How the brain integrates emotional information with context: a multimodal and multidimensional approach

人类是社会性动物。当他们交流时，他们必须解读彼此的情感，以产生适当的行为。因此，了解大脑如何处理情感信息至关重要。 尽管事实上，环境输入通常是复杂的，来自各种感官形式，现有的理论模型的情绪处理的基础上使用孤立的（即，没有上下文）的面孔（即，在视觉模态）的作品。现在有证据表明，上下文线索，包括视觉场景中的其他元素和来自其他模态的信息影响情绪面部表情的处理。然而，很少有人知道在这些影响和他们的自动化涉及的大脑过程。因此，该计划的目标是建立一个广义的模型的情绪处理，整合多感官的上下文信息的影响，同时调查这些过程的自动性。 为此，我们将从两个方面研究语境线索和多模态呈现的影响。在研究的第一线，我们将分析行为，大脑（脑电图）和生理反应嵌入匹配或不匹配的环境中的情绪刺激。参与者将不得不识别生态刺激（身体图片和场景）的情感内容，而我们操纵他们的注意力集中和有意识的感知。这些结果将提供关于参与一致性效应的大脑过程的时间过程的关键信息（即，促进情绪处理时，上下文是一致的）和这些影响的自动性。 研究的第二条线将调查情感视听信息的整合，以及这种整合是否是自动的。在视觉模态中已经表明，情绪启动的处理调节目标的情绪处理。这些效应被解释为反映了由质数发起的情感变态概念的长期激活。如果这是正确的，这些影响应该发生在其他感觉模态和跨模态实验设计（从听觉到视觉，反之亦然）。为了验证这一预测，我们将开发新的范式，以研究行为和大脑启动效应的情绪声音和跨通道的实验范式。我们预测，一致性效应将持续跨模态，无论注意力的焦点，这将支持情感概念在大脑中的非模态表征的存在。 总而言之，这个项目将提供洞察的情绪信息和上下文线索的整合，以及这些过程的自动性所涉及的大脑过程的时间过程。这将有助于理解情绪过程中的一个有前途的多模态和多维的方法，并进一步推动了多感官整合和上下文信息的影响的理解。

Humans are social beings. As they communicate, they must decipher each other's emotion, in order to produce appropriate behaviors. It is thus crucial to understand how the brain processes emotional information. Despite the fact that environmental inputs are typically complex and coming from various sensory modalities, the existing theoretical models on emotion processing are based on works using isolated (i.e, without context) faces (i.e, in visual modality). There is now evidence that contextual cues, including other elements in the visual scene and information from other modalities influence the processing of emotional facial expressions. Yet, little is known on the brain processes involved in these influences and their automaticity. The goal of this program is thus to establish a generalized model of emotion processing, that integrates the influence of multisensory contextual information, while investigating the automaticity of these processes. To do so, we will study the effect of contextual cues and multimodal presentations in two lines of research. In the first line of research, we will analyze behavioral, cerebral (EEG) and physiological responses to emotional stimuli embedded in matched or mismatched environment. The participants will have to identify emotional content of ecological stimuli (body pictures and scenes) while we manipulate their attentional focus and conscious perception. The results will provide critical information on the time course of brain processes involved in congruency effects (i.e., facilitation of emotional processing when context is congruent) and the automaticity of these effects. The second line of research will investigate the integration of emotional audiovisual information and whether this integration is automatic. It has been shown in the visual modality, that the processing of an emotional prime modulates the emotional processing of a target. These effects are interpreted as reflecting long-term activation of emotional amodal concepts initiated by the prime. If this is correct, these effects should occur in other sensory modalities and in cross-modal experimental designs (from audition to vision and vice-versa). To test this prediction, we will develop new paradigms in order to study behavioral and cerebral priming effects on emotional sounds and in cross-modal experimental paradigms. We predict that congruency effects will persist cross-modally and regardless of attentional focus, which will support the existence of amodal representations of emotional concepts in the brain. Altogether, this project will provide insights into the temporal course of the brain processes involved in the integration of emotional information and contextual cues, and the automaticity of these processes. It will help to understand the emotional processes at large with a promising multimodal and multidimensional approach, and push further out understanding of multisensory integration and influences of contextual information.