title: N170 response to facial expressions is modulated by the affective congruency between the emotional expression and preceding affective picture.
abstract: Does contextual affective information influence the processing of facial expressions already at the relatively early stages of face processing? We measured event-related brain potentials to happy and sad facial expressions primed by preceding pictures with affectively positive and negative scenes. The face-sensitive N170 response amplitudes showed a clear affective priming effect: N170 amplitudes to happy faces were larger when presented after positive vs. negative primes, whereas the N170 amplitudes to sad faces were larger when presented after negative vs. positive primes. Priming effects were also observed on later brain responses. The results support an early integration in processing of contextual and facial affective information. The results also provide neurophysiological support for theories suggesting that behavioral affective priming effects are based, at least in part, on facilitation of encoding of incoming affective information.
authors.affiliation: Human Information Processing Laboratory, School of Social Sciences and Humanities, 33014 University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland. jari.hietanen@uta.fi
authors.forename: Jari K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Hietanen
authors.forename: Piia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Astikainen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005074:Evoked Potentials, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult