Dissociations of subliminal and supraliminal self-face from other-face processing: Behavioral and ERP evidence

• Published in: Neuropsychologia 2012-10, Vol.50 (12), p.2933-2942
• Main Authors: Geng, Haiyan, Zhang, Shen, Li, Qi, Tao, Ran, Xu, Shan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Brain Mapping; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Electroencephalography; Electrophysiology; Evoked Potentials, Visual - physiology; Face; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Humans; Interocular suppression; Male; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Self advantage; Self-face processing; Subliminal; Subliminal Stimulation; Vertex positive potential; Visual Perception - physiology
• ISSN: 0028-3932; 1873-3514
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.07.040

Self-related information has been found to be processed more quickly and accurately in studies with supraliminal self-stimuli and traditional paradigms such as masked priming. We conducted two experiments to investigate whether subliminal self-face processing enjoys this advantage and the neural correlates of processing self-faces at both subliminal and supraliminal levels. We found that self-faces were quicker than famous-other faces to gain dominance against dynamic noise patterns during prolonged interocular suppression to enter awareness (Experiment 1). Meanwhile, subliminal contrast of self- and famous-other face processing was reflected in a reduced early vertex positive potential (VPP) component, whereas supraliminal self-other face differentiation was reflected in an enhanced N170, as well as a more positive late component (300–580ms, Experiment 2) to the self-face. The clear dissociations of self- and other-face processing found across our two experiments validate the self advantage. Our findings also contribute to understandings of the mechanisms underlying self-face processing at different levels of awareness. ► Advantage of self-face processing in breaking a prolonged interocular suppression. ► Distinct neural correlates for subliminal and supraliminal self-face processing. ► Enhanced N170 (140–240ms) for supraliminal self-face processing. ► Enhanced late component (300–580ms) for supraliminal self-face processing. ► Subliminally, reduced VPP (170–270ms) suggested automatic self-face processing.