Emotional Facial Expressions Research Articles

Disrupted coherence between autonomic activation and emotional expression in individuals at clinical high risk for psychosis.

Landmark studies have shown decreased coherence between different emotion response systems (e.g., physiology and facial expressions) in people with psychosis. However, while there is good evidence to suggest broad signs of affective dysfunction (e.g., blunting of facial expression) in the critical clinical high-risk (CHR) state, it is not clear whether these signs fit into a broader pattern of decoupling. This is in part due to there being no studies to date with this population that include a dyadic interaction. The current laboratory-based dyadic interaction study examined whether there is decreased coherence in CHR between autonomic physiology, as indexed by heart rate, and facial expressions of emotion, assessed by automated facial expressions analysis. The study included 145 individuals consisting of 34 CHR-partner and 41 control-partner pairs who completed clinical interviews and engaged in three naturalistic 10-min conversations while their physiology and expressions were continuously monitored. Compared to controls, CHR youth showed decreased coherence between heart rate and positive (t = 4.09) and negative (t = -7.90) facial expressions. Across CHR and control youth, greater severity of psychosis risk symptoms was related to lower coherence between heart rate and positive (t = 3.97-11.69) and neutral expressions (t = 0.06-4.98), and a change in the direction of the relationship between heart rate and negative expression intensity (t = 7.88-10.60). These findings provide the first evidence for changes in coherence between physiology and facial expressions of emotion in CHR individuals, with larger changes in coherence relating to greater general psychotic-like symptom severity. This evidence may be leveraged to identify targets for early diagnosis and intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

A pre-Darwinian account of the facial expression of emotion: Thomas Wright's The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1604).

"The study of emotional expression," it has recently been said, "has long been the provenance of scientific discovery and heated controversy" (Keltner et al., 2016, p. 467)-and nothing has been more central to this inquiry than attempts to understand the precise connection between affective experience and human facial expression. But as science moves forward, it is also wise to consider where it has been. This Brief Report reproduces a pre-Darwinian account of the facial expression of emotion from Thomas Wright's The Passions of the Minde in Generall (1604), one of the most interesting books on emotion from the English Renaissance. Before the modern scientific revolution, Wright's theorization anticipates several key aspects of 21st Century thought on the facial expression of emotion, an intriguing reminder of the connection between historical folk understanding and modern research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Context matters: task relevance shapes neural responses to emotional facial expressions

Recent research shows that emotional facial expressions impact behavioral responses only when their valence is relevant to the task. Under such conditions, threatening faces delay attentional disengagement, resulting in slower reaction times and increased omission errors compared to happy faces. To investigate the neural underpinnings of this phenomenon, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to record the brain activity of 23 healthy participants while they completed two versions of the go/no-go task. In the emotion task (ET), participants responded to emotional expressions (fearful or happy faces) and refrained from responding to neutral faces. In the gender task (GT), the same images were displayed, but participants had to respond based on the posers’ gender. Our results confirmed previous behavioral findings and revealed a network of brain regions (including the angular gyrus, the ventral precuneus, the left posterior cingulate cortex, the right anterior superior frontal gyrus, and two face-responsive regions) displaying distinct activation patterns for the same facial emotional expressions in the ET compared to the GT. We propose that this network integrates internal representations of task rules with sensory characteristics of facial expressions to evaluate emotional stimuli and exert top-down control, guiding goal-directed actions according to the context.

Autistic traits are associated with differences in the perception of genuineness and approachability in emotional facial expressions, independently of alexithymia.

People with autism and higher levels of autistic traits often have difficulty interpreting facial emotion. Research has commonly investigated the association between autistic traits and expression labeling ability. Here, we investigated the association between two relatively understudied abilities, namely, judging whether expressions reflect genuine emotion, and using expressions to make social approach judgements, in a nonclinical sample of undergraduates at an Australian university (N = 149; data collected during 2018). Autistic traits were associated with more difficulty discriminating genuineness and less typical social approach judgements. Importantly, we also investigated whether these associations could be explained by the co-occurring personality trait alexithymia, which describes a difficulty interpreting one's own emotions. Alexithymia is hypothesized to be the source of many emotional difficulties experienced by autistic people and often accounts for expression labeling difficulties associated with autism and autistic traits. In contrast, the current results provided no evidence that alexithymia is associated with differences in genuineness discrimination and social approach judgements. Rather, differences varied as a function of individual differences in specific domains of autistic traits. More autistic-like social skills and communication predicted greater difficulty in genuineness discrimination, and more autistic-like social skills and attention to details and patterns predicted differences in approach judgements. These findings suggest that difficulties in these areas are likely to be better understood as features of the autism phenotype than of alexithymia. Finally, results highlight the importance of considering the authenticity of emotional expressions, with associations between differences in approach judgements being more pronounced for genuine emotional expressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Transforming higher education in Tanzania: unleashing the true potential of AI as a transformative learning tool

PurposeThis study aims to explore AI’s potential impact on the broader landscape of higher education in Tanzania. This study contributes to the ongoing discussion of AI’s potential to transform higher education and highlights the ethical considerations and challenges that must be addressed to ensure its successful implementation. This study informs future research and policy decisions in education and technology by providing a detailed understanding of AI’s perceived benefits and challenges in higher education.Design/methodology/approachA mixed-methods approach was used, which involves collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to understand the research problem comprehensively. This approach allowed data triangulation and led to a more robust and detailed understanding of this study.FindingsIn this study, it was discovered that enhanced assessment, time-saving, personalized learning, improved accessibility and detecting cheating are the perceived benefits of AI as a tool for enhancing learning in higher education, while cost and infrastructure, academic misconduct, data privacy and security, bias and ethical concerns and lack of human interaction are the perceived challenges of AI as a tool for enhancing learning in higher education. Further, it was revealed that students are more accepting of using AI tools in the classroom because they think they are more effective and engaging. On the other hand, faculty were more cautious and skeptical about employing AI tools in the classroom because they worried about how it would affect their teaching methods and job security.Research limitations/implicationsThe data collection was not conducted face-to-face. To fully capture respondents’ emotional responses, feelings, facial expressions, reactions, or body language was challenging. However, a sufficient number of individuals who participated were very cooperative, and their knowledge was very beneficial in understanding the topic.Originality/valueA unique view of this study is a clear understanding of the perceived benefits and challenges of using AI as a tool for enhancing learning in higher education, as well as the variations in these perceptions among students and faculty. By examining the perspectives of both groups, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the complex role of AI in higher education. Understanding the broader implications of AI in higher education can inform policy decisions and ensure that AI is used responsibly and ethically.

Impact of social context on human facial and gestural emotion expressions

Impact of social context on human facial and gestural emotion expressions

Idiosyncratic fixation patterns generalize across dynamic and static facial expression recognition

Facial expression recognition (FER) is crucial for understanding the emotional state of others during human social interactions. It has been assumed that humans share universal visual sampling strategies to achieve this task. However, recent studies in face identification have revealed striking idiosyncratic fixation patterns, questioning the universality of face processing. More importantly, very little is known about whether such idiosyncrasies extend to the biological relevant recognition of static and dynamic facial expressions of emotion (FEEs). To clarify this issue, we tracked observers’ eye movements categorizing static and ecologically valid dynamic faces displaying the six basic FEEs, all normalized for time presentation (1 s), contrast and global luminance across exposure time. We then used robust data-driven analyses combining statistical fixation maps with hidden Markov Models to explore eye-movements across FEEs and stimulus modalities. Our data revealed three spatially and temporally distinct equally occurring face scanning strategies during FER. Crucially, such visual sampling strategies were mostly comparably effective in FER and highly consistent across FEEs and modalities. Our findings show that spatiotemporal idiosyncratic gaze strategies also occur for the biologically relevant recognition of FEEs, further questioning the universality of FER and, more generally, face processing.

Emotion expressions and cognitive impairments in theelderly: review of the contactless detection approach.

The aging population in Canada has been increasing continuously throughout the past decades. Amongst this demographic, around 11% suffer from some form of cognitive decline. While diagnosis through traditional means (i.e., Magnetic Resonance Imagings (MRIs), positron emission tomography (PET) scans, cognitive assessments, etc.) has been successful at detecting this decline, there remains unexplored measures of cognitive health that could reduce stress and cost for the elderly population, including approaches for early detection and preventive methods. Such efforts could additionally contribute to reducing the pressure and stress on the Canadian healthcare system, as well as improve the quality of life of the elderly population. Previous evidence has demonstrated emotional facial expressions being altered in individuals with various cognitive conditions such as dementias, mild cognitive impairment, and geriatric depression. This review highlights the commonalities among these cognitive health conditions, and research behind the contactless assessment methods to monitor the health and cognitive well-being of the elderly population through emotion expression. The contactless detection approach covered by this review includes automated facial expression analysis (AFEA), electroencephalogram (EEG) technologies and heart rate variability (HRV). In conclusion, a discussion of the potentials of the existing technologies and future direction of a novel assessment design through fusion of AFEA, EEG and HRV measures to increase detection of cognitive decline in a contactless and remote manner will be presented.

Registered report “Categorical perception of facial expressions of anger and disgust across cultures”

ABSTRACT Previous research has demonstrated that individuals from Western cultures exhibit categorical perception (CP) in their judgments of emotional faces. However, the extent to which this phenomenon characterises the judgments of facial expressions among East Asians remains relatively unexplored. Building upon recent findings showing that East Asians are more likely than Westerners to see a mixture of emotions in facial expressions of anger and disgust, the present research aimed to investigate whether East Asians also display CP for angry and disgusted faces. To address this question, participants from Canada and China were recruited to discriminate pairs of faces along the anger-disgust continuum. The results revealed the presence of CP in both cultural groups, as participants consistently exhibited higher accuracy and faster response latencies when discriminating between-category pairs of expressions compared to within-category pairs. Moreover, the magnitude of CP did not vary significantly across cultures. These findings provide novel evidence supporting the existence of CP for facial expressions in both East Asian and Western cultures, suggesting that CP is a perceptual phenomenon that transcends cultural boundaries. This research contributes to the growing literature on cross-cultural perceptions of facial expressions by deepening our understanding of how facial expressions are perceived categorically across cultures.

Relationship between low mood and micro-expression processing: evidence of negative bias in interpreting fleeting facial expressions.

Depression affects the recognition of emotion in facial expressions by reducing the detection accuracy and adding a bias towards negativity. However, no study has examined associations between depression and the recognition of microfacial expressions (fleeting facial cues of emotions in people's faces). Thus, we investigated associations between low mood and micro-expression processing using video stimuli of micro-expressions. We examined whether (i) individuals with low mood had trouble recognizing emotions, (ii) were more likely to perceive happy facial expressions as neutral and neutral facial expressions as sad, and (iii) recognized sad emotional expressions better than control subjects (n = 349). We found that participants with low mood showed poorer performance when judging emotions in faces (p = 0.03). Furthermore, there was a specific deficit among them in recognizing happiness. Lastly, participants with low moods were more likely to perceive neutral faces as sad (p = 0.042). However, no evidence was found that individuals with low moods confused happy faces as neutral or were better than the control group at recognizing sad faces. Our results show that mood affects the perception of emotions in facial expressions, which has the potential to negatively affect interpersonal interactions and ultimately quality of life.

Gray matter volume alterations in de novo Parkinson's disease: A mediational role in the interplay between sleep quality and anxiety.

Parkinson's disease (PD) is increasingly recognized for its non-motor symptoms, among which emotional disturbances and sleep disorders frequently co-occur. The commonality of neuroanatomical underpinnings for these symptoms is not fully understood. This study is intended to investigate the differences in gray matter volume (GMV) between PD patients with anxiety (A-PD) and those without anxiety (NA-PD). Additionally, it seeks to uncover the interplay between GMV variations and the manifestations of anxiety and sleep quality. A total of 37 A-PD patients, 43 NA-PD patients, and 36 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited, all of whom underwent voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis. Group differences in GMV were assessed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA). Partial correlation between GMV, anxiety symptom, and sleep quality were analyzed. Mediation analysis explored the mediating role of the volume of GMV-distinct brain regions on the relationship between sleep quality and anxiety within the PD patient cohort. A-PD patients showed significantly lower GMV in the fusiform gyrus (FG) and right inferior temporal gyrus (ITG) compared to HCs and NA-PD patients. GMV in these regions correlated negatively with Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) scores (right ITG: r = -0.690, p < 0.001; left FG: r = -0.509, p < 0.001; right FG: r = -0.576, p < 0.001) and positively with sleep quality in PD patients (right ITG: r = 0.592, p < 0.001; left FG: r = 0.356, p = 0.001; right FG: r = 0.470, p < 0.001). Mediation analysis revealed that GMV in the FG and right ITG mediated the relationship between sleep quality and anxiety symptoms, with substantial effect sizes accounted for by the right ITG (25.74%) and FG (left: 11.90%, right: 15.59%). This study has shed further light on the relationship between sleep disturbances and anxiety symptoms in PD patients. Given the pivotal roles of the FG and the ITG in facial recognition and the recognition of emotion-related facial expressions, our findings indicate that compromised sleep quality, under the pathological conditions of PD, may exacerbate the reduction in GMV within these regions, impairing the recognition of emotional facial expressions and thereby intensifying anxiety symptoms.

Observers predict actions from facial emotional expressions during real-time social interactions

In face-to-face social interactions, emotional expressions provide insights into the mental state of an interactive partner. This information can be crucial to infer action intentions and react towards another person’s actions. Here we investigate how facial emotional expressions impact subjective experience and physiological and behavioral responses to social actions during real-time interactions. Thirty-two participants interacted with virtual agents while fully immersed in Virtual Reality. Agents displayed an angry or happy facial expression before they directed an appetitive (fist bump) or aversive (punch) social action towards the participant. Participants responded to these actions, either by reciprocating the fist bump or by defending the punch. For all interactions, subjective experience was measured using ratings. In addition, physiological responses (electrodermal activity, electrocardiogram) and participants’ response times were recorded. Aversive actions were judged to be more arousing and less pleasant relative to appetitive actions. In addition, angry expressions increased heart rate relative to happy expressions. Crucially, interaction effects between facial emotional expression and action were observed. Angry expressions reduced pleasantness stronger for appetitive compared to aversive actions. Furthermore, skin conductance responses to aversive actions were increased for happy compared to angry expressions and reaction times were faster to aversive compared to appetitive actions when agents showed an angry expression. These results indicate that observers used facial emotional expression to generate expectations for particular actions. Consequently, the present study demonstrates that observers integrate information from facial emotional expressions with actions during social interactions.

Facial mimicry interference reduces working memory accuracy for facial emotion expressions.

Facial mimicry, the tendency to imitate facial expressions of other individuals, has been shown to play a critical role in the processing of emotion expressions. At the same time, there is evidence suggesting that its role might change when the cognitive demands of the situation increase. In such situations, understanding another person is dependent on working memory. However, whether facial mimicry influences working memory representations for facial emotion expressions is not fully understood. In the present study, we experimentally interfered with facial mimicry by using established behavioral procedures, and investigated how this interference influenced working memory recall for facial emotion expressions. Healthy, young adults (N = 36) performed an emotion expression n-back paradigm with two levels of working memory load, low (1-back) and high (2-back), and three levels of mimicry interference: high, low, and no interference. Results showed that, after controlling for block order and individual differences in the perceived valence and arousal of the stimuli, the high level of mimicry interference impaired accuracy when working memory load was low (1-back) but, unexpectedly, not when load was high (2-back). Working memory load had a detrimental effect on performance in all three mimicry conditions. We conclude that facial mimicry might support working memory for emotion expressions when task load is low, but that the supporting effect possibly is reduced when the task becomes more cognitively challenging.

Revealed masks: Facial mimicry after oxytocin administration in forensic psychopathic patients

Facial mimicry serves as an evolutionarily rooted important interpersonal communication process that touches on the concepts of socialization and empathy. Facial electromyography (EMG) of the corrugator muscle and the zygomaticus muscle was recorded while male forensic psychopathic patients and controls watched morphed angry or happy facial expressions. We tested the hypothesis that psychopathic patients would show weaker short latency facial mimicry (that is, within 600 ms after stimulus onset) than controls. Exclusively in the group of 20 psychopathic patients, we tested in a placebo-controlled crossover within-subject design the hypothesis that oxytocin would enhance short-latency facial mimicry. Compared with placebo, we found no oxytocin-related significant short-latency responses of the corrugator and the zygomaticus. However, compared with 19 normal controls, psychopathic patients in the placebo condition showed significantly weaker short-latency zygomaticus responses to happy faces, while there was a trend toward significantly weaker short-latency corrugator responses to angry faces. These results are consistent with a recent study of facial EMG responses in adolescents with psychopathic traits. We therefore posit a lifetime developmental deficit in psychopathy pertaining short-latency mimicry of emotional facial expressions. Ultimately, this deficit in mimicking angry and happy expressions may hinder the elicitation of empathy, which is known to be impaired in psychopathy.

Application of Facial Expression Analysis Technology in Violence Risk Assessment of Individuals with Mental Disorders in Supervised Settings.

To explore the association between violent behaviors and emotions in individuals with mental disorders, to evaluate the application value of facial expression analysis technology in violence risk assessment of individuals with mental disorders in supervised settings, and to provide a reference for violence risk assessment. Thirty-nine male individuals with mental disorders in supervised settings were selected, the participant risk of violence, cognitive function, psychiatric symptoms and severity were assessed using the Modified Overt Aggression Scale (MOAS), the Historical, Clinical, Risk Management-Chinese version(HCR-CV), the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) and the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS). An emotional arousal was performed on the participants and the intensity of their emotions and facial expression action units was recorded before, during and after the arousal. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the differences in the intensity of emotions and facial expression action units before, during and after the arousal. Pearson correlation analysis was used to calculate the correlations between the intensity of the seven basic emotional facial expressions and the scores of the assessment scales. The intensity difference of sadness, surprise and fear in different time periods was statistically significant (P<0.05). The intensity of the left medial eyebrow lift action unit was found significantly different before and after the emotional arousal (P<0.05). The intensity of anger was positively correlated with the Modified Overt Aggression Scale score throughout the experiment (P<0.05). Eye action units such as eyebrow lifting, eyelid tightening and upper eyelid lifting can be used as effective action units to identify sadness, anger and other negative emotions associated with violent behaviors. Facial expression analysis technology can be used as an auxiliary tool to assess the potential risk of violence in individuals with mental disorders in supervised settings.

The Influence of Emotional Facial Expression Intensity on Decoding Accuracy: High Intensity Does Not Yield High Accuracy

AbstractThis study examined the relationship between the intensity of emotional expressions in facial stimuli and receivers' decoding accuracy for six basic emotions: anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. A laboratory experiment was conducted using the forced‐choice method, in which the intensity of each stimulus was manipulated at every 10% interval using the morphing technique. To explore whether a linear relationship would be observed when the intensity was finely manipulated at 10% intervals, a hierarchical multiple regression analysis was performed. The mean percentage of correct responses for each stimulus was the dependent variable, and the linear, quadratic, and cubic terms of the stimulus intensity were the independent variables. The results showed that the linear model was not adopted as the final model for all facial expressions; that is, the effect of the squared term of intensity was significant for anger, disgust, fear, and sadness, while the effect of the cubic term of intensity was significant for happiness and surprise. Our findings indicate that a higher intensity of emotional expression does not yield higher decoding accuracy.

Detecting Facial Emotion Expression to Mentor and Manage Crowds Using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Detecting Facial Emotion Expression to Mentor and Manage Crowds Using a Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotions in forensic inpatients who have committed sexual offenses: a signal detection analysis

Recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotions in forensic inpatients who have committed sexual offenses: a signal detection analysis

Perception of Facial Cues to Trustworthiness in Infancy: Insights from the Spatial Frequency Filtering Approach

AbstractA crucial aspect of human social competence is the ability to spontaneously and rapidly infer from facial cues whether others are likely to approach us with friendliness or hostility—that is, trustworthiness. The rapid and automatic nature of these inferences has prompted the claim that they may originate from evolutionary pressures to detect potential threats, thus enhancing our chances of survival. However, the developmental origins of this social skill remain a topic of ongoing debate. Recent evidence shows that infants' brains and looking time behaviors differentiate between faces varying along the trustworthiness continuum, but the question about the nature of the facial cues they rely on remains open. In this review, we propose the spatial frequency (SF) filtering approach (i.e., the selective removal of spatial frequency bands from the image) as a useful tool for investigating this question, and specifically whether infants' discrimination of facial expressions of emotion share common visual and neural mechanisms with discrimination of facial cues associated with trustworthiness inferences. The SF filtering approach could shed light on the neural and perceptual mechanisms underlying trustworthiness perception in infancy, providing insights into whether and how these mechanisms change across development. The evidence gathered through this method would prove critical to the understanding of the developmental origins of trustworthiness perception.

Recognition of facial expressions of emotions in tactile drawings by blind children, children with low vision and sighted children

In the context of blindness, studies on the recognition of facial expressions of emotions by touch are essential to define the compensatory touch abilities and to create adapted tools on emotions. This study is the first to examine the effect of visual experience in the recognition of tactile drawings of facial expressions of emotions by children with different visual experiences. To this end, we compared the recognition rates of tactile drawings of emotions between blind children, children with low vision and sighted children aged 6–12 years. Results revealed no effect of visual experience on recognition rates. However, an effect of emotions and an interaction effect between emotions and visual experience were found. Indeed, while all children had a low average recognition rate, the drawings of fear, anger and disgust were particularly poorly recognized. Moreover, sighted children were significantly better at recognizing the drawings of surprise and sadness than the blind children who only showed high recognition rates for joy. The results of this study support the importance of developing emotion tools that can be understood by children with different visual experiences.