[Personality-related differences in recognition of facial emotional expression and cortical evoked potentials]

A correlation between some characteristics of the visual evoked potentials and individual personality traits (by the Kettell scale) was revealed in 40 healthy subjects when they recognized facial expressions of anger and fear. As compared to emotionally stable subjects, emotionally unstable subjects had shorter latencies of evoked potentials and suppressed late negativity in the occipital and temporal areas. In contrast, amplitude of these waves in the frontal areas was increased. In emotionally stable group of subjects differences in the evoked potentials related to emotional expressions were evident throughout the whole signal processing beginning from the early sensory stage (P1 wave). In emotionally unstable group differences in the evoked potentials related to recognized emotional expressions developed later. Sensitivity of the evoked potentials to emotional salience of faces was also more pronounced in the emotionally stable group. The involvement of the frontal cortex, amygdala, and the anterior cingulate cortex in the development of individual features of recognition of facial expressions of anger and fear is discussed.