Fearful contextual expression impairs the encoding and recognition of target faces: an ERP study

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Social Psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Event-related potential (ERP) studies indicate N170 modulation by facial emotion and context.
• Unclear how preceding facial expressions affect N170 encoding of unpredictable target faces.
• No prior research examined if context influences later target face recognition.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate N170 modulation by unpredictable emotional context faces.
• Determine if context affects subsequent recognition of target faces.
• Explore attentional resource allocation during emotional face processing.

Main Methods:

• EEG recorded during encoding of target faces (fearful/neutral) after random sequences of contextual faces (fearful/neutral).
• Target faces had unpredictable onset and identity.
• Unexpected old/new recognition task assessed recall of target face identities.

Main Results:

• Reduced N170 amplitude to target faces preceded by fearful context compared to neutral context.
• Lower recognition rates for target faces previously encoded in fearful context versus neutral context.
• Fearful context impaired encoding and recognition regardless of target face emotion.

Conclusions:

• Fearful context faces decrease attentional resource allocation to subsequent target faces.
• This reduced attention leads to impaired encoding and recognition of target faces.
• Contextual emotional expressions significantly influence face perception and memory.