| An important question now in neuropsychological research regards the organization of subjective meaning through the interactions between the broad, emotional, semantic representations in limbic cortex and the specific, sensorimotor representations in neocortex. Understanding the neural correlates of these organizing processes is central for biologically realistic process models of face perception, impression formation, and evaluative mechanisms. The current study went beyond current work in face perception and evaluation by analyzing brain activity during intentional impressions of emotion and personality characteristics from faces. Cortico-limbic mechanisms during the generation of subjective meaning were examined via 256-channel EEG recording during face rating by 13 participants in 3 sessions each. We found (1) face rating scores were influenced by the valence and arousal levels of faces, (2) grand-averaged ERPs were test-retest reliable across sessions from individual participants and dissimilar across participants, (3) grand-averaged ERPs included occipital P1, occipito-temporal N170, frontal MFN, parietal P300, frontal LPC, and frontal SW time periods, with neural sources including occipital, medial frontal gyrus, precuneus, and anterior-temporal regions, (4) valence and arousal levels of face stimuli influenced ERP amplitudes and latencies during P1, N170, MFN, P300, and LPC time periods, (5) type of face rating scale influenced ERP amplitudes during P1, N170, MFN, P300, and LPC time periods, (6) ERPs weighted with psychometric data suggested higher dorsal-parietal amplitudes for Negative Affect vs. Positive Affect weighted ERPs, and (7) ERP analyses of self-rating of personality versus self-rating of emotional state rating trials suggested the involvement of dorsal midline regions for both tasks, as well as distinct sub-patterns of activity related to each rating task. Overall this report finds support for the view that vertically integrated cortico-limbic networks perceive, evaluate, and act on stimulus information. Rating tasks involved a pattern of interaction between perception and action during the imputation of subjective relevance from environmental stimuli. Dynamic and biologically grounded dual process models explicating subjective meaning instantiation by cortico-limbic interactions are a useful starting point for a new generation of personality and emotion theories. |
