title: Attention modulates emotional expression processing.
abstract: To investigate the time course of emotional expression processing, we recorded ERPs to facial stimuli. The first task was to discriminate emotional expressions. Enhanced negativity of the face-specific N170 was elicited by emotional as opposed to neutral faces, followed by the occipital negativity (240-340 ms poststimulus). The second task was to classify face gender. Here, N170 was unaffected by the emotional expression. However, emotional expression effect was expressed in the anterior positivity (160-250 ms poststimulus) and subsequent occipital negativity (240-340 ms poststimulus). Results support the thesis that structural encoding relevant to gender recognition and simultaneous expression analysis are independent processes. Attention modulates facial emotion processing 140-185 ms poststimulus. Involuntary differentiation of facial expression was observed later (160-340 ms poststimulus), suggesting unintentional attention capture.
authors.affiliation: Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. eligiusz.wronka@gmail.com
authors.forename: Eligiusz
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wronka
authors.forename: Wioleta
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Walentowska
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult