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Change detection related to peripheral facial expression: an electroencephalography study

  • Basic Neurosciences, Genetics and Immunology - Short Communication
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Abstract

The objective is to study the change detection of emotion expression by electroencephalography (EEG). A visual letter task was combined with two neutral faces. After a short break another letter task occurred whilst the peripheral faces remained or randomly changed to joy, anger or disgust. Study participants responded whether they had perceived a change in emotion expression or not. Explicit change detection elicited more positive-going EEG amplitudes than change blindness between 750 and 900 ms. A change to disgust elicited largest effects. Furthermore, evidence for implicit change detection occurred.

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Acknowledgments

The authors want to thank the professional actor who supported this study by being at our disposal for demonstrating his wonderful ability to change his facial expression whilst being photographed. Thank you very much for your time! We also want to thank Florian Ph.S. Fischmeister for his support related to statistical analysis.

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Correspondence to Peter Walla.

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Khittl, B., Bauer, H. & Walla, P. Change detection related to peripheral facial expression: an electroencephalography study. J Neural Transm 116, 67–70 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-008-0125-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00702-008-0125-5

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