Recognition Of Emotional Expressions Research Articles

Impaired Facial Emotion Recognition in Individuals at Ultra-High Risk for Psychosis and Associations With Schizotypy and Paranoia Level.

BackgroundPatients with schizophrenia and individuals at ultra-high risk for psychosis (UHR) have been reported to exhibit impaired recognition of facial emotion expressions. This impairment has involved both inaccuracy and negative bias of facial emotion recognition. The present study aimed to investigate whether UHR individuals display both types of impaired facial emotion recognition and to explore correlations between these impairments and schizotypy, as well as paranoia levels, in these individuals.MethodsA total of 43 UHR individuals and 57 healthy controls (HC) completed a facial emotion recognition task consisting of 60 standardized facial photographs. To explore correlations, we assessed schizotypy using the Revised Physical Anhedonia Scale and Magical Ideation Scale and paranoia level using the Paranoia Scale and persecution/suspicious item of the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale in UHR individuals.ResultsCompared with HC, UHR individuals exhibited less accuracy for facial emotion recognition (70.6% vs. 75.6%, p=0.010) and a higher rate of “fear” responses for neutral faces (14.5% vs. 6.0%, p=0.003). In UHR individuals, inaccuracy was significantly correlated with schizotypy scores, but not with paranoia level. Conversely, “disgust” response for neutral faces was the only fear response correlated with paranoia level, and no threat-related emotion response correlated with schizotypy scores.DiscussionUHR individuals exhibited inaccuracy and negative bias of facial emotion recognition. Furthermore, schizotypy scores were associated with inaccuracy but not with negative bias of facial emotion recognition. Paranoia level was correlated with “disgust” responses for neutral faces but not with inaccuracy. These findings suggest that inaccuracy and negative bias of facial emotion recognition reflect different underlying processes, and that inaccuracy may be a vulnerability marker for schizophrenia.

Physical Activity and Social Cognition in the Elderly

Social cognition is related to the so-called “Theory of the mind” and refers to the ability to understand the behavior of other people. It plays a transcendental role in the social relations cohesion. Knowing whether normal aging is associated with deficiencies in social understanding is a problem in characterizing the changes that occur in adulthood. The aim of this study was to examine whether the social cognition of the elderly is mediated by factors such as working memory, physical activity, body composition, or age, in elderly people. Sixty volunteers (mean age, 71.50 ± 4.84 years) were recruited from various locations in Malaga. Recognition of emotional expression, working memory, body composition, and physical activity were evaluated. Our results show that performance in emotion recognition is not affected by age in the range studied. Furthermore, we have not found a relationship with any of the body composition parameters. However, a significant relationship with performance in working memory has been revealed, as well as a significant relationship between vigorous/very vigorous physical activity and working memory. Therefore, physical activity could be positively related to the recognition of emotions by positively influencing working memory.

Alexithymia and automatic processing of facial emotions: behavioral and neural findings

BackgroundAlexithymia is a personality trait characterized by difficulties identifying and describing feelings, an externally oriented style of thinking, and a reduced inclination to imagination. Previous research has shown deficits in the recognition of emotional facial expressions in alexithymia and reductions of brain responsivity to emotional stimuli. Using an affective priming paradigm, we investigated automatic perception of facial emotions as a function of alexithymia at the behavioral and neural level. In addition to self-report scales, we applied an interview to assess alexithymic tendencies.ResultsDuring 3 T fMRI scanning, 49 healthy individuals judged valence of neutral faces preceded by briefly shown happy, angry, fearful, and neutral facial expressions. Alexithymia was assessed using the 20-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA). As expected, only negative correlations were found between alexithymic features and affective priming. The global level of self-reported alexithymia (as assessed by the TAS-20 and the BVAQ) was found to be related to less affective priming owing to angry faces. At the facet level, difficulties identifying feelings, difficulties analyzing feelings, and impoverished fantasy (as measured by the BVAQ) were correlated with reduced affective priming due to angry faces. Difficulties identifying feelings (BVAQ) correlated also with reduced affective priming due to fearful faces and reduced imagination (TSIA) was related to decreased affective priming due to happy faces. There was only one significant correlation between alexithymia dimensions and automatic brain response to masked facial emotions: TAS-20 alexithymia correlated with heightened brain response to masked happy faces in superior and medial frontal areas.ConclusionsOur behavioral results provide evidence that alexithymic features are related in particular to less sensitivity for covert facial expressions of anger. The perceptual alterations could reflect impaired automatic recognition or integration of social anger signals into judgemental processes and might contribute to the problems in interpersonal relationships associated with alexithymia. Our findings suggest that self-report measures of alexithymia may have an advantage over interview-based tests as research tools in the field of emotion perception at least in samples of healthy individuals characterized by rather low levels of alexithymia.

Understanding the role of configural processing in face emotion recognition in Parkinson's disease.

This investigation examined whether impairment in configural processing could explain deficits in face emotion recognition in people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Stimuli from the Radboud Faces Database were used to compare recognition of four negative emotion expressions by older adults with PD (n=16) and matched controls (n=17). Participants were tasked with categorizing emotional expressions from upright and inverted whole faces and facial composites; it is difficult to derive configural information from these two types of stimuli so featural processing should play a larger than usual role in accurate recognition of emotional expressions. We found that the PD group were impaired relative to controls in recognizing anger, disgust and fearful expressions in upright faces. Then, consistent with a configural processing deficit, participants with PD showed no composite effect when attempting to identify facial expressions of anger, disgust and fear. A face inversion effect, however, was observed in the performance of all participants in both the whole faces and facial composites tasks. These findings can be explained in terms of a configural processing deficit if it is assumed that the disruption caused by facial composites was specific to configural processing, whereas inversion reduced performance by making it difficult to derive both featural and configural information from faces.

Social cognition and sex: Are men and women really different?

Social cognition includes the ability to represent other people's intentions and beliefs, and the ability to share and recognise the emotions of others. Here, the main aim was to assess the possible presence of sex differences across four aspects of social cognition: (1) recognition of dynamic facial expressions; (2) representation of other people's mental states (both affective and cognitive Theory of Mind, ToM); (3) empathy; (4) identification and regulation of one's own emotions. Measures assessing social cognition were administrated to two hundred ten participants equally divided between men and women. Results showed no significant sex differences in affective and cognitive ToM, in the recognition of emotional facial expressions (with the exception of anger: women were more accurate than men), and in the ability to identify and regulate one's own emotions. A different result was found for empathy, with women reporting higher scores than men. No significant differences between women during follicular vs. luteal phase of menstrual cycle for all the social cognition measures were found. These results are discussed in light of the existing literature. To our knowledge, this study represents one of the few attempts to analyse in a single work sex differences across multiple areas of social cognition.

Using a Virtual Serious Game (Deusto-e-motion1.0) to Assess the Theory of Mind in Primary School Children: Observational Descriptive Study.

BackgroundGiven the interactive media characteristics and intrinsically motivating appeal, virtual serious games are often praised for their potential for assessment and treatment.ObjectiveThis study aims to validate and develop normative data for a virtual serious game (Deusto-e-motion1.0) for the evaluation of emotional facial expression recognition and social skills, both of which are components of the theory of mind.MethodsA total of 1236 children took part in the study. The children were classified by age (8-12 years old), gender (males=639, females=597), and educational level (between the third and sixth years of Primary Education). A total of 10 schools from the Basque Country and 20 trained evaluators participated in this study.ResultsDifferences were found in Deusto-e-motion1.0 scores between groups of children depending on age and gender. Moreover, there was a moderately significant correlation between the emotional recognition scores of Deusto-e-motion1.0 and those of the Feel facial recognition test.ConclusionsDeusto-e-motion1.0 shows concurrent validity with instruments that assess emotional recognition. Results support the adequacy of Deusto-e-motion1.0 in assessing components of the theory of mind in children.

Event-Related Potentials Elicited by Face and Face Pareidolia in Parkinson's Disease.

Background Parkinson's disease is associated with impaired ability to recognize emotional facial expressions. In addition to a visual processing disorder, a visual recognition disorder may be involved in these patients. Pareidolia is a type of complex visual illusion that permits the interpretation of a vague stimulus as something known to the observer. Parkinson's patients experience pareidolic illusions. N170 and N250 waveforms are two event-related potentials (ERPs) involved in emotional facial expression recognition. Objective In this study, we investigated how Parkinson's patients process face and face-pareidolia stimuli at the neural level using N170, vertex positive potential (VPP), and N250 components of event-related potentials. Methods To examine the response of face and face-pareidolia processing in Parkinson's patients, we measured the N170, VPP, and N250 components of the event-related brain potentials in a group of 21 participants with Parkinson's disease and 26 control participants. Results We found that the latencies of N170 and VPP responses to both face and face-pareidolia stimuli were increased along with their amplitudes, and the amplitude of N250 responses decreased in Parkinson's patients compared to the control group. In both control and Parkinson's patients, face stimuli generated greater ERP amplitude and shorter latency in responses than did face-pareidolia stimuli. Conclusion The results of our study showed that ERPs associated with face and also face-pareidolia stimuli processing are changed in early-stage neurophysiological activity in the temporoparietal cortex of Parkinson's patients.

"Motion or Emotion? Recognition of Emotional Bodily Expressions in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder With and Without Intellectual Disability".

The recognition of emotional body movement (BM) is impaired in individuals with Autistic Spectrum Disorder ASD, yet it is not clear whether the difficulty is related to the encoding of body motion, emotions, or both. Besides, BM recognition has been traditionally studied using point-light displays stimuli (PLDs) and is still underexplored in individuals with ASD and intellectual disability (ID). In the present study, we investigated the recognition of happy, fearful, and neutral BM in children with ASD with and without ID. In a non-verbal recognition task, participants were asked to recognize pure-body-motion and visible-body-form stimuli (by means of point-light displays-PLDs and full-light displays-FLDs, respectively). We found that the children with ASD were less accurate than TD children in recognizing both the emotional and neutral BM, either when presented as FLDs or PLDs. These results suggest that the difficulty in understanding the observed BM may rely on atypical processing of BM information rather than emotion. Moreover, we found that the accuracy improved with age and IQ only in children with ASD without ID, suggesting that high level of cognitive resources can mediate the acquisition of compensatory mechanisms which develop with age.

Ability EI predicts recognition of dynamic facial emotions, but not beyond the effects of crystallized IQ

Extant evidence provides no consensus on whether individuals with higher emotional intelligence (EI) are better at recognising others’ facial emotions, or whether EI independently contributes to this skill beyond related predictors (such as general cognitive ability). Methodological variations across studies complicate evaluations of the link between EI and emotion recognition skill (e.g., type of EI examined [trait/ability], use of static/posed photos of prototypical emotional expressions vs. ‘real-life’ dynamic video). Our study explored whether EI (trait or ability) was associated with accuracy in labelling subtle, dynamic displays of emotional expressions (happy, sad, angry, disgusted, fearful, surprised) akin to those typically encountered in social interactions. Data from 92 UK adults (79% females; Mean age = 27.80; SD = 11.57) showed that only a subset of ability EI (emotion understanding) was associated with the recognition of emotional expressions, but this did not surpass the predictive effect of crystallised intelligence. Our data suggest that broader cognitive abilities may account for the association between ability EI and facial emotion recognition skill, and that current EI measures lack sensitivity to represent differences in socially-relevant aspects of emotion recognition.

Impairments in Emotion Recognition and Risk-Taking Behavior After Isolated, Cerebellar Stroke

An increasing amount of research has shown a cerebellar involvement in higher order cognitive functions, including emotional processing and decision-making. However, it has not been investigated whether impairments in facial emotion recognition, which could be a marker of impaired emotional experiences, are related to risky decision-making in these patients. Therefore, we aimed to investigate facial emotion recognition and risky decision-making in these patients as well as to investigate a relationship between these constructs. Thirteen patients with a discrete, isolated, cerebellar lesion as a consequence of a stroke were included in the study. Emotion recognition was assessed with the Facial Expressions of Emotions—Stimuli and Test (FEEST). Risk-taking behavior was assessed with the Action Selection Test (AST). Furthermore, 106 matched healthy controls performed the FEEST and 20 matched healthy controls performed the AST. Compared with healthy controls, patients were significantly worse in the recognition of emotional expressions and they took significantly more risks. In addition, a worse ability to recognize fearful facial expressions was strongly related to an increase in risky decisions in the AST. Therefore, we suggest that tests of emotion recognition should be incorporated into the neuropsychological assessment after cerebellar stroke to boost detection and treatment of these impairments in these patients.

Microstructural Anomalies Evaluated by Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging Are Related to Deficits in Facial Emotional Recognition via Perceptual-Binding Difficulties in Autism Spectrum Disorder.

The integration of visual features is important for recognizing objects as a coherent whole, a key domain of difficulty in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We tested the hypothesis that ASD patients exhibit difficulties in facial emotional recognition via perceptual binding difficulties due to weak coherence. We assessed 18 ASD and 27 typically developing individuals for their ability to identify emotional expressions from faces in pictures moving behind a narrow vertical and horizontal slit. In this task, only a single local piece of facial information was provided at any one time through the slit. Using a voxel-based analysis of neurite-orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI), we examined the relationship between NODDI index values at each voxel and the behavioral performance of ASD patients in the slit-viewing paradigm. ASD patients demonstrated impaired recognition of facial emotional expression only in horizontal slit-viewing. This deficit was associated with deficits in communication ability. Voxel-based analysis revealed significant negative correlations between behavioral deficits in horizontal slit-viewing and NODDI index values in clusters including the ventral occipital complex region, superior temporal/parietal association areas, and forceps major of the corpus callosum. Our results indicated deficits for the first time in perceptual integration of facial expression across hemispheres in ASD patients due to microstructural disturbances in the corpus callosum and areas related to viewing of the human face. This may underscore the difficulties faced by ASD patients in understanding the emotions of other people, contributing to impairments in communication ability in ASD patients. Autism Res 2020, 13: 729-740. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: We assessed ASD and typically developing individuals for their ability to identify emotional expressions from faces in pictures moving behind a narrow vertical and horizontal slit. ASD patients demonstrated impaired recognition of facial emotional expression only in horizontal slit-viewing. Voxel-based analysis revealed significant negative correlations between behavioral deficits and NODDI index values in clusters including the corpus callosum. Our results indicated deficits in perceptual integration of facial expression across hemispheres in ASD patients potentially resulting from microstructural disturbances.

The Complex Emotion Expression Database: A validated stimulus set of trained actors.

The vast majority of empirical work investigating the mechanisms supporting the perception and recognition of facial expressions is focused on basic expressions. Less is known about the underlying mechanisms supporting the processing of complex expressions, which provide signals about emotions related to more nuanced social behavior and inner thoughts. Here, we introduce the Complex Emotion Expression Database (CEED), a digital stimulus set of 243 basic and 237 complex emotional facial expressions. The stimuli represent six basic expressions (angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, sad, and surprised) and nine complex expressions (affectionate, attracted, betrayed, brokenhearted, contemptuous, desirous, flirtatious, jealous, and lovesick) that were posed by Black and White formally trained, young adult actors. All images were validated by a minimum of 50 adults in a 4-alternative forced choice task. Only images for which ≥ 50% of raters endorsed the correct emotion label were included in the final database. This database will be an excellent resource for researchers interested in studying the developmental, behavioral, and neural mechanisms supporting the perception and recognition of complex emotion expressions.

Восприятие экспрессий «живого» лица

The article provides a review of experimental studies of interpersonal perception on the material of static and dynamic facial expressions as a unique source of information about the person’s inner world. The focus is on the patterns of perception of a moving face, included in the processes of communication and joint activities (an alternative to the most commonly studied perception of static images of a person outside of a behavioral context). The review includes four interrelated topics: face statics and dynamics in the recognition of emotional expressions; specificity of perception of moving face expressions; multimodal integration of emotional cues; generation and perception of facial expressions in communication processes. The analysis identifies the most promising areas of research of face in motion. We show that the static and dynamic modes of facial perception complement each other, and describe the role of qualitative features of the facial expression dynamics in assessing the emotional state of a person. Facial expression is considered as part of a holistic multimodal manifestation of emotions. The importance of facial movements as an instrument of social interaction is emphasized.

„Co wyraża twarz?” – rozpoznawanie ekspresji emocjonalnej twarzy przez osoby głuche i słyszące

„What does the Face Express?” – Recognition of Emotional Facial Expressions in Deaf and Hearing People An analysis of emotional functioning of deaf people is important for understanding their activities in different areas of life. Emotional functioning is related to emotional intelligence, which involves emotion perception and recognition as well as emotional expressiveness. The aim of the study was to compare the ability to recognize facial emotional expression among deaf and hearing people. The present study was conducted on 80 individuals (40 deaf people and 40 hearing people). The Emotional Intelligence Scale – Faces (Matczak, Piekarska, Studniarek, 2005) and a set of photographs used by Paul Ekman in his study of basic emotions were used for the data collection. The results obtained show that deaf people differ from hearing people in recognizing facial expressions. The analysis was conducted in terms of differences in recognition of expression of basic and complex emotions. The study included variables such as the moment of hearing loss (congenital or acquired deafness) or upbringing with deaf or hearing parents.

The role of sleep in the relational memory processes

A growing body of evidence suggests that sleep plays an essential role in the consolidation of different memory systems, but less is known about the beneficial effect of sleep on relational memory processes and the recognition of emotional facial expressions, however, it is a fundamental cognitive skill in human everyday life. Thus, the study aims to investigate the effect of timing of learning and the role of sleep in relational memory processes. 84 young adults (average age: 22.36 (SD: 3.22), 21 male/63 female) participated in our study, divided into two groups: evening group and morning group indicating the time of learning. We used the face-name task to measure relational memory and facial expression recognition. There were two sessions for both groups: the immediate testing phase and the delayed retesting phase, separated by 24 hours. 84 young adults (average age: 22.36 (SD: 3.22), 21 male/63 female) participated in our study, divided into two groups: evening group and morning group indicating the time of learning. We used the face-name task to measure relational memory and facial expression recognition. There were two sessions for both groups: the immediate testing phase and the delayed retesting phase, separated by 24 hours. Our results suggest that the timing of learning and sleep plays an important role in the stabilizing process of memory representation to resist against forgetting.

Donning the Mask: The Impact of COVID-19 on Emotional Labour Performance

Emotional labour, the workplace management of emotions, is integral to work performance and relies on the observation and recognition of emotion in the service industry. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a sudden global increase in the number of employees and service users required to wear face masks, resulting in a new normal for emotion expression and emotion recognition in the emotional labour performance. This paper explores emotional labour theory and proposes a theoretical consideration of the challenges and benefits this modification to the service user-employee interaction may have. Suggested challenges include changes to the service user-employee relationship due to impaired communication and increased customer anxiety and frustrations. Organisational responses are discussed in relation to training and cross-industrial sharing of knowledge. Finally, opportunities for organisational research are discussed alongside suggestions for future research.

Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Influences Facial Emotion Recognition in Patients With Parkinson's Disease: A Review.

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor symptoms following dopaminergic depletion in the substantia nigra. Besides motor impairments, however, several non-motor detriments can have the potential to considerably impact subjectively perceived quality of life in patients. Particularly emotion recognition of facial expressions has been shown to be affected in PD, and especially the perception of negative emotions like fear, anger, or disgust is impaired. While emotion processing generally refers to automatic implicit as well as conscious explicit processing, the focus of most previous studies in PD was on explicit recognition of emotions only, while largely ignoring implicit processing deficits. Deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) is widely accepted as a therapeutic measure in the treatment of PD and has been shown to advantageously influence motor problems. Among various concomitant non-motor effects of STN-DBS, modulation of facial emotion recognition under subthalamic stimulation has been investigated in previous studies with rather heterogeneous results. Although there seems to be a consensus regarding the processing of disgust, which significantly deteriorates under STN stimulation, findings concerning emotions like fear or happiness report heterogeneous data and seem to depend on various experimental settings and measurements. In the present review, we summarized previous investigations focusing on STN-DBS influence on recognition of facial emotional expressions in patients suffering from PD. In a first step, we provide a synopsis of disturbances and problems in facial emotion processing observed in patients with PD. Second, we present findings of STN-DBS influence on facial emotion recognition and especially highlight different impacts of stimulation on implicit and explicit emotional processing.

Social cognitive endophenotypes in schizophrenia: A study comparing first episode schizophrenia patients and, individuals at clinical- and familial- ‘at-risk’ for psychosis

Impairments in specific domains of social cognition have been suggested as possible endophenotypes for schizophrenia and clinical markers for accurate identification of ‘at-risk’ (AR) states. Aim of the present study was to find out whether performance on social cognition tasks will distinguish ‘clinical at-risk (CAR)’ and ‘familial at-risk (FAR)’ individuals from remitted first episode schizophrenia (FES) patients and healthy controls. Fifty in each of these four groups were included for analysis. Schizophrenia psychopathology in FES group was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Theory of mind (ToM; first and second order (SOT and FOT), and faux pas composite (FPC)), attributional bias (AB) and social perception (SP) were assessed using the Social Cognition Rating Tool in Indian Setting (SOCRATIS). Facial emotion recognition task was used to assess emotional-expression recognition (ER). Significant differences in ToM, SP and ER between the four groups were found, even after controlling for performance on various neurocognitive tasks. ToM and SP were identified to follow an endophenotype pattern. While, both ToM and SP classified FES from healthy with large accuracy rates, SP, specifically, distinguished at-risk from disease groups. None of the social cognitive domains accurately classified familial at-risk from clinical at-risk groups. We conclude that social cognitive measures may be used as reliable endophenotype markers for schizophrenia and its sub-domains may be used for valid identification of AR individuals.

AI-enabled emotion-aware robot: The fusion of smart clothing, edge clouds and robotics

Mental health has become a severe problem that significantly influences people’s living quality. With the rapid development of science and technology, a completely new direction for mental health improving by using the interaction between robots and people has emerged. As an intelligent personal agent, a robot can be easily accepted in people’s daily life, meeting users’ behavior and mental demands to a certain extent. Nevertheless, the existing robot design is very limited, and a household personal robot is too large to be carried anywhere . The usage of wearable devices is simple, but these devices cannot offer diversified services. Therefore, this paper puts forward an emotion-aware system that integrates a personal robot, smart clothing, and cloud terminal. A new ’people-centered’ emotion-interaction mode is realized. Namely, personal robot and smart clothing supplement each other seamlessly and interact jointly with users . Artificial intelligence technology and knowledge graph are used to design emotion perception and interaction algorithms including intelligent recommendation, relation recognition, emotional expression recognition. Also, different scenarios are analyzed . Finally, a testbed is built to carry out relevant tests to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and emotion-aware system. According to the obtained test results, the system can be widely used to serve people and improve people’s mental health.

Effects of empathic traits on recognition of facial emotional expression

Effects of empathic traits on recognition of facial emotional expression