Abstract：
Previous research on the relationship between attention and emotion processing have focused essentially on consciously-viewed, supraliminal stimuli, while the attention-emotion interplay remains unexplored in situations where visual awareness is restricted. Here, we presented participants with face pairs in a backward masking paradigm and examined the electrophysiological activity in response to fearful and neutral expressions under different conditions of attention (spatially attended vs. unattended) and stimulus visibility (subliminal vs. supraliminal). We found an enhanced N2 (visual awareness negativity -VAN-) and an enhanced P3 for supraliminal compared to subliminal faces. The VAN, indexing the early perceptual awareness, was enhanced when the faces were spatially attended compared to when they were unattended, showing that the VAN does not require spatial attention focus but can be enhanced by it. Fearful relative to neutral expressions enhanced the early neural activity (N2) regardless of spatial attention but only in the supraliminal viewing condition. However, fear-related enhancements on later neural activity (P3) were found when stimuli were both attended and presented supraliminally. These findings suggest that visual awareness is needed for emotion processing during both early and late stages. Spatial attention is required for emotion processing at the later stage but not at the early stage.
摘要：
先前关于注意力和情绪处理之间关系的研究主要集中在有意识地观察，超刺激，而在视觉意识受到限制的情况下，注意力-情感相互作用仍未被探索。这里,我们以后向掩蔽范式向参与者展示了面部对，并检查了在不同注意力条件下对恐惧和中性表情的电生理活动（空间参与与无人值守)和刺激可见性(潜意识与supaliminal).与意识下的面孔相比，我们发现了增强的N2（视觉意识负性-VAN-）和增强的P3。VAN,索引早期的感知意识，与无人看管时相比，当面部在空间上被看管时得到了增强，这表明VAN不需要空间注意力集中，但可以通过它来增强。相对于中性表达的恐惧增强了早期神经活动（N2），而与空间注意力无关，但仅在超视觉条件下。然而,当同时接受刺激并在上出现刺激时，发现了与恐惧相关的后期神经活动（P3）的增强。这些发现表明，在早期和晚期阶段，情绪处理都需要视觉意识。在后期阶段而不是早期阶段，情感处理需要空间注意力。
