Neural correlates of top–down processing in emotion perception: An ERP study of emotional faces in white noise versus noise-alone stimuli

In the present study, we investigated the neural correlates underlying the perception of emotion in response to facial stimuli in order to elucidate the extent to which emotional perception is affected by the top–down process. Subjects performed a forced, two-choice emotion discrimination task towards ambiguous visual stimuli consisted of emotional faces embedded in different levels of visual white noise, including white noise-alone stimuli. ERP recordings and behavioral responses were analyzed according to the four response categories: hit, miss, false alarm and correct rejection. We observed enlarged EPN and LPP amplitudes when subjects reported seeing fearful faces and a typical emotional EPN response in the white noise-alone conditions when fearful faces were not presented. The two components of the ERP data which imply the characteristic modulation reflecting emotional processing showed the type of emotion each individual subjectively perceived. The results suggest that top–down modulations might be indispensable for emotional perception, which consists of two distinct stages of stimulus processing in the brain.