Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Neurological Institute, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
Department of Occupational Therapy, School of Health Science, Kyushu University of Health and Welfare, Nobeoka, Japan.
Brain Behav. 2021 Apr;11(4):e02060. doi: 10.1002/brb3.2060. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Subliminal affective priming effects (SAPEs) refer to the phenomenon by which the presentation of an affective prime stimulus influences the subsequent affective evaluation of a target stimulus. Previous studies have reported that unconsciously processed stimuli affect behavioral performance more than consciously processed stimuli. However, the impact of SAPEs on the face-specific N170 component is unclear. We studied how SAPEs for fearful faces affected the N170 for subsequent supraliminal target faces using event-related potentials (ERPs).
Japanese adults (n = 44, 20 females) participated in this study. Subliminal prime faces (neutral or fearful) were presented for 17 ms, followed by a backward mask for 283 ms and 800 ms target faces (neutral, emotionally ambiguous, or fearful). 128-channel ERPs were recorded while participants judged the expression of target faces as neutral or fearful. Response rates and response times were also measured for assessing behavioral alterations.
Although the behavioral results revealed no evidence of SAPEs, we found gender-related SAPEs in right N170 amplitude. Specifically, female participants exhibited enhanced right N170 amplitude for emotionally neutral faces primed by fearful faces, while male participants exhibited decreased N170 amplitude in fearful prime trials with fearful target faces. Male participants exhibited significant correlations between N170 amplitude and behavioral response time in the fearful prime-neutral target condition.
Our ERP results suggest the existence of a gender difference in target-face processing preceded by subliminally presented face stimuli in the right occipito-temporal region.
潜意识情感启动效应（SAPEs）是指呈现情感启动刺激会影响后续目标刺激的情感评价的现象。先前的研究报告称，无意识处理的刺激比有意识处理的刺激对行为表现的影响更大。然而，SAPEs 对面部特定的 N170 成分的影响尚不清楚。我们使用事件相关电位（ERPs）研究了恐惧面孔的 SAPEs 如何影响后续超阈限目标面孔的 N170。
日本成年人（n=44，20 名女性）参与了这项研究。潜意识的启动面孔（中性或恐惧）呈现 17ms，随后是反向掩蔽 283ms 和 800ms 的目标面孔（中性、情绪模糊或恐惧）。参与者在判断目标面孔的表情是中性还是恐惧时记录 128 通道的 ERPs。还测量了反应率和反应时间，以评估行为变化。
尽管行为结果没有证据表明 SAPEs 的存在，但我们发现了与性别相关的右 N170 振幅的 SAPEs。具体来说，女性参与者在被恐惧面孔启动的中性情绪面孔上表现出增强的右 N170 振幅，而男性参与者在恐惧目标面孔上的恐惧启动试验中表现出 N170 振幅降低。男性参与者在恐惧启动-中性目标条件下，N170 振幅与行为反应时间之间存在显著相关性。
我们的 ERP 结果表明，在右枕颞区，潜意识呈现的面孔刺激会对面部目标的加工产生性别差异。
