ERPs (event-related potentials), semantic attribution, and facial expression of emotions

Balconi, Michela; Pozzoli, Uberto

doi:10.1075/ce.4.1.05bal

Article published In:

Consciousness & Emotion
Vol. 4:1 (2003) ► pp.63–80

ERPs (event-related potentials), semantic attribution, and facial expression of emotions

Michela Balconi | Catholic University of Milan

Uberto Pozzoli | Bioengineering Laboratory, IRCCS

ERPs (event-related potentials) correlates are largely used in cognitive psychology and specifically for analysis of semantic information processing. Previous research has underlined a strong correlation between a negative-ongoing wave (N400), more frontally distributed, and semantic linguistic or extra-linguistic anomalies. With reference to the extra-linguistic domain, our experiment analyzed ERP variation in a semantic task of comprehension of emotional facial expressions. The experiment explored the effect of expectancy violation when subjects observed congruous or incongruous emotional facial patterns. Four prototypical (anger, sadness, happiness and surprise) and four morphed faces were presented. Moreover, two distinct cognitive tasks (an implicit vs an explicit elaboration) were analyzed in order to evaluate the influence of spontaneous decoding in N400-like effects. An automatic, high-order cognitive process was found, elicited by a negative ERP variation similar to the linguistic N400 effect, which allows us to explain the congruous/incongruous decoding in semantic extra-linguistic comprehension.

Keywords: emotional facial expression, ERPs variation, N400, semantic elaboration, implicit/explicit task

Published online: 4 November 2003

https://doi.org/10.1075/ce.4.1.05bal

Cited by

Cited by 15 other publications

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Balconi, Michela

2006. Exploring Consciousness in Emotional Face Decoding: An Event-Related Potential Analysis. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs 132:2 ► pp. 129 ff.

Balconi, Michela

2008. Neuropsicologia delle espressioni facciali. In Neuropsicologia della comunicazione, ► pp. 225 ff.

Balconi, Michela

2008. Metodi e strumenti di analisi della neuropsicologia applicata al linguaggio e alla comunicazione. In Neuropsicologia della comunicazione, ► pp. 51 ff.

Balconi, Michela

2010. Methods and Research Perspectives on the Neuropsychology of Communication. In Neuropsychology of Communication, ► pp. 29 ff.

Balconi, Michela

2011. Frontal brain oscillation modulation in facial emotion comprehension: The role of reward and inhibitory systems in subliminal and supraliminal processing. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 23:6 ► pp. 723 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Roberta Arangio

2015. The Relationship Between Coma Near Coma, Disability Ratings, and Event-Related Potentials in Patients with Disorders of Consciousness: A Semantic Association Task. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback 40:4 ► pp. 327 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Ylenia Canavesio

2014. The contribution of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal areas in processing instrumental versus functional semantic violations in action representation. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology 36:7 ► pp. 701 ff.

Balconi, Michela, Elisabetta Grippa & Maria Elide Vanutelli

2015. Resting lateralized activity predicts the cortical response and appraisal of emotions: an fNIRS study. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 10:12 ► pp. 1607 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Claudio Lucchiari

2005. In the Face of Emotions: Event-Related Potentials in Supraliminal and Subliminal Facial Expression Recognition. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs 131:1 ► pp. 41 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Claudio Lucchiari

2005. Event-Related Potentials Related to Normal and Morphed Emotional Faces. The Journal of Psychology 139:2 ► pp. 176 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Claudio Lucchiari

2007. Encoding of emotional facial expressions in direct and incidental tasks: Two event-related potential studies. Australian Journal of Psychology 59:1 ► pp. 13 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Guido Mazza

2009. Consciousness and emotion: ERP modulation and attentive vs. pre-attentive elaboration of emotional facial expressions by backward masking. Motivation and Emotion 33:2 ► pp. 113 ff.

Balconi, Michela & Uberto Pozzoli

2012. Encoding of Emotional Facial Expressions in Direct and Incidental Tasks: An Event-Related Potentials N200 Effect. Journal of Neurotherapy 16:2 ► pp. 92 ff.

Balconi, Michela, Maria E. Vanutelli & Elisabetta Grippa

2017. Resting state and personality component (BIS/BAS) predict the brain activity (EEG and fNIRS measure) in response to emotional cues. Brain and Behavior 7:5

Richards, Anne, Amanda Holmes, Philip J. Pell & Emily J. Bethell

2013. Adapting effects of emotional expression in anxiety: Evidence for an enhanced Late Positive Potential. Social Neuroscience 8:6 ► pp. 650 ff.

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