Investigation of the effect of solitary and combined exposure to threat-perceived sounds and faces on behavioral and nervous responses

In this study, it was aimed to determine what kind of stimuli are perceived as dominant in individuals exposed to different irritating emotional stimulus conditions such as emotional facial expression and voice. To see this, electroencephalography (EEG) data of activity in the brain were collected to examine the behavioral data that emerges under the conditions in which participants must decide on faces, voices, and face-voice integration, as well as to examine neural responses during this process. In the study, data were collected from 24 participants under different conditions. These 24 participants were exposed to auditory, visual or combined audio-visual stimuli. Audio stimuli will consist of recordings of 5 different male and female voices (angry, scared, disgusted, coughing or neutral). Visual stimuli are associated with the same emotional values and corona, and male and female faces that express uneasiness (angry, scared, disgusted, masked or neutral) are used. Audio-visual stimuli were created using harmonious combinations of faces and sounds (eg angry voice X angry face) or incompatible combinations (eg angry voice X frightened face). Experiment 1 and Experiment 2 included 24 participants. These 24 participants were divided into 11 participants in Experiment 3A (Congruent) and 13 participants in Experiment 3B' (incongruent). E-Prime 3 experimental software was used for presentation of stimuli and recording of behavioral data. Other data were collected using the 32-channel BrainVision EEG Recorder system. BrainVision Analyzer system was used during the analysis of these data. Both behavioral data and EEG data were analyzed with SPPS 25.0 using repeated analysis of variance. Responses to different stimulus conditions and combinations of compatible and incompatible stimuli were compared. Likewise, masked faces and emotional faces are evaluated differently in terms of both EEG signals and behavioral responses. It has been found that the response times are shortened in conditions with masked faces, and the other side is consistently preferred over the masked face in these conditions.