In this thesis, we used three approaches to investigate the neural correlates of the processing of relevant stimuli using electroencephalography (EEG). Time-frequency transforms performed on a cortically blind patient showed frontal slow wave oscillations in response to faces and scrambled faces, supporting the existence of a singular pathway for processing visual stimuli in this neurological condition. Analyses performed on intracranial data revealed that in this case emotion does not modulate the parts of the amygdala that were targeted and that the orbitofrontal cortex seems to better reflect the processing of emotion and stimulus awareness. Finally, we used a cueing paradigm in healthy participants to show that when they are not consciously perceived, emotional faces do not capture attention. Taken together, these findings support previous evidence for a subcortical processing route. However, we also showed that top-down processing cannot be triggered if the cue is not consciously perceived in healthy participants.