Sad Facial Expressions Research Articles

Lower recognition thresholds for sad facial expressions in subthreshold depression: a longitudinal study

Subthreshold depression (StD) is more prevalent than major depressive disorder (MDD) all over the world. Previous studies have indicated that depression is associated with impaired perception of facial expressions. However, for individuals with StD, whether perceptual sensitivity toward facial expressions could be altered and whether these alterations could stabilize over time remain largely unknown. Using the QUEST psychometric procedure, here we assessed recognition thresholds of five facial expressions (angry, fear, happy, sad and neutral) for individuals with StD and non-depressed controls. These subjects were retested after approximately 2-month time intervals. At the initial assessment, individuals with StD demonstrated lower recognition thresholds (i.e., stronger sensitivity) for only sadness compared to non-depressed controls. At the follow-up assessment, we classified the StD group as two subgroups: the non-remitted and the remitted group. For the former, lower recognition thresholds for only sadness were again found; for the latter, there was no significant difference. More importantly, individuals displaying lower recognition thresholds for sadness at the initial assessment were less likely to improve in depressive symptoms at the follow-up assessment. These results indicate that the alteration of perceptual sensitivity toward the sad expression for individuals with StD is associated with the current clinical state.

Relationship between environmental factors and facial expressions of visitors during the urban forest experience

A forest environment can promote the mental state of people and the effect can result within short frames (e.g., minutes of visit). Most studies to date have used questionnaire investigation or medical examination to study how forest affect people. However, these methods were not rapid enough to assess real-time emotion of visitors who were immersed in a forest experience. In this study, twenty-four university students (21 years old, 11 females and 13 males) were recruited to visit four urban forest-park locations or to walk along an urban street in two early-summer days. Participants were asked to take selfies every 30 min between the hours of 09:00 am and 14:00 pm by posing with their natural facial expressions and real-time emotion. Environmental factors were monitored simultaneously at every photographing phase. Photographs were analyzed using the FireFACE™ software to obtain scores for happy, sad, and neutral expressions, which were also used to calculate the positive response index (PRI) which is an expression of happy minus sad facial expressions. The forest experience evoked higher happy and PRI scores, but lower neutral scores compared to that in urban environment. Analysis of variance using a mixed model indicated a higher green-light spectrum-ratio in the sunlight spectrum, higher relative humidity (RH), lower temperatures, and lower noise in forests especially at noon and all were significant explanations of facial expression. Stepwise regression indicated that the green-light spectrum-ratio had a positive relationship with happy scores and the combination of lower noise and higher humidity contributed to a higher PRI in the forest. In conclusion, the forest experience can result in more positive emotional expressions on visitors’ faces, and the understory conditions of green colored light, less noisy peaceful atmosphere, and moist air measured through RH likely led to this experience.

Modification of Attentional Bias to Emotional Faces Following Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy in People with a Current Depression

ObjectivesMindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) is an evidence-based treatment to prevent relapse in individuals with recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD). It is not clear if MBCT is an effective therapy for current depression, and it is not clear what mechanisms are responsible for the effectiveness of MBCT. Theoretically, MBCT is believed to modify the processing of emotional information and reduce cognitive vulnerability to depression; however, it is not clear if MBCT leads to normalization of attentional biases in depressed individuals. The aim of the current study was to determine if MBCT can modify some of the attentional biases underlying depression in MDD.MethodsParticipants were 53 individuals with diagnosis of current MDD. They were randomly assigned to either MBCT (n = 25) or wait list control group (n = 28) condition. Before and after the 8-week MBCT intervention participants completed the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CESD), they viewed slides presenting sad, angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions, and their eye movements were recorded during the viewing task.ResultsAs expected, compared to participants in the control group, the CESD scores of participants who received MBCT decreased following treatment, their attention to sad faces decreased, and their attention to happy faces increased. Moreover, cross-lagged analysis suggested a causal link from changes in attentional bias to changes in depression.ConclusionsWe found that MBCT can modify the attentional processing of emotional facial stimuli and that attentional bias modification may translate into clinical improvement in currently depressed individuals.

The Relationship between the Facial Expression of People in University Campus and Host-City Variables

Public attitudes towards local university matters for the resource investment to sustainable science and technology. The application of machine learning techniques enables the evaluation of resource investments more precisely even at the national scale. In this study, a total number of 4327 selfies were collected from the social network services (SNS) platform of Sina Micro-Blog for check-in records of 92 211-Project university campuses from 82 cities of 31 Provinces across mainland China. Photos were analyzed by the FireFACETM-V1.0 software to obtain scores of happy and sad facial expressions and a positive response index (PRI) was calculated (happy-sad). One-way analysis of variance indicated that both happy and PRI scores were highest in Shandong University and lowest in Harbin Engineering University. The national distribution of positive expression scores was highest in Changchun, Jinan, and Guangzhou cities. The maximum likelihood estimates from general linear regression indicated that the city-variable of the number of regular institutions of higher learning had the positive contribution to the happy score. The number of internet accesses and area of residential housing contributed to the negative expression scores. Therefore, people tend to show positive expression at campuses in cities with more education infrastructures but fewer residences and internet users. The geospatial analysis of facial expression data can be one approach to supply theoretical evidence for the resource arrangement of sustainable science and technology from universities.

Brain-derived neurotrophic factor association with amygdala response in major depressive disorder

BackgroundBrain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) has an essential role in synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis. BDNF mediates amygdala-dependent learning for both aversive and appetitive emotional memories. The expression of BDNF in limbic regions is posited to contribute the development of depression, and amygdala responsivity is a potential marker of depressive state. MethodsThe present study examined the relationship between platelet BDNF levels and amygdala volume and function in major depressive disorder (MDD). Participants were 23 MDD (mean age 38.9 years) and 23 healthy controls (mean age 38.8 years). All participants were recruited from the community. MDD participants were in a current depressive episode of moderate severity and medication-free. Amygdala responses were acquired during a functional MRI task of implicit emotional processing with sad facial expressions. ResultsSignificant correlation was observed between platelet BDNF levels and left amygdala responses, but no significant correlations were found with right amygdala responses or with amygdala volumes. LimitationsInteractions with neuroprotective as well as neurotoxic metabolites in the kyneurenine pathway were not examined. ConclusionsRelationship between BDNF levels and amygdala responsivity to emotionally salient stimuli in MDD could reflect the importance of BDNF in amygdala-dependent learning with clinical implications for potential pathways for treatment.

Supplemental Material for Beyond Shared Signals: The Role of Downward Gaze in the Stereotypical Representation of Sad Facial Expressions

Supplemental Material for Beyond Shared Signals: The Role of Downward Gaze in the Stereotypical Representation of Sad Facial Expressions

The enfacement illusion boosts facial mimicry

Facial mimicry, the automatic imitation of another person's emotion, is a mechanism underlying emotion recognition and emotional contagion, a phylogenetically conserved form of empathy that precedes later developing empathic skills. We tested the possibility to increase facial mimicry by blurring self-other distinction via the enfacement illusion. To do so we delivered synchronous, versus asynchronous, visuo-tactile interpersonal multisensory stimulation on the observer and expresser's faces and then recorded surface facial EMG while participants observed videos of happy and sad facial expressions displayed by the expresser. Our results show that synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation can indeed enhance facial mimicry and that this depends on participants' baseline tendency to mimic.. Our findings could set the basis for developing novel interventions for conditions characterized by reduced empathic and emotion recognition skills, including autism and schizophrenia.

Emotional Tears: An Honest Signal of Trustworthiness Increasing Prosocial Behavior?

How do our emotional tears affect the way we are treated? We tested whether tears, paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression, elicited prosocial behavior among perceivers. Participants viewed a video clip depicting a confederate partner with or without tears displaying either a neutral or sad facial expression before making a behavioral decision in one of two economic games. In a Trust game (Experiment 1), participants who played the role of the investor were more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate trustee with tears (paired with either a neutral or a sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate trustee without tears. However, in a Dictator game (Experiment 2), participants who played the role of allocator were no more likely to share an endowment after viewing a confederate recipient with tears (paired with either a neutral or sad facial expression) in comparison to a confederate recipient without tears. Taken together, these findings suggest that tears increase prosocial behavior by increasing trustworthiness as opposed to generally increasing other-regarding altruistic tendencies.

Attentional bias for affective stimuli: an eye-tracking study in patients with depression and/or Autism Spectrum Disorder

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been found to be associated with biased attention to emotional stimuli: increased attention for dysphoric information and/or decreased attention for positive information compared to healthy individuals. A history of childhood maltreatment (CM) has been discussed as a factor that might have an impact on the occurrence and extent of biased attention in depression. The present study examined the association between CM and attention for facial emotions in currently depressed patients using eye-tracking methodology. In a free viewing paradigm, 31 individuals with MDD and 31 healthy subjects viewed images of four facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, and neutral). Dwell time on each facial expression was used as an indicator of attention allocation. Childhood maltreatment was assessed using the German version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Depressed patients showed shorter gaze durations for happy faces compared to healthy controls. This result is in line with the assumption that depression goes along with a loss of elaborative processing of positive stimuli. No group differences were observed concerning dwell times on negative faces. However, CM was associated with reduced attention for angry and sad facial expressions in the depressed sample. Depressed individuals with a history of CM seem to avoid processing of threatening or burdensome stimuli. Early life adversity appears to impact attention allocation in depressed individuals and might help to explain discordant results in the literature regarding biased attention to negative facial expressions in depression.

The modulation of facial mimicry by attachment tendencies and their underlying affiliation motives in 3-year-olds: An EMG study.

From early in life, facial mimicry represents an important example of implicit non-verbal communication. Facial mimicry is conceived of as the automatic tendency to mimic another person’s facial expressions and is thought to serve as a social glue among interaction partners. Although in adults mimicry has been shown to be moderated by the social context and one’s needs to affiliate with others, evidence from behavioural mimicry studies suggest that 3-year-olds do not yet show sensitivity to social dynamics. Here, we examined whether attachment tendencies, as a proxy for interindividual differences in affiliation motivation, modulates facial mimicry in 3-year-olds. Resistant and avoidant insecure attachment tendencies are characterized by high and low affiliation motivation, respectively, and these were hypothesized to lead to either enhancement or suppression of mimicry. Additionally, we hypothesized that these effects will be moderated by inhibitory control skills. Facial mimicry of happy and sad expressions was recorded with electromyography (EMG), attachment tendencies were assessed with a parent-report questionnaire and inhibitory control with the gift delay task. The final sample consisted of 42 children, with overall scores suggesting secure attachment. Our findings revealed that 3-year-olds mimicked happy and sad facial expressions. Moreover, resistant tendencies predicted enhanced sad but not happy facial mimicry, whereas avoidant tendencies were not significantly related to mimicry. These effects were not moderated by inhibitory control skills. In conclusion, these findings provide the first evidence for the modulation of mimicry by attachment tendencies and their underlying motivation for affiliation in young children, specifically for negatively-valenced emotional expressions.

Variation in recognition of happy and sad facial expressions and self-reported depressive symptom severity: A prospective cohort study

ObjectiveCognitive theories suggest people with depression interpret self-referential social information negatively. However, it is unclear whether these biases precede or follow depression. We investigated whether facial expression recognition was associated with depressive symptoms cross-sectionally and longitudinally. MethodsProspective cohort study of people who had visited UK primary care in the past year reporting depressive symptoms (n = 509). Depressive symptoms were measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) at four time-points, 2 weeks apart. A computerised task assessed happy and sad facial expression recognition at three time-points (n = 505 at time 1). The unbiased hit rate measured ability to recognise emotions accounting for any general tendency to identify the emotion when it was not present. ResultsThe sample included the full range of depressive symptom severity, with 45% meeting diagnostic criteria for depression. There was no evidence that happy or sad unbiased hit rates were associated with concurrent or subsequent depressive symptoms. There was weak evidence that, for every additional face incorrectly classified as happy, concurrent PHQ-9 scores reduced by 0.05 of a point (95% CI = -0.10 to 0.002, p = 0.06 after adjustment for confounders). This association was strongest for more ambiguous facial expressions (interaction term p<0.001). LimitationsThis was an observational study with relatively short follow-up (6 weeks) and small changes in depressive symptoms and emotion recognition. Only 7% of invited patients consented to participate. ConclusionsReduced misclassifications of ambiguous faces as happy could be a state marker of depression, but was not associated with subsequent depressive symptoms. Future research should focus on the interpretation of ambiguous social information.

Current dysphoria, past major depression, and memory for affective facial expressions

Memory for others’ sad affective facial expressions may be relevant to depression risk, given that biases have been linked to major depression and transient sad mood states. However, no study has addressed whether stable, subclinical dysphoria is associated with similar biases, or whether depression history might moderate a relationship between dysphoria and memory for affective facial stimuli. These questions were examined in the present study. Participants completed an incidental encoding task involving sad, happy, and neutral facial expression stimuli, and then they later completed a recognition memory task. Results indicated that dysphoria alone was not associated with memory differences. Rather, past depression moderated the effect of dysphoria such that dysphoric individuals with past depression showed greater recognition memory for sad faces relative to dysphoric/never depressed and nondysphoric/formerly depressed individuals. Findings are partially consistent with cognitive models of depression and could have implications for interpersonal functioning in susceptible or resilient individuals.

T49. Acute Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation Decreases the Recognition of Sad Facial Expressions in Adolescents With Major Depression

T49. Acute Transcutaneous Vagus Nerve Stimulation Decreases the Recognition of Sad Facial Expressions in Adolescents With Major Depression

Genetic Correlation between Child Callous-Unemotional Behaviors and Fear Recognition Deficit: Evidence for a Neurocognitive Endophenotype.

This study investigates emotion recognition deficits as candidate neurocognitive endophenotypes for callous-unemotional (CU) behaviors. Using a twin design, we tested genetic correlations between child CU behaviors and poor processing of fearful and sad facial expressions. Participants were 504 twin pairs (209 MZ pairs; 295 DZ pairs) from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study, a longitudinal study of a population-based sample of twins. Teachers in kindergarten and first grade rated children's CU behaviors and other behavior problems (attention deficit and hyperactivity symptoms, physical aggression, and depressive symptoms). In first grade (mean age 7years), the children completed the visual subtest of the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Scale 2 (DANVA-II) to assess emotion recognition from facial stimuli. Using structural equation modeling, we examined the genetic-environmental etiology of the association between fear/sadness recognition and child CU behaviors, controlling for other behavior problems and recognition of other emotions. We found a significant genetic correlation between poor fear recognition and CU behaviors that was independent of other behavior problems. Poor recognition of sadness was not significantly associated with CU behaviors after taking into account other behavior problems. Our results suggest that CU behaviors and fear recognition have a partly shared genetic aetiology. This provides support for poor fear recognition as a key neurocognitive endophenotype for CU behaviors. Future research should test a hypothesized causal chain from specific genes, through amygdala functioning and fear recognition, to CU behaviors, and identify specific environmental factors (including intervention) that may disrupt this chain.

Attentional bias and childhood maltreatment in clinical depression - An eye-tracking study

Major depressive disorder (MDD) has been found to be associated with biased attention to emotional stimuli: increased attention for dysphoric information and/or decreased attention for positive information compared to healthy individuals. A history of childhood maltreatment (CM) has been discussed as a factor that might have an impact on the occurrence and extent of biased attention in depression. The present study examined the association between CM and attention for facial emotions in currently depressed patients using eye-tracking methodology. In a free viewing paradigm, 31 individuals with MDD and 31 healthy subjects viewed images of four facial expressions (happy, sad, angry, and neutral). Dwell time on each facial expression was used as an indicator of attention allocation. Childhood maltreatment was assessed using the German version of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Depressed patients showed shorter gaze durations for happy faces compared to healthy controls. This result is in line with the assumption that depression goes along with a loss of elaborative processing of positive stimuli. No group differences were observed concerning dwell times on negative faces. However, CM was associated with reduced attention for angry and sad facial expressions in the depressed sample. Depressed individuals with a history of CM seem to avoid processing of threatening or burdensome stimuli. Early life adversity appears to impact attention allocation in depressed individuals and might help to explain discordant results in the literature regarding biased attention to negative facial expressions in depression.

Analyse des mécanismes d’activation d’expressions faciales émotionnelles avec le paradigme d’amorçage

Short-term priming paradigms are usually used to investigate the nature and organization of information in memory. The processes implemented in the activation of information in memory can be explained by manipulating factors, such as the link or the delay between prime and target. Models of embodied cognition (Wilson, 2002) and grounded cognition (Barsalou, 2008) integrated perceptual processes in the emergence of concepts and in memory processes. The purpose of the present study is to investigate on the relationship between perceptual and memory mechanisms in a context of memory activation for specific stimuli such as emotional facial expressions (EFE). We conducted two repetition priming tasks manipulation, using EFE in congruent versus non congruent relations. The first task was designed as a go–no go task using joy and sadness in congruent versus non congruent relation. In a counterbalance procedure, participants were requested for part of the experiment, to respond as fast as possible to targets representing joyful expressions and for the other part, to targets representing sad expressions. Surprisingly, results revealed priming effect only for sad prime but not for joyful prime. For the second experiment, we used different delays of SOA between the target and the prime presentation. The manipulation of SOA is closely linked to the hypothesis of automaticity of cognitive processes. More precisely the priming effect is posited to be triggered by short, ephemeral processes, because this effect is observed for short SOAs (less than 300ms), and it tends to disappear when increasing the SOA. Based on the automaticity hypothesis we employed an evaluative decision task by manipulating delay of presentation of primes, short delay (100ms) and longer delay (500ms). Participants were required to make decisions on the nature of expressions. Results of the second experiment, revealed priming effect for a short delay between prime and target (SOA 100ms). However, for the longer delay (SOA 500ms) the priming effect was obtained only when primes represented sad facial expressions. For joyful facial expressions, the inverse pattern of results was observed. Results are discussed in terms of inhibition of specific joyful emotions known to cause particular behavior and in line with the literature on the time course of automatic processing for emotional information.

Dysregulated behavioral responses to hedonic probes among youth with depression histories and their high-risk siblings.

Affect dysregulation in response to rewarding stimuli has been proposed as a vulnerability factor for major depressive disorder (MDD). However, it remains unclear how affective behavioral dynamics may be altered among individuals who are at high risk for depression but not currently depressed. We examined the dynamics of affective facial behavior during hedonic probes among 3 groups of adolescents: remitted probands who had histories of childhood-onset MDD (n = 187), never-depressed siblings of probands (high familial risk; n = 207), and healthy controls (n = 166). Participants' happy and sad facial expressions were coded during 3 hedonic laboratory tasks: receiving a preferred prize, describing a positive autobiographical memory, and watching a humorous film. Happy and sad behavioral dynamics were indexed by mean level- and time-dependent reactivity, variability (mean of the squared successive differences), and inertia (autocorrelation). Relative to controls, probands and siblings exhibited a more rapid decrease in happy behaviors, and probands exhibited higher inertia of sad behaviors during hedonic probes. Both probands and siblings exhibited lower inertia of sad behaviors while receiving a desired prize, which highlights the importance of context variation in testing hypotheses. Overall, our study provides new evidence that hedonic behavioral dysregulation, as reflected in dynamic facial behavior, may highlight depression vulnerability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Nonlinear effect of depression symptoms on the time course of emotional reactivity

The literature on emotion reactivity among people with major depressive disorder (MDD) indicates that people with MDD show diminished reactivity to negative events as compared to non-depressed controls. This diminished reactivity may only be at the highest levels of depression symptoms, suggesting a nonlinear association between depression symptoms and emotion reactivity. Unfortunately, depression has not been examined as a continuum in this line of research; moreover, the time course of reactivity during an emotional event has not been adequately examined. Participants (N = 100) completed a measure of depression symptoms and then viewed a sadness-inducing 11-min film clip while their facial expressions were video recorded and coded separately for each minute of the film clip. Growth-curve analyses indicated a quadratic effect of depression symptoms on curves for facial expressions of sadness and happiness, such that the change in growth/decay first increased and then decreased from low to high levels of depression symptoms. This result supports the idea that the negative mood inherent in depression potentiates reactivity at lower ends of the depression continuum but that reactivity is dampened at higher levels of depression. This suggests that researchers specify the specific range of depression symptoms under investigation (e.g., mild, moderate, dysphoric, severely depressed) when studying the role of depression on emotional reactivity.

Looking While Unhappy: A Mood-Congruent Attention Bias Toward Sad Adult Faces in Children.

A negative mood-congruent attention bias has been consistently observed, for example, in clinical studies on major depression. This bias is assumed to be dysfunctional in that it supports maintaining a sad mood, whereas a potentially adaptive role has largely been neglected. Previous experiments involving sad mood induction techniques found a negative mood-congruent attention bias specifically for young individuals, explained by an adaptive need for information transfer in the service of mood regulation. In the present study we investigated the attentional bias in typically developing children (aged 6–12 years) when happy and sad moods were induced. Crucially, we manipulated the age (adult vs. child) of the displayed pairs of facial expressions depicting sadness, anger, fear and happiness. The results indicate that sad children indeed exhibited a mood specific attention bias toward sad facial expressions. Additionally, this bias was more pronounced for adult faces. Results are discussed in the context of an information gain which should be stronger when looking at adult faces due to their more expansive life experience. These findings bear implications for both research methods and future interventions.

Machiavellianism and early neural responses to others’ facial expressions caused by one's own decisions

The processing of social stimuli generated by one's own voluntary behavior is an element of social adaptation. It is known that self-generated stimuli induce attenuated sensory experiences compared with externally generated stimuli. The present study aimed to examine this self-specific attenuation effect on early stimulus processing in the case of others’ facial expressions during interpersonal interactions. In addition, this study explored the possibility that the self-specific attenuation effect on social cognition is modulated by antisocial personality traits such as Machiavellianism. We analyzed early components of the event-related brain potential in participants elicited by happy and sad facial expressions of others when the participant's decision was responsible for the others’ emotions and when the others’ facial expressions were independent of the participant's decision. Compared to the non-responsible condition, the responsible condition showed an attenuated amplitude of the N170 component in response to sad faces. Moreover, Machiavellianism explained individual differences in the self-specific attenuation effect depending on the affective valence of social signals. The present findings support the possibility that the self-specific attenuation effect extends to interpersonal interactions and imply that distorted cognition of others’ emotions caused by one's own behavior is associated with personality disorders that promote antisocial behaviors.