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Shared neural dynamics of facial expression processing.

Madeline Molly Ely¹, Géza Gergely Ambrus¹

¹Department of Psychology, Bournemouth University, Poole House P319, Talbot Campus, Fern Barrow, Poole, Dorset BH12 5BB UK.

Cognitive Neurodynamics

|March 6, 2025

Summary

Neural patterns for recognizing facial emotions, sex, and identity are shared across individuals. This study found that sex is processed first, followed by identity, then emotion, with emotional faces enhancing identity and sex processing.

Keywords:

Electroencephalography Emotions Face processing Facial expressions Multivariate pattern analysis

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Social Psychology

Background:

Facial expression recognition is crucial for social cognition and understanding emotions.
Previous research has not fully explored shared neural patterns in facial expression processing or the dynamics of specific emotions.
The interplay between facial attributes (sex, identity) and emotional processing remains under-investigated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate shared neural dynamics in processing emotional faces.
To examine how different emotional expressions are neurally encoded.
To explore the relationship between facial attributes (sex, identity) and emotional processing.

Main Methods:

Utilized an explicit facial emotion recognition task with two-alternative forced choice (2AFC) decisions.
Employed cross-participant multivariate classification and representational dissimilarity analysis on electroencephalography (EEG) data.
Analyzed EEG signals to decode sex, emotional expression, and identity from face stimuli.

Main Results:

EEG signals successfully decoded sex, emotional expression, and identity across participants, indicating shared neural codes.
Decoding order revealed sex first, then identity, followed by emotion.
Emotional expressions (angry, happy, sad) were decoded earlier than neutral expressions.
Emotional processing was independent of visual image properties, unlike sex and identity.
Emotional expressions, especially anger and happiness, enhanced the processing of face identity and sex.

Conclusions:

Demonstrates shared neural representations for facial expression, sex, and identity processing.
Highlights a temporal hierarchy in facial attribute decoding: sex, identity, then emotion.
Suggests that emotional salience modulates the processing of identity and sex, particularly for negative and positive emotions.