Early ERP Modulation for Task-Irrelevant Subliminal Faces

Article Article scientifique Article Early ERP Modulation for Task-Irrelevant Subliminal Faces eng 2011 author Pegna Alan 31713 author Darque Alexandra 559565 Alexandra Adam-Darque author Berrut-Marechaud Claire Jenny 592562 author Khateb Asaid 24224 10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00088 1664-1078 http://www.frontiersin.org/Emotion_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00088/abstract A number of investigations have reported that emotional faces can be processed subliminally, and that they give rise to specific patterns of brain activation in the absence of awareness. Recent event-related potential (ERP) studies have suggested that electrophysiological differences occur early in time (<200 ms) in response to backward-masked emotional faces. These findings have been taken as evidence of a rapid non-conscious pathway, which would allow threatening stimuli to be processed rapidly and subsequently allow appropriate avoidance action to be taken. However, for this to be the case, subliminal processing should arise even if the threatening stimulus is not attended. This point has in fact not yet been clearly established. In this ERP study, we investigated whether subliminal processing of fearful faces occurs outside the focus of attention. Fourteen healthy participants performed a line judgment task while fearful and non-fearful (happy or neutral) faces were presented both subliminally and supraliminally. ERPs were compared across the four experimental conditions (i.e., subliminal and supraliminal; fearful and non-fearful). The earliest differences between fearful and non-fearful faces appeared as an enhanced posterior negativity for the former at 170 ms (the N170 component) over right temporo-occipital electrodes. This difference was observed for both subliminal (p < 0.05) and supraliminal presentations (p < 0.01). Our results confirm that subliminal processing of fearful faces occurs early in the course of visual processing, and more importantly, that this arises even when the subject's attention is engaged in an incidental task. ERP/EEG N170 Awareness Face Subliminal Dewey 150 Swiss National Science Foundation Spatiotemporal dynamics of brain activitation during nonconscious processing of biologically-relevant stimuli 125196 CH Project funding 108 Section de psychologie 71 false 636 Neuropsychologie expérimentale Frontiers in psychology 2 15becea7-fbea-4882-9ea2-97998cb8b59f Article (Published version) Public Pegna_2011_FrontEmoSci.pdf 2535091 application/pdf openAccess Faculté de psychologie et des sciences de l'éducation / Section de psychologie

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Early ERP Modulation for Task-Irrelevant Subliminal Faces	Frontiers in psychology			2011	755	354

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Berrut-Marechaud, Claire Jenny