The cortical processing of facial emotional expression is associated with social cognition skills and executive functioning: a preliminary study
Open accessAbstract
Several lines of experimental evidence support an association between facial processing and social cognition, but no direct link between cortical markers of facial processing and complex cognitive processes has been reported until now. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that cortical electrophysiological markers for the processing of facial emotion are associated with individual differences in executive and social cognition skills. We tested for correlations between the amplitude of event-related potentials (N170) in a dual valence task and participants' scores on three neuropsychological assessments (general neuropsychology, executive functioning, and social cognition). N170 was modulated by the stimulus type (face versus word) and the valence of faces (positive versus negative). The neural source of N170 was estimated to be the fusiform gyrus. Robust correlations were found between neuropsychological markers and measures of facial processing. Social cognition skills (as measured by three tests: the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, the Faux Pas test, and the Iowa Gambling Task) correlated with cortical measures of emotional discrimination. Executive functioning ability also correlated with the cortical discrimination of complex emotional stimuli. Our findings suggest that the cortical processing of facial emotional expression is associated with social cognition skills.
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The Eyes Test has been shown to be moderately to strongly related with measures of emotion perception ability.
“In particular, the Eyes Test has been shown to be moderately to strongly related with measures of emotion perception ability (Henry et al., 2009; Petroni et al., 2011).”
From A psychometric analysis of the reading the mind in the eyes test: toward a brief form for research and applied settings (2015) · cites this paper as Petroni et al., 2011
The Results (section 3.8.3.1) report a moderate correlation (r = 0.57) between Eyes Test scores and N170 responses to facial emotional valence. The N170 is a measure of cortical processing, not a direct measure of emotion-perception ability; the paper does not establish the claimed relationship with multiple ability measures. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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References 31 · Cited by 59
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- A. Ibá ñez, A. Petroni, H. Urquina, F. Torrente, T. Torralva, E. Hurtado, R. Guex, A. Blenkmann, L. Beltrachini, C. Muravchik, S. Baez, M. Cetkovich, M. Sigman, A. Lischinsky, F. Manes, Cortical deficits in emotion processing for faces in adults with ADHD: its relation to social cognition and executive functioning, Soc. Neurosci. 2011, doi:10.1080/17470919.2011.620769. · DOI
- A. Tate, H. Fischer, A.E. Leigh, J.M. Kendrick, Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for face identity and face emotion processing in animals, Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B: Biol. Sci. 361 (2006) 2155-2172.
- Authors
- Petroni, A., Canales-Johnson, A., Urquina, H., Guex, R., Hurtado, E., Blenkmann, A., von Ellenrieder, N., Manes, F., Sigman, M., & Ibañez, A.
- Affiliations
- Favaloro University (AR)
- Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (CL)
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (AR)
- Venue
- Neuroscience Letters
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2011-11
- Volume
- 505
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 41-46
- ISSN
- 0304-3940 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2126142442
- Cited by
- 59
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 5 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 2.76
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Neuroscience Letters (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion)
- CONICET Digital (CONICET) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- emotional facial expressions, N170, social cognition, executive function, individual differences, fusiform gyrus, face processing, emotional valence, event-related potentials, Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, Faux Pas Test, Iowa Gambling Task, neural correlates of emotion
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain Mapping, Cerebral Cortex, Cognition, Decision Making, Electroencephalography, Emotions, Evoked Potentials, Facial Expression, Female, Humans, Male, Neuropsychological Tests, Photic Stimulation, Social Behavior, Vocabulary, Executive Function
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