Laboratory of Language Neurobiology, Nencki Institute of Experimental Biology, Polish Academy of Sciences, 3 Pasteur Street, 02-093, Warsaw, Poland.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 13;14(1):3634. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-54215-5.
The self-face is processed differently than emotional faces. A question arises whether other highly familiar and subjectively significant non-self faces (e.g. partner's face) are also differentiated from emotional faces. The aim of this event-related potential (ERP) study was to investigate the neural correlates of personally-relevant faces (the self and a close-other's) as well as emotionally positive (happy) and neutral faces. Participants were tasked with the simple detection of faces. Amplitudes of N170 were more negative in the right than in the left hemisphere and were not modulated by type of face. A similar pattern of N2 and P3 results for the self-face and close-other's face was observed: they were associated with decreased N2 and increased P3 relative to happy and neutral faces. However, the self-face was preferentially processed also when compared to a close-other's face as revealed by lower N2 and higher P3 amplitudes. Nonparametric cluster-based permutation tests showed an analogous pattern of results: significant clusters for the self-face compared with all other faces (close-other's, happy, neutral) and for close-other's face compared to happy and neutral faces. In summary, the self-face prioritization was observed, as indicated by significant differences between one's own face and all other faces. Crucially, both types of personally-relevant faces differed from happy faces. These findings point to the pivotal role of subjective evaluation of the saliency factor.
自我面孔的加工不同于情绪面孔。人们不禁会问，其他高度熟悉且主观重要的非自我面孔（例如，伴侣的面孔）是否也与情绪面孔不同。本事件相关电位（ERP）研究旨在探讨与个人相关的面孔（自我和亲近他人的面孔）以及情绪积极（快乐）和中性面孔的神经相关性。参与者的任务是简单地检测面孔。与左侧相比，右侧的 N170 振幅更负，并且不受面孔类型的调制。自我面孔和亲近他人面孔的 N2 和 P3 结果也呈现出相似的模式：与快乐和中性面孔相比，它们与 N2 减少和 P3 增加有关。然而，与亲近他人的面孔相比，自我面孔的加工也具有优先性，这表现为 N2 振幅更低，P3 振幅更高。非参数聚类置换检验显示出类似的结果模式：与所有其他面孔（亲近他人的面孔、快乐面孔、中性面孔）相比，自我面孔的显著聚类，以及与快乐和中性面孔相比，亲近他人面孔的显著聚类。总之，自我面孔的优先化被观察到，这表明自己的面孔与所有其他面孔之间存在显著差异。至关重要的是，这两种与个人相关的面孔都与快乐面孔不同。这些发现表明主观评估突显因素的关键作用。
