Facial Action and Emotional Language, an ERP study

Davis, Winkielman, and Coulson (2015) studied the association among embodiment and the comprehension of languague and how facial action has an effect on the real- time responses of emotional language in the brain. Event related potentials as well as electromyography were recorded while participants were reading sentences of either positive or negative emotional content.  iT is stated that facial activation might have an effect on perception as well as on the recognition of emotional faces. Smiling did not interfere with the ERP's to valence words, but a larger amplitude of the N400 was found in the ends of sentences consisting positive events.  treatmentHe N400 is associated with brain activation related to semantic memory processes. When participants were instructed to inhibit their smiling, it had an effect on the real-time processing of sentences and the last word of a sentence showed an enhanced amplitude of the ERP component N400.