Effects of facial affect recognition on the auditory P300 in healthy subjects

We examined the effects of facial affect recognition on auditory ERP using facial drawings depicting sadness, no emotion, pleasure and anger. Auditory ERP were recorded using an oddball paradigm in 13 women and 13 men while pictures and test tones were presented. P300 peak amplitude, area, and latency, and also subject's reaction time, were evaluated. The face showing pleasure resulted in the smallest P300 peak amplitude. Amplitudes were successively greater with anger, sadness, and no emotion. The P300 area showed facial affect effects resembling effects on peak amplitude. However, facial expression influenced P300 latency in different patterns suggesting the involvement of independent mechanisms. The reproducibility between sessions of the P300 measurements was tested. Both the P300 amplitude and area were largest when viewing neutral pictures, but smallest when viewing pleasant pictures in both sessions. While amplitude and the area of P300 were significantly larger in women than in men, gender was a less potent modifier of the influence of facial expression on P300 parameters. Reduced P300 amplitude and area apparently reflected an inhibitory effect of attention by emotion from facial expressions, especially for pleasure.