title: This person is saying bad things about you: The influence of physically and socially threatening context information on the processing of inherently neutral faces.
abstract: Recent studies have shown that the perceptual processing of human faces is affected by context information, such as previous experiences and information about the person represented by the face. The present study investigated the impact of verbally presented information about the person that varied with respect to affect (neutral, physically threatening, socially threatening) and reference (self-referred, other-referred) on the processing of faces with an inherently neutral expression. Stimuli were presented in a randomized presentation paradigm. Event-related potential (ERP) analysis demonstrated a modulation of the evoked potentials by reference at the EPN (early posterior negativity) and LPP (late positive potential) stage and an enhancing effect of affective valence on the LPP (700-1000 ms) with socially threatening context information leading to the most pronounced LPP amplitudes. We also found an interaction between reference and valence with self-related neutral context information leading to more pronounced LPP than other related neutral context information. Our results indicate an impact of self-reference on early, presumably automatic processing stages and also a strong impact of valence on later stages. Using a randomized presentation paradigm, this study confirms that context information affects the visual processing of faces, ruling out possible confounding factors such as facial configuration or conditional learning effects.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany. fabian.klein5@uni-bielefeld.de.|Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Postbox 100131, 33501, Bielefeld, Germany. fabian.klein5@uni-bielefeld.de.
authors.forename: Fabian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Klein
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Iffland
authors.affiliation: Department of Affective Neuropsychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Sebastian
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schindler
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Wabnitz
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Neuner
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D000066499:Facial Recognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Context; EPN; Event-related brain potential (ERP); Face processing; LPP; Self-reference