Face Paradigm Research Articles

Alterations in functional connectivity of the amygdala in unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy

The aim of this work was to evaluate the relationship between ipsilateral amygdala dysfunction in unilateral mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE) and remote temporal, frontal, and parietal brain structures and to identify their association with theory of mind (ToM) abilities. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were acquired from MTLE patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (n = 28; 16 left-sided) and healthy controls (HC, n = 18) watching an animated fearful face paradigm. To explore functional connectivity, we used independent component analysis (ICA) of fMRI data to characterize possible amygdala network alterations that may be caused by lateralized amygdala dysfunction. We furthermore investigated the relationship between activation within the amygdala network and ToM task performance. The pattern of amygdalar BOLD activation observed in response to an animated fearful face paradigm was bilateral amygdalar activation in HC and amygdala activation lateralized to the contralateral side in MTLE patients. In HC, a hemispheric asymmetry of the amygdala network was present with amygdala co-activation in predominantly left temporolateral and frontal brain structures. In MTLE patients, the observed asymmetry of amygdala connectivity was modulated by the side of pathology and the extent of amygdalar connectivity to the parahippocampal gyrus and insula was related to ToM test performance. These findings suggest that ipsilateral amygdalar dysfunction in MTLE is associated with alterations in remote temporal and frontal brain areas. The study of psychiatric and neurological disorders via network analysis allows for a shift of focus away from viewing dysfunctions of individual structures to a pathological network that possibly gives rise to a variety of symptoms.

Maternal sensitivity to infants in various settings predicts harsh discipline in toddlerhood

In a longitudinal study with 73 mothers and their second-born child, stability and main-level differences between measures of maternal sensitivity across settings and over time were examined. Furthermore, the predictability of harsh discipline by these different maternal sensitivity measures was studied. Maternal sensitivity was assessed at three and six months during bathing, free play on mother's lap and the baseline and reunion episode of the Still Face Paradigm (SFP; Tronick, Als, Adamson, Wise, & Brazelton, 1978). Harsh discipline was observed during three home visits in the second year of life. Results showed a single underlying factor for all maternal sensitivity settings at both time points and significant stability over time. Harsh discipline was predicted by maternal sensitivity at three months, which was fully mediated by maternal sensitivity at six months. Early failure to respond appropriately to infant signals is an important indicator of risk for future harsh parenting.

Poor infant soothability and later insecure-ambivalent attachment: Developmental change in phenotypic markers of risk or two measures of the same construct?

Using data from the Durham Child Health and Development Study (n=148), the current study examines the associations between child and parenting variables at 6 months and child attachment quality at 12 months of age and maternal report of child self regulation at 24 months of age. Child and parent variables predicted distinct forms of insecure attachment relationships. Observations of infant soothability during the reunion session of the Face-to-Face Still Face Paradigm at 6 months differentially predicted children with later insecure-ambivalent attachments from those with secure attachments. Observations of maternal negative intrusiveness at 6 months of age differentially predicted children with insecure-avoidant attachments from those with secure attachments. Maternal sensitivity at 6 months was associated with maternal report of child affective problems at 24 months, but this association was moderated by infant negativity during soothing and later moderated by child attachment quality. Collectively, these results suggest the following two mutually exclusive possibilities regarding infant soothability and later ambivalent attachment quality: either infant soothability is a unique and distinct predictor of later ambivalent attachment quality and this cascade represents a developmental shift in child risk during the first year of life, or that infant soothability following a stressful task at 6 months of age is itself an early indicator of ambivalent attachment behavior with the mother. The data from the current study could not provide differential support for one possibility over the other.

Recognizing disguised faces

Across three experiments, we evaluated the effects of “disguises” on observers’ face identification performance using naturalistic images in which individuals posed with a variety of wigs and eyeglasses. Experiment 1 tested recognition memory performance with and without disguises and showed that any changes in these facial attributes hindered performance, replicating previous findings. More interestingly, Experiment 1 revealed that a change in hairstyle or the removal of eyeglasses had more impact on performance than did the addition of eyeglasses. In Experiment 2, disguised and undisguised faces were presented upright or inverted to examine whether the performance decrements seen in Experiment 1 were attributable to disruption of processing strategies for faces. Despite showing an overall effect of disguise on performance, there was no interaction between inversion and disguise. This suggests that disguises are not directly affecting processing strategies, but instead disguises are likely encoded as part of the overall representation. Similarly, in Experiment 3, the composite face paradigm was used to examine whether the impact of disguises is attributable to disruption of holistic processing for faces. Again, we found an overall effect of disguise on performance, but here we also observed that the presence of disguises interacted with participants’ tendency to form holistic face representations.

La vidéo dans l’observation d’évaluation et d’intervention en santé mentale du jeune enfant : un outil pour la transmission

This paper describes the history of using images in infant development as well as in describing infant psychopathology, firstly through the use of still pictures, then with movies and with video. There has been, to our knowledge, very few papers describing the history of the use of images and movies in infant psychopathology, as well as the growing use in infant development studies and in parent-infant intervention programs. The pioneers in the field of infant psychopathology and early development have been using movies extensively to convince colleagues of the existence of such early troubles. The paper presents a summarized history of the use of images and films by Arnold Gesell, who was the first to use films to document infant development. René Spitz, James and Joyce Robertson, and John Bowlby had an enormous influence on the field in describing through films and the effects of separation on young infants, with the film Grief, a peril in infancy by René Spitz and the series of films by Robertson and Bowlby among which John, a two years old, goes to nursery is the most famous. In France, Myriam David and Geneviève Appell have used films to document the effects of institutionalization and to promote change within infant mental health professionals. The “modern period” in the use of video to describe parent–infant relationships is initiated by Berry Brazelton, then with Cohn & Tronick and the Still Face Paradigm. In the same period, developmental psychologists are making a growing use of video, with the use of sophisticated sequence analysis software, as well as software enabling for following gazes. This review then reviews the principal intervention programs heavily depending on the use of video within work with parents and infants. Susan Mc Donough is clearly the pioneer of the use of video within interactional guidance. She has shown how this can be incredibly effective in building and enhancing a therapeutic alliance, particularly with “hard to reach” and “hard to keep in touch with” families. Intervention programs as “Seeing is Believing” have shown effectiveness and efficiency both in intervention and in prevention, but also programs designed for prevention of attachment disorganization in adopted infants. Our early prevention study (CAPDEP), modelled after David Olds Elmira study, have used video to enhance the effectiveness of home based, attachment oriented interventions for high-risk families. We have used George Downing's experience and frame of work and analysis of video making with parents and infant. This paper concludes on the growing use of video in daily clinical work with infants, in clinical research, in supervision, in training and teaching as well as in early prevention and intervention and for a transmission process.

Association of maternal interaction with emotional regulation in 4- and 9-month infants during the Still Face Paradigm

This study used the Still Face Paradigm to investigate the relationship of maternal interaction on infants’ emotion regulation responses. Seventy infant–mother dyads were seen at 4 months and 25 of these same dyads were re-evaluated at 9 months. Maternal interactions were coded for attention seeking and contingent responding. Emotional regulation was described by infant stress reaction and overall positive affect. Results indicated that at both 4 and 9 months mothers who used more contingent responding interactions had infants who showed more positive affect. In contrast, mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants who showed less positive affect after the Still Face Paradigm. Patterns of stress reaction were reversed, as mothers who used more attention seeking play had infants with less negative affect. Implications for intervention and emotional regulation patterns over time are discussed.

The speech aversion hypothesis has explanatory power in a Minimal Speech Approach to aloof, non-verbal, severe autism

In the search for ‘pure autism’, non-verbal children labeled aloof, Severely Autistic with Developmental Disabilities (ASA/DD), are routinely excluded from psychological research. This exclusion is predicated on the claim that they are indistinguishable from those with SLD/PMLD, which is refuted through a discussion of the extant literature. A novel, falsifiable, speech aversion hypothesis is proposed: “aloof, non-verbal young children (<7years), with severe autism (CARS ⩾37), but without significant dysmorphic features, will show aversive reactions to complex speech (>2–3 words), but not to a silent interlocutor, or one imitating their vocalizations, in proximal encounters.” Implications are examined by deconstructing the presenting symptoms of ASA/DD in response to the hypothesis. Supporting evidence is drawn from: Minimal Speech Approach (MSA) research showing high levels of spontaneous requests for social routines; a reinterpretation of still-face research as a still-(silent)-face paradigm; auditory processing MMN data employing EEG/MEG; and possible links to epileptiform activity and verbal auditory agnosia. Guidelines are established for future research. This hypothesis, if corroborated, would add to the auditory processing anomalies seen in severe autism and lead to synergies of existing and new areas of research, with significant theoretical, therapeutic, and educational implications.

Differences in Regional Brain Activation Patterns Assessed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Stratified by Disease Duration

The mediators of tissue damage in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) such as antibodies, cytokines and activated immune cells have direct access to most organs in the body but must penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to gain access to brain tissue. We hypothesized that compromise of the BBB occurs episodically such that the brain will acquire tissue damage slowly and not at the same rate as other organs. On the basis of these assumptions, we wished to determine if duration of disease correlated with brain injury, as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and if this was independent of degree of tissue damage in other organs. We investigated differences in brain activation patterns using fMRI in 13 SLE patients stratified by disease duration of ≤2 years (short-term [ST]) or ≥10 years (long-term [LT]). Two fMRI paradigms were selected to measure working memory and emotional response (fearful faces task). Performance in the working memory task was significantly better in the ST group for one and two shape recall; however, both groups did poorly with three shape recall. Imaging studies demonstrated significantly increased cortical activation in the ST group in regions associated with cognition during the two shape retention phase of the working memory task (P < 0.001) and increased amygdala (P < 0.05) and superior parietal (P < 0.01) activation in response to the fearful faces paradigm. In conclusion, analysis of activation patterns stratified by performance accuracy, differences in co-morbid disease, corticosteroid doses or disease activity suggests that these observed differences are attributable to SLE effects on the central nervous system exclusive of vascular disease or other confounding influences. Our hypothesis is further supported by the lack of correlation between regional brain abnormalities on fMRI and the Systemic Lupus International Collaborating Clinics (SLICC) damage index.

Federalism and Change

It can be difficult for an organization transitioning to a new business model to maintain organizational continuity without discouraging innovation. Any change program must combine the benefits of existing structure, innovative thinking, and sound leadership to relieve organizational tension while adopting new standards. The business environment best suited to accept change is usually one that has a flexible management culture and an independent organizational structure. A federalist organization can provide just such an environment. This paper discusses how organizations that face paradigm shifts in their business operations can minimize the difficulty associated with major change by adopting a federalist organizational structure.

FMRI Correlates of White Matter Hyperintensities in Late-Life Depression

This study tests whether or not the structural white matter lesions that are characteristic of late-life depression are associated with alterations in the functional affective circuits of late-life depression. This study used an emotional faces paradigm that has been shown to engage the affective limbic brain regions. Thirty-three elderly depressed patients and 27 nondepressed comparison subjects participated in this study. The patients were recruited through the NIMH-sponsored Advanced Center for Interventions and Services Research for the Study of Late-Life Mood Disorders at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Bioethics and Health Law. Structural and functional MRI was used to assess white matter hyperintensity (WMH) burden and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) response on a facial expression affective-reactivity task in both elderly participants with nonpsychotic and nonbipolar major depression (unmedicated) and nondepressed elderly comparison subjects. As expected, greater subgenual cingulate activity was observed in the depressed patients relative to the nondepressed comparison subjects. This same region showed greater task-related activity associated with a greater burden of cerebrovascular white matter change in the depressed group. Moreover, the depressed group showed a significantly greater interaction of WMH by fMRI activity effect than the nondepressed group. The observation that high WMH burden in late-life depression is associated with greater BOLD response on the affective-reactivity task supports the model that white matter ischemia in elderly depressed patients disrupts brain mechanisms of affective regulation and leads to limbic hyperactivation.

Impaired holistic processing in congenital prosopagnosia

It has long been argued that face processing requires disproportionate reliance on holistic or configural processing, relative to that required for non-face object recognition, and that a disruption of such holistic processing may be causally implicated in prosopagnosia. Previously, we demonstrated that individuals with congenital prosopagnosia (CP) did not show the normal face inversion effect (better performance for upright compared to inverted faces) and evinced a local (rather than the normal global) bias in a compound letter global/local (GL) task, supporting the claim of disrupted holistic processing in prosopagnosia. Here, we investigate further the nature of holistic processing impairments in CP, first by confirming, in a large sample of CP individuals, the absence of the normal face inversion effect and the presence of the local bias on the GL task, and, second, by employing the composite face paradigm, often regarded as the gold standard for measuring holistic face processing. In this last task, we show that, in contrast with controls, the CP group perform equivalently with aligned and misaligned faces and was impervious to (the normal) interference from the task-irrelevant bottom part of faces. Interestingly, the extent of the local bias evident in the composite task is correlated with the abnormality of performance on diagnostic face processing tasks. Furthermore, there is a significant correlation between the magnitude of the local bias in the GL and performance on the composite task. These results provide further evidence for impaired holistic processing in CP and, moreover, corroborate the critical role of this type of processing for intact face recognition.

Holistic Face Processing in Newborns, 3‐Month‐Old Infants, and Adults: Evidence From the Composite Face Effect

Holistic face processing was investigated in newborns, 3-month-old infants, and adults through a modified version of the composite face paradigm and the recording of eye movements. After familiarization to the top portion of a face, participants (N = 70) were shown 2 aligned or misaligned faces, 1 of which comprised the familiar top part. In the aligned condition, no visual preference was found at any group age. In the misaligned condition, 3-month-olds preferred the face stimulus with the familiar top part, adults preferred the face stimulus with the novel one, and newborns did not manifest any visual preference. Results revealed that both infants' and adults' eye movements may be affected by holistic face information and demonstrated holistic face processing in 3-month-olds.

Association between structural abnormalities and fMRI response in the amygdala in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

The goal of this study was to investigate whether dysplastic amygdalae show an impaired response as revealed by functional MRI (fMRI). A fearful face fMRI paradigm using video sequences, as we have recently applied, was used in 25 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE): 24 had mesial TLE (14 right-, nine left-sided, one bilateral); one left lateral neocortical TLE. T1-, T2-weighted and fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) MRI sequences were assessed for the detection and categorisation of structural amygdalar abnormalities according to size and MR signal intensity. Of the 25 patients, five patients had probable dysplastic amygdala (pDA): two right- and three left-sided. A fearful face paradigm led to significant amygdalar activation in all but one patient (p<0.05). In 15 (60%) of the patients amygdalar activation was found contralateral and in four (16%) ipsilateral to the side of seizure onset. Bilateral amygdalar activation was registered in five (20%) patients. In two patients with right-sided and one with left-sided pDA, fMRI activation was observed only in the contralateral amygdala. In two out of three patients with left-sided pDA we found significant ipsilateral amygdalar fMRI-responses. Unilateral pDA does not necessarily affect the amygdalar fMRI BOLD-response.

PW01-157 - Mesolimbic dysfunction during novelty detection in schizophrenia

IntroductionSchizophrenia is characterized by marked disturbances of cognitive functions. One core finding is a memory dysfunction. Recently, this has been attributed to impaired hippocampus function that is crucial in comparing new to known information. Hippocampal novelty detection triggers activity of neurons in the ventral tegmental areal (VTA) to which it is reciprocally connected.AimsHere, we examined whether neuronal activation during the detection of novel information is impaired in these structures.MethodsWe investigated novelty detection using an fMRI oddball face paradigm with repeated novel oddballs (1-4 repetitions) in 25 patients (12 female, mean age 26 years) suffering from paranoid-hallucinatory schizophrenia and 25 healthy controls (12 female, mean age 25 years).ResultsSchizophrenia patients, relative to control subjects, showed impaired patterns of activation in mediotemporal areas, including the hippocampus, as well as in VTA/ Substantia Nigra during novelty detection. Furthermore, the activity related to detection of previously novel but repeatedly presented stimuli shows an altered adaptation in the patients.ConclusionsIn schizophrenia, the Hippocampus-VTA-loop displays a dysregulated activity pattern during novelty detection that is crucial for encoding into long-term memory. As this loop is mainly governed by dopaminergic neurotransmission these results underline the pivotal pathophysiological role of mesolimbic dopaminergic dysregulation in the pathophysiology of memory dysfunction in schizophrenia.

Group specific optimisation of fMRI processing steps for child and adult data

Motion is a major issue in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) dataseries and causes artifacts or increased overall noise obscuring signals of interest. It is particularly important to be able to control for and correct these artifacts when dealing with child data. We analysed the data from 35 children (4–8 years old) and 13 adults (18–30 years old) during an emotional face paradigm. The children were split into low and high motion groups on the basis of having less or more than an estimated maximal movement of one voxel (3.75 mm) and one degree of rotation in any motion direction between any pair of scans in the run. Several different preprocessing steps were evaluated for their ability to correct for the excess motion using agnostic canonical variates analysis (aCVA) in the NPAIRS (Nonparametric, Prediction, Activation, Influence, Reproducibility, re-Sampling) framework. The adult dataset was reasonably stable whereas the motion-prone child datasets benefited greatly from motion parameter regression (MPR). Motion parameter regression had a strong beneficial impact on all datasets, a result that was largely unaffected by other preprocessing choices; however, motion correction on its own did not have as much impact. The low motion child group subjected to MPR had reproducibility values at par with those of the adult group, but needed almost twice as many subjects to achieve this result, indicating weaker responses in young children. The aCVA showed greater sensitivity to the task response pattern than the mixed effects general linear model (mGLM) in the expected face processing regions, although the mGLM showed more responses in some other areas. This work illustrates that preprocessing choices must be made in a group-specific fashion to optimise fMRI results.

Impaired holistic processing of unfamiliar individual faces in acquired prosopagnosia

Prosopagnosia is an impairment at individualizing faces that classically follows brain damage. Several studies have reported observations supporting an impairment of holistic/configural face processing in acquired prosopagnosia. However, this issue may require more compelling evidence as the cases reported were generally patients suffering from integrative visual agnosia, and the sensitivity of the paradigms used to measure holistic/configural face processing in normal individuals remains unclear. Here we tested a well-characterized case of acquired prosopagnosia (PS) with no object recognition impairment, in five behavioral experiments (whole/part and composite face paradigms with unfamiliar faces). In all experiments, for normal observers we found that processing of a given facial feature was affected by the location and identity of the other features in a whole face configuration. In contrast, the patient's results over these experiments indicate that she encodes local facial information independently of the other features embedded in the whole facial context. These observations and a survey of the literature indicate that abnormal holistic processing of the individual face may be a characteristic hallmark of prosopagnosia following brain damage, perhaps with various degrees of severity.

A Non-Humanoid Robot in the “Uncanny Valley”: Experimental Analysis of the Reaction to Behavioral Contingency in 2–3 Year Old Children

Infants' sensitivity to social or behavioral contingency has been examined in the field of developmental psychology and behavioral sciences, mainly using a double video paradigm or a still face paradigm. These studies have shown that infants distinguish other individuals' contingent behaviors from non-contingent ones. The present experiment systematically examined if this ability extends to the detection of non-humanoids' contingent actions in a communicative context. We examined two- to three-year-olds' understanding of contingent actions produced by a non-humanoid robot. The robot either responded contingently to the actions of the participants (contingent condition) or programmatically reproduced the same sequence of actions to another participant (non-contingent condition). The results revealed that the participants exhibited different patterns of response depending on whether or not the robot responded contingently. It was also found that the participants did not respond positively to the contingent actions of the robot in the earlier periods of the experimental sessions. This might reflect the conflict between the non-humanlike appearance of the robot and its humanlike contingent actions, which presumably led the children to experience the uncanny valley effect.

Psychophysiological correlates of parenting behavior in mothers of young children

This study investigated HPA and vagal functioning as correlates of parenting in mothers of 175 six-month-old children. Salivary cortisol indexed HPA functioning and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reduction indexed vagal regulation. Positive engagement and negative intrusiveness were observed during the Face-to-Face Still Face Paradigm (FFSFP) reunion and a semi-structured free play episode. Mixed modeling was used to examine differences in maternal behaviors across contexts as a function of psychophysiology. Main effects of cortisol levels, as well as interactions with RSA reduction and context, predicted negative intrusiveness. Mothers with high cortisol exhibited more negative intrusiveness if they also had lower RSA reduction. Mothers were also less negatively intrusive during the FFSFP than the free play if they had lower cortisol levels. There were no associations between psychophysiological measures and positive engagement. The findings suggest: (1) that parenting behaviors are associated with maternal stress physiology; (2) considerations of single physiological systems related to parenting behaviors may be incomplete; and (3) type and context of behaviors must be considered when examining biobehavioral associations with parenting.

Holistic Processing Is Tuned for In‐Group Faces

Past research has found that mere in-group/out-group categorizations are sufficient to elicit biases in face memory. The current research yields novel evidence that mere social categorization is also sufficient to modulate processes underlying face perception, even for faces for which we have strong perceptual expertise: same-race (SR) faces. Using the composite face paradigm, we find that SR faces categorized as in-group members (i.e., fellow university students) are processed more holistically than are SR faces categorized as out-group members (i.e., students at another university). Hence, holding perceptual expertise with faces constant, categorizing an SR target as an out-group member debilitates the strong holistic processing typically observed for SR faces.

A dual-process account of female facial attractiveness preferences: Sexual and nonsexual routes

The current study conceptualizes facial attractiveness as a dual-process judgment, combining sexual and aesthetic value. We hypothesized that holistic face processing is more integral to perceiving aesthetic preference and feature-based processing is more integral to sexual preference. In order to manipulate holistic versus feature-based processing, we used a variation of the composite face paradigm. Previous work indicates that slightly shifting the top from the bottom half of a face disrupts holistic processing and enhances feature-based processing. In the present study, while nonsexual judgments best explained facial attraction in whole-face images, a reversal occurred for split-face images such that sexual judgments best explained facial attraction, but only for mate-relevant faces (i.e., other-sex). These findings indicate that disrupting holistic processing can decouple sexual from nonsexual judgments of facial attraction, thereby establishing the presence of a dual-process.