Lateralized emotional and movement-related body postures modulate the body specific N190 ERP component: different patterns in different hemispheres

The extent, to which emotional and movement-related information conveyed by human body postures is represented already at visual encoding, is still under debate. The present study investigated the modulations of the body specific ERP component (N190) by different body postures. Images of emotional (fearful and happy), neutral and static body postures were laterally presented in the left or right visual fields during a discrimination task between emotional and non-emotional body postures. The N190 component over the right hemisphere was differently modulated by each body posture presented: fear postures induced the highest N190 amplitudes, followed by neutral and happy postures. Static postures elicited the lowest N190 amplitudes. In contrast, the N190 component over the left hemisphere showed a significant difference only between the static body posture and movement-related postures: the static body postures lead to the lowest N190 amplitude. These findings suggest that the visual encoding for bodies is affected by emotional and movement-related information and that the two hemispheres differentially contribute to the visual analysis: the right hemisphere, probably due to its prominent role in the processing of emotions, is responsible for a more detailed encoding, able to distinguish between the different emotional postures. In contrast, the left hemisphere plays a role only in the low level distinction between static and movement-related postures (emotional or neutral).