Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study

Abstract Seeing an angry individual in close physical proximity can not only result in a larger retinal representation of that individual and an enhanced resolution of emotional cues, but may also increase motivation for rapid visual processing and action preparation. The present study investigated...

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Main Authors: Annika Ziereis, Anne Schacht
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2024-03-01
Series:Scientific Reports
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55678-2
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author Annika Ziereis
Anne Schacht
author_facet Annika Ziereis
Anne Schacht
author_sort Annika Ziereis
collection DOAJ
description Abstract Seeing an angry individual in close physical proximity can not only result in a larger retinal representation of that individual and an enhanced resolution of emotional cues, but may also increase motivation for rapid visual processing and action preparation. The present study investigated the effects of stimulus size and emotional expression on the perception of happy, angry, non-expressive, and scrambled faces. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses of N = 40 participants who performed a naturalness classification task on real and artificially created facial expressions. While the emotion-related effects on accuracy for recognizing authentic expressions were modulated by stimulus size, ERPs showed only additive effects of stimulus size and emotional expression, with no significant interaction with size. This contrasts with previous research on emotional scenes and words. Effects of size were present in all included ERPs, whereas emotional expressions affected the N170, EPN, and LPC, irrespective of size. These results imply that the decoding of emotional valence in faces can occur even for small stimuli. Supra-additive effects in faces may necessitate larger size ranges or dynamic stimuli that increase arousal.
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spelling doaj.art-b890209382a0405d927e2e9d3005f6642024-03-10T12:11:08ZengNature PortfolioScientific Reports2045-23222024-03-0114111510.1038/s41598-024-55678-2Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP studyAnnika Ziereis0Anne Schacht1Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of GöttingenDepartment for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Georg-August-University of GöttingenAbstract Seeing an angry individual in close physical proximity can not only result in a larger retinal representation of that individual and an enhanced resolution of emotional cues, but may also increase motivation for rapid visual processing and action preparation. The present study investigated the effects of stimulus size and emotional expression on the perception of happy, angry, non-expressive, and scrambled faces. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs) and behavioral responses of N = 40 participants who performed a naturalness classification task on real and artificially created facial expressions. While the emotion-related effects on accuracy for recognizing authentic expressions were modulated by stimulus size, ERPs showed only additive effects of stimulus size and emotional expression, with no significant interaction with size. This contrasts with previous research on emotional scenes and words. Effects of size were present in all included ERPs, whereas emotional expressions affected the N170, EPN, and LPC, irrespective of size. These results imply that the decoding of emotional valence in faces can occur even for small stimuli. Supra-additive effects in faces may necessitate larger size ranges or dynamic stimuli that increase arousal.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55678-2
spellingShingle Annika Ziereis
Anne Schacht
Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
Scientific Reports
title Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
title_full Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
title_fullStr Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
title_full_unstemmed Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
title_short Additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions: an ERP study
title_sort additive effects of emotional expression and stimulus size on the perception of genuine and artificial facial expressions an erp study
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55678-2
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