Differential modulation on neural activity related to flankers during face processing: A visual crowding study

Zeguo Qiu; Dihua Wu; Benjamin J Muehlebach

doi:10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137496

Differential modulation on neural activity related to flankers during face processing: A visual crowding study

Neurosci Lett. 2023 Oct 15:815:137496. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137496. Epub 2023 Sep 23.

Authors

Zeguo Qiu¹, Dihua Wu², Benjamin J Muehlebach³

Affiliations

¹ School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. Electronic address: zeguo.qiu@uq.net.au.
² School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. Electronic address: dihua.wu@uq.net.au.
³ School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. Electronic address: b.muehlebach@uq.edu.au.

PMID: 37748673
DOI: 10.1016/j.neulet.2023.137496

Abstract

In this visual crowding study, we manipulated the perceivability of a central crowded face (a fearful or a neutral face) by varying the similarity between the central face and the surrounding flanker stimuli. We presented participants with pairs of visual clutters and recorded their electroencephalography during an emotion judgement task. In an upright flanker condition where both the central target face and flanker faces were upright faces, participants were less likely to report seeing the target face, and their P300 was weakened, compared to a scrambled flanker condition where scrambled face images were used as flankers. Additionally, at ∼ 120 ms post-stimulus, a posterior negativity was found for the upright compared to scrambled flanker condition, however only for fearful face targets. We concluded that early neural responses seem to be affected by the perceptual characteristics of both target and flanker stimuli whereas later-stage neural activity is associated with post-perceptual evaluation of the stimuli in this visual crowding paradigm.

Keywords: ERP; Fearful faces; P300; Visual awareness; Visual crowding.