In the Face of Emotions: Event-Related Potentials in Supraliminal and Subliminal Facial Expression Recognition
- 1 February 2005
- journal article
- Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd in Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs
- Vol. 131 (1), 41-69
- https://doi.org/10.3200/mono.131.1.41-69
Abstract
Is facial expression recognition marked by specific event-related potentials (ERPs) effects? Are conscious and unconscious elaborations of emotional facial stimuli qualitatively different processes? In Experiment 1, ERPs elicited by supraliminal stimuli were recorded when 21 participants viewed emotional facial expressions of four emotions and a neutral stimulus. Two ERP components (N2 and P3) were analyzed for their peak amplitude and latency measures. First, emotional face-specificity was observed for the negative deflection N2, whereas P3 was not affected by the content of the stimulus (emotional or neutral). A more posterior distribution of ERPs was found for N2. Moreover, a lateralization effect was revealed for negative (right lateralization) and positive (left lateralization) facial expressions. In Experiment 2 (20 participants), 1-ms subliminal stimulation was carried out. Unaware information processing was revealed to be quite similar to aware information processing for peak amplitude but not for latency. In fact, unconscious stimulation produced a more delayed peak variation than conscious stimulation.Keywords
This publication has 80 references indexed in Scilit:
- ERPs (event-related potentials), semantic attribution, and facial expression of emotionsConsciousness & Emotion, 2003
- Orienting of Attention to Threatening Facial Expressions Presented under Conditions of Restricted AwarenessCognition and Emotion, 1999
- Facial expression processing after amygdalotomyNeuropsychologia, 1996
- Fear conditioning, preparedness, and the contingent negative variationPsychophysiology, 1995
- Nonconscious associative learning: Pavlovian conditioning of skin conductance responses to masked fear‐relevant facial stimuliPsychophysiology, 1994
- Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactionsPsychophysiology, 1993
- Facial expression and emotion.American Psychologist, 1993
- Cerebral asymmetry and emotion: Conceptual and methodological conundrumsCognition and Emotion, 1993
- Event-related potentials to emotional and neutral stimuliJournal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 1990
- Judgements of emotion in words and faces: ERP correlatesInternational Journal of Psychophysiology, 1987