Simultaneous recording of EEG and fNIRS during visuo-spatial and facial expression processing in a dual task paradigm

- Facial emotion recognition was tested alone & while performing a visuospatial task.
- Brain activation was assessed with EEG and NIRS simultaneously.
- When combined (dual task), processing of facial emotions deteriorated.
- An associated increase in dlPFC activation may reflect processing load.
- (Facial) emotion processing is not fully automated, but affected by processing load.

Emotional processing is probably the most crucial tool for orienting oneself in our everyday social life and has been considered to be highly automatic for a long time. Dual task (DT) research shows that information competing for working memory resources impairs the identification of emotional facial expressions. Effects of cognitive load in DT paradigms have been confirmed in numerous neuroimaging studies. However, interference occurring during a DT comprised of decoding emotional facial expressions and a visuo-spatial working memory task has yet to be visualized.To investigate the DT interference effect on brain areas associated not only with working memory, but also emotional and visuo-spatial processing, we recorded brain activation within the prefrontal cortex and parietal-occipital sensory areas using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) and electroencephalography (EEG) simultaneously. Our study consisted of N = 36 participants (27 female) performing the following tasks: a) Corsi blocks, b) identification of emotional facial expressions or c) DT comprising of tasks a) and b).We predicted higher activation of the prefrontal cortex during DT and corresponding reduced P100 and P300 amplitudes.As expected, fNIRS measurements revealed significantly higher neuronal activation within the prefrontal cortex in the DT condition. When comparing DT to the single tasks, the P100 amplitude was reduced, but the P300 amplitude did not show the expected reduction.Our findings underline that at least some aspects of emotional processing are not entirely automatic, but depend on prefrontal control and are therefore affected by cognitive load, in particular visuo-spatial working memory resources.