Cortical processing of human and emoji faces: an ERP analysis

Carlos Gantiva, Miguel Sotaquirá, Andrés Araujo and Paula Cuervo

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2020, vol. 39, issue 8, 935-943

Abstract: Social networks have become an effective tool of interaction, frequently replacing face-to-face communication by using non-verbal emotional cues, such as emojis. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether human and emoji faces are analogously processed cortically. We recorded P100, N170, and LPP event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to happy, neutral, and angry expressions of human and emoji faces in 30 participants. The results showed that P100 and LPP amplitudes were larger in response to human faces but emoji faces generated larger N170 amplitude. Angry faces elicited significantly larger P100 and LPP amplitudes. The neural time-course of processing human and emoji faces was similar, however, human faces generate greater attentional orientation response, emoji faces increase the structural encoding processes, and human faces elicited greater arousal and attentional engagement. These results suggest that the use of emoji faces in computer-mediated communication produces neural responses that are similar to those that are observed in face-to-face communication.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2019.1632933 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:39:y:2020:i:8:p:935-943

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2019.1632933

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().