Intervention Effect of Group Sensory Integration Training on Social Responsiveness and N170 Event-Related Potential of Children with Autism.

The objective of this study was to examine the intervention effect of group sensory integration training on social responsiveness, and the latency and amplitude of N170 event-related potential of children with autism. The social responsiveness scale was employed to assess alterations in the social response of individuals with ASD before and after training, while event-related potentials were utilized to measure changes in N170 latency and amplitude. This study revealed that group sensory integration training can significantly enhance social responsiveness in children diagnosed with ASD. Children with ASD exhibit atypical N170 responses to faces in the right parietal region. The latency of N170 changes may serve as a valuable indicator for assessing the effectiveness of an intervention or diagnosing ASD.

Impaired social reward processing in individuals with Internet gaming disorder and its relationship with early face perception.

Previous research has found that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) show different patterns of social function impairments in game-related and real-life social contexts. Impaired social reward processing may be the underlying mechanism according to the Social Motivation Theory. Thus, in this study, event-related potentials were recorded from 24 individuals with IGD and 24 healthy gamers during a social judgement task. We focused on reward positivity (RewP) elicited by game-related and real-life social rewards, and N170 elicited by game avatar faces and real faces. These indicators were used to explore the neurocognitive mechanism of impaired social reward processing in individuals with IGD and its relationship with early face perception. Results showed that (1) the RewP elicited by real-life social reward was considerably reduced in individuals with IGD relative to healthy gamers. (2) The N170 elicited by game avatar faces in individuals with IGD was larger than that elicited by real faces. However, the N170 was not associated with RewP in either group. (3) The score for IGD severity was correlated with the RewP elicited by real-life social reward and the N170 elicited by game avatar face. In conclusion, the present study suggests that the impaired social reward processing in individuals with IGD is mainly manifested in a decreased neural sensitivity to real-life social reward. Meanwhile, the reduced RewP elicited by real-life social reward and the enhanced N170 elicited by game avatar face might serve as potential biomarkers for IGD.

Meanness and affective processing: A meta-analysis of EEG findings on emotional face processing in individuals with psychopathic traits.

BACKGROUND: The triarchic model (Patrick et al., 2009) conceptualizes psychopathy as a multidimensional construct encompassing three biobehavioral dimensions: meanness, boldness, and disinhibition. Meanness entails low empathy, shallow affect, and lack of remorse, and is associated with poor facial emotion recognition; however, the mechanistic processes contributing to these deficits are unclear. Emotional face processing can be examined on a neurophysiological level using event-related potentials (ERPs) such as N170, P200, and LPP. No quantitative review to date has examined the extent to which amplitude of these ERP components may be modulated by psychopathic traits. METHOD: The current study performed random-effects model meta-analyses of nine studies (N = 1131) which examined affective face processing ERPs in individuals with psychopathic traits to provide an overall effect size for the association between meanness, boldness, and disinhibition and N170, P200, and LPP amplitudes across studies. Analyses were also conducted examining potential moderators and publication bias. RESULTS: N170 amplitudes were significantly smaller (r =.18) among individuals high in meanness when processing fearful faces. Significant effects were not found for N170 amplitude when processing angry or happy faces, nor for LPP and P200 amplitudes across stimulus types. Additionally, significant effects were not found for the association between N170 amplitude and other dimensions of psychopathy. Meta-regression analyses indicated the manipulation of facial stimuli was significant in explaining some between-study heterogeneity of the meanness N170-fear model. No evidence of publication bias was found. CONCLUSIONS: Diminished amplitude of the N170 when viewing fear faces appears to be a neurophysiological marker of psychopathic meanness. Deficits in early encoding of faces may account for empathy deficits characteristic of psychopathy.

An ERP Study of Face Processing in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Socially Isolated Individuals from the Community.

People with schizophrenia (SCZ) and bipolar disorder (BD) have impairments in processing social information, including faces. The neural correlates of face processing are widely studied with the N170 ERP component. However, it is unclear whether N170 deficits reflect neural abnormalities associated with these clinical conditions or differences in social environments. The goal of this study was to determine whether N170 deficits would still be present in SCZ and BD when compared with socially isolated community members. Participants included 66 people with SCZ, 37 with BD, and 125 community members (76 "Community-Isolated"; 49 "Community-Connected"). Electroencephalography was recorded during a face processing task in which participants identified the gender of a face, the emotion of a face (angry, happy, neutral), or the number of stories in a building. We examined group differences in the N170 face effect (greater amplitudes for faces vs buildings) and the N170 emotion effect (greater amplitudes for emotional vs neutral expressions). Groups significantly differed in levels of social isolation (Community-Isolated > SCZ > BD = Community-Connected). SCZ participants had significantly reduced N170 amplitudes to faces compared with both community groups, which did not differ from each other. The BD group was intermediate and did not differ from any group. There were no significant group differences in the processing of specific emotional facial expressions. The N170 is abnormal in SCZ even when compared to socially isolated community members. Hence, the N170 seems to reflect a social processing impairment in SCZ that is separate from level of social isolation.

Reduced pre-attentive threat versus nonthreat signal discrimination in clinically healthy military personnel with recurrent combat exposure history: A preliminary event-related potential (ERP) study.

Evidence now suggests that traumatic-stress impacts brain functions even in the absence of acute-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. These neurophysiological changes have also been suggested to account for increased risks of PTSD symptoms later developing in the aftermath of subsequent trauma. However, surprisingly few studies have explicitly examined brain function dynamics in high-risk populations, such as combat exposed military personnel without diagnosable PTSD. To extend available research, facial expression sensitive N170 event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes were examined in a clinically healthy sample of active service military personnel with recurrent combat exposure history. Consistent with several established theories of delayed-onset PTSD vulnerability, higher N170 amplitudes to backward-masked fearful and neutral facial expressions correlated with higher levels of past combat exposure. Significantly elevated amplitudes to nonthreatening neutral facial expressions also resulted in an absence of normal threat-versus-nonthreat signal processing specificity. While a modest sample size and cross-sectional design are key limitations here, ongoing prospective-longitudinal follow-ups may shed further light on the precise aetiology and prognostic utility of these preliminary findings in the near future.

Music literacy improves reading skills via bilateral orthographic development.

Considerable evidence suggests that musical education induces structural and functional neuroplasticity in the brain. This study aimed to explore the potential impact of such changes on word-reading proficiency. We investigated whether musical training promotes the development of uncharted orthographic regions in the right hemisphere leading to better reading abilities. A total of 60 healthy, right-handed culturally matched professional musicians and controls took part in this research. They were categorised as normo-typical readers based on their reading speed (syl/sec) and subdivided into two groups of relatively good and poor readers. High density EEG/ERPs were recorded while participants engaged in a note or letter detection task. Musicians were more fluent in word, non-word and text reading tests, and faster in detecting both notes and words. They also exhibited greater N170 and P300 responses, and target-non target differences for words than controls. Similarly, good readers showed larger N170 and P300 responses than poor readers. Increased reading skills were associated to a bilateral activation of the occipito/temporal cortex, during music and word reading. Source reconstruction also showed a reduced activation of the left fusiform gyrus, and of areas devoted to attentional/ocular shifting in poor vs. good readers, and in controls vs. musicians. Data suggest that music literacy acquired early in time can shape reading circuits by promoting the specialization of a right-sided reading area, whose activity was here associated with enhanced reading proficiency. In conclusion, music literacy induces measurable neuroplastic changes in the left and right OT cortex responsible for improved word reading ability.

Electrophysiological correlates of face and object perception: A comparative analysis of 2D laboratory and virtual reality conditions.

Human face perception is a specialized visual process with inherent social significance. The neural mechanisms reflecting this intricate cognitive process have evolved in spatially complex and emotionally rich environments. Previous research using VR to transfer an established face perception paradigm to realistic conditions has shown that the functional properties of face-sensitive neural correlates typically observed in the laboratory are attenuated outside the original modality. The present study builds on these results by comparing the perception of persons and objects under conventional laboratory (PC) and realistic conditions in VR. Adhering to established paradigms, the PC- and VR modalities both featured images of persons and cars alongside standard control images. To investigate the individual stages of realistic face processing, response times, the typical face-sensitive N170 component, and relevant subsequent components (L1, L2; pre-, post-response) were analyzed within and between modalities. The between-modality comparison of response times and component latencies revealed generally faster processing under realistic conditions. However, the obtained N170 latency and amplitude differences showed reduced discriminative capacity under realistic conditions during this early stage. These findings suggest that the effects commonly observed in the lab are specific to monitor-based presentations. Analyses of later and response-locked components showed specific neural mechanisms for identification and evaluation are employed when perceiving the stimuli under realistic conditions, reflected in discernible amplitude differences in response to faces and objects beyond the basic perceptual features. Conversely, the results do not provide evidence for comparable stimulus-specific perceptual processing pathways when viewing pictures of the stimuli under conventional laboratory conditions.

Looming Angry Faces: Preliminary Evidence of Differential Electrophysiological Dynamics for Filtered Stimuli via Low and High Spatial Frequencies.

Looming motion interacts with threatening emotional cues in the initial stages of visual processing. However, the underlying neural networks are unclear. The current study investigated if the interactive effect of threat elicited by angry and looming faces is favoured by rapid, magnocellular neural pathways and if exogenous or endogenous attention influences such processing. Here, EEG/ERP techniques were used to explore the early ERP responses to moving emotional faces filtered for high spatial frequencies (HSF) and low spatial frequencies (LSF). Experiment 1 applied a passive-viewing paradigm, presenting filtered angry and neutral faces in static, approaching, or receding motions on a depth-cued background. In the second experiment, broadband faces (BSF) were included, and endogenous attention was directed to the expression of faces. Our main results showed that regardless of attentional control, P1 was enhanced by BSF angry faces, but neither HSF nor LSF faces drove the effect of facial expressions. Such findings indicate that looming motion and threatening expressions are integrated rapidly at the P1 level but that this processing relies neither on LSF nor on HSF information in isolation. The N170 was enhanced for BSF angry faces regardless of attention but was enhanced for LSF angry faces during passive viewing. These results suggest the involvement of a neural pathway reliant on LSF information at the N170 level. Taken together with previous reports from the literature, this may indicate the involvement of multiple parallel neural pathways during early visual processing of approaching emotional faces.

Age-related similarities and differences in cognitive and neural processing revealed by task-related microstate analysis.

We explored neural processing differences associated with aging across four cognitive functions. In addition to ERP analysis, we included task-related microstate analyses, which identified stable states of neural activity across the scalp over time, to explore whole-head neural activation differences. Younger and older adults (YA, OA) completed face perception (N170), word-pair judgment (N400), visual oddball (P3), and flanker (ERN) tasks. Age-related effects differed across tasks. Despite age-related delayed latencies, N170 ERP and microstate analyses indicated no age-related differences in amplitudes or microstates. However, age-related condition differences were found for P3 and N00 amplitudes and scalp topographies: smaller condition differences were found for in OAs as well as broader centroparietal scalp distributions. Age group comparisons for the ERN revealed similar focal frontocentral activation loci, but differential activation patterns. Our findings of differential age effects across tasks are most consistent with the STAC-r framework which proposes that age-related effects differ depending on the resources available and the kinds of processing and cognitive load required of various tasks.

Neural correlates of face processing among preschoolers with fragile X syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, autism siblings, and typical development.

The current study examined patterns of event-related potential (ERP) responses during a face processing task in groups of preschoolers uniquely impacted by autism spectrum disorder (ASD), including (1) children with ASD; (2) children with fragile X syndrome (FXS); (3) children with familial risk for ASD, but without a diagnosis (i.e., ASIBs); and (4) a low-risk control (LRC) group. Children with FXS have a high incidence of ASD diagnoses, but there have been no studies of the ERP response to faces in children with FXS and little work focused on children with ASD who have cognitive impairment. The current study examined children's ERP responses to faces and houses in four groups: LRC (N = 28, age = 5.2 years), ASIB (N = 23, age = 5.5 years), FXS (N = 19, age = 5.82 years), and ASD (N = 23, age = 5.5 years). The FXS and ASD groups were characterized by the presence of cognitive impairment. Pictures of upright and inverted faces and houses were presented while recording EEG with a 128-channel system. The N170 occurred at about 200 ms post stimulus onset, was largest on the posterior-lateral electrodes, and was larger for faces than houses. The P1 and N170 ERP components were larger for the FXS group than for the other three groups. The N170 ERP amplitude for the ASD and ASIB groups was smaller than both the LRC and FXS groups, and the LRC and FXS groups had the largest N170 responses on the right side. No difference was found in N170 latency between groups. The similarity of the ASD and ASIB responses suggest a common genetic or environmental origin of the reduced response. Although children with FXS have a high incidence of ASD outcomes, they differed from ASD and ASIB children in this study. Specifically, the children with FXS were hyperresponsive to all stimulus types while the ASD and ASIB groups showed attenuated responses for specific stimuli.

From Perugino to Picasso revisited: Electrophysiological responses to faces in paintings from different art styles.

Behavioral research (Ventura, et al., 2023) suggested that pictorial representations of faces varying along a realism-distortion spectrum elicit holistic processing as natural faces. Whether holistic face neural responses are engaged similarly remains, however, underexplored. In the present study, we evaluated the neural correlates of naturalist and artistic face processing, by exploring electrophysiological responses to faces in photographs versus in four major painting styles. The N170 response to faces in photographs was indistinguishable from that elicited by faces in the renaissance art style (depicting the most realistic faces), whilst both categories elicited larger N170 than faces in other art styles (post-impressionism, expressionism, and cubism), with a gradation in brain activity. The present evidence suggest that visual processing may become finer grained the more the realistic nature of the face. Despite behavioral equivalence, the neural mechanisms for holistic processing of natural faces and faces in diverse art styles are not equivalent.

Using transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to selectively modulate the face inversion effect and N170 event-related potentials.

We report a large study (n = 72) using combined transcranial direct current stimulation-electroencephalography (tDCS-EEG) to investigate the modulation of perceptual learning indexed by the face inversion effect. Participants were engaged with an old/new recognition task involving intermixed upright and inverted, normal and Thatcherized faces. The accuracy results showed anodal tDCS delivered at the Fp3 scalp area (cathode/reference electrode placed at Fp2) increased the behavioural inversion effect for normal faces versus sham/control and this covaried with a modulation of the N170 event-related potential component. A reduced inversion effect for normal faces was found on the N170 latency and amplitude versus sham/control, extending recent work that combined tDCS and EEG in circumstances where the behavioural face inversion effect was reduced. Our results advance understanding of the neural mechanisms responsible for perceptual learning by revealing a dissociation between the N170 amplitude and latency in response to the tDCS-induced modulation of the face inversion effect. The behavioural modulation of the inversion effect tracks the modulation of the N170 amplitudes, albeit it is negatively correlated (i.e., reduced inversion effect-larger N170 amplitude inversion effect, increased inversion effect-reduced N170 amplitude inversion effect). For the N170 latencies, the inversion effect is reduced by the tDCS protocol we use irrespective of any modulation of the behavioural inversion effect.

The speed of race.

When asked to categorize faces according to 'race', people typically categorize other-race faces faster than faces belonging to their own race. This 'Other Race Categorization Advantage' is thought to reflect enhanced sensitivity to early visual signals characteristic of other-race faces, and can manifest within 200 ms of face presentation. However, recent research has highlighted the importance of signal intensity in this effect, where visual-degradation of the face images significantly enhances the effect and exposes a behavioural threshold at very low levels of visual quality where other-race visual signals are able to be perceived while same-race signals are not. The current study investigated the effect of signal intensity in race categorization processes in the brain through electroencephalography and in accuracy/reaction times. While replicating the previously observed enhancement of the other-race categorization advantage, we also found enhanced sensitivity to other-race faces in early P1 peaks, as well as later N170 and N250 peaks. These effects, however, related to the varying levels of signal intensity in the face stimuli, suggesting that race categorization may involve different types of perceptual and neural processes rather than one discrete process. The speed at which race is perceived depends on the intensity of the face signal.

The impact of degraded vision on emotional perception of audiovisual stimuli: An event-related potential study.

Emotion recognition will be challenged for individuals when visual signals are degraded in real-life scenarios. Recently, researchers have conducted many studies on the distinct neural activity between clear and degraded audiovisual stimuli. These findings addressed the "how" question, but the precise stage of the distinct activity that occurred remains unknown. Therefore, it is crucial to use event-related potential (ERP) to explore the "when" question, just the time course of the neural activity of degraded audiovisual stimuli. In the present research, we established two conditions: clear auditory + degraded visual (AcVd) and clear auditory + clear visual (AcVc) multisensory conditions. We enlisted 31 participants to evaluate the emotional valence of audiovisual stimuli. The resulting data were analyzed using ERP in time domains and Microstate analysis. Current results suggest that degraded vision impairs the early-stage processing of audiovisual stimuli, with the superior parietal lobule (SPL) regulating audiovisual processing in a top-down fashion. Additionally, our findings indicate that negative and positive stimuli elicit greater EPN compared to neutral stimuli, pointing towards a subjective motivation-related attentional regulation. To sum up, in the early stage of emotional audiovisual processing, the degraded visual signal affected the perception of the physical attributes of audiovisual stimuli and had a further influence on emotion extraction processing, leading to the different regulation of top-down attention resources in the later stage.

Declarative Learning Mechanisms Support Declarative but Not Probabilistic Feedback-Based Learning in Children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD).

Declarative and probabilistic feedback-based learning was evaluated in 8-12-year-old school-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD; n = 14) and age-matched children with typical development (TD; n = 15). Children performed a visual two-choice word-learning task and a visual probabilistic classification task while their electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded non-invasively from the scalp. Behavioral measures of accuracy and response to feedback, and electrophysiological responses to feedback were collected and compared between the two groups. While behavioral data indicated poorer performance by children with DLD in both learning paradigms, and similar response patterns to positive and negative feedback, electrophysiological data highlighted processing patterns in the DLD group that differed by task. More specifically, in this group, feedback processing in the context of declarative learning, which is known to be dominated by the medial temporal lobe (MTL), was associated with enhanced N170, an event-related brain potential (ERP) associated with MTL activation. The N170 amplitude was found to be correlated with declarative task performance in the DLD group. During probabilistic learning, known to be governed by the striatal-based learning system, the feedback-related negativity (FRN) ERP, which is the product of the cortico-striatal circuit dominated feedback processing. Within the context of probabilistic learning, enhanced N170 was associated with poor learning in the TD group, suggesting that MTL activation during probabilistic learning disrupts learning. These results are interpreted within the context of a proposed feedback parity hypothesis suggesting that in children with DLD, the system that dominates learning (i.e., MTL during declarative learning and the striatum during probabilistic learning) dominates and supports feedback processing.

Face processing and early event-related potentials: replications and novel findings.

This research explores early Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) sensitivity to facial stimuli, investigating various facial features aimed to unveil underlying neural mechanisms. Two experiments, each involving 15 undergraduate students, utilized a multidimensional stimulus set incorporating race, gender, age, emotional expression, face masks, and stimulus orientation. Findings highlight significant modulations in N170 and P200 amplitudes and latencies for specific attributes, replicating prior research and revealing novel insights. Notably, age-related facial feature variations, facial inversion, and the presence of face masks significantly impact neural responses. Several speculative explanations are proposed to elucidate these results: First, the findings lend support to the idea that the increased N170 amplitude observed with facial inversion is closely tied to the activation of object-sensitive neurons. This is further bolstered by a similar amplitude increase noted when masks (effective objects) are added to faces. Second, the absence of an additional amplitude increase, when inverting face images with face masks suggests that neural populations may have reached a saturation point, limiting further enhancement. Third, the study reveals that the latency deficit in N170 induced by facial inversion is even more pronounced in the subsequent ERP component, the P200, indicating that face inversion may impact multiple stages of face processing. Lastly, the significant increase in P200 amplitude, typically associated with face typicality, for masked faces in this study aligns with previous research that demonstrated elevated P200 amplitudes for scrambled faces. This suggests that obscured faces may be processed as typical, potentially representing a default state in face processing.

Reduced attentional inhibition for peripheral distractors of angry faces under central perceptual load in deaf individuals: evidence from an event-related potentials study.

Background: Studies have shown that deaf individuals distribute more attention to the peripheral visual field and exhibit enhanced visual processing for peripheral stimuli relative to hearing individuals. This leads to better detection of peripheral target motion and simple static stimuli in hearing individuals. However, when threatening faces that represent dangerous signals appear as non-targets in the periphery, it remains unclear whether deaf individuals would retain an advantage over hearing individuals in detecting them. Methods: In this study, 23 deaf and 28 hearing college students were included. A modified perceptual load paradigm and event-related potentials (ERPs) were adopted. In the task, participants were instructed to search for a target letter in a central letter array, while task-irrelevant face distractors (happy, neutral, and angry faces) were simultaneously presented in the periphery while the central perceptual load was manipulated. Results: Behavioral data showed that angry faces slowed deaf participants' responses to the target while facilitating the responses of hearing participants. At the electrophysiological level, we found modulation of P1 amplitude by central load only in hearing individuals. Interestingly, larger interference from angry face distractors was associated with higher P1 differential amplitude only in deaf individuals. Additionally, the amplitude of N170 for happy face distractors was smaller than that for angry and neutral face distractors in deaf participants. Conclusion: The present data demonstrates that, despite being under central perceptual load, deaf individuals exhibit less attentional inhibition to peripheral, goal-irrelevant angry faces than hearing individuals. The result may reflect a compensatory mechanism in which, in the absence of auditory alertness to danger, the detection of visually threatening information outside of the current attentional focus has a high priority.

Machine learning and EEG can classify passive viewing of discrete categories of visual stimuli but not the observation of pain.

Previous studies have demonstrated the potential of machine learning (ML) in classifying physical pain from non-pain states using electroencephalographic (EEG) data. However, the application of ML to EEG data to categorise the observation of pain versus non-pain images of human facial expressions or scenes depicting pain being inflicted has not been explored. The present study aimed to address this by training Random Forest (RF) models on cortical event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded while participants passively viewed faces displaying either pain or neutral expressions, as well as action scenes depicting pain or matched non-pain (neutral) scenarios. Ninety-one participants were recruited across three samples, which included a model development group (n = 40) and a cross-subject validation group (n = 51). Additionally, 25 participants from the model development group completed a second experimental session, providing a within-subject temporal validation sample. The analysis of ERPs revealed an enhanced N170 component in response to faces compared to action scenes. Moreover, an increased late positive potential (LPP) was observed during the viewing of pain scenes compared to neutral scenes. Additionally, an enhanced P3 response was found when participants viewed faces displaying pain expressions compared to neutral expressions. Subsequently, three RF models were developed to classify images into faces and scenes, neutral and pain scenes, and neutral and pain expressions. The RF model achieved classification accuracies of 75%, 64%, and 69% for cross-validation, cross-subject, and within-subject classifications, respectively, along with reasonably calibrated predictions for the classification of face versus scene images. However, the RF model was unable to classify pain versus neutral stimuli above chance levels when presented with subsequent tasks involving images from either category. These results expand upon previous findings by externally validating the use of ML in classifying ERPs related to different categories of visual images, namely faces and scenes. The results also indicate the limitations of ML in distinguishing pain and non-pain connotations using ERP responses to the passive viewing of visually similar images.

Altered dynamic network interactions in children with ASD during face recognition revealed by time-varying EEG networks.

Although the electrophysiological event-related potential in face processing (e.g. N170) is widely accepted as a face-sensitivity biomarker that is deficient in children with autism spectrum disorders, the time-varying brain networks during face recognition are still awaiting further investigation. To explore the social deficits in autism spectrum disorder, especially the time-varying brain networks during face recognition, the current study analyzed the N170, cortical activity, and time-varying networks under 3 tasks (face-upright, face-inverted, and house-upright) in autism spectrum disorder and typically developing children. The results revealed a smaller N170 amplitude in autism spectrum disorder compared with typically developing, along with decreased cortical activity mainly in occipitotemporal areas. Concerning the time-varying networks, the atypically stronger information flow and brain network connections across frontal, parietal, and temporal regions in autism spectrum disorder were reported, which reveals greater effort was exerted by autism spectrum disorder to obtain comparable performance to the typically developing children, although the amplitude of N170 was still smaller than that of the typically developing children. Different brain activation states and interaction patterns of brain regions during face processing were discovered between autism spectrum disorder and typically developing. These findings shed light on the face-processing mechanisms in children with autism spectrum disorder and provide new insight for understanding the social dysfunction of autism spectrum disorder.

Semantic satiation of emotional words impedes facial expression processing in two stages.

To explore the mechanism of emotional words semantic satiation effect on facial expression processing, participants were asked to judge the facial expression (happiness or sadness) after an emotional word ((cry) or (smile)) or a neutral word ((Ah), baseline condition) was presented for 20 s. The results revealed that participants were slower in judging valence-congruent facial expressions and reported a more enlarged (Experiment 1) and prolonged (Experiment 2) N170 component than the baseline condition. No significant difference in behavior and N170 appeared between the valence-incongruent and the baseline condition. However, the amplitude of LPC (Late Positive Complex) under both valence-congruent/incongruent conditions was smaller than the baseline condition. It indicates that, in the early stage, the impeding effect of satiated emotional words is specifically constrained to facial expressions with the same emotional valence; in the late stage, such an impeding effect might spread to facial expressions with the opposite valence of the satiated emotional word.