ABSTRACT
It is unknown whether the famous sex-related difference in emotion processing is accounted for by biological sex, gender role, or their interaction. To clarify the issue, in Study 1 we recorded event-related potentials in response to negative and positive images of diverse intensities when 47 masculine (26 males) and 47 feminine (22 males) subjects performed a non-emotional task. The occipital P1 and N1 amplitudes were larger in women than in men, while feminine subjects showed larger N1 amplitudes than masculine subjects, regardless of sex. Moreover, feminine subjects showed enhanced frontocentral N2 (210–270 ms) amplitudes for highly and mildly negative than for neutral stimuli, while masculine subjects showed an emotion effect only for highly negative stimuli. The feminine-specific effect for mildly negative stimuli was positively correlated to the feminine score, and this correlation was located to the anterior cingulate and the superior and medial frontal gyri. Furthermore, feminine but not masculine subjects showed enhanced parietal P3 (330–560 ms) amplitudes for highly and mildly positive than for neutral stimuli, an effect positively related to the feminine score and localized to the precuneus, posterior cingulate, and superior temporal gyrus. Machine learning analyses verified that single-trial N2 and P3 amplitudes of feminine subjects reliably discriminated the intensity of negative and positive stimuli, respectively. For ecological considerations, in Study 2 we used an observational approach (n = 300) and confirmed that feminine gender role, rather than biological sex, predicted individual differences in daily experience of emotion-related psychopathological symptoms. These findings provide solid evidence for the critical impact of gender role rather than sex on emotional susceptibility.
ABSTRACT
Facial and vocal expressions are essential modalities mediating the perception of emotion and social communication. Nonetheless, currently little is known about how emotion perception and its neural substrates differ across facial expression and vocal prosody. To clarify this issue, functional MRI scans were acquired in Study 1, in which participants were asked to discriminate the valence of emotional expression (angry, happy or neutral) from facial, vocal, or bimodal stimuli. In Study 2, we used an affective priming task (unimodal materials as primers and bimodal materials as target) and participants were asked to rate the intensity, valence, and arousal of the targets. Study 1 showed higher accuracy and shorter response latencies in the facial than in the vocal modality for a happy expression. Whole-brain analysis showed enhanced activation during facial compared to vocal emotions in the inferior temporal-occipital regions. Region of interest analysis showed a higher percentage signal change for facial than for vocal anger in the superior temporal sulcus. Study 2 showed that facial relative to vocal priming of anger had a greater influence on perceived emotion for bimodal targets, irrespective of the target valence. These findings suggest that facial expression is associated with enhanced emotion perception compared to equivalent vocal prosodies.