Electrophysiological Evidence for Biased Competition in V1 for Fear Expressions

被引:26
作者
West, Greg L. [1 ]
Anderson, Adam A. K. [1 ]
Ferber, Susanne [1 ]
Pratt, Jay [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Toronto, Dept Psychol, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3, Canada
关键词
VISUAL SELECTIVE ATTENTION; HUMAN AMYGDALA; NEURAL MECHANISMS; HUMAN BRAIN; FACIAL EXPRESSIONS; EMOTIONAL FACES; STIMULI; PERCEPTION; RESPONSES; COMPONENT;
D O I
10.1162/jocn.2011.21605
中图分类号
Q189 [神经科学];
学科分类号
071006 ;
摘要
When multiple stimuli are concurrently displayed in the visual field, they must compete for neural representation at the processing expense of their contemporaries. This biased competition is thought to begin as early as primary visual cortex, and can be driven by salient low-level stimulus features. Stimuli important for an organism's survival, such as facial expressions signaling environmental threat, might be similarly prioritized at this early stage of visual processing. In the present study, we used ERP recordings from striate cortex to examine whether fear expressions can bias the competition for neural representation at the earliest stage of retinotopic visuo-cortical processing when in direct competition with concurrently presented visual information of neutral valence. We found that within 50 msec after stimulus onset, information processing in primary visual cortex is biased in favor of perceptual representations of fear at the expense of competing visual information (Experiment 1). Additional experiments confirmed that the facial display's emotional content rather than low-level features is responsible for this prioritization in V1 (Experiment 2), and that this competition is reliant on a face's upright canonical orientation (Experiment 3). These results suggest that complex stimuli important for an organism's survival can indeed be prioritized at the earliest stage of cortical processing at the expense of competing information, with competition possibly beginning before encoding in V1.
引用
收藏
页码:3410 / 3418
页数:9
相关论文
共 49 条
[1]   Topographic organization of projections from the amygdala to the visual cortex in the macaque monkey [J].
Amaral, DG ;
Behniea, H ;
Kelly, JL .
NEUROSCIENCE, 2003, 118 (04) :1099-1120
[2]   Lesions of the human amygdala impair enhanced perception of emotionally salient events [J].
Anderson, AK ;
Phelps, EA .
NATURE, 2001, 411 (6835) :305-309
[3]  
Anderson AK, 2003, J NEUROSCI, V23, P5627
[4]  
[Anonymous], 2002, SYNAPTIC SELF
[5]  
[Anonymous], 1994, HUM BRAIN MAPP, DOI 10.1002/hbm.460020306
[6]   Stimulus context modulates competition in human extrastriate cortex [J].
Beck, DM ;
Kastner, S .
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE, 2005, 8 (08) :1110-1116
[7]   Detection of emotional faces: Low perceptual threshold and wide attentional span [J].
Calvo, MG ;
Esteves, F .
VISUAL COGNITION, 2005, 12 (01) :13-27
[8]   DYNAMICS OF ORIENTATION CODING IN AREA-V1 OF THE AWAKE PRIMATE [J].
CELEBRINI, S ;
THORPE, S ;
TROTTER, Y ;
IMBERT, M .
VISUAL NEUROSCIENCE, 1993, 10 (05) :811-825
[9]   Neural Mechanisms of Selective Visual Attention [J].
Moore, Tirin ;
Zirnsak, Marc .
ANNUAL REVIEW OF PSYCHOLOGY, VOL 68, 2017, 68 :47-72
[10]   Source analysis of event-related cortical activity during visuo-spatial attention [J].
Di Russo, F ;
Martínez, A ;
Hillyard, SA .
CEREBRAL CORTEX, 2003, 13 (05) :486-499