Event-Related Potential Responses to Beloved and Familiar Faces in Different Marriage Styles: Evidence from Mosuo Subjects.

Haiyan Wu,Junqiang Dai,Naiyi Wang,Li Luo,Yue-Jia Luo,Suyong Yang

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00159

Abstract

Research on familiar face recognition has largely focused on the neural correlates of recognizing a beloved partner or family member. However, no research has explored the effect of marriage style on the recognition of a beloved partner’s face, especially in matriarchal societies. Here, we examined the time course of event-related potentials (ERP) in response to the face of a beloved partner, sibling, or unknown person in a sample of individuals from the matriarchal Mosuo tribe. Two groups were assessed: intermarriage and walking marriage groups (i.e., couples in a committed relationship who do not cohabitate during the daytime). In agreement with previous reports, ERP results revealed more positive VPP, N250, and P300 waveforms for beloved faces than sibling faces in both groups. Moreover, P300 was more positive for beloved partner versus sibling faces; however, this difference emerged at fronto-central sites for the walking marriage group and at posterior sites for the intermarriage group. Overall, we observed that marriage style affects the later stage processing of a beloved partner’s face, and this may be associated with greater affective arousal and familiarity.

Highlights

The experience of romantic love allows people to build passionate and intimate relationships
Preliminary analyses revealed no significant effect of gender on any variable
No significant differences were observed in the intermarriage group

Summary

Introduction

The experience of romantic love allows people to build passionate and intimate relationships. Passion in romantic love is affected by intimacy and relationship duration (Baumeister, 1999; Graham, 2011). Several neuroscience studies have proposed that the experience of love involves a neural network distinct from networks that process stimuli relevant to friendship or parental relationships (Bartels and Zeki, 2000, 2004; Aron et al, 2005; Ortigue et al, 2007). Other investigations have confirmed that the affective brain network (Bartels and Zeki, 2004) and reward pathway are correlated with the experience of romantic love (Fisher et al, 2002, 2005; Aron et al, 2005; Zeki and Romaya, 2010; Xu et al, 2011; Acevedo et al, 2012)

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