We are glad to present you with a special issue of Advances in Cognitive Psychology (ACP) and we want to thank you for your interest in how novel EEG signal analysis methods contribute to better understanding of perception and cognitive processes.

Individuals frequently expect consequences—in particular emotional consequences—based on nonemotional or emotional information conveyed by environmental cues. However, in an everchanging world, (emotional) consequences are sometimes incongruent with expectations. Past event-related potential (ERP) studies have revealed effects of anticipation violation on facial expression processing when consequence anticipation is based on nonemotional cues (NEC). However, it is unknown whether anticipation violation influences ERP responses to emotional facial expressions when the anticipation is based on emotional cues (EC). To understand this question, anticipatory cues were presented before fearful and happy facial expressions. Most often, the cues correctly suggested the emotional content of the facial expression but sometimes, another emotional category of facial expression was shown. Moreover, in the EC condition, emotional pictures were used as anticipatory cues, while scrambled pictures outlined in different colors were used as cues in the NEC condition. The ERP results showed stronger responses in early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive potential (LPP) to facial expressions under the violated condition than under the nonviolated condition in the NEC condition, whereas these effects were absent in the EC condition. The findings might suggest that EC reduces the influences of anticipation violation on attention toward emotional facial expressions.

Facebook is a platform for social contacts, establishing relationships, and solving interpersonal conflicts. Consequently, understanding online emotional and social behaviour in problematic and nonproblematic Facebook use is important to explore how people function on social media. In this context, the current study examined the differences between participants with low (LPFU) and high (HPFU) problematic Facebook use in pain perception associated with empathic processes using the event-related potential (ERP) paradigm. More precisely, the current study verified the impact of problematic Facebook use on pain-related stimuli during a subliminal affective priming paradigm task. Three types of priming were used: Facebook-related, pain-related, and neutral. The results showed that the HPFU group answered more slowly than the individuals from LPFU. Additionally, the N2 amplitude was sensitive both for Facebook-related and pain-related primes and painful and nonpainful stimuli types in the HPFU and LPFU groups. However, for the HPFU group, the N2 amplitude was more negative in the painful stimulus condition than in the nonpainful stimulus condition in the Facebook-related prime. The findings also showed that the P3 component was more positive in nonpainful than painful conditions. The study's results allow us to better understand the functioning of Facebook users in the context of emotional and social behavior online.