An ERP investigation of emotional processing in European and Japanese individuals

Abstract

This article examined neural time course differences in the processing of emotional pictures in European and Asian individuals. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded in 15 French and 15 Japanese volunteers during the presentation of neutral and emotional pictures in their own country. ERPs were analyzed by means of spatio-temporal Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and allow to evaluate cultural influences on emotional processing along three temporal windows: 105 to 140 ms, 176 to 230 ms and 255 to 455 ms. Main results highlight that (1) early ERP components coded emotional charge but were not modulated by cultural background, (2) later components showed a significant decrease of amplitudes at parieto-occipital areas for Japanese participants compared to French ones in emotional condition. These findings suggest that, in both populations, similar neurocognitive processes are involved in the early stage of the emotional stimuli processing and effects observed on later components may reflect a poorer engagement of parietal areas, known to be involved in emotional arousal dimension. Considering that cognitive judgments were similar in both populations, electrophysiological findings suggest that cultural influences on later stage of emotional processing could be related to the known lower level of emotionally expressive behavior in Japanese than in Caucasians.