Conscious perception of fear in faces: Insights from high-density EEG and perceptual awareness scale with threshold stimuli.
Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior May 1, 2024 Antonio Maffei, Filippo Gambarota, Mario Liotti et al.
Visual awareness of fear expressed on a face is associated with a frontal brain response occurring 150–300 milliseconds after seeing the face, beyond the earlier face-sensitive N170 component. Using high-density EEG and a staircase procedure to individually calibrate perceptual thresholds, the study compared brain activity when participants were aware versus unaware of the emotion on otherwise identical faces. A data-driven cluster analysis showed that awareness of fear specifically modulated a frontal event-related potential in that time window. The findings are discussed in relation to current theories of visual consciousness and proposed neural correlates of consciousness.