2.2.2. FACES Task

In the FACES task, participants were shown pictures from the Warsaw Set of Emotional Facial Expression Pictures (WSEFEP [30]). The block design task consisted of twelve blocks with six negative emotional faces displaying sadness, fear and disgust (in randomized order) and twelve blocks with scrambled faces (control condition). In total, 72 negative faces of 24 actors (50% female) were shown for 3 s each. The inter-trial interval was jittered between 10 ± 1 s. During the inter-trial interval (ITI), participants viewed a white fixation cross on a black background. To ensure attention, participants were asked to indicate by a button press whether the person was female for the portraits or, for the scrambled faces, whether the colored frame around the picture was blue (compared with green). The paradigm lasted 13 min. A brief training of the task outside the scanner preceded the scanning session.