Interaction between facial expression and color in modulating ERP P3

Abstract

The relationships between facial expression and color affect human cognition functions such as perception and memory. However, whether these relationships influence attention remains unclear. Additionally, whether facial expressions affect selective attention is unknown; for example, reddish angry faces increase negative social evaluation or emotion intensity, but it is unclear whether selective attention is similarly enhanced. To investigate these questions, we examined whether event-related potentials for faces vary depending on facial expression and color by recording electroencephalography (EEG) data. We conducted an oddball task using stimuli that combined facial expressions (angry, neutral) and facial colors (original, red, green). The participants counted the number of times a rarely appearing target face stimulus appeared among the standard face stimuli. The results indicated that the difference in P3 amplitudes for the target and standard faces depended on the combinations of facial expressions and facial colors; the P3 amplitudes for red angry faces were greater than those for red neutral faces. Additionally, there was no significant main effect or interaction effect of facial expression or facial color on P1 amplitudes for the target, and there were significant main effects of facial expression only on the N170 amplitude. These findings suggest that the intensity of a humans selective attention to facial expressions varies according to the higher-order semantic processing of the relationship between emotion and color rather than simple facial expression or facial color effects individually. Our results support the idea that red color increases the human response to anger from an EEG perspective. Significance StatementIt remains unclear whether selective attention to faces is modulated by the relationships between facial expression and color. Using an oddball task and recording EEGs, we showed that the event-related potentials reflecting selective attention are modulated by the interaction between facial expression and facial color, although the interaction was not found at earlier ERP stages. These findings suggest that the intensity of selective attention to facial expressions is influenced more by the interaction between facial expression and facial color than by facial expression or facial color alone and that the interaction occurs as a higher-order processing step than facial expression or color recognition. Our results provide EEG evidence supporting the idea that red color increases the human response to anger.