ERP comparison study of face gender and expression processing in unattended condition

Abstract

This paper explores the differences within the underlying brain mechanism for facial expression and gender information processing. The study recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) of participants while they were performing a cross-change detection task, in which the cross was peripherally surrounded by four facial stimuli. For investigating facial expression processing, either four faces with positive expressions from two females and two males were presented infrequently among four faces with negative expressions, or four faces with negative expressions from two females and two males were presented infrequently among four faces with positive expressions. For gender information processing, four female faces were presented infrequently among four male faces, or vice versa.The findings showed that the latency of facial emotion-related visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) was shorter than that of facial gender-related vMMN, and that their related brain regions presented some differences. The results can be viewed as evidence of the difference by which the human brain processes facial emotion and gender information.