Positive Faces Research Articles

Not just another face in the crowd: Detecting emotional schematic faces during continuous flash suppression.

To test whether threatening visual information receives prioritized processing, many studies have examined visual search for emotional schematic faces. Still, it has remained unclear whether negative or positive schematic faces are processed more efficiently. We used continuous flash suppression, a variant of binocular rivalry, to render single emotional schematic faces invisible and measured whether negative or positive faces have an advantage in accessing awareness. Across three experiments, positive faces were detected more quickly than negative faces. A fourth experiment indicated that this positive face advantage was unrelated to the valence of the face stimuli but due to the relative orientation of the mouth curvature and the face contour. These findings demonstrate the impact of configural stimulus properties on perceptual suppression during binocular rivalry and point to a perceptual confound present in emotional schematic faces that might account for some ambiguous results obtained with schematic face stimuli in previous studies.

P-123 - Inhibitory control difficulties in trait-anxiety: the hypervigilance to angry faces

The behavioural inhibitory control (IC) is known to be influenced by emotion. For instance, anxiety is associated with executive impairments such as difficulties in suppression of prepotent responses (Ansari & Derakshan, 2011; Yuan et al., 2011). In faces processing, bias towards threatening faces has been considered as a marker of trait-anxiety (TA) (Pérez-Edgar et al., 2010). Our goal was to explore if IC impairment is expressed with an emotion in particular in TA. We hypothesized that there is a bias concerning engagement of attention towards angry faces. Thirty healthy participants were included (7 M/ 23 F; mean age = 21, range: 18–29 years). State and trait anxiety was assessed with the STAI (Spielberger et al., 1983). Participants were also assessed with a modified Simon task showing controlled Emotional Facial Expressions (EFE). Negative faces (fear, sadness, anger) and positive faces (happiness) were in the same proportion. Incongruent trials constituted 20% of the task. Participants were asked to press a key if the EFE was positive or negative. TA scores were between 31 and 67 (mean = 48). We found a significant correlation only for angry faces during incongruent condition with TA (r = −.44; p = .016). Time to engage attention to angry faces (in incongruent condition) decreased while TA increased. Biases towards negative stimuli appear in attentional constraints in a sample of healthy adults from the general population. TA is characterised by a hypervigilance to anger in situations where attentional control is tested.

Three Patterns of Motion Which Change the Perception of Emotional Faces

The aim of the study was to focus on the relationship between motion and emotion. Relying on studies in Behavioral Neurology and Social Psychology, it is believed motion is one of the core components of Emotion. The study uses basic emotional faces (i.e., Happy, Surprised, Fearful, Sad, Disgusted and Angry) which are presented displaying patterns of motion (i.e., a Parabolic motion, a Translational motion and a Wave-like motion). Hypotheses are that the wave-like motion will increase perceived intensities and arou- sal related to positive emotional faces (i.e., Happy and Surprised), and simplify their recognition. Otherwise, the parabolic motion is hypothesized to increase perceived intensities and arousal related to negative emotional faces (i.e., Angry, Disgusted, Fearful and Sad), while enhancing their recognition. Results sho- wed that “Happy” is the most recognized face and “Fearful” is the least recognized one. Concerning Perceived Intensity, an Emotional Face main effect and an Interaction Motion Pattern × Emotional Face were obtained. Finally, the Arousal dimension yielded two main effects, one for the Emotional Face and one for the Motion Pattern. On one hand, results we found are very promising in understanding the part played by motion in Arousal. On the other hand, further research still has to be done so as to question the exact effects of the Translational, Parabolic and Wave-like motion patterns, especially in more dynamic contexts.

Impaired Learning of Social Compared to Monetary Rewards in Autism

A leading hypothesis to explain the social dysfunction in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is that they exhibit a deficit in reward processing and motivation specific to social stimuli. However, there have been few direct tests of this hypothesis to date. Here we used an instrumental reward learning task that contrasted learning with social rewards (pictures of positive and negative faces) against learning with monetary reward (winning and losing money). The two tasks were structurally identical except for the type of reward, permitting direct comparisons. We tested 10 high-functioning people with ASD (7M, 3F) and 10 healthy controls who were matched on gender, age, and education. We found no significant differences between the two groups in terms of overall ability behaviorally to discriminate positive from negative slot machines, reaction-times, and valence ratings, However, there was a specific impairment in the ASD group in learning to choose social rewards, compared to monetary rewards: they had a significantly lower cumulative number of choices of the most rewarding social slot machine, and had a significantly slower initial learning rate for the socially rewarding slot machine, compared to the controls. The findings show a deficit in reward learning in ASD that is greater for social rewards than for monetary rewards, and support the hypothesis of a disproportionate impairment in social reward processing in ASD.

Electrophysiological evidence for adult age-related sparing and decrements in emotion perception and attention

The present study examined adult age differences in processing emotional faces using a psychological refractory period paradigm. We used both behavioral and event-related potential (P1 component) measures. Task 1 was tone discrimination (fuzzy vs. pure tones) and Task 2 was emotional facial discrimination (“happy” vs. “angry” faces). The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the two tasks was 100, 300, and 900 ms. Earlier research observed larger age deficits in emotional facial discrimination for negative (angry) than for positive (happy) faces (Baena et al., 2010). Thus, we predicted that older adults would show decreased attentional efficiency in carrying out dual-task processing on the P1 (a component linked to amygdalar modulation of visual perception; Rotshtein et al., 2010). Both younger and older groups showed significantly higher P1 amplitudes at 100- and 300-ms SOAs than at the 900-ms SOA, and this suggests that both age groups could process Task 2 faces without central attention. Also, younger adults showed significantly higher P1 activations for angry than for happy faces, but older adults showed no difference. These results are consistent with the idea that younger adults exhibited amygdalar modulation of visual perception, but that older adults did not.

P-1289 - Deficits in facial - affect recognition in schizophrenia. The role of semantic satiation in fear and happiness perception

Individuals suffering from schizophrenia reveal difficulties in the recognition of emotional states experienced by other people. Deficits in facial - affect perception tend to be greater for negative facial displays than the positive one, with impairment being greatest for the perception of fear. The aim of the current study was to investigate the role of semantic satiation of faces in the deficit arising in fear recognition. Semantic satiation is defined as the experience of the loss of the meaning of words or images caused by their prolonged presentation. The satiation effect occurs faster in schizophrenia than in healthy people since it could be considered as a mechanism which reveals patients’ difficulties in fear recognition. Participants, 30 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 30 controls were shown the images of fearful, happy and neutral faces. In satiation conditions each image was displayed 30 times, in control conditions - 3 times. Participants’ task was to define the emotion they were presented with. Both groups of participants revealed the semantic satiation effect alike for positive, negative and neutral faces. Within the group of patients the satiation effect was greater for fearful and neutral faces than for positive ones, whereas for the healthy controls the satiation of positive and negative pictures were greater than for the neutral ones. Within the schizophrenic group semantic satiation could be considered as a mechanism which is responsible for the difficulties of fear recognition and for deficits of correct interpretation of emotionally - neutral faces.

FIAEs in Famous Faces are Mediated by Type of Processing

An important question regarding face aftereffects is whether it is based on face-specific or lower-level mechanisms. One method for addressing this is to explore how adaptation in upright or inverted, photographic positive or negative faces transfers to test stimuli that are either upright or inverted and normal or negated. A series of studies are reported in which this is tested using a typical face identity aftereffect paradigm in unfamiliar and famous faces. Results showed that aftereffects were strongest when the adaptor matched the test stimuli. In addition, aftereffects did not transfer from upright adaptors to inverted test images, but did transfer from inverted adaptors to upright test images in famous faces. However, in unfamiliar faces, a different pattern was observed. The results are interpreted in terms of how identity adaptation interacts with low-level adaptation and highlight differences in the representation of famous and unfamiliar faces.

Facing the Future: Face-Emotion Processing Deficits as a Potential Biomarker For Various Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders

Facing the Future: Face-Emotion Processing Deficits as a Potential Biomarker For Various Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders

Time course of automatic emotion regulation during a facial Go/Nogo task

Neuroimaging research has determined that the neural correlates of automatic emotion regulation (AER) include the anterior cingulate cortex. However, the corresponding time course remains unknown. In the current study, we collected event-related potentials (ERPs) from 20 healthy volunteers during a judgment of the gender of emotional faces in a cued Go/Nogo task. The results indicate that Go-N2 amplitudes and latencies following positive and negative faces decreased more than those following neutral faces; Nogo-N2 amplitudes and latencies did not vary with valence. Moreover, positive and negative faces prompted higher P3 amplitudes and shorter P3 latencies than neutral faces in both Go and Nogo trials. These observations suggest that in the executive processes, Go-N2 reflects top-down attention toward emotions, while Go-P3 reflects only motivated attention; in the inhibitory processes, Nogo-N2 reflects cognitive conflict monitoring, while Nogo-P3 overlaps with the automatic response inhibition of emotions. These observations imply that AER can modulate early ERP components, and both Go-N2 and Nogo-P3 can be used as electrophysiological indices of AER.

Mn<sub>x</sub>Zn<sub>1-x</sub>O Crystal Synthesized by Hydrothermal Method

MnxZn1-XO Crystal was synthesized by hydrothermal method in this work.The experimental parameters for hydrothermal synyhesis were:Mineralizer concentration 3mol•L-1KOH, the fill factor 35%, temperature 430°C, Zn(OH)2 doped with MnO2 as precursor, and the reaction time 24 hours. The Mn concentration in crystal was determined by X-ray EDS. The atomic percentage of Mn in crystal increases as the concentration of MnO2 in precursor increased. The maximum atomic percentage for Mn is over 2%. The morphology shows characteristics of hexagonal prism of pure ZnO crystal. The exposed faces are hexagonal faces m｛10 0｝, hexagonal cone faces p｛10 1｝, negative polar faces ｛000 ｝and positive polar faces｛0001}. The diameters of the crystals are 50-200μm，the heights are 20-100μm.

Asymmetric Growth of α-Resorcinol Crystals: In Situ Studies of Crystal Growth from the Vapor Phase

In situ studies of the growth of the acentric crystal α-resorcinol from the vapor phase confirm that the mechanism of growth differs on the faces presented at the opposite ends of the polar axis of this material. At medium supersaturations (σ = 0.76), the growth of the (01̅1̅) and (011̅) faces proceeds by the cooperative development of strongly propagating growth sources. Under similar conditions, the (011) and (01̅1) faces develop a mosaic of flat-topped growth centers. These develop individually and merge to form a continuous, curved, facet bearing a few residual, weakly propagating birth and spread growth sources. The degree to which this mosaic growth occurs depends on the damage done to the face of the seed crystal during preparation. This behavior accounts for the previously observed wide variation in the estimates of growth rate of the positive faces and the differential in growth rates compared with that of the negative faces. On more perfect (011) surfaces, growth is restricted to a small degree of nucleation at isolated random centers. These nuclei undergo a more limited localized growth to yield a nonpropagating macroscopic surface roughness. These observations provide further evidence for our previously expressed contention that the anisotropic growth of this and related highly polar acentric materials arises from intrinsic mechanistic causes.

Age Differences in Valence Judgments of Emotional Faces: The Influence of Personality Traits and Current Mood

Previous research on emotion processing revealed a positivity bias that progressively evolves across the adult age range. This study obtained gradual valence judgments of emotional faces across the adult age span, to see whether this positivity bias persists when positive and negative stimuli are matched for arousal; and whether bias relates to personality traits or to current mood. With increasing age subjects judged negative and neutral faces less negatively. Further, younger participants scoring high in “agreeableness” and “conscientiousness” scales showed a positivity bias when judging positive faces, suggesting an association of the positivity effect with trait variables.

Effects of reboxetine and citalopram on appraisal of infant facial expressions and attentional biases.

Difficulties in mother–child interaction are commonly observed in the context of postnatal depression. These difficulties may result in part from the negative cognitive bias present in depression, which may in turn lead to biased negative perceptions of the infant: in particular, these biases encompass the negative appraisal of facial expressions. Given the important role of early mother–child interactions in child development it is vital to investigate potential interventions that might be beneficial in ameliorating the negative cognitive bias. This study aimed to examine the effects of two different antidepressants (reboxetine and citalopram) on the appraisal of infant facial expressions of emotion using a faces rating task, and on attention to infant emotion using an attentional probe. Thirty-nine volunteers were randomly assigned to a double-blind 7-day intervention with either placebo, citalopram or reboxetine. There were significant positive effects on the appraisal of facial expressions; participants assigned to the placebo group rated positive faces less positively than those either in the citalopram or in the reboxetine groups. However, there was no evidence that these drugs had an effect on attentional vigilance. If antidepressants are able to help a mother to perceive her infant’s facial expressions as more positive, this may lead to more positive interactions, thereby potentially mitigating the negative effects of depression on infant development. These findings should be treated with caution until replicated in larger and clinical samples.

Selective effects of social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and negative affectivity on the neural bases of emotional face processing

Individuals with high anxiety show heightened neural activation in affective processing regions, including the amygdala and insula. Activations have been shown to be correlated with anxiety severity, but although anxiety is a heterogeneous state, prior studies have not systematically disentangled whether neural activity in affective processing circuitry is uniquely related to specific domains of anxiety. Forty-five young adults were tested on an emotional face processing task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants completed the Social Interactional Anxiety Scale, Anxiety Sensitivity Index, and Spielberger Trait Anxiety Inventory. Using a robust multiple regression approach, we examined the effects of social anxiety, anxiety sensitivity, and trait anxiety (which overlapped with depressive symptoms, and can therefore be considered a measure of negative affectivity) on activation in insula, amygdala, and medial prefrontal cortex, in response to emotional faces. Adjusting for negative affectivity and anxiety sensitivity, social anxiety was associated with activity in left amygdala, right insula, and subgenual anterior cingulate across all emotional faces. When comparing negative and positive faces directly, greater negative affectivity was uniquely associated with less activity to positive faces in left amygdala, left anterior insula, and dorsal anterior cingulate. The current findings support the hypothesis that hyperactivity in brain areas during general emotional face processing is predominantly a function of social anxiety. In comparison, hypoactivity to positively valenced faces was predominantly associated with negative affectivity. Implications for the understanding of emotion processing in anxiety are discussed.

Age differences in the emotional modulation of attention: Effects of own-age versus other-age emotional face cues on the alerting and orienting networks

This study used a modification of an attentional cueing task with emotional faces as cues to examine whether emotional cues influence the efficiency of alerting and spatial orienting, and whether the effects vary with the age of the faces and/or the age of the subjects. In this task, younger and older adults responded to the location of a target (left or right) preceded by a brief emotional cue (happy, sad, or neutral faces) or by no cue. Older adults showed a larger alerting effect than younger adults and this pattern was not further moderated by the valence of cues or the age of the faces. However, the results for the orienting effects indicated both age similarities and differences as a function of age of the faces. Both age groups exhibited orienting benefits from valid cueing by neutral and positive own-age faces, and showed orienting benefits for negative other-age face cues. Older adults appeared to be differentially influenced by orienting cues compared to younger adults as suggested by the cue-validity effect (i.e., response times slower for invalidly cued targets than for validly cued targets), especially for the own-age face cues. Whereas younger adults demonstrated the cue-validity effects for neutral and happy own-age face cues, older adults showed the cue-validity effects for the own-age face cues regardless of valence. The results highlight the importance of considering the age of the faces when assessing age differences in attention to emotional face cues.

Biased number perception of schematic expressions in abstinent heroin abusers compared to normal controls

Background and objectives Drug-dependent people exhibit biases when evaluating discrete emotional facial expressions. Little is known about how drug abusers process multiple expressions presented simultaneously. The present study investigated the number perception of schematic emotional expressions by abstinent heroin abusers. Methods Eighty-four heroin abstainers with varied lengths of abstinence (short-term, mid-term, and long-term) and twenty healthy controls were examined. A method of limits was deployed to obtain estimates (points of subjective equality) of perceived numbers of schematic faces (expressing positive, neutral, or negative emotion). Results Major results include the following: 1) heroin-abstinent participants showed significantly lower points of subjective equality for negative and neutral faces, but not for positive faces, compared to control participants; 2) heroin-abstinent participants showed lower points of subjective equality for negative faces and higher ones for positive faces when compared to neutral faces, while no such differences were found in control participants. Conclusion Heroin abusers demonstrate an exaggerated perception of number when exposed to negative expressions, even after a period of abstinence as long as 10 months. In addition, the current results could also reflect an underestimated perception of number during exposure to positive expressions and a heightened baseline for neutral expressions, or the attribution of negative valence to neutral expressions by heroin abusers.

Understanding the subliminal affective priming effect of facial stimuli: an ERP study

The subliminal affective priming was studied by recording event-related potential (ERP) to ambiguous neutral faces preceded by 20ms positive or negative prime faces. Behavioral results showed that positive and negative prime faces led to valance-consistent biases in affective judgments of ambiguous neutral faces. ERP data showed that subliminal primes differentially influenced N100, N300 and vertex positive potential (VPP), with larger amplitudes in negative priming trials. These results support the conclusion that the early perceptual analysis of targets, as well as evaluation and selection of targets, is affected by subliminal affective information.

FMRI Activities in the Emotional Cerebellum: A Preference for Negative Stimuli and Goal-Directed Behavior

Several studies indicate that the cerebellum might play a role in experiencing and/or controlling emphatic emotions, but it remains to be determined whether there is a distinction between positive and negative emotions, and, if so, which specific parts of the cerebellum are involved in these types of emotions. Here, we visualized activations of the cerebellum and extracerebellar regions using high-field fMRI, while we asked participants to observe and imitate images with pictures of human faces expressing different emotional states or with moving geometric shapes as control. The state of the emotions could be positive (happiness and surprise), negative (anger and disgust), or neutral. The positive emotional faces only evoked mild activations of crus 2 in the cerebellum, whereas the negative emotional faces evoked prominent activations in lobules VI and VIIa in its hemispheres and lobules VIII and IX in the vermis. The cerebellar activations associated with negative emotions occurred concomitantly with activations of mirror neuron domains such as the insula and amygdala. These data suggest that the potential role of the cerebellum in control of emotions may be particularly relevant for goal-directed behavior that is required for observing and reacting to another person’s (negative) expressions.

Negotiation of Face between Bereaved Parents and Their Social Networks

For many bereaved parents, talking about their child's death and their grief experiences is a way to cope with grief. Unfortunately, communicating with others often proves difficult for parents and their social networks, often because of face threats. The purpose of the present study is to identify how the face needs of parents and their social network is communicatively negotiated. Fifty-three bereaved parents were interviewed and the data analyzed, resulting in a theme of protection. The findings highlight ways in which both the parents' and others' positive and negative faces were co-managed. These findings highlight the complex nature of facework in social networks at individual, relational, and systemic levels.

Familiar smiling faces in Alzheimer's disease: Understanding the positivity-related recognition bias

Recent research has revealed a recognition bias favoring positive faces and other stimuli in older compared to younger adults. However, it is yet unclear whether this bias reflects an age-related preference for positive emotional stimuli, or an affirmatory bias used to compensate for episodic memory deficits. To follow up this point, the present study examined recognition of emotional faces and current mood state in patients with mild Alzheimer disease (AD) and healthy controls. Expecting lower overall memory performance, more negative and less positive mood in AD patients, the critical question was whether the positivity-related recognition bias would be increased compared to cognitively unimpaired controls. Eighteen AD patients and 18 healthy controls studied happy, neutral, and angry faces, which in a subsequent recognition task were intermixed with 50% distracter faces. As expected, the patient group showed reduced memory performance, along with a less positive and more negative mood. The recognition bias for positive faces persisted. This pattern supports the view that the positivity-induced recognition bias represents a compensatory, gist-based memory process that is applied when item-based recognition fails.