Gender differences in subliminal affective face priming: A high‐density ERP study

Abstract

Introduction Subliminal affective priming effects (SAPEs) refer to the phenomenon by which the presentation of an affective prime stimulus influences the subsequent affective evaluation of a target stimulus. Previous studies have reported that unconsciously processed stimuli affect behavioral performance more than consciously processed stimuli. However, the impact of SAPEs on the face‐specific N170 component is unclear. We studied how SAPEs for fearful faces affected the N170 for subsequent supraliminal target faces using event‐related potentials (ERPs). Methods Japanese adults (n = 44, 20 females) participated in this study. Subliminal prime faces (neutral or fearful) were presented for 17 ms, followed by a backward mask for 283 ms and 800 ms target faces (neutral, emotionally ambiguous, or fearful). 128‐channel ERPs were recorded while participants judged the expression of target faces as neutral or fearful. Response rates and response times were also measured for assessing behavioral alterations. Results Although the behavioral results revealed no evidence of SAPEs, we found gender‐related SAPEs in right N170 amplitude. Specifically, female participants exhibited enhanced right N170 amplitude for emotionally neutral faces primed by fearful faces, while male participants exhibited decreased N170 amplitude in fearful prime trials with fearful target faces. Male participants exhibited significant correlations between N170 amplitude and behavioral response time in the fearful prime‐neutral target condition. Conclusions Our ERP results suggest the existence of a gender difference in target‐face processing preceded by subliminally presented face stimuli in the right occipito‐temporal region.

Asynchronous neural oscillations associated with subliminal affective face priming in autism spectrum disorder

“…Consistent with our previous study [7], we found SAPEs on the N170 with greater amplitude for supraliminal target face in subliminal fearful priming conditions in both groups. Fujita et al .…”

“…We used neutral and fearful expressions displayed by four Japanese actors (two men and two women) as prime-face stimuli, following our previous study [7]. Target-face stimuli including neutral and fearful expressions displayed by another four Japanese actors were used as prime-face stimuli.…”

“…nonconsciously) presented emotional face stimuli affect several event-related potential (ERP) components including the N170 [5,6]. We recently confirmed the presence of subliminal affective priming effects (SAPEs) with a sex difference, which exhibited N170 modulation for supraliminal target faces followed by subliminal fearful faces [7]. Our previous findings also suggested that nonconsciously presented fearful faces affected the processing of subsequent supraliminal target faces in the right occipitotemporal region, which is in line with previously reported current source density analyses of the fusiform face area (FFA) and superior temporal sulcus (STS) [8,9].…”

“…Thus, we considered that analyses of both exogenous responses (stimulus-locking evoked potentials) and endogenous responses (event-related induced responses) were useful for understanding the neural basis of atypical emotional cognition in ASD. Therefore, in the current study, we aimed to demonstrate the aberrant processing of subliminal emotional face information in adults with ASD by employing conventional ERP and ITPC analyses using our previously reported SAPE paradigm [7]. We hypothesized that individuals with ASD would show atypical or absent SAPEs for either ERP responses (N170 components) or induced neural activities (ITPC) caused by abnormal neural face processing.…”

Neural Mechanisms of Subliminal Mentor-Student Relationship Stimuli Processing: An ERP Study

“…Unlike past research on name processing, the present study adopted a subliminal priming paradigm, e.g., [ 68 ], and after subliminally presenting the name primes, participants were instructed to finish an irrelevant Stroop task, where positive and negative relationship words were presented with either red or green colors. The aim is to examine whether the subliminal priming could affect the early cognitive process in the relatively easy task, as measured through ERP components of P2, N2, and P3.…”