Neural Processing Mechanisms Research Articles

Attentional capture is modulated by stimulus saliency in visual search as evidenced by event-related potentials and alpha oscillations

This study used a typical four-item search display to investigate top-down control over attentional capture in an additional singleton paradigm. By manipulating target and distractor color and shape, stimulus saliency relative to the remaining items was systematically varied. One group of participants discriminated the side of a dot within a salient orange target (ST group) presented with green circles (fillers) and a green diamond distractor. A second group discriminated the side of the dot within a green diamond target presented with green circle fillers and a salient orange square distractor (SD group). Results showed faster reaction times and a shorter latency of the N2pc component in the event-related potential (ERP) to the more salient targets in the ST group. Both salient and less salient distractors elicited Pd components of equal amplitude. Behaviorally, no task interference was observed with the less salient distractor, indicating the prevention of attentional capture. However, reaction times were slower in the presence of the salient distractor, which conflicts with the hypothesis that the Pd reflects proactive distractor suppression. Contrary to recent proposals that elicitation of the Pd requires competitive interactions with a target, we found a greater Pd amplitude when the distractor was presented alone. Alpha-band amplitudes decreased during target processing (event-related desynchronization), but no significant amplitude enhancement was observed at electrodes contralateral to distractors regardless of their saliency. The results demonstrate independent neural mechanisms for target and distractor processing and support the view that top-down guidance of attention can be offset (counteracted) by relative stimulus saliency.

Minimum spanning tree brain network topology reflects individual differences in the structure of affective experience

Subjective feelings of emotion differ in the extent to which some might focus on pleasure or displeasure and some might emphasize their arousal in the reports of emotional experience. In this paper, we examine whether functional brain connectivity is modulated by individual differences in the subjective feelings of emotion. We adopt the public available DEAP dataset and utilize the unsupervised clustering method to delineate reports of emotional valence and arousal profiles in the data. Results provide evidence of two subgroups: one group consistently rates high in arousal and low in valence regarding the emotional stimulus, whereas the other group rates high in valence and low in arousal. The two groups further differ in their minimum spanning tree characteristics derived from EEG signals. Specifically, people more emphasize valence experience recruit broadly distributed brain areas than those who focus on arousal. Together, these findings provide new insights to understand individual differences in emotional experience and suggest the distinct underlying neural processing mechanisms.

Auditory Pitch Perception in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Pitch plays an important role in auditory perception of music and language. This study provides a systematic review with meta-analysis to investigate whether individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have enhanced pitch processing ability and to identify the potential factors associated with processing differences between ASD and neurotypicals. We conducted a systematic search through six major electronic databases focusing on the studies that used nonspeech stimuli to provide a qualitative and quantitative assessment across existing studies on pitch perception in autism. We identified potential participant- and methodology-related moderators and conducted metaregression analyses using mixed-effects models. On the basis of 22 studies with a total of 464 participants with ASD, we obtained a small-to-medium positive effect size (g = 0.26) in support of enhanced pitch perception in ASD. Moreover, the mean age and nonverbal IQ of participants were found to significantly moderate the between-studies heterogeneity. Our study provides the first meta-analysis on auditory pitch perception in ASD and demonstrates the existence of different developmental trajectories between autistic individuals and neurotypicals. In addition to age, nonverbal ability is found to be a significant contributor to the lower level/local processing bias in ASD. We highlight the need for further investigation of pitch perception in ASD under challenging listening conditions. Future neurophysiological and brain imaging studies with a longitudinal design are also needed to better understand the underlying neural mechanisms of atypical pitch processing in ASD and to help guide auditory-based interventions for improving language and social functioning. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21614271.

The Lateralization of Spatial Cognition in Table Tennis Players: Neuroplasticity in the Dominant Hemisphere.

Spatial cognition facilitates the successful completion of specific cognitive tasks through lateral processing and neuroplasticity. Long-term training in table tennis induces neural processing efficiency in the visuospatial cognitive processing cortex of athletes. However, the lateralization characteristics and neural mechanisms of visual-spatial cognitive processing in table tennis players in non-sport domains are unclear. This study utilized event-related potentials to investigate differences in the spatial cognition abilities of regular college students (controls) and table tennis players. A total of 48 participants (28 controls; 20 s-level national table tennis players) completed spatial cognitive tasks while electroencephalography data were recorded. Task performance was better in the table tennis group than in the control group (reaction time: P < 0.001; correct number/sec: P = 0.043), P3 amplitude was greater in the table tennis group (P = 0.040), spatial cognition showed obvious lateralization characteristics (P < 0.001), table tennis players showed a more obvious right-hemisphere advantage, and the P3 amplitude in the right hemisphere was significantly greater in table tennis athletes than in the control group. (P = 0.044). Our findings demonstrate a right-hemisphere advantage in spatial cognition. Long-term training strengthened the visual-spatial processing ability of table tennis players, and this advantage effect was reflected in the neuroplasticity of the right hemisphere (the dominant hemisphere for spatial processing).

Significantly different noun-verb distinguishing mechanisms in written Chinese and Chinese sign language: An event-related potential study of bilingual native signers

Little is known about: (a) whether bilingual signers possess dissociated neural mechanisms for noun and verb processing in written language (just like native non-signers), or they utilize similar neural mechanisms for those processing (due to general lack of part-of-speech criterion in sign languages); and (b) whether learning a language from another modality (L2) influences corresponding neural mechanism of L1. In order to address these issues, we conducted an electroencephalogram (EEG) based reading comprehension study on bimodal bilinguals, namely Chinese native deaf signers, whose L1 is Chinese Sign Language and L2 is written Chinese. Analyses identified significantly dissociated neural mechanisms in the bilingual signers' written noun and verb processing (which also became more explicit along with increase in their written Chinese understanding levels), but not in their understanding of verbal and nominal meanings in Chinese Sign Language. These findings reveal relevance between modality-based linguistic features and processing mechanisms, which suggests that: processing modality-based features of a language is unlikely affected by learning another language in a different modality; and cross-modal language transfer is subject to modal constraints rather than explicit linguistic features.

Risk decision: The self-charity discrepancies in electrophysiological responses to outcome evaluation.

Previous studies have examined the outcome evaluation related to the self and other, and recent research has explored the outcome evaluation of the self and other with pro-social implications. However, the evaluation processing of outcomes in the group in need remains unclear. This study has examined the neural mechanisms of evaluative processing by gambling for the self and charity, respectively. At the behavioral level, when participants make decisions for themselves, they made riskier decisions following the gain than loss in small outcomes and engage in more risky behaviors following the loss than gain in large outcomes. However, magnitude and valence did not affect the next risky behavior when participants made decisions for the charity. At the neurophysiological level, the results found that the FRN was larger for the charity outcome than for the self-outcome. For FRN, the valence difference of small outcomes was smaller than that of large outcomes. The P3 response was larger for the self-outcome than for the charity outcome. Meanwhile, compared with the small outcome, the self-charity discrepancies have a significant difference in large outcomes. In addition, the FRN amplitude for self in large outcomes was negatively correlated with the upcoming risky choices, regardless of outcome valence. The behavioral results suggest that people are more likely to optimize strategies for themselves than for the charity. The ERP findings indicated that people focus more on charity outcome than self-outcome in the early stage. In the middle and late stages, people turn attention to their outcomes, and the difference between self's and charity's outcome varies with the magnitude. Specifically, it is only in large outcomes that people engage more emotional attention or motivation in their outcomes, but self and charity outcomes had a similar emotional engagement in small outcomes.

An Aesthetic Frame for Three Modes of Knowing.

This is the claim: Human knowledge expresses itself in three different modes: explicit, implicit, and sensory (e.g., visual) knowledge. The reference to knowledge as explicit knowledge only (as it is usually done) neglects the other modes of knowledge. Instead of using the noun "knowledge," it is suggested that we use "knowing" as a term to stress the active mode in cognition. The three modes of knowing are reflected in different mechanisms of cognitive and neural processing; these can already be observed in classical documents of humankind. This unity of the different modes of knowing can also be extracted from cultural artifacts such as poetry. Although possessing different characteristics, the three modes of knowing are related to each other in a complementary way, thus providing an integrative network for cognition. We suggest that a unifying frame of the modes of knowing lies in aesthetic principles. These different modes of knowing with their unifying frame reflect some general features of cognition. We stress that basic concepts in "artificial or machine intelligence" do not match at all human modes of knowing.

Neural Network Model for Perceptual Evaluation of Product Modelling Design Based on Multimodal Image Recognition.

With the homogenization of product function and performance, the design technology for product appearance quality has been increasingly valued by academia and industry and has become an effective technical way to meet the continuously growing diversified and personalized needs of consumers. The appearance quality attribute of a product can be characterized or described by its appearance image. Data-driven product appearance image design is based on the quantitative data of product appearance and consumer emotional needs and completes the product appearance through computer-aided design technology and intelligent algorithms. Design innovation can help companies quickly respond to consumers' emotional needs and effectively improve design quality and product competitiveness. When visual objects are disturbed in complex scenes, the issues such as how the human brain coordinates multisensory information processing and what neural processing mechanisms follow are still unclear. In this paper, a visual object recognition experiment in a complex scene was designed and the brain activation signals of three modalities of noise, added audio-visual (AVd), single visual noise and noise (Vd), and single-audio (A), were recorded. The properties and neural processing mechanisms of multisensory modulation of auditory stimuli during noisy image recognition were explored. Using the conjunction method combined with the classic “max criterion” rule, it was found that only when a certain amount of noise was added to the visual stimulus, the integration area changed. The product appearance has a decisive influence on the user's product perceptual attribute preference and greatly affects the consumer's satisfaction. The importance of product appearance image design is increasingly prominent. In addition, pattern analysis of brain activation signals confirmed that semantically consistent sounds can facilitate the recognition of noisy images and this facilitation shows a certain category selectivity when subdivided into categories. Using the analysis method of functional connectivity, a functional connectivity network containing nodes at different integration levels was constructed to explore the overall characteristics and processing patterns of the multisensory network. Through the analysis of the network connection relationship, it is found that the prefrontal cortex, STS, and lateral occipital lobe are the nodes with more aggregation in the network, and their functions are similar to the hub in the network. The brain functional network was constructed, and functional connectivity was used to explore the connection characteristics of the network and the multisensory modulation mechanism between different processing levels of the brain.

Decoding the temporal dynamics of affective scene processing

Natural images containing affective scenes are used extensively to investigate the neural mechanisms of visual emotion processing. Functional fMRI studies have shown that these images activate a large-scale distributed brain network that encompasses areas in visual, temporal, and frontal cortices. The underlying spatial and temporal dynamics, however, remain to be better characterized. We recorded simultaneous EEG-fMRI data while participants passively viewed affective images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS). Applying multivariate pattern analysis to decode EEG data, and representational similarity analysis to fuse EEG data with simultaneously recorded fMRI data, we found that: (1) ∼80 ms after picture onset, perceptual processing of complex visual scenes began in early visual cortex, proceeding to ventral visual cortex at ∼100 ms, (2) between ∼200 and ∼300 ms (pleasant pictures: ∼200 ms; unpleasant pictures: ∼260 ms), affect-specific neural representations began to form, supported mainly by areas in occipital and temporal cortices, and (3) affect-specific neural representations were stable, lasting up to ∼2 s, and exhibited temporally generalizable activity patterns. These results suggest that affective scene representations in the brain are formed temporally in a valence-dependent manner and may be sustained by recurrent neural interactions among distributed brain areas.

Neurophysiological correlates of automatic integration of voice and gender information during grammatical processing

During verbal communication, interlocutors rely on both linguistic (e.g., words, syntax) and extralinguistic (e.g., voice quality) information. The neural mechanisms of extralinguistic information processing are particularly poorly understood. To address this, we used EEG and recorded event-related brain potentials while participants listened to Russian pronoun–verb phrases presented in either male or female voice. Crucially, we manipulated congruency between the grammatical gender signaled by the verbs’ ending and the speakers’ apparent gender. To focus on putative automatic integration of extralinguistic information into syntactic processing and avoid confounds arising from secondary top-down processes, we used passive non-attend auditory presentation with visual distraction and no stimulus-related task. Most expressed neural responses were found at both early (150 ms, ELAN-like) and late (400 ms, N400-like) phrase processing stages. Crucially, both of these brain responses exhibited sensitivity to extralinguistic information and were significantly enhanced for phrases whose voice and grammatical gender were incongruent, similar to what is known for ERPs effects related to overt grammatical violations. Our data suggest a high degree of automaticity in processing extralinguistic information during spoken language comprehension which indicates existence of a rapid automatic syntactic integration mechanism sensitive to both linguistic and extralinguistic information.

Attentional influences on neural processing of biological motion in typically developing children and those on the autism spectrum

BackgroundBiological motion imparts rich information related to the movement, actions, intentions and affective state of others, which can provide foundational support for various aspects of social cognition and behavior. Given that atypical social communication and cognition are hallmark symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), many have theorized that a potential source of this deficit may lie in dysfunctional neural mechanisms of biological motion processing. Synthesis of existing literature provides some support for biological motion processing deficits in autism spectrum disorder, although high study heterogeneity and inconsistent findings complicate interpretation. Here, we attempted to reconcile some of this residual controversy by investigating a possible modulating role for attention in biological motion processing in ASD.MethodsWe employed high-density electroencephalographic recordings while participants observed point-light displays of upright, inverted and scrambled biological motion under two task conditions to explore spatiotemporal dynamics of intentional and unintentional biological motion processing in children and adolescents with ASD (n = 27), comparing them to a control cohort of neurotypical (NT) participants (n = 35).ResultsBehaviorally, ASD participants were able to discriminate biological motion with similar accuracy to NT controls. However, electrophysiologic investigation revealed reduced automatic selective processing of upright biologic versus scrambled motion stimuli in ASD relative to NT individuals, which was ameliorated when task demands required explicit attention to biological motion. Additionally, we observed distinctive patterns of covariance between visual potentials evoked by biological motion and functional social ability, such that Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale-Socialization domain scores were differentially associated with biological motion processing in the N1 period in the ASD but not the NT group.LimitationsThe cross-sectional design of this study does not allow us to definitively answer the question of whether developmental differences in attention to biological motion cause disruption in social communication, and the sample was limited to children with average or above cognitive ability.ConclusionsTogether, these data suggest that individuals with ASD are able to discriminate, with explicit attention, biological from non-biological motion but demonstrate diminished automatic neural specificity for biological motion processing, which may have cascading implications for the development of higher-order social cognition.

Neural Processing Differences of Facial Emotions Between Human and Vehicles: Evidence From an Event-Related Potential Study.

Vehicle “faces” are a crucial factor influencing consumer intention to purchase gasoline and electric vehicles. However, little empirical evidence has demonstrated whether people process a vehicle’s face similarly to a human’s face. We investigated the neural processing relationship among human facial emotions and facial emotions of gasoline and electric vehicles using a 2 (emotional) × 3 (face type) repeated measures design and electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings. The results showed that human faces appear to share a partly similar neural processing mechanism in the latency of 100–300 ms, and that both human and vehicle faces elicited the ERP components N170, EPN, and P2. The large EPN and P2 suggest that gasoline vehicle facial emotions can be perceived more efficiently than those of electric vehicles. These findings provide an insight for vehicle designers to better understand the facial emotions presented by cars.

Revealing the Dynamics of Neural Information Processing with Multivariate Information Decomposition.

The varied cognitive abilities and rich adaptive behaviors enabled by the animal nervous system are often described in terms of information processing. This framing raises the issue of how biological neural circuits actually process information, and some of the most fundamental outstanding questions in neuroscience center on understanding the mechanisms of neural information processing. Classical information theory has long been understood to be a natural framework within which information processing can be understood, and recent advances in the field of multivariate information theory offer new insights into the structure of computation in complex systems. In this review, we provide an introduction to the conceptual and practical issues associated with using multivariate information theory to analyze information processing in neural circuits, as well as discussing recent empirical work in this vein. Specifically, we provide an accessible introduction to the partial information decomposition (PID) framework. PID reveals redundant, unique, and synergistic modes by which neurons integrate information from multiple sources. We focus particularly on the synergistic mode, which quantifies the “higher-order” information carried in the patterns of multiple inputs and is not reducible to input from any single source. Recent work in a variety of model systems has revealed that synergistic dynamics are ubiquitous in neural circuitry and show reliable structure–function relationships, emerging disproportionately in neuronal rich clubs, downstream of recurrent connectivity, and in the convergence of correlated activity. We draw on the existing literature on higher-order information dynamics in neuronal networks to illustrate the insights that have been gained by taking an information decomposition perspective on neural activity. Finally, we briefly discuss future promising directions for information decomposition approaches to neuroscience, such as work on behaving animals, multi-target generalizations of PID, and time-resolved local analyses.

The neural mechanisms of explicit and implicit processing of Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words: evidence from emotional categorisation and emotional Stroop tasks

The neural mechanisms of explicit and implicit processing of Chinese emotion-label and emotion-laden words: evidence from emotional categorisation and emotional Stroop tasks

Neural mechanisms of aberrant self-referential processing in patients with generalized anxiety disorder

Massive theoretical studies in clinical psychology have implicated the self in understanding internalizing disorders (i.e., anxiety and mood disorders), in which self-related tasks were frequently used to investigate internalizing psychopathology. As one of the most frequently seen internalizing disorder in primary care, patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) are characterized by inappropriate self-related processing such as negative self-referential thinking. However, relevant neural mechanisms remain unknown. In this study, participants underwent a self-related task which they were presented with several positive and negative trait words and were required to judge the extent to which these traits matched themselves when compared to their average peers. Aberrant brain activation and functional connectivity of GAD were detected during processing positive and negative traits. Compared to healthy controls (HCs), patients with GAD exhibited abnormal self-processing which manifested as lower biased self-rating scores particularly for negative traits and weaker brain activity in the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, superior temporal sulcus (STS), and bilateral lingual gyrus when processing trait words. Abnormal functional connections between these hypoactive regions and regions associated with reward, emotion, and theory of mind were observed in subsequent psychophysiological interaction analysis. An attenuation of connectivity between the left insula and left STS was associated with greater severity of anxiety symptom in GAD patients. These findings provide insight into the abnormal neurocognitive mechanisms of biased self-related processing in GAD patients, which involves distorted self-schema accompanied by abnormal activation and functional connections of regions implicated in self-related and social cognition processing.

Language acquisition and speech rhythm patterns: an auditory neuroscience perspective.

All human infants acquire language, but their brains do not know which language/s to prepare for. This observation suggests that there are fundamental components of the speech signal that contribute to building a language system, and fundamental neural processing mechanisms that use these components, which are shared across languages. Equally, disorders of language acquisition are found across all languages, with the most prevalent being developmental language disorder (approx. 7% prevalence), where oral language comprehension and production is atypical, and developmental dyslexia (approx. 7% prevalence), where written language acquisition is atypical. Recent advances in auditory neuroscience, along with advances in modelling the speech signal from an amplitude modulation (AM, intensity or energy change) perspective, have increased our understanding of both language acquisition and these developmental disorders. Speech rhythm patterns turn out to be fundamental to both sensory and neural linguistic processing. The rhythmic routines typical of childcare in many cultures, the parental practice of singing lullabies to infants, and the ubiquitous presence of BabyTalk (infant-directed speech) all enhance the fundamental AM components that contribute to building a linguistic brain.

An Eye Tracking and Event-Related Potentials Study With Visual Stimuli for Adolescents Emotional Issues.

BackgroundPsychological issues are common among adolescents, which have a significant impact on their growth and development. However, the underlying neural mechanisms of viewing visual stimuli in adolescents are poorly understood.Materials and MethodsThis study applied the Chinese version of the DSM-V self-assessment scales to evaluate 73 adolescents’ psychological characteristics for depressive and manic emotional issues. Combined with eye-tracking and event-related potential (ERP), we explored the characteristics of their visual attention and neural processing mechanisms while freely viewing positive, dysphoric, threatening and neutral visual stimuli.ResultsCompared to controls, adolescents with depressive emotional tendencies showed more concentrated looking behavior with fixation distribution index than the controls, while adolescents with manic emotional tendencies showed no such trait. ERP data revealed individuals with depressive tendencies showed lower arousal levels toward emotional stimuli in the early stage of cognitive processing (N1 amplitude decreased) and with prolonged reaction time (N1 latency increased) than the control group. We found no significant difference between the manic group and the control group. Furthermore, the depression severity scores of the individuals with depressive tendencies were negatively correlated with the total fixation time toward positive stimuli, were negatively correlated with the fixation distribution index toward threatening stimuli, and were positively correlated with the mean N1 amplitudes while viewing dysphoric stimuli. Also, for the individuals with depressive tendencies, there was a positive correlation between the mean N1 amplitudes and the fixation time on the area of interest (AOI) while viewing dysphoric stimuli. For the individuals with manic tendencies, the manic severity scores of the individuals with manic tendencies were positively correlated with the total fixation time toward the positive stimuli. However, no significant correlations were found between the manic severity scores and N1 amplitudes, and between N1 amplitudes and eye-tracking output variables.ConclusionThis study proposes the application of eye-tracking and ERP to provide better biological evidence to alter the neural processing of emotional stimuli for adolescents with emotional issues.

Atypical Auditory Perception Caused by Environmental Stimuli in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Approach to the Evaluation of Self-Reports

Recent studies have revealed that atypical sensory perception is common in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and is considered a potential cause of social difficulties. Self-reports by individuals with ASD have provided great insights into atypical perception from the first-person point of view and indicated its dependence on the environment. This study aimed to investigate the patterns and environmental causes of atypical auditory perception in individuals with ASD. Qualitative data from subject reports are inappropriate for statistical analysis, and reporting subjective sensory experiences is not easy for every individual. To cope with such challenges, we employed audio signal processing methods to simulate the potential patterns of atypical auditory perception. The participants in our experiment were able to select and adjust the strength of the processing methods to manipulate the sounds in the videos to match their experiences. Thus, the strength of atypical perception was recorded quantitatively and then analyzed to assess its correlation with the audio-visual stimuli contained in the videos the participants observed. In total, 22 participants with ASD and 22 typically developed (TD) participants were recruited for the experiment. The results revealed several common patterns of atypical auditory perception: Louder sounds perceived in a quiet environment, noise perception induced by intense and unsteady audio-visual stimuli, and echo perception correlated with movement and variation in sound level. The ASD group reported atypical perceptions more frequently than the control group. However, similar environmental causes were shared by the ASD and TD groups. The results help us infer the potential neural and physiological mechanisms of sensory processing in ASD.

Modularized Information Fusion Design of Urban Garden Landscape in Big Data Background

Traditional information fusion model has the problem of low efficiency in urban landscape design. In addition, using the current method to design urban commercial landscape public facilities, there are problems of large regional space occupation and unsatisfactory design effect. This paper designs a new modular information fusion model for urban landscape design process in view of genetic back propagation. On the basis of preprocessing sensor images, a digital elevation model is created using an ordered numerical sequence. Then, the stereo orthophoto image pair is obtained through the artificial parallax assistance mechanism, and the 3D garden landscape is generated by combining with the ant colony algorithm. The positive feedback mechanism of the ant colony algorithm is used to make the processing process converge continuously, and the optimal 3D garden landscape is finally generated by obtaining stereo orthophoto pairs through the artificial parallax-assisted mechanism. At the same time, the strong robustness and fault tolerance of neural network and parallel processing mechanism are utilized for fast information fusion. The scale and resources of garden design are described by the process dimension and the context dimension, and a modular garden landscape with distinct main body is built. Finally, the initial weight is optimized in the genetic real number coding algorithm, and the appropriate learning factor is selected to train the neural network so as to make the information fusion task. Experimental results show that the above model fusion process has good stability and low energy consumption for information fusion, which can promote the efficient construction of garden landscapes.

Deficient prefrontal-amygdalar connectivity underlies inefficient face processing in adolescent major depressive disorder

Adolescence represents a critical developmental period where the prevalence of major depressive disorder (MDD) increases. Aberrant emotion processing is a core feature of adolescent MDD that has been associated with functional alterations within the prefrontal-amygdala circuitry. In this study, we tested cognitive and neural mechanisms of emotional face processing in adolescents with MDD utilizing a combination of computational modeling and neuroimaging. Thirty adolescents with MDD (age: M = 16.1 SD = 1.4, 20 females) and 33 healthy controls (age: M = 16.2 SD = 1.9, 20 females) performed a dynamic face- and shape-matching task. A linear ballistic accumulator model was fit to the behavioral data to study differences in evidence accumulation. We used dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to study effective connectivity in the prefrontal-amygdala network to reveal the neural underpinnings of cognitive impairments while performing the task. Face processing efficiency was reduced in the MDD group and most pronounced for ambiguous faces with neutral emotional expressions. Critically, this reduction was related to increased deactivation of the subgenual anterior cingulate (sgACC). Connectivity analysis showed that MDD exhibited altered functional coupling in a distributed network spanning the fusiform face area–lateral prefrontal cortex–sgACC and the sgACC–amygdala pathway. Our results suggest that MDD is related to impairments of processing nuanced facial expressions. Distributed dysfunctional coupling in the face processing network might result in inefficient evidence sampling and inappropriate emotional responses contributing to depressive symptomatology. Our study provides novel insights in the characterization of brain function in adolescents with MDD that strongly emphasize the critical role of aberrant prefrontal-amygdala interactions during emotional face processing.