Uberto Pozzoli

Arousal effect on emotional face comprehension. Frequency band changes in different time intervals

The study aimed to explore the modulation of frequency bands (delta, theta, alpha-1 and alpha-2, and gamma) in response to emotional face within different post-stimulus time intervals (50-450 ms). Twenty adults looked at emotional (happy, sad, angry, fearful) or neutral faces. EEG results showed that motivational significance of face can modulate frequency bands, specifically for theta and gamma. Moreover, gamma can be varied related to degree of arousing feature (high or low) of facial expression. As a function of time, ANOVA and regression analysis revealed that emotional discrimination by gamma and theta is observable mainly within 150-250 time interval and, as revealed also by coherence analysis, that it is more distributed on the anterior-right (theta) or right (gamma) side of the scalp for the emotional stimuli, whereas delta is maximally increased within 250-350 interval and it is more posteriorly (parietal site) distributed for all the stimulus type. We proposed that band modulations respond to variations in processing emotional face, and, whereas delta reflects updating of the stimulus, and theta responds to the emotional significance of face, gamma reflects differences in the arousing power of facial expression.

Event‐related oscillations (EROs) and event‐related potentials (ERPs) comparison in facial expression recognition

The study aims to explore the significance of event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related brain oscillations (EROs) (delta, theta, alpha, beta, gamma power) in response to emotional (fear, happiness, sadness) when compared with neutral faces during 180-250 post-stimulus time interval. The ERP results demonstrated that the emotional face elicited a negative peak at approximately 230 ms (N2). Moreover, EEG measures showed that motivational significance of face (emotional vs. neutral) could modulate the amplitude of EROs, but only for some frequency bands (i.e. theta and gamma bands). In a second phase, we considered the resemblance of the two EEG measures by a regression analysis. It revealed that theta and gamma oscillations mainly effect as oscillation activity at the N2 latency. Finally, a posterior increased power of theta was found for emotional faces.

EVENT-RELATED OSCILLATIONS (ERO) AND EVENT-RELATED POTENTIALS (ERP) IN EMOTIONAL FACE RECOGNITION A Regression Analysis

The study aims to explore the significance of event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related brain oscillations (EROs) (delta, theta, and alpha power) in response to emotional face during 180–250 poststimulus time interval. Twenty-one adults looked at emotional (sad, happy, fearful) or neutral faces. The results demonstrated that the emotional face elicited a negative peak at approximately 230 ms (N230). Moreover EEG measures showed that motivational significance of face (stimulus type) can modulate the amplitude of EEG, especially for theta and delta. Regression analysis showed that theta oscillations mainly effect as oscillation activity at the N2 latency. Thus, this frequency band variation could represent a complex set of cognitive processes, whereby selective attention becomes focused on an emotional relevant stimulus.

N400 and P600 or the role of the ERP correlates in sentence comprehension: some applications to the Italian language.

In the present study, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were applied to the study of language comprehension in the Italian language. The ERPs were recorded from 10 electrodes while the participants read (Experiment 1) or listened (Experiment 2) to sentences containing semantic or syntactic anomalies. Final words that were inconsistent with the sentence context elicited a negative wave at about 400 ms poststimulus that was more concentrated in the posterior sites of the scalp, whereas final words that were incongruous with the grammatical structure (subject-verb nonagreement) elicited a positive wave at about 600 ms poststimulus that was homogeneously distributed on the scalp. The authors found no differences based on the perceptual modality of the stimulus (visual or auditory), nor did they find different ERP correlates as a function of task relevance (explicit-implicit task induction). The available evidence indicated that the ERP response to semantic anomalies was at least partially distinct from the ERP response to syntactic anomalies, and that a syntactic parser is a plausible process included in sentence comprehension. The two semantic and syntactic effects appear as automatic processes of the decoding of the anomalies and also modality-independent processes. Cross-linguistic applications are considered in the general discussion.

Encoding of Emotional Facial Expressions in Direct and Incidental Tasks: An Event-Related Potentials N200 Effect

Emotional face encoding processes in 2 types of tasks (direct and incidental) were explored in the current research through electroencephalographic (ERPs) and behavioral (response) measures. In Experiment 1 (incidental task) ERP correlates of 21 subjects were recorded when they viewed emotional (anger, sadness and happiness) or neutral facial stimuli. An emotion-specific cortical variation was found, a negative deflection at about 200 ms poststimulus (N2 effect). This effect was sensitive to the perceived emotional value of faces, since it differentiated negative high arousal (i.e., anger) from low arousal (i.e., sadness) or positive (happiness) emotions. Moreover, a specific cortical site (parietal) was activated by emotional faces but not by neutral faces. In Experiment 2 (20 subjects) a direct encoding task (emotion comprehension) was provided. We explored whether encoding for emotional faces relies on a single neural system irrespective of the task (incidental or direct), or whether it is supported by...