Model Of Emotional Processing Research Articles

Amygdala and cortical gamma-band responses to emotional faces are modulated by attention to valence.

The amygdala might support an attentional bias for emotional faces. However, whether and how selective attention toward a specific valence modulates this bias is not fully understood. Likewise, it is unclear whether amygdala and cortical signals respond to emotion and attention in a similar way. We recorded gamma-band activity (GBA, > 30 Hz) intracranially in the amygdalae of 11 patients with epilepsy and collected scalp recordings from 19 healthy participants. We presented angry, neutral, and happy faces randomly, and we denoted one valence as the target. Participants detected happy targets most quickly and accurately. In the amygdala, during attention to negative faces, low gamma-band activity (LGBA, < 90 Hz) increased for angry compared with happy faces from 160 ms. From 220 ms onward, amygdala high gamma-band activity (HGBA, > 90 Hz) was higher for angry and neutral faces than for happy ones. Monitoring neutral faces increased amygdala HGBA for emotions compared with neutral faces from 40 ms. Expressions were not differentiated in GBA while monitoring positive faces. On the scalp, only threat monitoring resulted in expression differentiation. Here, posterior LGBA was increased selectively for angry targets from 60 ms. The data show that GBA differentiation of emotional expressions is modulated by attention to valence: Top-down-controlled threat vigilance coordinates widespread GBA in favor of angry faces. Stimulus-driven emotion differentiation in amygdala GBA occurs during a neutral attentional focus. These findings align with a multi-pathway model of emotion processing and specify the role of GBA in this process.

Detection of emotional faces: The role of spatial frequencies and local features

Models of emotion processing suggest that threat-related stimuli such as fearful faces can be detected based on the rapid extraction of low spatial frequencies. However, this remains debated as other models argue that the decoding of facial expressions occurs with a more flexible use of spatial frequencies. The purpose of this study was to clarify the role of spatial frequencies and differences in luminance contrast between spatial frequencies, on the detection of facial emotions. We used a saccadic choice task in which emotional-neutral face pairs were presented and participants were asked to make a saccade toward the neutral or the emotional (happy or fearful) face. Faces were displayed either in low, high, or broad spatial frequencies. Results showed that participants were better to saccade toward the emotional face. They were also better for high or broad than low spatial frequencies, and the accuracy was higher with a happy target. An analysis of the eye and mouth saliency ofour stimuli revealed that the mouth saliency of the target correlates with participants’ performance. Overall, this study underlines the importance of local more than global information, and of the saliency of the mouth region in the detection of emotional and neutral faces.

The amygdala-insula-medial prefrontal cortex-lateral prefrontal cortex pathway and its disorders.

Smith and Lane have suggested a model of emotion processing with at least three stations: areas like the amygdala, which process discrete body features areas like the anterior insula, which process whole-body patterns and areas like the medial prefrontal cortex, which process emotion concepts. Ben Shalom and Bonneh have suggested a model of the prefrontal cortex, in which medial BA 9 integrates emotional states, and lateral BA 9 performs selection/inhibition on these states. Taken together, the current paper suggests a pathway for emotion processing with at least four stations: areas like the amygdala, which process discrete body features areas like the anterior insula, which process whole-body patterns, medial BA 9 which integrates emotion concepts, and lateral BA 9, which performs selection/inhibition on these concepts. Following the existing literature, it then suggest that there is a significant involvement of the amygdala in psychopathy (Blair), of the anterior insula in alexithymia (Bird), of the medial BA 9 in deficits in somatosensory discrimination (Ben Shalom), and of lateral BA 9 in emotional impulsivity (Ronel).

The effect of dichotic music presentation on ratings of emotional facial expressions

Music has a cross-modal influence on the emotional appraisal of pictures, probably due to a misattribution of emotion from music to the visually perceived images. Moreover, dichotic listening studies have demonstrated a left-ear (right-hemisphere) advantage for processing emotional and/or musical stimuli. The present study investigated the role of laterality in cross-modal affect misattribution: that is, whether visual judgments of emotion would be affected differently depending on which ear was presented with music via the dichotic listening task. Participants rated the emotionality of happy, sad, and neutral faces while listening to happy or sad music in one ear and white noise in the other. Baseline ratings without music were used as a comparison to see whether and how emotionality judgments shifted in the music conditions. As predicted, the results showed that happy music played to the left ear had a stronger cross-modal influence on ratings of sad faces than the same music played to the right ear. Furthermore, sad music affected the ratings of all faces regardless of whether it was played to the left or right ear. These results do not fully align with any given lateralized model of emotion processing, suggesting that other factors such as negativity bias may play a role.

Hear what you feel, feel what you hear: The effect of musical sequences on emotional processing

Music has a unique ability to access affective and motivational systems of the brain. However, there is a gap in research on the association between musical stimuli and their impact on emotional processing, a crucial component for the success of the therapeutic process. The present study thus sought to explore both the capacity of music to access the affective system, to induce emotions, and to change emotional states, as well as to facilitate emotional processing leading to the resolution of emotional distress. Pascual-Leone and Greenberg's validated sequential model of emotional processing in psychotherapy, was used to test this dual capacity. Three musical sequences with distinct components were developed and presented in an online platform. One musical sequence followed the order of the sequential model (first experimental sequence), another musical sequence inverted that same order (second experimental sequence), and the last musical sequence was intended to serve as a baseline (control sequence). All musical sequences, not only led to alterations in participant's emotional states, but also led to an increase of participant's emotional resolution. Some of the results were surprising, since the control sequence also led to an increase of emotional resolution and the first experimental sequence didn't present itself as the winning candidate by leading to a higher emotional resolution. Nevertheless, these surprising results demonstrated that emotional processing could occur under different experiences of music and allow future studies to keep exploring this relationship.

Is It a Gut Feeling? Bodily Sensations Associated With the Experience of Valence and Arousal in Patients With Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

BackgroundPrevious studies have shown dysfunctional emotion processing in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), characterized by a hypersensitivity to negative emotions and a hyposensitivity to positive emotions. Models of emotion processing emphasize the importance of bodily sensations to the experience of emotions. Since there have been no studies on whether emotion-associated bodily sensations are changed in IBD, we investigated the experience of bodily sensations related to valence and arousal, together with their links to emotional awareness, as one domain of interoceptive sensibility relevant to emotion processing.MethodsUsing a topographical self-report measure, 41 IBD patients in clinical remission and 44 healthy control (HC) participants were asked to indicate where and how intensely in their body they perceive changes when experiencing emotions of positive and negative valence, as well as relaxation and tension. Additionally, we used self-report questionnaires to assess emotional awareness as one domain of an individual’s interoceptive sensibility, gastrointestinal-specific anxiety (GSA), and psychological distress.ResultsPatients with IBD reported higher emotional awareness but lower intensities of perceived changes in their bodily sensations related to valence and arousal of emotional processing. IBD patients reported less intense bodily activation during positive emotions and less intense bodily deactivation during negative emotional states in comparison to HC participants. Higher emotional awareness and psychological distress were linked to stronger experiences of emotion-related bodily sensations in IBD patients.ConclusionInflammatory bowel diseases patients exhibited alterations in how they link bodily sensations to their emotional experience. Such persistent changes can affect a patient’s wellbeing and are related to higher levels of anxiety and depression among IBD patients, even in remission.

Effective connectivity during face processing in major depression - distinguishing markers of pathology, risk, and resilience.

Aberrant brain connectivity during emotional processing, especially within the fronto-limbic pathway, is one of the hallmarks of major depressive disorder (MDD). However, the methodological heterogeneity of previous studies made it difficult to determine the functional and etiological implications of specific alterations in brain connectivity. We previously reported alterations in psychophysiological interaction measures during emotional face processing, distinguishing depressive pathology from at-risk/resilient and healthy states. Here, we extended these findings by effective connectivity analyses in the same sample to establish a refined neural model of emotion processing in depression. Thirty-seven patients with MDD, 45 first-degree relatives of patients with MDD and 97 healthy controls performed a face-matching task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We used dynamic causal modeling to estimate task-dependent effective connectivity at the subject level. Parametric empirical Bayes was performed to quantify group differences in effective connectivity. MDD patients showed decreased effective connectivity from the left amygdala and left lateral prefrontal cortex to the fusiform gyrus compared to relatives and controls, whereas patients and relatives showed decreased connectivity from the right orbitofrontal cortex to the left insula and from the left orbitofrontal cortex to the right fusiform gyrus compared to controls. Relatives showed increased connectivity from the anterior cingulate cortex to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex compared to patients and controls. Our results suggest that the depressive state alters top-down control of higher visual regions during face processing. Alterations in connectivity within the cognitive control network present potential risk or resilience mechanisms.

Gender differences in emotional connotative meaning of words measured by Osgood\u2019s semantic differential techniques in young adults

Semantic differential techniques are a useful, well-validated tool to assess affective processing of stimuli and determine how that processing is impacted by various demographic factors, such as gender. In this paper, we explore differences in connotative word processing between men and women as measured by Osgood’s semantic differential and what those differences imply about affective processing in the two genders. We recruited 94 young participants (47 men, 47 women, ages 18–39) using an online survey and collected their affective ratings of 120 words on three rating tasks: Evaluation (E), Potency (P), and Activity (A). With these data, we explored the theoretical and mathematical overlap between Osgood’s affective meaning factor structure and other models of emotional processing commonly used in gender analyses. We then used Osgood’s three-dimensional structure to assess gender-related differences in three affective classes of words (words with connotation that is Positive, Neutral, or Negative for each task) and found that there was no significant difference between the genders when rating Positive words and Neutral words on each of the three rating tasks. However, young women consistently rated Negative words more negatively than young men did on all three of the independent dimensions. This confirms the importance of taking gender effects into account when measuring emotional processing. Our results further indicate there may be differences between Osgood’s structure and other models of affective processing that should be further explored.

Pandemic threat and authoritarian attitudes in Europe: An empirical analysis of the exposure to COVID-19.

While analysis of the impact of threatening events has moved from bit player to center stage in political science in recent decades, the phenomenon of pandemic threat is widely neglected in terms of a systematic research agenda. Tying together insights from the behavioral immune system hypothesis and standard political science models of emotional processing, we evaluate whether exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic threat is related to authoritarian attitudes and which emotions do the work. Using 12 samples with over 12,000 respondents from six European countries at two time points (2020 and 2021), we argue that pandemic threats can generate disgust, anger, and fear. Our analyses indicate that exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic threat particularly activates fear, which in turn is linked to authoritarian attitudes.

Neuronal response to high negative affective stimuli in major depressive disorder: An fMRI study

BackgroundDisturbed emotion processing underlies depression. We examined the neuronal underpinnings of emotional processing in patients (PAT) with major depressive disorder (MDD) compared to healthy volunteers (HV) using functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) scan. MethodsThirty-six MDD patients and 30 HV underwent T2-weighted fMRI assessments during the presentation of an implicit affective processing task in three conditions. They differed regarding their affective quality (=valence, high negative, low negative and neutral stimuli) and regarding the arousal based on stimuli from the International Affective Picture System. ResultsGroup contrasts showed lower left-sided activation in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), anterior PFC, precentral and premotor cortex in PAT compared with HV (Cluster-level threshold, 5000 iterations, p<0.01). We found a significant interaction effect of valence and group, a significant effect of emotional valence and a significant effect of group. All effects were shown in brain regions within the emotional network (Cluster-level threshold, 5000 iterations, p<0.01). Higher arousal (rho=-0.33, p<0.01) and higher valence (rho=-0.33, p<0.01) during high negative stimuli presentation as well as more severe depression (Beck Depression Inventory II [BDI II]; r = 0.39, p = 0.01) were significantly negatively associated with left DLFPC activity in patients. LimitationsPotential influence of psychopharmacological drugs on functional activation is one of the most discussed source of bias in studies with medicated psychiatric patients. ConclusionsThe results highlight the importance of left DLPFC during the processing of negative emotional stimuli in MDD. The integration of a neurophysiological model of emotional processing in MDD may help to clarify and improve therapeutic options.

Connecting Model-Based and Model-Free Control With Emotion Modulation in Learning Systems

This article proposes a novel decision-making framework that bridges a gap between model-based (MB) and model-free (MF) control processes through only adjusting the planning horizon. Specifically, the output policy is obtained by solving a model predictive control problem with a locally optimal state value as terminal constraints. When the planning horizon decreases to zero, the MB control will transform into the MF control smoothly. Meanwhile, inspired by the neural mechanism of emotion modulation on decision-making, we build a biologically plausible computational model of emotion processing. This model can generate an uncertainty-related emotional response on the basis of the state prediction error and reward prediction error, and then dynamically modulates the planning horizon in the tasks. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed decision-making framework can produce better policies than traditional methods. Emotion modulation can shift the MB and MF control well to improve the learning efficiency and the speed of decision-making.

Trauma symptoms of sexual abuse reduce resilience in children to give ‘no’ replies to misleading questions

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the extent of sexual trauma symptoms was negatively associated with ‘no’ answers to misleading questions after negative feedback. The participants were 180 children aged between 7 and 17 years who were suspected victims of sexual abuse. All children completed the Gudjonsson Suggestibility Scale (GSS 2), a non-verbal IQ test, and The University of California at Los Angeles Child/Adolescent Reaction Index for post-traumatic stress (UCLA-PTSD-RI-5). The findings showed that trauma symptoms, and to a lesser extent impaired source memory recall, were significantly associated with children's inability to give ‘no’ answers after negative feedback. The more severe the trauma, the greater the vulnerability. No such findings were found for ‘don't know’ and ‘direct explanation’ answers. The type of abuser (Intrafamilial versus Extrafamilial) did not add incrementally to the variance in ‘no’ answers suggesting that the impact of type of offender in terms of family links has no independent effect on ‘no’ answers and its effects are mediated by other factors, mainly the severity of the trauma symptoms. A ‘cognitive-interpretative’ model of emotional processing best explains the current findings of a relationship between trauma symptoms and ‘no’ answers after negative feedback.

Alterations of Heartbeat Evoked Magnetic Fields Induced by Sounds of Disgust.

The majority of the models of emotional processing attribute subjective emotional feelings to physiological changes in the internal milieu, which are sensed by the interoceptive system. These physiological reactions evoked by emotional phenomena occur via the autonomic nervous system, and give rise to alterations in body-mind interactions that are characterized by heartbeat evoked magnetic fields (HEFs) involving brain regions associated with emotional perception. The current study used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to examine regional cortical activity and connectivity changes in HEFs provoked by the emotion of disgust. MEG results from 39 healthy subjects (22 female) revealed that passively listening to sounds of disgust elicited right insular cortical activity and enhancement of cortical connectivity between the right anterior ventral insular cortex and left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, demonstrated by phase lag indexes in the beta frequency range. Furthermore, inter-trial coherence significantly increased at 19 Hz and 23 Hz, and decreased at 14 Hz, which highlights the involvement of low beta oscillations in emotional processing. As these results were based on spontaneously triggered bioelectrical signals, more indigenous and induced signals were extracted with a block designed experiment. The insular cortices play an important role in emotional regulation and perception as the main cortical target for signals with interoceptive information, providing direct substrates of emotional feelings. The current results provide a novel insight into frequency properties of emotional processing, and suggest that emotional arousal evoked by listening to sounds of disgust partially impact the autonomic nervous system, altering HEFs via connectivity changes in the right anterior ventral insular cortex and left ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

Emotional processing of trauma narratives is a predictor of outcome in emotion-focused therapy for complex trauma.

This study tested a model of emotional processes over the course of emotion-focused therapy for trauma. The model of emotional processing (Pascual-Leone & Greenberg, 2007) proposes a sequential order of shifting from "early expressions of distress" to "primary adaptive emotion" that aid in adaptive functioning. Thirty-eight participants were taken from a randomized clinical trial to examine in-session process from video recordings of treatment. The sample had an average age (M = 44.3 years) and the majority was female (55.3%) and of European descent (89.5%). The Classification of Affective Meaning States was used to examine changes in emotional processes during trauma narratives in both early and late sessions. Processes were related to treatment outcome as measured by the Impact of Event Scale and the Resolution Scale. Sessions later in treatment showed a higher frequency of primary adaptive emotions compared with early sessions (p < .001, r = .76). Primary adaptive emotions were also more frequent in good-outcome cases (p = .017). Using emotional processes as predictors correctly classified 67% of poor-outcome cases and 80% of good-outcome cases. Increases in primary adaptive emotions from early to late treatment sessions more than doubled the odds (2.2) of having a good treatment outcome. The order of emotion was concordant with the sequential model in early sessions and partially concordant in late sessions. Findings have implications for guiding therapeutic process in a productive manner that leads to trauma recovery. Changes in discrete emotions were related to good treatment outcome. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptive and maladaptive emotion processing and regulation, and the case of alexithymia

ABSTRACT In this conceptual review, we discuss models of emotion and its regulation and identify a spectrum of processes that characterise adaptive adjustment to the affective environment. We describe a dynamic-phasic model of emotion processing and regulation, focusing on five stages: anticipation, response, recovery, habituation and rest as part of a cascade of responses to emotional challenges, as these become progressively expected, proximal, chronic or repeated. We argue for the need to investigate beyond simple reactivity to emotional stimuli, in order to understand mental and physical health conditions where emotional dysregulation plays a role. We propose that a hallmark of an effective and adaptive emotion regulation system is its flexibility, in the service of life goals and values. Consistent with McEwen’s model (1998, Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostasis and allostatic load. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 840(1), 33–44), inflexible emotion regulation can lead to increased allostatic load, from frequent stress, inadequate reactivity, failed shutdown and habituation, which may result in physical and mental illness. Alexithymia exemplifies inflexible emotion regulation, with dysfunctions potentially across all stages of emotion processing, both psychologically and physiologically. These maladaptive processes and their consequence on allostatic load potentially explain the association between alexithymia and physical and mental illness.

Does modularity undermine the pro‐emotion consensus?

AbstractThere is a growing consensus that emotions contribute positively to human practical rationality. While arguments that defend this position often appeal to the modularity of emotion‐generation mechanisms, these arguments are also susceptible to the criticism that emotional modularity supports pessimism about the prospects of emotions contributing positively to practical rationality here and now. This paper aims to respond to this criticism by demonstrating how models of emotion processing can accommodate the sorts of cognitive influence required to make the pro‐emotion position plausible whilst exhibiting key elements of modularity.

Neural Correlates of Emotion Processing in Word Detection Task.

In our previous study, we have proposed a three-stage model of emotion processing; in the current study, we investigated whether the ERP component may be different when the emotional content of stimuli is task-irrelevant. In this study, a dual-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) task was used to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates the time course of neural dynamics. Participants performed the task in which affectively positive, negative, and neutral adjectives were rapidly presented while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 18 undergraduates. The N170 component was enhanced for negative words relative to positive and neutral words. This indicates that automatic processing of negative information occurred at an early perceptual processing stage. In addition, later brain potentials such as the late positive potential (LPP) were only enhanced for positive words in the 480–580-ms post-stimulus window, while a relatively large amplitude signal was elicited by positive and negative words between 580 and 680 ms. These results indicate that different types of emotional content are processed distinctly at different time windows of the LPP, which is in contrast with the results of studies on task-relevant emotional processing. More generally, these findings suggest that a negativity bias to negative words remains to be found in emotion-irrelevant tasks, and that the LPP component reflects dynamic separation of emotion valence.

Emotion introspection and regulation in depression

Depressed patients suffer from an impairment to voluntarily influence and regulate their unpleasant emotional state. Strengthening the mental ability to interfere with dysfunctional emotion processing may be beneficial in treating depression. According to models of emotion processing this may be done by successful down-regulation of enhanced amygdala activity. We investigated short periods of intentional emotion-introspection compared with cognitive self-reflection as two domains of self-awareness in terms of effects on emotion regulation. Thirty depressed patients performed twelve second periods of emotion-introspection, self-reflection and a neutral condition during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We analyzed brain activation in the patients with depression by means of whole brain, region of interest and connectivity analyses. Amygdala activity decreased during emotion-introspection relative to self-reflection and to the neutral condition, whereby left amygdala was inversely activated relative to the left insula. Insula activity itself was correlated with medial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) activation. In conclusion, depressed patients are able to down-regulate amygdala activity by emotion-introspection. This may be interpreted as well-working emotion regulation supposedly induced by PFC connections mediated via insula. The finding supports the application of emotion-introspection, a mindfulness-related process, in a clinical setting as an element of psychotherapy to train and improve emotion regulation.

Alterations of emotional reactivity following righttemporal lobectomy

ABSTRACTTo learn if a right temporal lobectomy altered a patient’s autonomic and cognitive responses to aversive and appetitive pictures, we investigated a man whose right anterior temporal lobe and amygdala had been resected to remove an arteriovenous malformation. This patient revealed unusually low self-reports of arousal with a lack of heightened skin conductance responses to aversive pictures. For pleasant pictures, his self-reports of arousal and his physiological responses were similar to healthy men. This patient’s responses are consistent with a bivalent model of emotional processing, with a right temporal lobectomy compromising the activation of his defensive action response system.

Neurophysiological differentiation between preattentive and attentive processing of emotional expressions on French vowels

The present electrophysiological study investigated the processing of emotional prosody by minimizing as much as possible the effect of emotional information conveyed by the lexical-semantic context. Emotionally colored French vowels (i.e., happiness, sadness, fear, and neutral) were presented in a mismatch negativity (MMN) oddball paradigm. Both the MMN, i.e., an event-related potential (ERP) component thought to reflect preattentive change detection, and the P3a, i.e., an ERP marker of involuntary orientation of attention toward deviant stimuli, were significantly modulated by the emotional deviants compared to the neutral ones. Critically, the largest amplitude (MMN, P3a) and the shortest peak latency (MMN) were observed for fear deviants, all other things being equal. Taken together, the present findings lend support to a sequential neurocognitive model of emotion processing (Scherer, 2001) which postulates, among other checks, a first stage of automatic emotion detection (MMN) followed by a second stage of subjective evaluation of the stimulus or event (P3a). Consistently with previous studies, our data suggest that among the six universal emotions, fear could have a special status probably because of its adaptive role in the evolution of the human species.