Abstract
Facial stimulus processing is an important topic to explain how people comprehend affective disposition in others. The effect of attentive and pre-attentive elaboration of emotional facial expression was explored in the present research by using backward masking procedure. Specifically, unconscious mental process of emotion comprehension was analyzed: pictures presenting a happy, sad, angry, fearful, disgusted, surprised expressions were submitted to 21 subjects in both attentive and pre-attentive conditions and event-related potentials (ERPs) were registered in the two conditions. The two processes, attentive and pre-attentive, seem to be similar in their nature, since they are marked by analogous ERP deflections. In fact, two ERP effects were found, a positive (P300) deflection, maximally distributed on the parietal regions, and a negative (N200) deflection, more localized on the frontal sites. Nevertheless, some differences between the two conditions were found in terms of quantitative modulations of the two peaks. The N200 effect, ampler in attentive condition, may be considered such as an index of conscious processing of emotional faces, whereas the P3 (P3a) effect, higher in pre-attentive condition, was considered a specific marker of the automatic, unconscious process during the emotional face comprehension.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adolphs, R. (2003). Cognitive neuroscience of human social behaviour. Nature Reviews. Neuroscience, 4, 165–178. doi:10.1038/nrn1056.
Balconi, M. (2006). Exploring consciousness in emotional face decoding: An event-related potential analysis. Genetic Social and General Psychology, 132, 129–150. doi:10.3200/MONO.132.2.129-150.
Balconi, M. (2008). Emotional face comprehension. Neuropsychological perspectives. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
Balconi, M., & Lucchiari, C. (2005). Consciousness, emotion and face: An event-related potentials (ERP) study. In R. D. Ellis & N. Newton (Eds.), Consciousness & emotion: Agency, conscious choice, and selective perception (pp. 121–135). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Balconi, M., & Lucchiari, C. (2007). Consciousness and emotional facial expression recognition: Subliminal/supraliminal stimulation effect on N200 and P300 ERPs. Journal of Psychophysiology, 21, 100–108. doi:10.1027/0269-8803.21.2.100.
Balconi, M., & Pozzoli, U. (2003). ERPs (event-related potentials), semantic attribution, and facial expression of emotions. Consciousness and Emotion, 4, 63–80. doi:10.1075/ce.4.1.05bal.
Batty, M., & Taylor, M. J. (2003). Early processing of the six basic facial emotional expressions. Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research, 17, 613–620. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(03)00174-5.
Bernat, E., Bunce, S., & Shevrin, H. (2001). Event-related brain potentials differentiate positive and negative mood adjectives during both supraliminal and subliminal visual processing. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 11–34. doi:10.1016/S0167-8760(01)00133-7.
Brazdil, M., Rektor, I., Daniel, P., Dufek, M., & Jurak, P. (2001). Intracerebral event-related potentials to subthreshold target stimuli. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112, 650–661. doi:10.1016/S1388-2457(01)00463-1.
Brázdil, M., Rektor, I., Dufek, M., Jurák, P., & Daniel, P. (1998). Effect of subthreshold target stimuli on event-related potentials. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 8, 64–68. doi:10.1016/S0013-4694(98)00038-8.
Bunce, V., Bernat, E., Wong, P. S., & Shevrin, H. (1999). Further evidence for unconscious learning: Preliminary support for the conditioning of facial EMG to subliminal stimuli. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 33, 341–347. doi:10.1016/S0022-3956(99)00003-5.
Calvo, M. G., & Esteves, F. (2005). Detection of emotional faces: Low perceptual threshold and wide attentional span. Visual Cognition, 12, 13–27. doi:10.1080/13506280444000094.
Carretié, L., & Iglesias, J. (1995). An ERP study on the specificity of facial expression processing. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 19, 183–192. doi:10.1016/0167-8760(95)00004-C.
Darwin, C. (1872). The expression of the emotions in man and animals. London: John Murray.
Dehaene, S., & Changeux, J.-P. (2004). Neural mechanisms for access to consciousness. In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences (pp. 1145–1157). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Dehaene, S., Changeux, J. P., Naccache, L., Sackur, J., & Sergent, C. (2006). Conscious, preconscious, and subliminal processing: A testable taxonomy. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10, 204–211. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2006.03.007.
Dimberg, U., Elmehed, K., & Thunberg, M. (2000). Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expressions. Psychological Science, 11, 86–89. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00221.
Dimberg, U., & Öhman, A. (1996). Behold the wrath: Psychophysiological responses to facial stimuli. Motivation and Emotion, 20, 49–182. doi:10.1007/BF02253869.
Eastwood, J. D. (2003). From unconscious to conscious perception: Emotionally expressive faces and visual awareness. Dissertation Abstract International Brain Science and Engineering, 64, 988.
Eastwood, J. D., & Smilek, D. (2005). Functional consequences of perceiving facial expressions of emotion without awareness. Consciousness and Cognition, 14, 565–584.
Eimer, M. (2000). Attentional modulations of event-related brain potentials sensitive to faces. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 17, 103–116. doi:10.1080/026432900380517.
Eimer, M., & Holmes, A. (2007). Event-related brain potential correlates of emotional face processing. Neuropsychologia, 45, 15–31. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2006.04.022.
Ekman, P. (1993). Facial expression and emotions. The American Psychologist, 48, 384–392. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.48.4.384.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1976). Pictures of facial affect. Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Frijda, N. H. (1996). The laws of emotions. Zeitschrift fur Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychotherapie, 42, 205–221.
Gazzaniga, M. S. (1993). Brain mechanisms and conscious experience. Experimental and theoretical studies of consciousness. CIBA Foundation Symposium 174 (pp. 247–262). Chichester: Wiley.
Hamm, A. O., Schupp, H. T., & Weike, A. I. (2003). Motivational organization of emotions: Autonomic change, cortical response and reflex modulation. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), Handbook of affective science (pp. 187–212). New York: Oxford University Pres.
Herrmann, M. J., Aranda, D., Ellgring, H., Mueller, T. J., Strik, W. K., Heidrich, A., et al. (2002). Face-specific event-related potential in humans is independent from facial expression. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 45, 241–244. doi:10.1016/S0167-8760(02)00033-8.
Holmes, A., Vuilleumier, P., & Eimer, M. (2003). The processing of emotional face expression is gated by spatial attention: Evidence from event-related brain potentials. Brain Research. Cognitive Brain Research, 16, 174–184. doi:10.1016/S0926-6410(02)00268-9.
Junghöfer, M., Bradley, M. M., Elbert, T. R., & Lang, P. J. (2001). Fleeting images: A new look at early emotion discrimination. Psychophysiology, 38, 175–178. doi:10.1017/S0048577201000762.
Keil, A., Bradley, M. M., Hauk, O., Rockstroh, B., Elbert, T., & Lang, P. J. (2002). Large-scale neural correlates of affective picture-processing. Psychophysiology, 39, 641–649. doi:10.1017/S0048577202394162.
Kiefer, M., & Spitzer, M. (2000). Time course of conscious and unconscious semantic brain activation. NeuroReport, 11, 2401–2407. doi:10.1097/00001756-200008030-00013.
Kiss, M., & Eimer, M. (2008). ERPs reveal subliminal processing of fearful faces. Psychophysiology, 45, 318–326. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2007.00634.x.
Kotchoubey, B. (2005). Event-related potential measures of consciousness: Two equations with three unknowns. Progress in Brain Research, 150, 427–444. doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(05)50030-X.
Kotchoubey, B., Lang, S., Bostanov, V., & Birbaumer, N. (2002). Is there a mind? Electrophysiology of unconscious patients. News in Physiological Sciences, 17, 38–42.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (1997). Motivated attention: Affect, activation, and action. In P. J. Lang, R. F. Simons, & M. Balaban (Eds.), Attention and orienting: Sensory and motivational processes (pp. 97–135). Mahwah: Erlbaum.
Lang, P. J., Greenwald, M. K., Bradley, M. M., & Hamm, A. O. (1993). Looking at pictures: Affective, facial, visceral, and behavioral reactions. Psychophysiology, 30, 261–273. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1993.tb03352.x.
LeDoux, J. E. (1996). The emotional brain: The mysterious underpinning of emotional life. New York: Simon and Schuste.
Liddell, B. J., Williams, L. M., Rathjen, J., Shevrin, H., & Gordon, E. (2004). A temporal dissociation of subliminal versus supraliminal fear perception: An event-related potential study. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16, 479–486. doi:10.1162/089892904322926809.
Macmillan, N. (1986). The psychophysics of subliminal perception. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 9, 38–39.
Merikle, P. M., Smilek, D., & Eastwood, J. D. (2001). Perception without awareness: Perspectives from cognitive psychology. Cognition, 79, 115–134. doi:10.1016/S0010-0277(00)00126-8.
Morita, Y., Morita, K., Yamamoto, M., Waseda, Y., & Maeda, H. (2001). Effects of facial affect recognition on the auditory P300 in healthy subjects. Neuroscience Research, 41, 89–95. doi:10.1016/S0168-0102(01)00248-6.
Öhman, A. (1999). Distinguishing unconscious from conscious emotional processes: Methodological considerations and theoretical implications. In T. Dalgleish & M. J. Power (Eds.), Handbook of cognition and emotion (pp. 112–128). Chichester: John Wiley.
Polich, J. (1989). P300 from a passive auditory paradigm. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 74, 312–320. doi:10.1016/0168-5597(89)90061-0.
Polich, J. (2007). Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b. Clinical Neurophysiology, 118, 2128–2148. doi:10.1016/j.clinph.2007.04.019.
Posner, M. I. (1978). Chronometric explorations of mind. Oxford: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Rolls, E. T. (2006). Consciousness absent and present: A neurophysiological exploration of masking. In H. Ögmen & B. G. Breitmeyer (Eds.), The first half second: The microgenesis and temporal dynamics of unconscious and conscious visual processes (pp. 89–108). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Russell, J. A. (2003). Core affect and the psychological construction of emotion. Psychological Review, 110, 145–172. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.110.1.145.
Russell, J. A., & Bullock, M. (1985). Multidimensional scaling of emotional facial expressions: Similarity from preschoolers to adults. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 1290–1298. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.48.5.1290.
Sato, W., Kochiyama, T., Yoshikawa, S., & Matsumura, M. (2001). Emotional expression boosts early visual processing of the face: ERP recording and its decomposition by independent component analysis. NeuroReport, 12, 709–714. doi:10.1097/00001756-200103260-00019.
Schorr, A. (2001). Appraisal: The evolution of an idea. In K. R. Scherer, A. Schorr, & T. Johnstone (Eds.), Appraisal processes in emotion: Theory, methods, research (pp. 20–34). New York: Oxford University Press.
Schupp, H. T., Cuthbert, B. N., Bradley, M. M., Cacioppo, J. T., Ito, T., & Lang, P. J. (2000). Affective picture processing: The late positive potential is modulated by motivational relevance. Psychophysiology, 37, 257–261. doi:10.1017/S0048577200001530.
Shevrin, H. (2001). Event-related markers of unconscious processes. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 209–218. doi:10.1016/S0167-8760(01)00165-9.
Shiffrin, R. M., & Schneider, W. (1977). Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning, automatic attending and a general theory. Psychological Review, 84, 127–190. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.127.
Simons, D. J., Hannula, D. E., Warren, D. E., & Day, S. W. (2007). Behavioral, neuroimaging, and neuropsychological approaches to implicit perception. In P. D. Zelazo, M. Moscovitch, & E. Thompson (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of consciousness (pp. 207–250). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, S. D., & Bulman-Fleming, M. B. (2004). A hemispheric asymmetry for the unconscious perception of emotion. Brain and Cognition, 55, 452–457. doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2004.02.064.
Snodgrass, J. M. (2000). Unconscious perception: Theory, method, and evidence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stenberg, G., Lindgren, M., Johansson, M., Olsson, A., & Rosen, I. (2000). Semantic processing without conscious identification: Evidence from event-related potentials. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26, 973–1004. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.26.4.973.
Streit, M., Wolwer, W., Brinkmeyer, J., Ihl, R., & Gaebel, W. (2000). Electrophysiological correlates of emotional and structural face processing in humans. Neuroscience Letters, 278, 13–16. doi:10.1016/S0304-3940(99)00884-8.
Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (1985). Knowledge without awareness: An automatic index of facial recognition by prosopoagnosics. Science, 228, 1453–1454. doi:10.1126/science.4012303.
Wong, P. S., & Root, J. C. (2003). Dynamic variations in affective priming. Consciousness and Cognition, 12, 147–168. doi:10.1016/S1053-8100(03)00007-2.
Wong, P. S., Shevrin, H., & Williams, W. J. (1994). Conscious and nonconscious processes: An ERP index of an anticipatory response in a conditioning paradigm using visual masked stimuli. Psychophysiology, 31, 87–101. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1994.tb01028.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Balconi, M., Mazza, G. Consciousness and emotion: ERP modulation and attentive vs. pre-attentive elaboration of emotional facial expressions by backward masking. Motiv Emot 33, 113–124 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-009-9122-8
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-009-9122-8