Red diffuse light suppresses the accelerated perception of fear.
Prioritization of affective events may occur via two parallel pathways originating from the retina-a parvocellular (P) pathway projecting to ventral-stream structures responsible for object recognition or a faster and phylogenetically older magnocellular (M) pathway projecting to dorsal-stream structures responsible for localization and action. It has previously been demonstrated that retinal exposure to red diffuse light suppresses M-cell neural activity. We tested whether the fast propagation along the dorsal-action pathway drives an accelerated conduction of fear-based content. Using a visual prior-entry procedure, we assessed accelerated stimulus perception while either suppressing the M pathway with red diffuse light or leaving it unaffected with green diffuse light. We show that the encoding of fearful faces is accelerated, but not when M-channel activity is suppressed, revealing a dissociation that implicates a privileged neural link between emotion and action that begins at the retina.
West
Greg L
GL
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3. greg.west@utoronto.ca
Anderson
Adam K
AK
Bedwell
Jeffrey S
JS
Pratt
Jay
J
D003116:Color; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*