The present study investigates how the brain automatically discriminates emotional schematic faces, as indicated by the mismatch responses, and how reliable these brain responses are. Thirty-three healthy volunteers participated in the vMMN EEG experiment with four experimental sets differing from each other by the type of standard (object with scrambled face features) and the type of deviants (Angry, Happy and Neutral schematic faces) presented. Conscious subjective evaluations of valence, arousal and attention catching of the same stimuli showed clear differentiation of emotional expressions. Deviant faces elicited rather similar vMMN at frontal and occipital sites. Bayesian analyses suggest that vMMN does not differ between angry and happy faces. Neutral faces, however, did not yield statistically significant vMMN at occipital leads. Pearson’s correlation and intra-class correlation analyses showed that the brain’s reactions to the stimuli were highly stable within individuals across the experimental sets, whereas the mismatch responses were much more variable.

本研究调查了大脑如何自动区分情绪图式面孔，如不匹配反应所示，以及这些大脑反应的可靠性。33 名健康志愿者参与了 vMMN 脑电图实验，其中四个实验组在标准类型（具有乱序面部特征的对象）和异常类型（愤怒、快乐和中性示意性面孔）方面各不相同。对同一刺激的效价、唤醒和注意力的有意识主观评价显示出明显的情绪表达差异。异常面孔在额部和枕部引起了相当相似的 vMMN。贝叶斯分析表明 vMMN 在愤怒和快乐的面孔之间没有区别。然而，中性面孔在枕骨导联处没有产生统计学上显着的 vMMN。