Li Shuaixia, Dang Wei, Zhang Yihan, Hao Bin, Zhao Dongfang, Luo Wenbo
Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China.
Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China.
Biol Psychol. 2025 Jan;194:108968. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2024.108968. Epub 2024 Dec 19.
The role of the eye region in interpersonal communication and emotional recognition is widely acknowledged. However, the influence of mouth expression on perceiving and recognizing genuine emotions in the eye region, especially with limited attentional resources, remains unclear. Thirty-four participants in this study completed a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task while their event-related potential (ERP) data were simultaneously recorded. They were instructed to identify the type of houses and the emotional expression displayed in the eye region. The first target (T1) consisted of three upright houses, and the second target (T2) included fearful and neutral normal faces, mouth-scrambled faces, as well as composite faces (fearful eye + neutral mouth, neutral eye + fearful mouth). A robust mass univariate statistics approach was utilized to analyze the EEG data. Behaviorally, the presence of a fearful mouth facilitated recognition of the fearful eye region but hindered recognition of the neutral eye region compared to a neutral mouth. The ERP results showed that fearful expressions elicited larger N170, early posterior negativity (EPN), and P3 amplitudes relative to neutral expressions. The P1 amplitudes were increased, whereas the N170 and EPN amplitudes were reduced in response to normal and composite faces compared to mouth-scrambled faces. Collectively, these findings indicate that an unattended fearful mouth can capture covert attention and shape evaluation of eye expressions within a face, providing novel insights into the impact of visually salient mouth cues on cognitive processes involved in mind reading.
眼部区域在人际交流和情绪识别中的作用已得到广泛认可。然而,嘴巴表情对眼部区域真实情绪感知和识别的影响,尤其是在注意力资源有限的情况下,仍不清楚。本研究中的34名参与者完成了一项双目标快速序列视觉呈现(RSVP)任务,同时记录他们的事件相关电位(ERP)数据。他们被要求识别房屋类型以及眼部区域显示的情绪表情。第一个目标(T1)由三座直立房屋组成,第二个目标(T2)包括恐惧和中性的正常面孔、嘴巴打乱的面孔以及合成面孔(恐惧的眼睛+中性的嘴巴、中性的眼睛+恐惧的嘴巴)。采用了一种强大的多变量统计方法来分析脑电图数据。在行为上,与中性嘴巴相比,恐惧嘴巴的存在促进了对恐惧眼部区域的识别,但阻碍了对中性眼部区域的识别。ERP结果表明,与中性表情相比,恐惧表情引发了更大的N170、早期后负波(EPN)和P3波幅。与嘴巴打乱的面孔相比,对正常面孔和合成面孔的反应中,P1波幅增加,而N170和EPN波幅降低。总体而言,这些发现表明,未被注意的恐惧嘴巴可以吸引隐蔽注意力并塑造对面部眼部表情的评估,为视觉上突出的嘴巴线索对读心术所涉及的认知过程的影响提供了新的见解。