Recognition Of Emotional Expressions Research Articles

Oxytocin Reduces Face Processing Time but Leaves Recognition Accuracy and Eye-Gaze Unaffected.

Previous studies have found that oxytocin (OXT) can improve the recognition of emotional facial expressions; it has been proposed that this effect is mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces. Nevertheless, evidence in support of this claim is inconsistent, and few studies have directly tested the effect of oxytocin on emotion recognition via altered eye-gaze Methods: In a double-blind, within-subjects, randomized control experiment, 40 healthy male participants received 24 IU intranasal OXT and placebo in two identical experimental sessions separated by a 2-week interval. Visual attention to the eye-region was assessed on both occasions while participants completed a static facial emotion recognition task using medium intensity facial expressions. Although OXT had no effect on emotion recognition accuracy, recognition performance was improved because face processing was faster across emotions under the influence of OXT. This effect was marginally significant (p<.06). Consistent with a previous study using dynamic stimuli, OXT had no effect on eye-gaze patterns when viewing static emotional faces and this was not related to recognition accuracy or face processing time. These findings suggest that OXT-induced enhanced facial emotion recognition is not necessarily mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces, as previously assumed. We discuss several methodological issues which may explain discrepant findings and suggest the effect of OXT on visual attention may differ depending on task requirements. (JINS, 2017, 23, 23-33).

When preschoolers follow their eyes and older children follow their noses: visuo-olfactory social affective matching inchildhood.

Recognition of emotional facial expressions is a crucial skill for adaptive behavior that most often occurs in a multi-sensory context. Affective matching tasks have been used across development to investigate how people integrate facial information with other senses. Given the relative affective strength of olfaction and its relevance in mediating social information since birth, we assessed olfactory-visual matching abilities in a group of 140 children between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. We presented one of three odor primes (rose, fish and no-odor, rated as pleasant or unpleasant by individual children) before a facial choice task (happy vs. disgusted face). Children were instructed to select one of two faces. As expected, children of all ages tended to choose happy faces. Children younger than 5 years of age were biased towards choosing the happy face, irrespective of the odor smelled. After age 5, an affective matching strategy guided children's choices. Smelling a pleasant odor predicted the choice of happy faces, whereas smelling the unpleasant or fish odor predicted the choice of disgusted faces. The present study fills a gap in the developmental literature on olfactory-visual affective strategies that affect decision-making, and represents an important step towards understanding the underlying developmental processes that shape the typical social mind.

Sex Differences in Emotion Recognition and Emotional Inferencing Following Severe Traumatic Brain Injury

The primary objective of the current study was to determine if men and women with traumatic brain injury (TBI) differ in their emotion recognition and emotional inferencing abilities. In addition to overall accuracy, we explored whether differences were contingent upon the target emotion for each task, or upon high- and low-intensity facial and vocal emotion expressions. A total of 160 participants (116 men) with severe TBI completed three tasks – a task measuring facial emotion recognition (DANVA-Faces), vocal emotion recognition (DANVA-Voices) and one measuring emotional inferencing (emotional inference from stories test (EIST)). Results showed that women with TBI were significantly more accurate in their recognition of vocal emotion expressions and also for emotional inferencing. Further analyses of task performance showed that women were significantly better than men at recognising fearful facial expressions and also facial emotion expressions high in intensity. Women also displayed increased response accuracy for sad vocal expressions and low-intensity vocal emotion expressions. Analysis of the EIST task showed that women were more accurate than men at emotional inferencing in sad and fearful stories. A similar proportion of women and men with TBI were impaired (≥ 2 SDs when compared to normative means) at facial emotion perception, χ2 = 1.45, p = 0.228, but a larger proportion of men was impaired at vocal emotion recognition, χ2 = 7.13, p = 0.008, and emotional inferencing, χ2 = 7.51, p = 0.006.

COGNICIÓN INSTRUCCIONAL POSITIVA: IMPLEMENTACIÓN DE UNA EXPERIENCIA PILOTO CON JÓVENES CUBANOS

Abstract:The present communication describes the pilot implementation of a program based on Positive Instructional Cognition (PIC), carried out among young people from Cuba. First, there is an explanation of the basis of this model, which is founded in the comprehensive human education proposed by the most important international organizations (OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and by the psychological models of world-acknowledged authors such as Viktor Frankl and Martin Seligman. In it we develop the three-dimensional competence in the comprehensive education of the person (‘learning to know’, ‘learning to do’ and ‘learning to be’) operativizing it in five different levels: Analysis of the problem, Emotional expression and emotion recognition, Self-knowledge, Reflection and Well-being. And secondly, we explain the implementation of this program and the results of changes in the character strengths and the other dimensions that we have studied (gratitude and capacity of forgiveness).Keywords: Positive Instructional Cognition, Happiness, Well-being, Positive Psychology.Resumen:La comunicación recoge la implementación piloto de un programa, basado en la Cognición Instruccional Positiva (CIP) (Cabaco, 2009), con jóvenes cubanos. En primer lugar, exponemos la fundamentación del modelo que se apoya en la formación humana integral propuesta desde los más altos organismos internacionales (Organización de Cooperación y Desarrollo Económicos, OCDE) y en los modelos psicológicos de reconocidos autores como Viktor Frankl y Martin Seligman. En él se desarrolla la tridimensionalidad competencial de la formación integral de la persona (Saber, Saber hacer y Saber ser) operativizándola en cinco niveles: Análisis del problema, Expresión y reconocimiento emocional, Autoconocimiento, Reflexión y Bienestar. Y en segundo lugar, mostramos la aplicación experimental del programa y los resultados obtenidos en el cambio en las fortalezas personales y en otras dimensiones estudiadas (gratitud y capacidad de perdonar).Palabras clave: Cognición Instruccional Positiva, Felicidad, Bienestar, Psicología Positiva.

Social cognition in multiple sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

To quantify the magnitude of deficits in theory of mind (ToM) and facial emotion recognition among patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) relative to healthy controls. An electronic database search of Ovid MEDLINE, PsycINFO, and Embase was conducted from inception to April 1, 2016. Eligible studies were original research articles published in peer-reviewed journals that examined ToM or facial emotion recognition among patients with a diagnosis of MS and a healthy control comparison group. Data were independently extracted by 2 authors. Effect sizes were calculated using Hedges g. Twenty-one eligible studies were identified assessing ToM (12 studies) and/or facial emotion recognition (13 studies) among 722 patients with MS and 635 controls. Deficits in both ToM (g = -0.71, 95% confidence interval [CI] -0.88 to -0.55, p < 0.001) and facial emotion recognition (g = -0.64, 95% CI -0.81 to -0.47, p < 0.001) were identified among patients with MS relative to healthy controls. The largest deficits were observed for visual ToM tasks and for the recognition of negative facial emotional expressions. Older age predicted larger emotion recognition deficits. Other cognitive domains were inconsistently associated with social cognitive performance. Social cognitive deficits are an overlooked but potentially important aspect of cognitive impairment in MS with potential prognostic significance for social functioning and quality of life. Further research is required to clarify the longitudinal course of social cognitive dysfunction, its association with MS disease characteristics and neurocognitive impairment, and the MS-specific neurologic damage underlying these deficits.

Angry Versus Furious: A Comparison Between Valence and Arousal in Dimensional Models of Emotions

ABSTRACTThe present study compared the roles of valence and arousal, proposed by the dimensional models of emotions, in recognizing emotional expressions. It was hypothesized that the dimension of valence, due to its functional significance, would be more salient in the recognition of emotional expressions than the dimension of arousal would be. The results of the current study supported this hypothesis. The participants in all age groups were more accurate and quicker in recognizing an emotion when the expression was paired up with another emotional expression that was different in the polarity of the valence dimension than with this similar polarity difference in the arousal dimension. The insignificant difference in recognizing the positive and negative emotional expressions in the group of elders also rejected the Socio-Emotional Selectivity Theory.

Distinct roles of the anterior temporal lobe and the inferior frontal gyrus in recognition of dynamic emotional body expressions in patients with frontotemporal dementia

Distinct roles of the anterior temporal lobe and the inferior frontal gyrus in recognition of dynamic emotional body expressions in patients with frontotemporal dementia

Does facial expression recognition provide a toehold for the development of emotion understanding?

The authors explored predictions from basic emotion theory (BET) that facial emotion expression recognition skills are insular with respect to their own development, and yet foundational to the development of emotional perspective-taking skills. Participants included 417 preschool children for whom estimates of these 2 emotion understanding variables and receptive language skills were obtained at 2 time points, separated by 24 weeks. Path results for autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation models revealed support for the BET predictions for younger preschoolers (ages 36 to 48 months). In contrast, results for older preschoolers (ages 49 to 67 months) revealed bidirectional influences between receptive language and emotion understanding consistent with constructionist theories of emotion. Findings support a hybrid model in which associations between receptive language and emotion understanding skills are initially nonsignificant and become significant over time. The implications of emotion expression recognition as an early toehold for the development of more advanced emotion understanding skills are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Oxytocin and emotion processing.

Since the observation that oxytocin has key effects on social decision making, research on this exciting neuropeptide has doubled in volume: hundreds of studies have pursued the promise of a specific oxytocin action on high-level cognition and social function with wide potential translational implications (from autism to social anxiety to dementia). Here we review the evidence on whether the complex behavioural effects observed in humans after exogenous oxytocin administration build on changes in basic emotional information processing, in particular emotional facial expressions recognition, and attention and memory for emotionally-valenced stimuli.We observe that recent studies confirm a facilitatory effect of oxytocin to more accurate emotion processing, irrespective of emotion type. However, it remains unclear whether this action precedes, is independent of or even secondary to the neuropeptide promoting a greater salience of social stimuli. Overall, this growing research area has shown that oxytocin produces behavioural and neurofunctional outcomes that are highly dependent on the experimental context and on individual differences (gender, personality, life experiences). This poses an exciting challenge for future experimental medicine designs to address and unpack complex interactions between individual and context characteristic, which is needed for the development of more precise clinical applications.

Inteligencia emocional y adaptabilidad social en mandos gerenciales

El objetivo de la presente investigación es conocer si existe relación estadísticamente significativa entre Inteligencia Emocional (IE) y Adaptabilidad Social (AS) en trabajadores con un puesto gerencial, debido a que se ha demostrado que la IE se relaciona con el reconocimiento y regulación de las expresiones emocionales de los otros (Fernández &amp; Extremera, 2009), favorece el desarrollo de habilidades prácticas y de manejo del estrés, un mayor bienestar percibido y la mejora de la calidad de los servicios ofrecidos a los usuarios (Extremera, Durán, &amp; Rey, 2005). El presente estudio es de tipo correlacional, para el cual se tomó una muestra no probabilística intencional de 50 gerentes de sucursales de algunas de las empresas de Fresnillo, Zacatecas. Dicha muestra se evaluó mediante la aplicación simultánea de la versión Española del Trait Meta Mood Scale TMMS-24 (Fernández, Extremera, &amp; Ramos, 2004) y el Cuestionario de Adaptabilidad Social MOSS elaborado por Rudolf Moss y Berenice Moss en 1979. Los datos se analizaron con el paquete estadístico SPSS, versión 15.0, así se obtuvo el coeficiente de correlación paramétrico de Pearson. Los resultados arrojados muestran que existe una relación positiva, baja y significativa (r = .512, p = 0.05), entre la habilidad de supervisión y la atención emocional.

The integration of visual context information in facial emotion recognition in 5- to 15-year-olds

The current study investigated the role of congruent visual context information in the recognition of facial emotional expression in 190 participants from 5 to 15years of age. Children performed a matching task that presented pictures with different facial emotional expressions (anger, disgust, happiness, fear, and sadness) in two conditions: with and without a visual context. The results showed that emotions presented with visual context information were recognized more accurately than those presented in the absence of visual context. The context effect remained steady with age but varied according to the emotion presented and the gender of participants. The findings demonstrated for the first time that children from the age of 5years are able to integrate facial expression and visual context information, and this integration improves facial emotion recognition.

Alterations in neural processing of emotional faces in adolescent anorexia nervosa patients – an event-related potential study

The present study explored the neurophysiological correlates of perception and recognition of emotional facial expressions in adolescent anorexia nervosa (AN) patients using event-related potentials (ERPs). We included 20 adolescent girls with AN and 24 healthy girls and recorded ERPs during a passive viewing task and three active tasks requiring processing of emotional faces in varying processing depths; one of the tasks also assessed emotion recognition abilities behaviourally. Despite the absence of behavioural differences, we found that across all tasks AN patients exhibited a less pronounced early posterior negativity (EPN) in response to all facial expressions compared to controls. The EPN is an ERP component reflecting an automatic, perceptual processing stage which is modulated by the intrinsic salience of a stimulus. Hence, the less pronounced EPN in anorexic girls suggests that they might perceive other people’s faces as less intrinsically relevant, i.e. as less “important” than do healthy girls.

Recognition of emotional facial expressions in anxious and nonanxious depression

BackgroundAnxiety and depression have each been independently associated with impairments in emotional face recognition. However, little is known about the nature of these impairments when anxiety and depression co-occur. MethodsThis post-hoc analysis evaluated the relationship between anxiety status and performance on the Emotional Expression Multimorph Task within a clinical sample of individuals with major depressive disorder (MDD). ResultsParticipants with anxious depression (n=14) and nonanxious depression (n=14) completed the Emotional Expression Multimorph Task. Those with anxious depression required greater intensity of emotion to identify both happy (p=.01) and sad (p=.04) facial expressions than those with nonanxious depression. Severity of anxiety also correlated with greater intensity of emotion required to detect sad faces. Contrary to prediction, hypervigilance to angry and fearful facial expressions was not observed in anxious depression. LimitationsThe present study did not include an anxiety-only group for comparison, and did not assess state anxiety at time of administration. In addition, the extent to which the experimental task correlates with social functioning is not fully understood. ConclusionsThese findings suggest a diminished sensitivity to happy and sad facial expressions specific to anxious depression, but not a hypervigilance toward threatening facial expressions. Further research on the nature of emotion recognition in anxiety and depression may inform improved clinical interventions.

Editorial: The Social Nature of Emotions.

Emotions are a defining aspect of the human condition. They pervade our social and professional lives, influence our thinking and behavior, and profoundly shape our relationships and social interactions. Traditionally, emotions have been conceptualized and studied primarily as individual phenomena, with research focusing on cognitive and expressive components and on physiological and neurological processes underlying emotional reactions. Over the last two decades, however, an increasing scholarly awareness has emerged that emotions are inherently social—that is, they tend to be elicited by other people, expressed toward other people, and regulated to influence other people or to comply with social norms (Parkinson, 1996; Van Kleef, 2009; Fischer and Manstead, in press). Despite this increasing awareness, the inclusion of the social dimension as a fundamental element in emotion research is still in its infancy (Fischer and Van Kleef, 2010). To stimulate further theorizing and research in this area, the current research topic brings together the latest cutting-edge research on the social nature of emotions. A growing literature supports the notion that emotions are tightly weaved into the fabric of our social lives (for a comprehensive review, see Van Kleef, 2016). For instance, research has demonstrated that social-contextual influences (e.g., norms, group membership) systematically shape the experience, regulation, and expression of emotions (e.g., Doosje et al., 1998; Clark et al., 2004; Fischer and Evers, 2011). Other studies have begun to uncover how social factors such as power differentials and culture influence the recognition and interpretation of emotional expressions (e.g., Elfenbein and Ambady, 2003; Mesquita and Markus, 2004; Stamkou et al., 2016). Still other work has documented how (behavioral) responses to the emotional expressions of other people are shaped by the social context, for instance in close relationships (e.g., Clark and Taraban, 1991; Guerrero et al., 2008), group settings (e.g., Barsade, 2002; Cheshin et al., 2011; Heerdink et al., 2013), conflict and negotiation (Van Kleef et al., 2008; Adam et al., 2010), customer service (Staw et al., 1994; Grandey et al., 2010), and leadership (Sy et al., 2005; Van Kleef et al., 2010b). The social nature of emotions can be meaningfully analyzed at four different levels of analysis: the individual, dyadic, group, and cultural level (Keltner and Haidt, 1999). Even though these levels of analysis are not always mutually exclusive and some studies can be situated at multiple levels, this typology affords a useful organizing principle for discussing the contributions to the current research topic, which shed new light on the social nature of emotions at each of these levels.

Sniff and mimic — Intranasal oxytocin increases facial mimicry in a sample of men

The neuropeptide oxytocin (OT) has many potential social benefits. For example, intranasal administration of OT appears to trigger caregiving behavior and to improve the recognition of emotional facial expressions. But the mechanism for these effects is not yet clear. Recent findings relating OT to action imitation and to the visual processing of the eye region of faces point to mimicry as a mechanism through which OT improves processing of emotional expression. To test the hypothesis that increased levels of OT in the brain enhance facial mimicry, 60 healthy male participants were administered, in a double-blind between-subjects design, 24 international units (IUs) of OT or placebo (PLA) through nasal spray. Facial mimicry and emotion judgments were recorded in response to movie clips depicting changing facial expressions. As expected, facial mimicry was increased in the OT group, but effects were strongest for angry infant faces. These findings provide further evidence for the importance of OT in social cognitive skills, and suggest that facial mimicry mediates the effects of OT on improved emotion recognition.

PT551. Recognition and discrimination of facial emotion expression in Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder

PT551. Recognition and discrimination of facial emotion expression in Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths.

Individuals with psychopathy present deficits in the recognition of facial emotional expressions. However, the nature and extent of these alterations are not fully understood. Furthermore, available data on the functional neural correlates of emotional face recognition deficits in adult psychopaths have provided mixed results. In this context, emotional face morphing tasks may be suitable for clarifying mild and emotion-specific impairments in psychopaths. Likewise, studies exploring corresponding anatomical correlates may be useful for disentangling available neurofunctional evidence based on the alleged neurodevelopmental roots of psychopathic traits. We used Voxel-Based Morphometry and a morphed emotional face expression recognition task to evaluate the relationship between regional gray matter (GM) volumes and facial emotion recognition deficits in male psychopaths. In comparison to male healthy controls, psychopaths showed deficits in the recognition of sad, happy and fear emotional expressions. In subsequent brain imaging analyses psychopaths with better recognition of facial emotional expressions showed higher volume in the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal, inferior frontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices), somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, cingulate cortex and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Amygdala and temporal lobe volumes contributed to better emotional face recognition in controls only. These findings provide evidence suggesting that variability in brain morphometry plays a role in accounting for psychopaths’ impaired ability to recognize emotional face expressions, and may have implications for comprehensively characterizing the empathy and social cognition dysfunctions typically observed in this population of subjects.

Emotional Abilities in Children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD): Impairments in Perspective-Taking and Understanding Mixed Emotions are Associated with High Callous-Unemotional Traits.

Most studies of emotion abilities in disruptive children focus on emotion expression recognition. This study compared 74 children aged 4-8years with ODD to 45 comparison children (33 healthy; 12 with an anxiety disorder) on behaviourally assessed measures of emotion perception, emotion perspective-taking, knowledge of emotions causes and understanding ambivalent emotions and on parent-reported cognitive and affective empathy. Adjusting for child's sex, age and expressive language ODD children showed a paucity in attributing causes to emotions but no other deficits relative to the comparison groups. ODD boys with high levels of callous-unemotional traits (CU) (n=22) showed deficits relative to low CU ODD boys (n=25) in emotion perspective-taking and in understanding ambivalent emotions. Low CU ODD boys did not differ from the healthy typically developing boys (n=12). Impairments in emotion perceptive-taking and understanding mixed emotions in ODD boys are associated with the presence of a high level of CU.

An Event-Related Potential Study on the Effects of Cannabis on Emotion Processing.

The effect of cannabis on emotional processing was investigated using event-related potential paradigms (ERPs). ERPs associated with emotional processing of cannabis users, and non-using controls, were recorded and compared during an implicit and explicit emotional expression recognition and empathy task. Comparisons in P3 component mean amplitudes were made between cannabis users and controls. Results showed a significant decrease in the P3 amplitude in cannabis users compared to controls. Specifically, cannabis users showed reduced P3 amplitudes for implicit compared to explicit processing over centro-parietal sites which reversed, and was enhanced, at fronto-central sites. Cannabis users also showed a decreased P3 to happy faces, with an increase to angry faces, compared to controls. These effects appear to increase with those participants that self-reported the highest levels of cannabis consumption. Those cannabis users with the greatest consumption rates showed the largest P3 deficits for explicit processing and negative emotions. These data suggest that there is a complex relationship between cannabis consumption and emotion processing that appears to be modulated by attention.

Degraded Impairment of Emotion Recognition in Parkinson's Disease Extends from Negative to Positive Emotions.

Because of dopaminergic neurodegeneration, patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) show impairment in the recognition of negative facial expressions. In the present study, we aimed to determine whether PD patients with more advanced motor problems would show a much greater deficit in recognition of emotional facial expressions than a control group and whether impairment of emotion recognition would extend to positive emotions. Twenty-nine PD patients and 29 age-matched healthy controls were recruited. Participants were asked to discriminate emotions in Experiment 1 and identify gender in Experiment 2. In Experiment 1, PD patients demonstrated a recognition deficit for negative (sadness and anger) and positive faces. Further analysis showed that only PD patients with high motor dysfunction performed poorly in recognition of happy faces. In Experiment 2, PD patients showed an intact ability for gender identification, and the results eliminated possible abilities in the functions measured in Experiment 2 as alternative explanations for the results of Experiment 1. We concluded that patients' ability to recognize emotions deteriorated as the disease progressed. Recognition of negative emotions was impaired first, and then the impairment extended to positive emotions.