Subliminal Priming Effects of Masked Social Hierarchies During a Categorization Task: An Event-Related Brain Potentials Study

Evidence so far shows that status detection increases attentional resources, especially for high hierarchies. However, little is known about the effects of masked social status cues on cognition. Here, we explore the masked priming effects of social status cues during a categorization task. For this purpose, we use Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP) time-locked to the presentation of two types of artworks (Christian, non-Christian) primed by masked social hierarchies sorted into two types (religious, military), and in two ranks (high, low) each. ERP results indicate early attention effects at N1, showing larger amplitudes for the processing of artworks after high and military ranks. Thereafter, the P3a increased for all artworks primed by religious vs. military figures, indicating a relevant role of task demands at this processing stage. Our results remark the automaticity of hierarchy detection and extend previous findings on the effects of social status cues on complex cognitive processes.

The Automatic but Flexible and Content-Dependent Nature of Syntax

Syntactic processing has often been considered an utmost example of unconscious automatic processing. In this line, it has been demonstrated that masked words containing syntactic anomalies are processed by our brain triggering event related potential (ERP) components similar to the ones triggered by conscious syntactic anomalies, thus supporting the automatic nature of the syntactic processing. Conversely, recent evidence also points out that regardless of the level of awareness, emotional information and other relevant extralinguistic information modulate conscious syntactic processing too. These results are also in line with suggestions that, under certain circumstances, syntactic processing could also be flexible and context-dependent. However, the study of the concomitant automatic but flexible conception of syntactic parsing is very scarce. Hence, to this aim, we examined whether and how masked emotional words (positive, negative, and neutral masked adjectives) containing morphosyntactic anomalies (half of the cases) affect linguistic comprehension of an ongoing unmasked sentence that also can contain a number agreement anomaly between the noun and the verb. ERP components were observed to emotional information (EPN), masked anomalies (LAN and a weak P600), and unmasked ones (LAN/N400 and P600). Furthermore, interactions in the processing of conscious and unconscious morphosyntactic anomalies and between unconscious emotional information and conscious anomalies were detected. The findings support, on the one hand, the automatic nature of syntax, given that syntactic components LAN and P600 were observed to unconscious anomalies. On the other hand, the flexible, permeable, and context-dependent nature of the syntactic processing is also supported, since unconscious information modulated conscious syntactic components. This double nature of syntactic processing is in line with theories of automaticity, suggesting that even unconscious/automatic, syntactic processing is flexible, adaptable, and context-dependent.

Neural dynamics of pride and shame in social context: an approach with event-related brain electrical potentials

The neural underpinnings of social emotions such as pride and shame are largely unknown. The present study aims to add evidence by exploiting the advantage of event-related brain electrical potentials (ERP) to examine the neural processes as they unfold over time. For this purpose, a dot-estimation task was adapted to explore these emotions as elicited in a simulated social context. Pride prompted an early negativity seemingly originated in medial parietal regions (precuneus) and possibly reflecting social comparison processes in successful trials. This was followed by a late positivity originated in medial frontal regions, probably reflecting the verification of singularly successful trials. Shame, in turn, elicited an early negativity apparently originated in the cuneus, probably related to mental imagery of the social situation. It was followed by a late positivity mainly originated in the same regions as the early negativity for pride, then conceivably reflecting social comparison processes, in this occasion in unsuccessful trials. None of these fluctuations correlated with self-reported feelings of either emotion, suggesting that they instead relate to social cognitive computations necessary to achieve them. The present results provide a dynamic depiction of neural mechanisms underlying these social emotions, probing the necessity to study them using an integrated approach with different techniques.

Situating language in a minimal social context: how seeing a picture of the speaker's face affects language comprehension

Natural use of language involves at least two individuals. Some studies have focused on the interaction between senders in communicative situations and how the knowledge about the speaker can bias language comprehension. However, the mere effect of a face as a social context on language processing remains unknown. In the present study, we used event-related potentials to investigate the semantic and morphosyntactic processing of speech in the presence of a photographic portrait of the speaker. In Experiment 1, we show that the N400, a component related to semantic comprehension, increased its amplitude when processed within this minimal social context compared to a scrambled face control condition. Hence, the semantic neural processing of speech is sensitive to the concomitant perception of a picture of the speaker's face, even if irrelevant to the content of the sentences. Moreover, a late posterior negativity effect was found to the presentation of the speaker's face compared to control stimuli. In contrast, in Experiment 2, we found that morphosyntactic processing, as reflected in left anterior negativity and P600 effects, is not notably affected by the presence of the speaker's portrait. Overall, the present findings suggest that the mere presence of the speaker's image seems to trigger a minimal communicative context, increasing processing resources for language comprehension at the semantic level.

How society modulates our behavior: Effects on error processing of masked emotional cues contextualized in social status

In the present study, we investigate whether subliminal complex social cues have an impact on error-monitoring processes. For this purpose, we presented two social status ranks (high and low) with three possible emotional expressions (happy, neutral, angry), using a backward masking paradigm. Participants were instructed to perform a flanker task while recording Event-Related brain Potentials. Results showed larger amplitudes for the Error-Related Negativity index after the presentation of high relative to low social ranks, only for neutral expressions. Neither the angry nor the happy faces induced significant differences in social rank processing. This indicates that subliminal high social ranks, specifically with neutral expressions, increase error processing by boosting attentional control to perform the ongoing task. Our findings extend current knowledge on the automaticity of social and emotional processing and its influence on performance monitoring mechanisms.

Am I the same person across my life span? An event-related brain potentials study of the temporal perspective in self-identity

While self-identity recognition has been largely explored, less is known on how self-identity changes as a function of time. The present work aims to explore the influence of the temporal perspective on self-identity by studying event-related brain potentials (ERP) associated with face processing. To this purpose, participants had to perform a recognition task in two blocks with different task demands: (i) identity recognition (self, close-friend, unknown), and (ii) life stage recognition (adulthood -current-, adolescence, and childhood). The results showed that the N170 component was sensitive to changes in the global face configuration when comparing adulthood with other life stages. The N250 was the earliest neural marker discriminating self from other identities and may be related to a preferential deployment of attentional resources to recognize own face. The P3 was a robust index of self-specificity, reflecting stimulus categorization and presumably adding an emotional value. The results of interest emerged for the subsequent late positive complex (LPC). The larger amplitude for the LPC to the self-face was probably associated with further personal significance. The LPC, therefore, was able to distinguish the continuity of the self over time (i.e., between current self and past selves). Likewise, this component also could discriminate, at each life stage, the self-identity from other identities (e.g., between past self and past close-friend). This would confirm a remarkable role of the LPC reflecting higher self-relevance processes. Taken together, the neural representation of oneself (i.e., "I am myself") seems to be stable and also updated across time.

Language comprehension in the social brain: Electrophysiological brain signals of social presence effects during syntactic and semantic sentence processing

Although, evolutionarily, language emerged predominantly for social purposes, much has yet to be uncovered regarding how language processing is affected by social context. Social presence research studies the ways in which the presence of a conspecific affects processing, but has yet to be thoroughly applied to language processes. The principal aim of this study was to see how syntactic and semantic language processing might be subject to mere social presence effects by studying Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP). In a sentence correctness task, participants read sentences with a semantic or syntactic anomaly while being either alone or in the mere presence of a confederate. Compared to the alone condition, the presence condition was associated with an enhanced N400 component and a more centro-posterior LAN component (interpreted as an N400). The results seem to imply a boosting of heuristic language processing strategies, proper of lexico-semantic operations, which actually entails a shift in the strategy to process morphosyntactic violations, typically based on algorithmic or rule-based strategies. The effects cannot be related to increased arousal levels. The apparent enhancement of the activity in the precuneus while in presence of another person suggests that the effects conceivably relate to social cognitive and attentional factors. The present results suggest that understanding language comprehension would not be complete without considering the impact of social presence effects, inherent to the most natural and fundamental communicative scenarios.

Effects of reader's facial expression on syntactic processing: A brain potential study

Embodied views of language support that facial sensorimotor information can modulate language comprehension. The aim of this study is to test whether the syntactic processing of simple sentences, as measured with event-related brain potentials (ERP), could be affected by reader's facial expressions. Participants performed a correctness decision task using sentences that could be either correct (50%) or contain a morphosyntactic disagreement (either in gender or number), while making one of four facial expressions: participants either (a) posed no facial expression ("control" condition) (b) brought their eyebrows together, making the ends of two golf tees touch ("frown" condition), (c) held a pencil with their teeth ("smile" condition), or (d) held the pencil using their lips ("non-smile" condition). In all conditions the customary left anterior negativities did not appear. In contrast, an N400-like component emerged, which was larger for the "frown" condition and reduced in the "smile" and "non-smile" conditions. These results can be interpreted as the consequence of either an unconscious emotion induction or an interplay between the motor and the language systems subsequent to the effort needed to hold the facial expression.

Isolating the Effects of Word's Emotional Valence on Subsequent Morphosyntactic Processing: An Event-Related Brain Potentials Study

Emotional information significantly affects cognitive processes, as proved by research in the past decades. Recently, emotional effects on language comprehension and, particularly, syntactic processing, have been reported. However, more research is needed, as this is yet very scarce. The present paper focuses on the effects of emotion-laden linguistic material (words) on subsequent morphosyntactic processing, by using Event-Related brain Potentials (ERP). The main aim of this paper is to clarify whether the effects previously reported remain when positive, negative and neutral stimuli are equated in arousal levels and whether they remain long-lasting. In addition, we aimed at testing whether these effects vary as a function of the task performed with the emotion-laden words, to assess their robustness across variations in attention and cognitive load during the processing of the emotional words. In this regard, two different tasks were performed: a reading aloud (RA) task, where participants simply read aloud the words, written in black on white background, and an Emotional Stroop (ES) task, where participants named the colors in which the emotional words were shown. After these words, neutral sentences followed, that had to be evaluated for grammaticality while recording ERPs (50% containing a morphosyntactic anomaly). ERP analyses showed main effects of valence across tasks on the two components reflecting morphosyntactic processing: The Left Anterior Negativity (LAN) is increased by previous emotional words (more by negative than positive) relative to neutral ones, while the P600 is similarly decreased. No interactions between task and valence were found. As a result, an emotion-laden word preceding a sentence can modulate the syntactic processing of the latter, independently of the arousal and processing conditions of the emotional word.

When syntax meets action: Brain potential evidence of overlapping between language and motor sequencing

This study aims to extend the embodied cognition approach to syntactic processing. The hypothesis is that the brain resources to plan and perform motor sequences are also involved in syntactic processing. To test this hypothesis, Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read sentences with embedded relative clauses, judging for their acceptability (half of the sentences contained a subject-verb morphosyntactic disagreement). The sentences, previously divided into three segments, were self-administered segment-by-segment in two different sequential manners: linear or non-linear. Linear self-administration consisted of successively pressing three buttons with three consecutive fingers in the right hand, while non-linear self-administration implied the substitution of the finger in the middle position by the right foot. Our aim was to test whether syntactic processing could be affected by the manner the sentences were self-administered. Main results revealed that the ERPs LAN component vanished whereas the P600 component increased in response to incorrect verbs, for non-linear relative to linear self-administration. The LAN and P600 components reflect early and late syntactic processing, respectively. Our results convey evidence that language syntactic processing and performing non-linguistic motor sequences may share resources in the human brain.

Do discourse global coherence and cumulated information impact on sentence syntactic processing? An event-related brain potentials study

The present study aimed at exploring how two main primarily semantic factors of discourse comprehension, namely global coherence and amount of information cumulated across a passage, may impact on the sentential syntactic processing. This was measured in two event-related brain potentials (ERP) to grammatical (morphosyntactic) violations: anterior negativities (LAN) and posterior positivities (P600). Global coherence did not yield any significant effects on either ERP component, although it appeared advantageous to the detection of morphosyntactic errors. Anterior negativities were also unaffected by the amount of cumulated information. Accordingly, it seems that first-pass syntactic processes are unaffected by these discourse variables. In contrast, the first portion of the P600 was significantly modulated (increased) by the latter factor. This probably reflects bigger efforts to combine sentential information during situations highly demanding for working memory. Our results would suggest that processes involved in global discourse coherence appear relatively independent of the on-line syntactic and combinatorial mechanisms reflected in the LAN and the P600 components of the ERPs.