Exploring the Role of Spatial Frequency Information during Neural Emotion Processing in Human Infants

Abstract

Enhanced attention to fear expressions in adults is primarily driven by information from low as opposed to high spatial frequencies contained in faces. However, little is known about the role of spatial frequency information in emotion processing during infancy. In the present study, we examined the role of low compared to high spatial frequencies in the processing of happy and fearful facial expressions by using filtered face stimuli and measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) in 7-month-old infants (N = 26). Our results revealed that infants’ brains discriminated between emotional facial expressions containing high but not between expressions containing low spatial frequencies. Specifically, happy faces containing high spatial frequencies elicited a smaller Nc amplitude than fearful faces containing high spatial frequencies and happy and fearful faces containing low spatial frequencies. Our results demonstrate that already in infancy spatial frequency content influences the processing of facial emotions. Furthermore, we observed that fearful facial expressions elicited a comparable Nc response for high and low spatial frequencies, suggesting a robust detection of fearful faces irrespective of spatial frequency content, whereas the detection of happy facial expressions was contingent upon frequency content. In summary, these data provide new insights into the neural processing of facial emotions in early development by highlighting the differential role played by spatial frequencies in the detection of fear and happiness.

Maternal odor reduces the neural response to fearful faces in human infants

“…As emotional face stimuli, we used colored photographs of happy and fearful facial expressions by 6 actresses from the FACES database ( Ebner et al, 2010 [actress-ID 54, 63, 85, 90, 115, 173]). Photographs were cropped so that only the face was visible in an oval shape, and have successfully been used in prior studies to investigate processing of emotional faces in infancy ( Jessen and Grossmann, 2015 , 2017 ).…”

Impression formation in the human infant brain

“…An additional 20 infants were tested, but excluded from analyses based on an a priori exclusion criterion of at least two artifact-free trials per fNIRS condition. Minimum sample size was partly determined based on a literature review of comparable infant neuroimaging and eyetracking designs (Peltola, Leppanen et al 2009, Rajhans, Jessen et al 2016, Jessen and Grossmann 2017, Grossmann, Missana et al 2018, Peltola, van IJzendoorn et al 2020) but chosen to be much larger than in mentioned prior studies in order to strengthen the confidence in the obtained findings. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee at the Medical Faculty, Leipzig University (236-10-23082010) and was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.…”

Cracking the Snake Detection Theory: The Subcortical Visual Pathway as a Major Player in Cultural Transformations

“…Low spatial frequencies play a very important role in emotional face processing. High spatial frequencies are more important for non-emotional face processing [66]. The conclusion of Burra et al [54] should be understood as having its own limits-whether we can precisely indicate their action, or only attest their existence.…”