Qiu Zeguo, Jiang Jiaqin, Becker Stefanie I, Pegna Alan J
School of Psychology, Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Front Neurosci. 2023 Mar 23;17:1152220. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1152220. eCollection 2023.
In the current EEG study, we used a dot-probe task in conjunction with backward masking to examine the neural activity underlying awareness and spatial processing of fearful faces and the neural processes for subsequent cued spatial targets. We presented face images under different viewing conditions (subliminal and supraliminal) and manipulated the relation between a fearful face in the pair and a subsequent target. Our mass univariate analysis showed that fearful faces elicit the N2-posterior-contralateral, indexing spatial attention capture, only when they are presented supraliminally. Consistent with this, the multivariate pattern analysis revealed a successful decoding of the location of the fearful face only in the supraliminal viewing condition. Additionally, the spatial attention capture by fearful faces modulated the processing of subsequent lateralised targets that were spatially congruent with the fearful face, in both al and electrophysiological data. There was no evidence for nonconscious processing of the fearful faces in the current paradigm. We conclude that spatial attentional capture by fearful faces requires visual awareness and it is modulated by top-down task demands.
在当前的脑电图研究中，我们使用点探测任务结合后向掩蔽来检查恐惧面孔的意识和空间处理背后的神经活动，以及后续线索化空间目标的神经过程。我们在不同的观看条件（阈下和阈上）下呈现面部图像，并操纵配对中恐惧面孔与后续目标之间的关系。我们的大规模单变量分析表明，只有当恐惧面孔阈上呈现时，才会引发N2-后-对侧，这表明空间注意被捕获。与此一致的是，多变量模式分析显示，只有在阈上观看条件下才能成功解码恐惧面孔的位置。此外，恐惧面孔引起的空间注意捕获在行为和电生理数据中均调节了随后与恐惧面孔在空间上一致的侧向目标的处理。在当前范式中没有证据表明恐惧面孔存在非意识加工。我们得出结论，恐惧面孔引起的空间注意捕获需要视觉意识，并且它受到自上而下的任务需求的调节。
