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When is a face a face? Schematic faces, emotion, attention and the N170

When is a face a face? Schematic faces, emotion, attention and the N170
When is a face a face? Schematic faces, emotion, attention and the N170
Emotional facial expressions provide important non-verbal cues as to the imminent behavioural intentions of a second party. Hence, within emotion science the processing of faces (emotional or otherwise) has been at the forefront of research. Notably, however, such research has led to a number of debates including the ecological validity of utilising schematic faces in emotion research, and the face-selectively of N170. In order to investigate these issues, we explored the extent to which N170 is modulated by schematic faces, emotional expression and/or selective attention. Eighteen participants completed a three-stimulus oddball paradigm with two scrambled faces as the target and standard stimuli (counter-balanced across participants), and schematic angry, happy and neutral faces as the oddball stimuli. Results revealed that the magnitude of the N170 associated with the target stimulus was: (i) significantly greater than that elicited by the standard stimulus, (ii) comparable with the N170 elicited by the neutral and happy schematic face stimuli, and (iii) significantly reduced compared to the N170 elicited by the angry schematic face stimulus. These findings extend current literature by demonstrating N170 can be modulated by events other than those associated with structural face encoding; i.e. here, the act of labelling a stimulus a ‘target’ to attend to modulated the N170 response. Additionally, the observation that schematic faces demonstrate similar N170 responses to those recorded for real faces and, akin to real faces, angry schematic faces demonstrated heightened N170 responses, suggests caution should be taken before disregarding schematic facial stimuli in emotion processing research per se.
172-182
Maratos, F.A.
188a9d5c-a86a-4883-b446-7cb84d11f5d5
Garner, M.
3221c5b3-b951-4fec-b456-ec449e4ce072
Hogan, A.M.
42ccf5b5-98d7-4ce7-b09a-ea482dfe8447
Karl, A.
8732bdcc-928e-490f-a18b-164b35b9c6b4
Maratos, F.A.
188a9d5c-a86a-4883-b446-7cb84d11f5d5
Garner, M.
3221c5b3-b951-4fec-b456-ec449e4ce072
Hogan, A.M.
42ccf5b5-98d7-4ce7-b09a-ea482dfe8447
Karl, A.
8732bdcc-928e-490f-a18b-164b35b9c6b4

Maratos, F.A., Garner, M., Hogan, A.M. and Karl, A. (2015) When is a face a face? Schematic faces, emotion, attention and the N170. [in special issue: Emotion Comprehension and Expression: Advances in Theoretical Formulations] AIMS Neuroscience, 2 (3), 172-182. (doi:10.3934/Neuroscience.2015.3.172).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Emotional facial expressions provide important non-verbal cues as to the imminent behavioural intentions of a second party. Hence, within emotion science the processing of faces (emotional or otherwise) has been at the forefront of research. Notably, however, such research has led to a number of debates including the ecological validity of utilising schematic faces in emotion research, and the face-selectively of N170. In order to investigate these issues, we explored the extent to which N170 is modulated by schematic faces, emotional expression and/or selective attention. Eighteen participants completed a three-stimulus oddball paradigm with two scrambled faces as the target and standard stimuli (counter-balanced across participants), and schematic angry, happy and neutral faces as the oddball stimuli. Results revealed that the magnitude of the N170 associated with the target stimulus was: (i) significantly greater than that elicited by the standard stimulus, (ii) comparable with the N170 elicited by the neutral and happy schematic face stimuli, and (iii) significantly reduced compared to the N170 elicited by the angry schematic face stimulus. These findings extend current literature by demonstrating N170 can be modulated by events other than those associated with structural face encoding; i.e. here, the act of labelling a stimulus a ‘target’ to attend to modulated the N170 response. Additionally, the observation that schematic faces demonstrate similar N170 responses to those recorded for real faces and, akin to real faces, angry schematic faces demonstrated heightened N170 responses, suggests caution should be taken before disregarding schematic facial stimuli in emotion processing research per se.

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Accepted/In Press date: 27 August 2015
Published date: 11 September 2015
Organisations: Clinical Neuroscience

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 383991
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/383991
PURE UUID: 3cc6e06c-9cfd-4b87-abae-3279c3879761
ORCID for M. Garner: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9481-2226

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Date deposited: 01 Dec 2015 14:29
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:12

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Contributors

Author: F.A. Maratos
Author: M. Garner ORCID iD
Author: A.M. Hogan
Author: A. Karl

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