Face-specific event-related potential in humans is independent from facial expression

Herrmann, Martin J.; Aranda, Derlis; Ellgring, Heiner; Mueller, Thomas; Strik, Werner; Heidrich, A.; Fallgatter, Andreas J.

doi:10.1016/s0167-8760(02)00033-8

Cited by 103 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In line with previous ERP studies using broadband photographic images (c.f., [27,36]), the present experiment confirmed the insensitivity of the N170 to emotional facial expression, not only for BSF faces (despite concurrent expression-related ERP deflections at more anterior electrode sites [see below]), but also for LSF and HSF faces. This finding further supports the hypothesis that facial expression is computed independently of global facial configuration, following a rudimentary analysis of face features, as proposed by Bruce & Young [16] in their influential model of face recognition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

“…We investigated this issue by measuring the N170 as elicited by faces relative to houses, separately for BSF, LSF, and HSF stimuli. With respect to the link between the N170 and emotional processing, several previous ERP studies using BSF faces have found that the N170 is not modulated by emotional facial expression [27,28,36,38], consistent with the suggestion that the structural encoding of faces and perception of emotional expression are parallel and independent processes [16]. Here, we investigated whether emotional facial expression might affect N170 amplitudes elicited by faces as compared to houses at different spatial scales.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 73%

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The role of spatial frequency information for ERP components sensitive to faces and emotional facial expression

Holmes

Winston

Eimer

2005

Cognitive Brain Research

120

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(2005). The role of spatial frequency information for ERP components sensitive to faces and emotional facial expression. Cognitive Brain Research 25 (2): 508-520. This is an author-produced version of a paper published in Cognitive BrainResearch . This version has been peer-reviewed, but it does not include the final publisher proof corrections, published layout or pagination. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any component of this work in other works, must be obtained from the copyright holder. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.All articles available through Birkbeck ePrints are protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. ABSTRACTTo investigate the impact of spatial frequency on emotional facial expression analysis, ERPs were recorded in response to low spatial frequency (LSF), high spatial frequency (HSF), and unfiltered broad spatial frequency (BSF) faces with fearful or neutral expressions, houses, and chairs. In line with previous findings, BSF fearful facial expressions elicited a greater frontal positivity than BSF neutral facial expressions, starting at about 150 ms after stimulus onset. In contrast, this emotional expression effect was absent for HSF and LSF faces. Given that some brain regions involved in emotion processing, such as amygdala and connected structures, are selectively tuned to LSF visual inputs, these data suggest that ERP effects of emotional facial expression do not directly reflect activity in these regions. It is argued that higher order neocortical brain systems are involved in the generation of emotion-specific waveform modulations. The face-sensitive N170 component was neither affected by emotional facial expression nor by spatial frequency information.Theme: Neural Basis of Behaviour Topic: Cognition

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 73%

The role of spatial frequency information for ERP components sensitive to faces and emotional facial expression

Holmes

Winston

Eimer

2005

Cognitive Brain Research

120

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A number of studies have reported emotion effects with larger N170 recorded in response to emotional faces, especially fearful expressions, compared to neutral faces (e.g., Batty & Taylor, 2003;Blau, Maurer, Tottenham, & McCandliss, 2007;Caharel, Courtay, Bernard, Lalonde, 2005;Leppänen, Hietanen, & Koskinen, 2008;Leppänen, Moulson, Vogel-Farley, & Nelson, 2007; also see Hinojosa, Mercado, & Carretié, 2015). However, as seen for the P1, a lack of sensitivity to facial expressions of emotion has also been reported for the N170 component in many studies (e.g., Ashley, Vuilleumier, & Swick, 2004;Balconi & Lucchiari, 2005;Herrmann et al, 2002;Krolak-Salmon, Fischer, Vighetto, & Mauguière, 2001;Münte et al, 1998;Pourtois, Dan, Granjean, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2005;Shupp, Junghöfer, Weike, & Hamm, 2004;Smith et al, 2013). Therefore it remains unclear whether facial expression processing, in particular that of fearful faces, interacts with the processing of the face structure, as indexed by the N170.…”

Section: Early Event-related Potentials In Facial Expression Researchmentioning

confidence: 94%

Neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions during emotion-relevant and emotion-irrelevant tasks: A fixation-to-feature approach

Neath-Tavares

Itier

2016

Biological Psychology

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Research suggests an important role of the eyes and mouth for discriminating facial expressions of emotion. A gaze-contingent procedure was used to test the impact of fixation to facial features on the neural response to fearful, happy and neutral facial expressions in an emotion discrimination (Exp.1) and an oddball detection (Exp.2) task. The N170 was the only eye-sensitive ERP component, and this sensitivity did not vary across facial expressions. In both tasks, compared to neutral faces, responses to happy expressions were seen as early as 100-120ms occipitally, while responses to fearful expressions started around 150ms, on or after the N170, at both occipital and lateral-posterior sites. Analyses of scalp topographies revealed different distributions of these two emotion effects across most of the epoch. Emotion processing interacted with fixation location at different times between tasks. Results suggest a role of both the eyes and mouth in the neural processing of fearful expressions and of the mouth in the processing of happy expressions, before 350ms.

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“…Orozco and Ehlers, 1998;Pizzagalli et al, 1999), these early brain potentials seem to reflect processes related to morphological encoding, such as the extraction of physiognomic features of the face (Bruce and Young, 1986). The N170, for instance, is a negative deflection in the EEG that is specifically involved in the structural face encoding, but does not seem directly sensitive for familiarity or the emotional expression of the face (Balconi and Pozzoli, 2003;Eimer and Holmes, 2002;Herrmann et al, 2002). Pizzagalli et al (2002), however, recently reported early brain potentials (approx.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Functionally dissociated aspects in anterior and posterior electrocortical processing of facial threat

Schutter

Haan

Honk

2004

International Journal of Psychophysiology

105

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The angry facial expression is an important socially threatening stimulus argued to have evolved to regulate social hierarchies. In the present study, event-related potentials (ERP) were used to investigate the involvement and temporal dynamics of the frontal and parietal regions in the processing of angry facial expressions. Angry, happy and neutral faces were shown to eighteen healthy right-handed volunteers in a passive viewing task. Stimulus-locked ERPs were recorded from the frontal and parietal scalp sites. The P200, N300 and early contingent negativity variation (eCNV) components of the electric brain potentials were investigated. Analyses revealed statistical significant reductions in P200 amplitudes for the angry facial expression on both frontal and parietal electrode sites. Furthermore, apart from being strongly associated with the anterior P200, the N300 showed to be more negative for the angry facial expression in the anterior regions also. Finally, the eCNV was more pronounced over the parietal sites for the angry facial expressions. The present study demonstrated specific electrocortical correlates underlying the processing of angry facial expressions in the anterior and posterior brain sectors. The P200 is argued to indicate valence tagging by a fast and early detection mechanism. The lowered N300 with an anterior distribution for the angry facial expressions indicates more elaborate evaluation of stimulus relevance. The fact that the P200 and the N300 are highly correlated suggests that they reflect different stages of the same anterior evaluation mechanism. The more pronounced posterior eCNV suggests sustained attention to socially threatening information. ᮊ

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Face-specific event-related potential in humans is independent from facial expression

Cited by 103 publications

References 9 publications

The role of spatial frequency information for ERP components sensitive to faces and emotional facial expression

The role of spatial frequency information for ERP components sensitive to faces and emotional facial expression

Neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions during emotion-relevant and emotion-irrelevant tasks: A fixation-to-feature approach

Functionally dissociated aspects in anterior and posterior electrocortical processing of facial threat

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