Expectation decreases brain susceptibility to fearful stimuli: ERP evidence from a modified emotion evaluation task

Abstract

Expectation decreased the susceptibility to fearful stimuli in prior studies using distracting tasks. The present study tests whether expectation remains effective in decreasing this susceptibility, when subjects focus attention on emotional properties. Event-related potentials were recorded for fearful and neutral faces, while subjects performed a modified emotion evaluation task during unpredictable and predictable conditions. Behavioral data showed faster response latencies during predictable versus unpredictable conditions. ERP data showed prolonged peak latencies in N1 (80–130ms) and larger amplitudes in P2 (130–180ms) and N200-300 components, for unpredictable fearful versus neutral faces. Conversely, all these components showed similar responses to predictable fearful and neutral faces. Source analysis suggested that medial temporal lobe mediated ERPs elicited by unpredictable fearful faces, while ventromedial prefrontal cortex mediated those elicited by predictable fearful faces, in the 130–180ms interval. Thus, we propose emotional expectation as a cognitive regulation strategy that reliably dampens human susceptibility to fearful stimuli.