scholarly journals Links between rapid ERP responses to fearful faces and conscious awareness

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 165-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Eimer ◽  
Monika Kiss ◽  
Amanda Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Fearful Faces

scholarly journals No influence of eye gaze on emotional face processing in the absence of conscious awareness

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Christine Inkley ◽  
Marwa El Zein ◽  
Kiley Seymour
Keyword(s):  
Face Processing ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Gaze Direction ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Privileged Access ◽  
Direct Gaze ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Emotional Face Processing ◽  
Threat Cues ◽  
Emotional Face

Abstract The human brain has evolved specialised mechanisms to enable the rapid detection of threat cues, including emotional face expressions (e.g., fear and anger). However, contextual cues – such as gaze direction – influence the ability to recognise emotional expressions. For instance, anger paired with direct gaze, and fear paired with averted gaze are more accurately recognised compared to alternate conjunctions of these features. It is argued that this is because gaze direction conveys the relevance and locus of the threat to the observer. Here, we used continuous flash suppression (CFS) to assess whether the modulatory effect of gaze direction on emotional face processing occurs outside of conscious awareness. Previous research using CFS has demonstrated that fearful facial expressions are prioritised by the visual system and gain privileged access to awareness over other expressed emotions. We hypothesised that if the modulatory effects of gaze on emotional face processing occur also at this level, then the gaze-emotion conjunctions signalling self-relevant threat will reach awareness faster than those that do not. We report that fearful faces gain privileged access to awareness over angry faces, but that gaze direction does not modulate this effect. Thus, our findings suggest that previously reported effects of gaze direction on emotional face processing are likely to occur once the face is detected, where the self-relevance and locus of the threat can be consciously appraised.

scholarly journals Psychophysical evidence for distinct contributions in processing low and high spatial frequencies of fearful facial expressions in backward masking task

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-172
Author(s):  
Remigiusz Szczepanowski ◽  
Agata Sobków
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Present Report ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Backward Masking ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Spatial Frequencies ◽  
Conscious Processing

The present report examined the hypothesis that two distinct visual routes contribute in processing low and high spatial frequencies of fearful facial expressions. Having the participants presented with a backwardly masked task, we analyzed conscious processing of spatial frequency contents of emotional faces according to both objective and subjective taskrelevant criteria. It was shown that fear perception in the presence of the low-frequency faces can be supported by stronger automaticity leading to less false positives. In contrary, the detection of high-frequency fearful faces was more likely supported by conscious awareness leading to more true positives.

The Wonder of Self-Reflective Conscious Awareness

1991 ◽  
Vol 36 (7) ◽  
pp. 623-624
Author(s):  
Mardi J. Horowitz
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Awareness

Mindfulness training reduces stress and amygdala reactivity to fearful faces in middle-school children.

2019 ◽  
Vol 133 (6) ◽  
pp. 569-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens C. C. Bauer ◽  
Camila Caballero ◽  
Ethan Scherer ◽  
Martin R. West ◽  
Michael D. Mrazek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle School ◽  
School Children ◽  
Mindfulness Training ◽  
Middle School Children ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Amygdala Reactivity

Conscious access to fear-relevant information is mediated by threshold

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Remigiusz Szczepanowski
Keyword(s):  
Present Report ◽  
Intrinsic Property ◽  
Roc Curves ◽  
Relevant Information ◽  
Perceptual Processing ◽  
High Threshold ◽  
Operating Characteristics ◽  
Emotional Perception ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
The Subject

Conscious access to fear-relevant information is mediated by thresholdThe present report proposed a model of access consciousness to fear-relevant information according to which there is a threshold for emotional perception beyond that the subject makes hits with no false alarm. The model was examined by having the participants performed a confidence-ratings masking task with fearful faces. Measures of the thresholds for conscious access were taken by looking at the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves generated from a three-state low- and high-threshold (3-LHT) model by Krantz. Indeed, the analysis of the masking data revealed that the ROCs had threshold-like-nature (a two-limb shape) rather continuous (a curvilinear shape) challenging in this fashion the classical signal-detection view on perceptual processing. Moreover, the threshold ROC curve exhibited the specific y-intercepts relevant to conscious access performance. The study suggests that the threshold can be an intrinsic property of conscious access, mediating emotional contents between perceptual states and consciousness.

Aff_Faces

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luiz G Gawryszewski ◽  
Mikael Cavallet
Keyword(s):  
Compatibility Effect ◽  
Negative Stimulus ◽  
Positive Stimulus ◽  
Spatial Compatibility ◽  
Affective Valence ◽  
Task Set ◽  
Affective Stimuli ◽  
Fearful Faces ◽  
Approach Avoidance ◽  
Avoidance Reactions

Conde et al (2011) reported a modulation of the spatial compatibility effect by the affective valence of soccer team figures. For Favorite team, it was faster to respond by pressing the key located on the stimulus side than the opposite key (ipsi- and contralateral keys, respectively). For Rival team, this pattern was reversed. These findings were interpreted as being due to approach and avoidance reactions which facilitate both the ipsilateral response to a positive stimulus and the contralateral response to a negative one and vice-versa. This hypothesis was challenged by arguing that there is no spatial compatibility effect when a mixed-rule task was used and that approach/avoidance reactions are not elicited when a keyboard was employed to execute the responses. Alternatively, it was proposed that Conde et al. (2011) results were due to task-set effects. Here, emotional faces (Happy, Angry and Fearful) faces were used to test the generality of effects elicited by affective stimuli and to disentangle task-set and approach/avoidance reactions hypotheses. We found that there is no task-set effect when the Happiness-Anger pair was used. Moreover, for the Happiness/Fear pair, there was an interaction between valence and spatial compatibility within a block of trials. These results suggest that: (i) the interaction between valence and spatial compatibility in the Affective SC task modulates the spatial compatibility effect; (ii) this modulation elicits a task-set effect that varies according to the pair of affective stimuli and (iv) the task-set effect may be due to an automatic orientation of the visual attention to the positive stimulus which facilitates the ipsilateral response conjoined with an inhibition of the ipsilateral response to the aversive stimulus, simulating a reversed compatibility effect to the negative stimulus.

Action and the Problem of Free Will

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaun Gallagher
Keyword(s):  
Motor Control ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Pure Consciousness ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Traditional Notion ◽  
Intentional Actions ◽  
Neuronal Processes

This chapter examines the concept of free will as it is discussed in philosophy and neuroscience. It reviews reflective and perceptual theories of agency and argues against neuro-centric conclusions about the illusory nature of free will. Experiments conducted by Benjamin Libet suggest that neural activations prior to conscious awareness predict specific actions. This has been taken as evidence that challenges the traditional notion of free will. Libet’s experiments, arguably, are about motor control processes on an elementary timescale and say nothing about freely willed intentional actions embedded in personal and social contexts that involve longer-term, narrative timescales. One implication of this interpretation is that enactivism is not a form of simple behaviorism. Agency is not a thing reducible to elementary neuronal processes; nor is it an idea or a pure consciousness. It rather involves a structure of complex relations.

Inside insights: A phenomenology of interoception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Leder
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Lived Body ◽  
The West ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Outer World ◽  
Body Experiences ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
And Control

This chapter undertakes a phenomenology of inner-body experience, starting with a focus on visceral interoception. While highly personal, such experience also reveals a level of the lived body that is pre-personal, beyond our understanding and control. In contrast to exteroception, elements of the visceral field can be inaccessible, or surface only indistinctly and intermittently to conscious awareness. Nonetheless, interoception is more than just a series of such sensations. This chapter argues for the “exterior interior”—that is, we interpret inner body experiences through models drawn from the outer world, and interoception itself is bound up with emotion, purpose, and projects. In the West, we tend to valorize the interiority of rational thought; by contrast, experience of the inner body is a kind of “inferior interior,” often overlooked or overridden, yet inside insights—gained from attending to messages from the inner body—may preserve our health and wellbeing.

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