Department of Psychology, Saint Xavier University, 3700 W. 103rd st., Chicago, IL 60655, United States of America.
Division of Psychology, School of Education and Social Sciences, University of the West of Scotland, High Street, Paisley PA1 2BE, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Int J Psychophysiol. 2021 Jul;165:84-91. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2021.04.002. Epub 2021 Apr 20.
Attending toward fearful faces and other threatening stimuli increase the chance of survival. The dot-probe task is a commonly used measure of spatial attention. Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been found to be a reliable measure of attentional bias. The dot-probe literature suggests that posterior contralateral N170 amplitudes are more enhanced by fearful faces compared to ipsilateral amplitudes. However, ERP methods remove non-phase locked frequencies, which provides additional information about neural activity. Specifically, theta oscillations (5-7 Hz) have been linked to attentional processing. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between posterior contralateral theta oscillations and N170 amplitudes in the dot-probe task. A modified dot-probe task was used with fear and neutral facial expressions and EEG data was recorded from 33 electrodes. The ERP and time-frequency data were extracted from the P7 and P8 electrodes (left and right occipitotemporal regions). This study found enhanced N170 amplitude and theta oscillations in the electrodes posterior contralateral to the fearful face. Contralateral N170 amplitudes and theta oscillations were related such that greater N170 amplitudes were associated with greater theta oscillations. The results indicated that increased contralateral N170 and theta oscillations are related to each other and underlie attentional bias to fearful faces.
注意恐惧面孔和其他威胁性刺激会增加生存的机会。点探测任务是一种常用的空间注意力测量方法。事件相关电位 (ERP) 已被发现是注意力偏向的可靠测量方法。点探测文献表明，与同侧振幅相比，恐惧面孔会增强对侧后 N170 振幅。然而，ERP 方法去除了非锁相频率，这提供了有关神经活动的额外信息。具体来说，θ 振荡（5-7 Hz）与注意力处理有关。本研究旨在检查点探测任务中后对侧θ振荡和 N170 振幅之间的关系。使用修改后的点探测任务，结合恐惧和中性面部表情，并从 33 个电极记录 EEG 数据。从 P7 和 P8 电极（左右枕颞区）提取 ERP 和时频数据。本研究发现，对恐惧面孔的后对侧电极的 N170 振幅和θ 振荡增强。对侧 N170 振幅和θ 振荡之间存在相关性，即较大的 N170 振幅与较大的θ 振荡相关。结果表明，增加的对侧 N170 和θ 振荡彼此相关，是对恐惧面孔的注意力偏向的基础。
