Subliminal priming effects for subcortical emotional pathway

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26560295
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Rehabilitation science/Welfare engineering
• Research Institution: Kyushu University of Health and Welfare
• Principal Investigator: Mutsuhide Tanaka 九州保健福祉大学, 保健科学部, 講師 (20412835)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 前川 敏彦 九州大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 助教 (40448436)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): TOBIMATSU Shozo 九州大学, 大学院医学研究院, 教授 (40164008)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 情動処理 / 顔認知 / 脳波 / 事象関連電位 / 社会的認知機能

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We investigated subliminal affective priming effects (SAPEs), the phenomenon by which subliminal processing of fearful faces affects neural processing of subsequent supraliminal target faces (neutral, ambiguous and fearful), using 128-ch electroencephalography. We found gender-related emotionally incongruent effects in face-specific event-related potential (N170) amplitude. Female participants exhibited enhanced N170 amplitude for emotionally neutral faces primed by fearful faces, whereas male participants showed larger N170 amplitude for fearful target faces primed by neutral faces. Furthermore, one participant with autism spectrum disorder showed and enhanced late positive potential for all target faces. These findings suggest that gender and neuropsychiatric disorders affect the neural processing of subliminal emotional faces and these differences in neural processing induce various patterns of SAPEs.

Free Research Field

神経科学