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Brain Sci. 2012, 2, 85-100; doi:10.3390/brainsci2020085 OPEN ACCESS brain sciences ISSN 2076-3425 /journal/brainsci/ Article Subliminal and Supraliminal Processing of Facial Expression of Emotions: Brain Oscillation in the Left/Right Frontal Area Michela Balconi * and Chiara Ferrari Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology, Department of Psychology, Catholic University of Milan, Largo Gemelli, 1, 20123 Milan, Italy; E-Mail: chiara.ferrari.uni@ * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: michela.balconi@unicatt.it; Tel.: +39-2 Fax: +39-2 Received: 30 January 2012; in revised form: 24 February 2012 / Accepted: 16 March 2012 / Published: 26 March 2012 Abstract: The unconscious effects of an emotional stimulus have been highlighted by a vast amount of research, whereover it remains questionable whether it is possible to assign a specific function to cortical brain oscillations in the unconscious perception of facial expressions of emotions. Alpha band variation was monitored within the right- and left-cortical side when subjects consciously (supraliminal stimulation) or unconsciously (subliminal stimulation) processed facial patterns. Twenty subjects looked at six facial expressions of emotions (anger, fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, sadness, and neutral) under two different conditions: supraliminal (200 ms) vs. subliminal (30 ms) stimulation (140 target-mask pairs for each condition). The results showed that