Changes in emotional face expression recognition caused by an additional visuospatial task

Changes in the recognition of facial expression and spatial synchronization of the cortical electrical activity of the θ- and α-potentials caused by load on working memory were studied in healthy adults by introducing an additional semantic or visuospatial task into the context of experiment with a visual set. An increase in the number of erroneous recognitions of facial stimuli in the form of assimilative illusions was revealed in both types of the additional task. The analysis of the function of coherence of the low-frequency α-potentials indicates (8–10 Hz) a decrease in this situation in the number of connections in the frontal cortical divisions with other cortical zones, which is regarded as a lesser involvement of the frontal system of selective attention in set-forming and set-shifting for an emotionally negative facial expression. Spatial synchronization of the θ-activity (4–7 Hz) with an increase in the load on working memory changes ambiguously in different cortical structures: it decreases in the system of the fronto-temporal connections of the right hemisphere; in the other cortical areas, especially in the left hemisphere, and in the system of interhemispheric connections it substantially increases. The facts confirming the hypothesis that the fronto-thalamic and cortico-hippocampal systems are the two key formations involved in changes in the plasticity of cognitive sets for facial expression are discussed.