Differential impact of anxiety on the processing of fearful and happy faces

Abstract

Event Abstract Back to Event Differential impact of anxiety on the processing of fearful and happy faces Aurélie Foucher1*, N. George2, S. Morel2 and S. Dubal1 1 CNRS-UMPC UMR 7593, France 2 LENA - CNRS UPR 640, France Emotional stimuli are likely to be preferentially processed at the perceptual level, resulting in a greater saliency. They prompt enhanced cortical activity in secondary visual areas as demonstrated by fMRI and Event Related Potentials (ERPs) studies. In particular, emotional modulation of the ERP’s amplitude in response to expressive faces occurs in the first 100 ms post-stimulus. A few studies proposed that trait anxiety may modulate the processing of emotion. We explored the impact of anxiety on the perceptual facilitation for emotional faces of happy and fearful content. ERPs were recorded in two groups of subjects selected on the basis of their scores on the Spielberger Trait Inventory. Seventeen Low-Anxious subjects and sixteen High-Anxious’ were included in the study. The experiment included a fearful set and a happy set of faces taken from the MacBrain Face Stimulus, with each expressive face associated with the corresponding neutral face. Participants were asked to categorize faces as neutral or emotional. Accuracy was not modulated by anxiety or emotion. Reaction times were significantly shorter for emotional faces than neutral faces, independently of anxiety, in the fearful set as well as in the happy set. There was an interaction between emotion and group in the happy set on the occipital P1 component amplitude. Happy faces elicited higher P1 than neutral faces, in the HA group only. In the fearful set, there was an effect of emotion at frontocentral sites on N1 component. Fearful faces elicited larger N1 than neutral faces, independently of anxiety. Results showed dissociation between responses to fearful and happy faces. Effect of anxiety was evidenced on happy faces only at the level of the P1 component, while fearful stimuli elicited a perceptual facilitation in both groups on the N1 component. Anxiety may impact differentially on the processing of happiness and fear. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Turkey, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neuropsychiatric Disorders Citation: Foucher A, George N, Morel S and Dubal S (2008). Differential impact of anxiety on the processing of fearful and happy faces. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.407 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 17 Dec 2008; Published Online: 17 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Aurélie Foucher, CNRS-UMPC UMR 7593, Paris, France, foucher@chups.jussieu.fr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Aurélie Foucher N. George S. Morel S. Dubal Google Aurélie Foucher N. George S. Morel S. Dubal Google Scholar Aurélie Foucher N. George S. Morel S. Dubal PubMed Aurélie Foucher N. George S. Morel S. Dubal Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.