Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions

Face perception provides an excellent example of how the brain processes nuanced visual differences and transforms them into behaviourally useful representations of identities and emotional expressions. While a body of literature has looked into the spatial and temporal neural processing of facial e...

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Main Authors: I. Muukkonen, V.R. Salmela
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022-11-01
Series:NeuroImage
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922007467
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author I. Muukkonen
V.R. Salmela
author_facet I. Muukkonen
V.R. Salmela
author_sort I. Muukkonen
collection DOAJ
description Face perception provides an excellent example of how the brain processes nuanced visual differences and transforms them into behaviourally useful representations of identities and emotional expressions. While a body of literature has looked into the spatial and temporal neural processing of facial expressions, few studies have used a dimensionally varying set of stimuli containing subtle perceptual changes. In the current study, we used 48 short videos varying dimensionally in their intensity and category (happy, angry, surprised) of expression. We measured both fMRI and EEG responses to these video clips and compared the neural response patterns to the predictions of models based on image features and models derived from behavioural ratings of the stimuli. In fMRI, the inferior frontal gyrus face area (IFG-FA) carried information related only to the intensity of the expression, independent of image-based models. The superior temporal sulcus (STS), inferior temporal (IT) and lateral occipital (LO) areas contained information about both expression category and intensity. In the EEG, the coding of expression category and low-level image features were most pronounced at around 400 ms. The expression intensity model did not, however, correlate significantly at any EEG timepoint. Our results show a specific role for IFG-FA in the coding of expressions and suggest that it contains image and category invariant representations of expression intensity.
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spelling doaj.art-6fd4c86bf12d45dba1b0addc2321e5282022-12-22T03:56:23ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722022-11-01263119631Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressionsI. Muukkonen0V.R. Salmela1Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, FinlandCorresponding author.; Department of Psychology and Logopedics, University of Helsinki, FinlandFace perception provides an excellent example of how the brain processes nuanced visual differences and transforms them into behaviourally useful representations of identities and emotional expressions. While a body of literature has looked into the spatial and temporal neural processing of facial expressions, few studies have used a dimensionally varying set of stimuli containing subtle perceptual changes. In the current study, we used 48 short videos varying dimensionally in their intensity and category (happy, angry, surprised) of expression. We measured both fMRI and EEG responses to these video clips and compared the neural response patterns to the predictions of models based on image features and models derived from behavioural ratings of the stimuli. In fMRI, the inferior frontal gyrus face area (IFG-FA) carried information related only to the intensity of the expression, independent of image-based models. The superior temporal sulcus (STS), inferior temporal (IT) and lateral occipital (LO) areas contained information about both expression category and intensity. In the EEG, the coding of expression category and low-level image features were most pronounced at around 400 ms. The expression intensity model did not, however, correlate significantly at any EEG timepoint. Our results show a specific role for IFG-FA in the coding of expressions and suggest that it contains image and category invariant representations of expression intensity.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922007467EEGfMRIRSAFacial expressionDecodingFace perception
spellingShingle I. Muukkonen
V.R. Salmela
Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
NeuroImage
EEG
fMRI
RSA
Facial expression
Decoding
Face perception
title Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
title_full Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
title_fullStr Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
title_full_unstemmed Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
title_short Representational structure of fMRI/EEG responses to dynamic facial expressions
title_sort representational structure of fmri eeg responses to dynamic facial expressions
topic EEG
fMRI
RSA
Facial expression
Decoding
Face perception
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811922007467
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