Eligiusz Wronka

Attention modulates emotional expression processing

To investigate the time course of emotional expression processing, we recorded ERPs to facial stimuli. The first task was to discriminate emotional expressions. Enhanced negativity of the face-specific N170 was elicited by emotional as opposed to neutral faces, followed by the occipital negativity (240-340 ms poststimulus). The second task was to classify face gender. Here, N170 was unaffected by the emotional expression. However, emotional expression effect was expressed in the anterior positivity (160-250 ms poststimulus) and subsequent occipital negativity (240-340 ms poststimulus). Results support the thesis that structural encoding relevant to gender recognition and simultaneous expression analysis are independent processes. Attention modulates facial emotion processing 140-185 ms poststimulus. Involuntary differentiation of facial expression was observed later (160-340 ms poststimulus), suggesting unintentional attention capture.

Trait anxiety and involuntary processing of facial emotions.

There is suggestion that trait anxiety influences the processing of threat-related information. To test this hypothesis we recorded ERPs in response to subliminally presented and backward masked fearful and neutral faces, and non-face objects, in the preselected low- and high-anxious individuals. The amplitude of N170 was found to be larger when elicited by faces in comparison to non-faces, however it was not found to be emotion-sensitive or modulated by anxiety level. Differences between low- and high-anxious individuals appeared in a time window of the P1 component. At later stages, within the EPN component, stronger negativity specific for fearful faces was recorded exclusively in the low-anxious participants. Our findings indicate that anxiety level modulates early stages of information processing, as reflected in the P1 component. This leads to anxiety-related differences in involuntary emotional expression detection at later stages (EPN component).

Psychometric intelligence and P3 of the event-related potentials studied with a 3-stimulus auditory oddball task

Relationship between psychometric intelligence measured with Ravens Advanced Progressive Matrices (RAPM) and event-related potentials (ERP) was examined using 3-stimulus oddball task. Subjects who had scored higher on RAPM exhibited larger amplitude of P3a component. Additional analysis using the Standardized Low Resolution Electromagnetic Tomography (sLORETA) revealed that this effect corresponds with stronger activity within the frontal cortex and the cingulate gyrus. High intelligence can also be linked with greater P3b response and stronger activity within the parietal cortex and the posterior cingulate gyrus. It may be concluded that the processes related to the initial stage of attention engagement as indexed by P3a, as well as the later stimulus evaluation and classification reflected in P3b, are more intense in subjects scoring higher on RAPM. The quality of mental abilities can therefore be related to differences of the activity in frontal and parietal brain regions.

Individual differences in epistemic motivation and brain conflict monitoring activity.

It is well documented that motivation toward closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, is linked to more structured, rigid, and persistent cognitive styles. However, the neurocognitive correlates of NFC have never been tested. Thus, using event-related potentials, we examined the hypothesis that NFC is associated with the neurocognitive process for detecting discrepancies between response tendencies and higher level intentions. We found that greater NFC is associated with lower conflict-related anterior cingulate activity, suggesting lower sensitivity to cues for altering a habitual response pattern and lower sensitivity to committing errors. This study provides evidence that high NFC acts as a bulwark against anxiety-producing uncertainty and minimizes the experience of error.

Electrocortical indices of attention correlate with the need for closure.

Need for closure (NFC), defined as a desire for a quick and unambiguous answer to a question and an aversion to uncertainty, usually leads to a more structured, persistent, and rigid cognitive style. We suggested that this cognitive characteristic could be related to differences in a simple sensory gating control mechanism as reflected in event-related potentials (N1 component). We expected that the higher an individual’s NFC, the more attention he/she would allocate to the selected stimuli or the feature of the stimuli, which is manifested in an increased N1 component. We tested this assumption in two experiments where NFC was measured by a scale and event-related potentials were recorded during the Stroop task and the Visual Distractor task. In line with the hypotheses, we found that NFC was associated with amplified processing of stimuli at an early sensory stage, which was evidenced in an increased N1 component. We suggested that this early sensory gating mechanism protects high NFC individuals against anxiety-producing uncertainty.

Religious Fundamentalism Modulates Neural Responses to Error-Related Words: The Role of Motivation Toward Closure

Examining the relationship between brain activity and religious fundamentalism, this study explores whether fundamentalist religious beliefs increase responses to error-related words among participants intolerant to uncertainty (i.e., high in the need for closure) in comparison to those who have a high degree of toleration for uncertainty (i.e., those who are low in the need for closure). We examine a negative-going event-related brain potentials occurring 400 ms after stimulus onset (the N400) due to its well-understood association with the reactions to emotional conflict. Religious fundamentalism and tolerance of uncertainty were measured on self-report measures, and electroencephalographic neural reactivity was recorded as participants were performing an emotional Stroop task. In this task, participants read neutral words and words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the word is written. The results confirm that among people who are intolerant of uncertainty (i.e., those high in the need for closure), religious fundamentalism is associated with an increased N400 on error-related words compared with people who tolerate uncertainty well (i.e., those low in the need for closure).

Attention effectively modulates processing of subliminally presented facial expression

and can be modulated by individual differences. Among them, subclinical trait-anxiety is supposed to influence the processing of threat-related information. We recorded ERPs in response to subliminally (16 ms) presented fearful and neutral faces and nonface objects, followed by an abstract mask. Relying on STAI scores, pre-selected low and high-anxious individuals were compared to investigate facial emotion processing biases. We found that an amplitude of N170 was larger when elicited by faces in comparison to non-face objects. Additionally, a ‘face effect’ on N170 was modulated by the level of trait-anxiety. In high-anxious individuals, the amplitude of N170 was diminished and the effect was reduced, suggesting a different course of facial structural analysis in that group. Moreover, a negative shift specific to fearful faces was recorded over occipital and occipito-temporal locations, starting 100 ms after stimulus onset; it was more pronounced in the high-anxious group. At later stages, Early Posterior Negativity (EPN, 240–300 ms post-stimulus) was more apparent in low-anxious participants. Our findings indicate that fearful faces elicit stronger posterior negativity than neutral ones, even in a case of low awareness of the stimuli. However, the timing of the processing differs with respect to the level of traitanxiety. This work was supported by a grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education – N N106 098338.