ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: The development of the perception of changes in facial emotion was investigated using event-related potentials (ERPs) in children and adults. METHODS: Four different conditions were presented: (1) N-H: a neutral face that suddenly changed to a happy face. (2) H-N: reverse of N-H. (3) N-A: a neutral face that suddenly changed to an angry face. (4) A-N: reverse of N-A. RESULTS: In the bilateral posterior temporal areas, a negative component was evoked by all conditions in younger children (7-10 years old), older children (11-14 years old), and adults (23-33 years old) within 150-300 ms. Peak latency was significantly shorter and amplitude was significantly smaller in adults than younger and older children. Moreover, maximum amplitude was significantly larger for N-H and N-A than H-N and A-N in younger children and for N-H than the other three conditions in adults. CONCLUSION: The areas of the brain involved in perceiving changes in facial emotion have not matured by 14 years of age. SIGNIFICANCE: Our study is the first to clarify a difference between children and adults in the perception of facial emotional change.
Subject(s)
Electroencephalography , Emotions/physiology , Evoked Potentials/physiology , Facial Expression , Social Perception , Adolescent , Adult , Aging/physiology , Analysis of Variance , Brain/growth & development , Brain/physiology , Child , Data Interpretation, Statistical , Female , Humans , Male , Photic Stimulation , Temporal Lobe/physiology , Young AdultABSTRACT
Using random dots blinking (RDB), which reflects the activity of the higher visual area related to face perception, the following stimuli were presented. (1) Upright: a schematic face; (2) Inverted: the Upright stimulus inverted; and (3) Scrambled: the same contour and features as in Upright but with the spatial relation distorted. Clear negative components (N-ERP250) were identified at approximately 250 ms after stimulus onset. At the T5 and T6 electrodes, the peak latency was significantly longer for Inverted and Scrambled than for Upright. At the P4 electrode, the maximum amplitude was significantly larger for Scrambled than for Upright and Inverted. These results indicate that the delayed latency for Inverted and Scrambled reflects the involvement of the additional analytic processing caused by the configural distortion, and that the increase in amplitude for Scrambled indicates the existence of further processing caused by the distortion of the spatial relationship between the contour and features.
