Bagherzadeh-Azbari Shadi, Lion Charlotte J, Stephani Tilman, Dimigen Olaf, Sommer Werner
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Department of Neurology, University-Hospital-RWTH-Aachen, Aachen, Germany.
Psychophysiology. 2023 Apr;60(4):e14202. doi: 10.1111/psyp.14202. Epub 2022 Nov 4.
The emotional expression and gaze direction of a face are important cues for human social interactions. However, the interplay of these factors and their neural correlates are only partially understood. In the current study, we investigated ERP correlates of gaze and emotion processing following the initial presentation of faces with different emotional expressions (happy, neutral, angry) and an averted or direct gaze direction as well as following a subsequent change in gaze direction that occurred in half of the trials. We focused on the time course and scalp topography of the N170 and EPN components. The N170 amplitude was larger to averted than direct gaze for the initial face presentation and larger to gaze changes from direct to averted than from averted to direct in response to the gaze change. For the EPN component in response to the initial face presentation, we replicate classic effects of emotion, which did not interact with gaze direction. As a major new finding, changes from direct to averted gaze elicited an EPN-like effect when the face showed a happy expression. No such effect was seen for angry expressions. We conclude that happy faces reflexively attract attention when they look at the observer rather than away from the observer. These results for happy expressions are in line with the shared signal hypothesis that posits a better processing of expressions if their approach or avoidance tendency is consistent with gaze direction. However, the shared signal hypothesis is not supported by the present results for angry faces.
面部的情感表达和注视方向是人类社交互动的重要线索。然而，这些因素及其神经关联之间的相互作用仅得到部分理解。在当前研究中，我们调查了在最初呈现具有不同情感表达（开心、中性、愤怒）和回避或直接注视方向的面孔之后，以及在一半试验中随后发生的注视方向变化之后，注视和情感加工的事件相关电位（ERP）关联。我们关注N170和后部正电位（EPN）成分的时间进程和头皮地形图。对于最初的面孔呈现，N170波幅对回避注视比对直接注视更大，并且对于注视变化，从直接注视变为回避注视时的N170波幅大于从回避注视变为直接注视时的波幅。对于响应最初面孔呈现的EPN成分，我们重复了情感的经典效应，该效应不与注视方向相互作用。作为一个主要的新发现，当面孔呈现开心表情时，从直接注视变为回避注视会引发类似EPN的效应。愤怒表情则未观察到这种效应。我们得出结论，开心面孔看向观察者而非看向别处时会反射性地吸引注意力。这些关于开心表情的结果与共享信号假说一致，该假说认为，如果表情的趋近或回避倾向与注视方向一致，则对表情的加工会更好。然而，目前关于愤怒面孔的结果并不支持共享信号假说。
