Explicit Emotion Recognition Research Articles

Investigating implicit emotion processing in autism spectrum disorder across age groups: A cross-modal emotional priming study.

Cumulating evidence suggests that atypical emotion processing in autism may generalize across different stimulus domains. However, this evidence comes from studies examining explicit emotion recognition. It remains unclear whether domain-general atypicality also applies to implicit emotion processing in autism and its implication for real-world social communication. To investigate this, we employed a novel cross-modal emotional priming task to assess implicit emotion processing of spoken/sung words (primes) through their influence on subsequent emotional judgment of faces/face-like objects (targets). We assessed whether implicit emotional priming differed between 38 autistic and 38 neurotypical individuals across age groups as a function of prime and target type. Results indicated no overall group differences across age groups, prime types, and target types. However, differential, domain-specific developmental patterns emerged for the autism and neurotypical groups. For neurotypical individuals, speech but not song primed the emotional judgment of faces across ages. This speech-orienting tendency was not observed across ages in the autism group, as priming of speech on faces was not seen in autistic adults. These results outline the importance of the delicate weighting between speech- versus song-orientation in implicit emotion processing throughout development, providing more nuanced insights into the emotion processing profile of autistic individuals.

A dual framework for implicit and explicit emotion recognition: An ensemble of language models and computational linguistics

One of the research domains in the field of sentiment analysis is automatic emotion recognition in texts which is a worthy topic in human-computer interaction. Text processing has always faced many challenges. The main one is the structural and semantic differences of sentences which have had a significant impact on the malfunction of auto-recognition systems. This problem becomes more prominent in short texts in which words and their concurrences are limited and insufficient. As a result of this, word frequency and TF-IDF weighing cannot well represent the relationship between words and the appropriate feature vector, leading to an undesirable accuracy of emotion recognition. Thus, different strategies should be applied to improve the feature vector and to formulate the features properly. The desired strategy should be able to identify the words that can distinguish between classes well and also to find the relationships between words and meaningful phrases using natural language processing concepts. In this paper, a combination of emotional models, categorical and hierarchical, are used for an emotional text recognition which could discover simultaneously explicit and implicit emotion in a short text. Our approach called DuFER, proposed a weighed method which improves the feature vector using language models and computational linguistics through applying a modified TF-IDF weighing to words as well as Maximum Likelihood Estimation weighing to expressions. Four implicit and explicit emotion datasets are used for the experiments. The results show that the accuracy of both implicit and explicit emotion recognition has increased and DuFER is actually the first successful dual framework in recognizing implicit and explicit emotions from text.

Implicit evidence on the dissociation of identity and emotion recognition.

Recognition of identity and of emotional facial expressions of individuals are both based on processing of the human face. While most studies show these abilities to be dissociated, some others find evidence of a connection. One possible explanation for these contradictory results comes from neurological evidence, which points to identity recognition being mostly based on holistic processing, while emotion recognition seems to be based on both an explicit, fine-grained process, and an implicit, mostly-holistic one. Our main hypothesis, that would explain the contradictory findings, is that holistic implicit emotion recognition, specifically, would be related to identity recognition, while explicit emotion recognition would be a process separate to identity recognition. To test this hypothesis, we employed an experimental paradigm in which spatial frequencies of visual stimuli are manipulated so that automatic, holistic-based, implicit emotion recognition influences perceived friendliness of unfamiliar faces. We predicted the effect to be related to identity recognition ability, since they both require holistic face processing. After a successful replication study, we employed the paradigm with 140 participants, measuring also identity recognition ability and explicit emotion recognition ability. Results showed that the effect is not moderated by these two variables (p = .807 and .373, respectively), suggesting that the independence of identity and emotion recognition holds even when considering, specifically, implicit emotion recognition.

Investigating automatic emotion processing in boys with autism via eye tracking and facial mimicry recordings.

Difficulties in automatic emotion processing in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might remain concealed in behavioral studies due to compensatory strategies. To gain more insight in the mechanisms underlying facial emotion recognition, we recorded eye tracking and facial mimicry data of 20 school-aged boys with ASD and 20 matched typically developing controls while performing an explicit emotion recognition task. Proportional looking times to specific face regions (eyes, nose, and mouth) and face exploration dynamics were analyzed. In addition, facial mimicry was assessed. Boys with ASD and controls were equally capable to recognize expressions and did not differ in proportional looking times, and number and duration of fixations. Yet, specific facial expressions elicited particular gaze patterns, especially within the control group. Both groups showed similar face scanning dynamics, although boys with ASD demonstrated smaller saccadic amplitudes. Regarding the facial mimicry, we found no emotion specific facial responses and no group differences in the responses to the displayed facial expressions. Our results indicate that boys with and without ASD employ similar eye gaze strategies to recognize facial expressions. Smaller saccadic amplitudes in boys with ASD might indicate a less exploratory face processing strategy. Yet, this slightly more persistent visual scanning behavior in boys with ASD does not imply less efficient emotion information processing, given the similar behavioral performance. Results on the facial mimicry data indicate similar facial responses to emotional faces in boys with and without ASD. LAY SUMMARY: We investigated (i) whether boys with and without autism apply different face exploration strategies when recognizing facial expressions and (ii) whether they mimic the displayed facial expression to a similar extent. We found that boys with and without ASD recognize facial expressions equally well, and that both groups show similar facial reactions to the displayed facial emotions. Yet, boys with ASD visually explored the faces slightly less than the boys without ASD.

Neural Basis of Impaired Emotion Recognition in Adult Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

BackgroundDeficits in emotion recognition have been repeatedly documented in patients diagnosed with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), but their neural basis is unknown so far. MethodsIn the current study, adult patients with ADHD (n = 44) and healthy control subjects (n = 43) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during explicit emotion recognition of stimuli expressing affective information in face, voice, or face–voice combinations. The employed experimental paradigm allowed us to delineate areas for processing audiovisual information based on their functional activation profile, including the bilateral posterior superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus, amygdala, medial prefrontal cortex, and precuneus, as well as the right posterior thalamus. ResultsAs expected, unbiased hit rates for correct classification of the expressed emotions were lower in patients with ADHD than in healthy control subjects irrespective of the presented sensory modality. This deficit at a behavioral level was accompanied by lower activation in patients with ADHD versus healthy control subjects in the cortex adjacent to the right superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus and the right posterior thalamus, which represent key areas for processing socially relevant signals and their integration across modalities. A cortical region adjacent to the right posterior superior temporal gyrus was the only brain region that showed a significant correlation between brain activation and emotion identification performance. ConclusionsAltogether, these results provide the first evidence for a potential neural substrate of the observed impairments in emotion recognition in adults with ADHD.

Recognition of musical emotions and their perceived intensity after unilateral brain damage

For the hemispheric laterality of emotion processing in the brain, two competing hypotheses are currently still debated. The first hypothesis suggests a greater involvement of the right hemisphere in emotion perception whereas the second hypothesis suggests different involvements of each hemisphere as a function of the valence of the emotion. These hypotheses are based on findings for facial and prosodic emotion perception. Investigating emotion perception for other stimuli, such as music, should provide further insight and potentially help to disentangle between these two hypotheses. The present study investigated musical emotion perception in patients with unilateral right brain damage (RBD, n = 16) or left brain damage (LBD, n = 16), as well as in matched healthy comparison participants (n = 28). The experimental task required explicit recognition of musical emotions as well as ratings on the perceived intensity of the emotion. Compared to matched comparison participants, musical emotion recognition was impaired only in LBD participants, suggesting a potential specificity of the left hemisphere for explicit emotion recognition in musical material. In contrast, intensity ratings of musical emotions revealed that RBD patients underestimated the intensity of negative emotions compared to positive emotions, while LBD patients and comparisons did not show this pattern. To control for a potential generalized emotion deficit for other types of stimuli, we also tested facial emotion recognition in the same patients and their matched healthy comparisons. This revealed that emotion recognition after brain damage might depend on the stimulus category or modality used. These results are in line with the hypothesis of a deficit of emotion perception depending on lesion laterality and valence in brain-damaged participants. The present findings provide critical information to disentangle the currently debated competing hypotheses and thus allow for a better characterization of the involvement of each hemisphere for explicit emotion recognition and their perceived intensity.

A survey of state-of-the-art approaches for emotion recognition in text

Emotion recognition in text is an important natural language processing (NLP) task whose solution can benefit several applications in different fields, including data mining, e-learning, information filtering systems, human–computer interaction, and psychology. Explicit emotion recognition in text is the most addressed problem in the literature. The solution to this problem is mainly based on identifying keywords. Implicit emotion recognition is the most challenging problem to solve because such emotion is typically hidden within the text, and thus, its solution requires an understanding of the context. There are four main approaches for implicit emotion recognition in text: rule-based approaches, classical learning-based approaches, deep learning approaches, and hybrid approaches. In this paper, we critically survey the state-of-the-art research for explicit and implicit emotion recognition in text. We present the different approaches found in the literature, detail their main features, discuss their advantages and limitations, and compare them within tables. This study shows that hybrid approaches and learning-based approaches that utilize traditional text representation with distributed word representation outperform the other approaches on benchmark corpora. This paper also identifies the sets of features that lead to the best-performing approaches; highlights the impacts of simple NLP tasks, such as part-of-speech tagging and parsing, on the performances of these approaches; and indicates some open problems.

P61-F Implicit and explicit emotional modulation of visual ERPs in female patients with major depressive disorder

Background We aimed at searching for the ERP characteristics that may differentiate the patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) from healthy controls (HC). Changes in ERP components due to the implicit and explicit emotion recognition were explored. We also took into account the growing evidence of gender specificity in MDD. Materials and methods Only female participants took part in our study: 30 non-medicated patients with MDD and 54 HC. Participants had to sort 160 photographs: first as humans or animals (Implicit task), and then as neutral or aggressive (Explicit task). Half of the photographs were neutral, and half were showing angry/aggressive people or animals. We recorded 128-channel EEG and analyzed the ERPs elicited by human images. The difference (p Results Robust EM in N170 component was found in both groups and both tasks; the amplitude changes (voltage increase for angry faces) and the scalp topography of EM were similar in HC in both tasks, but in MDD they were seen in a lesser degree in Explicit task. The EM in components peaking around 300–350 ms was also showing group and task specificity. The components in the range of 400–600 ms showed EM mostly in central (in HC) and fronto-central (in MDD) areas. Conclusions The study of implicit emotional processes and their comparison to the explicit processes seems to be a promising direction in our search for the biomarkers to distinguish healthy and pathological brain activity.

The influence of subtle facial expressions on children’s first impressions of trustworthiness and dominance is not adult-like

Adults’ first impressions of others are influenced by subtle facial expressions; happy faces are perceived as high in trustworthiness, whereas angry faces are rated as low in trustworthiness and high in threat and dominance. Little is known about the influence of emotional expressions on children’s first impressions. Here we examined the influence of subtle expressions of happiness, anger, and fear on children’s implicit judgments of trustworthiness and dominance with the aim of providing novel insights about both the development of first impressions and whether children are able to utilize emotional expressions when making implicit, rather than explicit, judgments of traits. In the context of a computerized storybook, children (4- to 11-year-olds) and adults selected one of two twins (two images of the same identity displaying different emotional expressions) to help them face a challenge; some challenges required a trustworthy partner, and others required a dominant partner. One twin posed a neutral expression, and the other posed a subtle emotional expression of happiness, fear, or anger. Whereas adults were more likely to select a happy partner on trust trials than on dominance trials and were more likely to select an angry partner on dominance trials than on trust trials, we found no evidence that children’s choices reflected a combined influence of desirable trait and emotion. Follow-up experiments involving explicit trait judgments, explicit emotion recognition, and implicit first impression judgments in the context of intense emotional expressions provide valuable insights into the slow development of implicit trait judgments based on first impressions.

Facilitating Effects of Emotion on the Perception of Biological Motion: Evidence for a Happiness Superiority Effect.

It has been reported that visual perception can be influenced not only by the physical features of a stimulus but also by the emotional valence of the stimulus, even without explicit emotion recognition. Some previous studies reported an anger superiority effect while others found a happiness superiority effect during visual perception. It thus remains unclear as to which emotion is more influential. In the present study, we conducted two experiments using biological motion (BM) stimuli to examine whether emotional valence of the stimuli would affect BM perception; and if so, whether a specific type of emotion is associated with a superiority effect. Point-light walkers with three emotion types (anger, happiness, and neutral) were used, and the threshold to detect BM within noise was measured in Experiment 1. Participants showed higher performance in detecting happy walkers compared with the angry and neutral walkers. Follow-up motion velocity analysis revealed that physical difference among the stimuli was not the main factor causing the effect. The results of the emotion recognition task in Experiment 2 also showed a happiness superiority effect, as in Experiment 1. These results show that emotional valence (happiness) of the stimuli can facilitate the processing of BM.

Intact implicit processing of facial threat cues in schizophrenia

An emerging body of research suggests that people with schizophrenia retain the ability to implicitly perceive facial affect, despite well-documented difficulty explicitly identifying emotional expressions. It remains unclear, however, whether such functional implicit processing extends beyond emotion to other socially relevant facial cues. Here, we constructed two novel versions of the Affect Misattribution Procedure, a paradigm in which affective responses to primes are projected onto neutral targets. The first version included three face primes previously validated to elicit varying inferences of threat from healthy individuals via emotion-independent structural modification (e.g., nose and eye size). The second version included the threat-relevant emotional primes of angry, neutral, and happy faces. Data from 126 participants with schizophrenia and 84 healthy controls revealed that although performing more poorly on an assessment of explicit emotion recognition, patients showed normative implicit threat processing for both non-emotional and emotional facial cues. Collectively, these results support recent hypotheses postulating that the initial perception of salient facial information remains intact in schizophrenia, but that deficits arise at subsequent stages of contextual integration and appraisal. Such a breakdown in the stream of face processing has important implications for mechanistic models of social cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and treatment strategies aiming to improve functional outcome.

Implicit emotion perception in schizophrenia

Explicit but not implicit facial emotion perception has been shown to be impaired in schizophrenia. In this study, we used newly developed technology in social neuroscience to examine implicit emotion processing. It has been shown that when people look at faces, they automatically infer social traits, and these trait judgments rely heavily on facial features and subtle emotion expressions even with neutral faces. Eighty-one individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 62 control subjects completed a computer task with 30 well-characterized neutral faces. They rated each face on 10 trait judgments: attractive, mean, trustworthy, intelligent, dominant, fun, sociable, aggressive, emotionally stable and weird. The degree to which trait ratings were predicted by objectively-measured subtle emotion expressions served as a measure of implicit emotion processing. Explicit emotion recognition was also examined. Trait ratings were significantly predicted by subtle facial emotional expressions in controls and patients. However, impairment in the implicit emotion perception of fear, happiness, anger and surprise was found in patients. Moreover, these deficits were associated with poorer everyday problem-solving skills and were relatively independent of explicit emotion recognition. Implicit emotion processing is impaired in patients with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. Deficits in implicit and explicit emotion perception independently contribute to the patients' poor daily life skills. More research is needed to fully understand the role of implicit and explicit processes in the functional deficits of patients, in order to develop targeted and useful remediation interventions.

Recent trends in testing social cognition.

Social cognition refers broadly to the way in which we process social information, and is a critical predictor of social competency. This article provides an overview of some of the assessment approaches that have been developed to assess this construct. A variety of well validated assessment approaches are now available. The most frequently used methods index explicit emotion recognition and/or mental state attribution. There has also been an increasing emphasis on the need to better understand the role of specific perceptual features and cognitive task demands in social cognitive difficulties. In the past 20 years, research on social cognitive function has grown exponentially, reflecting an increased recognition that social cognitive skills are critical for communicative discourse, and in turn mental health and well-being. Accordingly, a large number of measures are now available to quantify social cognitive function. This review shows that many of these measures have good psychometric properties, and appear to have at least moderate sensitivity. However, the review also highlights the importance of using appropriate control tasks to assess the specificity of any observed social cognitive failures, as well as the need for the continued development of measures with greater ecological validity.

Hyper-reactivity in fragile X syndrome females: Generalised or specific to socially-salient stimuli? A skin conductance study

Fragile X syndrome (FXS) is characterised by hyper-reactivity, autistic tendencies and social anxiety. It has been hypothesised that the FXS social phenotype is secondary to a generalised hyper-reactivity that leads to social avoidance. No study, however, has investigated whether hyperarousal in FXS is generalised or more specific to socially salient information. We recorded skin conductance responses (SCRs) while females with FXS, as well as chronological age-(CA-) and mental age-(MA-) matched controls, viewed two sets of visual images: direct-gaze emotional faces and affectively arousing scenes. Explicit emotion recognition and subjective ratings of emotions aroused by images were also recorded. Overall, females with FXS displayed hyper-reactivity only when viewing the more socially salient stimuli (emotional faces), compared to CA-matched controls, but not MA-matched controls. Moreover, females with FXS also displayed atypical emotion recognition abilities and subjective ratings of their own emotional states. These findings suggest that any hyper-reactivity observed in FXS may be more specific to socially salient stimuli, rather than generalised.

Culture but not gender modulates amygdala activation during explicit emotion recognition

BackgroundMounting evidence indicates that humans have significant difficulties in understanding emotional expressions from individuals of different ethnic backgrounds, leading to reduced recognition accuracy and stronger amygdala activation. However, the impact of gender on the behavioral and neural reactions during the initial phase of cultural assimilation has not been addressed. Therefore, we investigated 24 Asians students (12 females) and 24 age-matched European students (12 females) during an explicit emotion recognition task, using Caucasian facial expressions only, on a high-field MRI scanner.ResultsAnalysis of functional data revealed bilateral amygdala activation to emotional expressions in Asian and European subjects. However, in the Asian sample, a stronger response of the amygdala emerged and was paralleled by reduced recognition accuracy, particularly for angry male faces. Moreover, no significant gender difference emerged. We also observed a significant inverse correlation between duration of stay and amygdala activation.ConclusionIn this study we investigated the “alien-effect” as an initial problem during cultural assimilation and examined this effect on a behavioral and neural level. This study has revealed bilateral amygdala activation to emotional expressions in Asian and European females and males. In the Asian sample, a stronger response of the amygdala bilaterally was observed and this was paralleled by reduced performance, especially for anger and disgust depicted by male expressions. However, no gender difference occurred. Taken together, while gender exerts only a subtle effect, culture and duration of stay as well as gender of poser are shown to be relevant factors for emotion processing, influencing not only behavioral but also neural responses in female and male immigrants.

Impaired Attribution of Emotion to Facial Expressions in Anxiety and Major Depression

BackgroundRecognition of others' emotions is an important aspect of interpersonal communication. In major depression, a significant emotion recognition impairment has been reported. It remains unclear whether the ability to recognize emotion from facial expressions is also impaired in anxiety disorders. There is a need to review and integrate the published literature on emotional expression recognition in anxiety disorders and major depression.Methodology/Principal FindingsA detailed literature search was used to identify studies on explicit emotion recognition in patients with anxiety disorders and major depression compared to healthy participants. Eighteen studies provided sufficient information to be included. The differences on emotion recognition impairment between patients and controls (Cohen's d) with corresponding confidence intervals were computed for each study. Over all studies, adults with anxiety disorders had a significant impairment in emotion recognition (d = −0.35). In children with anxiety disorders no significant impairment of emotion recognition was found (d = −0.03). Major depression was associated with an even larger impairment in recognition of facial expressions of emotion (d = −0.58).Conclusions/SignificanceResults from the current analysis support the hypothesis that adults with anxiety disorders or major depression both have a deficit in recognizing facial expression of emotions, and that this deficit is more pronounced in major depression than in anxiety.

I08 fMRI shows an distributed extrastriatal network of altered neural activation in premanifest Huntington's disease gene carriers

BackgroundStriatal atrophy is seen in preHD; neural dysfunction can be detected with functional MRI (fMRI) prior to this. Identification of negative emotional facial expressions is impaired in premanifest and manifest...

General and specific responsiveness of the amygdala during explicit emotion recognition in females and males

BackgroundThe ability to recognize emotions in facial expressions relies on an extensive neural network with the amygdala as the key node as has typically been demonstrated for the processing of fearful stimuli. A sufficient characterization of the factors influencing and modulating amygdala function, however, has not been reached now. Due to lacking or diverging results on its involvement in recognizing all or only certain negative emotions, the influence of gender or ethnicity is still under debate.This high-resolution fMRI study addresses some of the relevant parameters, such as emotional valence, gender and poser ethnicity on amygdala activation during facial emotion recognition in 50 Caucasian subjects. Stimuli were color photographs of emotional Caucasian and African American faces.ResultsBilateral amygdala activation was obtained to all emotional expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happy, and sad) and neutral faces across all subjects. However, only in males a significant correlation of amygdala activation and behavioral response to fearful stimuli was observed, indicating higher amygdala responses with better fear recognition, thus pointing to subtle gender differences. No significant influence of poser ethnicity on amygdala activation occurred, but analysis of recognition accuracy revealed a significant impact of poser ethnicity that was emotion-dependent.ConclusionApplying high-resolution fMRI while subjects were performing an explicit emotion recognition task revealed bilateral amygdala activation to all emotions presented and neutral expressions. This mechanism seems to operate similarly in healthy females and males and for both in-group and out-group ethnicities. Our results support the assumption that an intact amygdala response is fundamental in the processing of these salient stimuli due to its relevance detecting function.

Amygdala activation during recognition of emotions in a foreign ethnic group is associated with duration of stay

Cultural differences in emotion recognition performance have frequently been reported, whereby duration of stay in a foreign culture seems to be a crucial factor. Furthermore, cultural aspects influence the neural correlates of face and emotion processing thereby also affecting the response of the amygdala. Here, the exposure to a foreign culture and its influence on the cerebral correlates of facial emotion recognition were examined in 24 Asian and 24 age-matched European males. Subjects performed an explicit emotion recognition task and were imaged with a 3 T MR-scanner. Results demonstrate a significant cultural influence on the specific recognition of disgust and anger, with higher accuracy among the Europeans, while the functional data indicate generally elevated amygdala activation in Asians compared to Europeans. Moreover, a significant inverse correlation between duration of stay and amygdala response emerged, with stronger activation in those subjects with shorter duration of stay in Europe. The observed amygdala hyperactivation in Asians may reflect novelty aspects but might also be associated with greater effort and motivation in immigrants, thus it possibly reflects one neural correlate of the “alien-effect”. We conclude that exposure to a foreign culture and duration of stay affect the behavioral and neural response to facial expressions of emotions.

Autonomic responses to dynamic displays of facial expressions in adolescents and adults with Williams syndrome

The behavioral phenotype characteristic of Williams syndrome (WS) is marked by strong interest in social interaction, manifested in attention to human faces, empathy, approach behavior and social disinhibition, often coexisting with generalized anxiety. Despite their heightened social interest, people with WS show deficits in explicit emotion recognition tasks similar to those of people with other developmental disabilities. In the current study we explored whether individuals with WS show distinctive autonomic responsiveness to social-emotional information, using skin conductance response and heart rate measures. Autonomic activation was investigated in response to facial expressions of emotion in adolescents and adults with WS, compared to age-matched normal controls and to age-, IQ- and language-matched individuals with learning or intellectual disabilities (LID). Overall participants with WS were less electrodermally responsive to dynamically presented face stimuli than the age- and IQ-matched LID group, and showed more heart rate deceleration when viewing emotional faces than the controls. These findings, indicating hypoarousal but increased interest in response to the dynamic presentation of facial emotions in WS, are consistent with the behavioral profile of high approachability toward social stimuli in this population.