful and neutral faces

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