Stages Of Emotional Processing Research Articles

Temporal course of attention bias toward emotional faces in individuals with autistic traits: an eye-movement study.

Similar attention patterns have been found in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and autistic traits (ATs). The Intense World Theory and previous studies suggest that individuals with ASD may demonstrate a vigilance-avoidance attention pattern toward emotional faces. However, the attention patterns in individuals with ATs remain unclear. Therefore, this study employs eye-tracking technology to examine the characteristics and temporal course of attention bias toward emotional faces in individuals with ATs. The Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) was used to evaluate the level of ATs among 2,502 college students. A total of 50 participants were selected from the 2,502 college students: 25 high-AQ group participants were randomly selected from the 10% of individuals with the highest AQ scores. Similarly, 25 low-AQ group participants were randomly selected from the 10% of participants with the lowest AQ scores. All selected participants completed an eye-tracking study while performing a dot-probe task with emotional faces (positive-neutral, negative-neutral, and negative-positive). By analyzing data from different time periods, the attention bias and time course of individuals with ATs toward emotional faces were investigated. The results show that compared to the low-AQ group, the high-AQ group detected negative faces faster in the early stages of emotional face processing. As the presentation time of emotional faces increased (at the 2-3 s mark), the fixation scores for negative-neutral faces of the high-AQ group were less than 0.5, which was significantly lower than those of the low-AQ group. Meanwhile, the high-AQ group showed brief attentional avoidance toward positive emotion at 3-4 s in the positive-neutral trials, indicating that the high-AQ group exhibited attention avoidance to both negative and positive faces during the middle and later stages of emotional processing. This study suggests that individuals with ATs display a vigilance-avoidance pattern toward emotional faces. It contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of attention in persons with ATs and further supports the Intense World Theory.

Language-dependent emotions in heritage and second language bilinguals: When physiological reactions deviate from feelings

Aims and objectives: Whether bilinguals show language-dependent emotions often depends on the emotion measure used. Here, we examine if differences between automatic pupil reactions and self-reported feelings in response to an emotional narrative presented in a first, second, or heritage language (HL) indicate different stages of emotion processing. Methodology: German HL speakers of Russian and Turkish ( n = 72) and German second language (L2) speakers of English and French ( n = 89) listened to a video-based emotional narrative in German or their other language and rated how they felt about it (arousal and valence). We contrasted pupil diameter during the video with a language-specific baseline. Age of acquisition, language use frequency in emotional contexts, and language proficiency were used to verify that HL speakers were balanced simultaneous and L2 speakers unbalanced sequential bilinguals. Data and analysis: Linear mixed-effects models were fitted to the pupillometry data and ordinal logistic models to the self-report data. Findings and conclusions: HL speakers showed similar automatic reactions in both languages but rated the German narrative less emotional. L2 speakers showed weaker automatic reactions in L2 yet rated the narrative similar in both languages. This reversed pattern confirmed that automatic and conscious emotion measures tap into different stages of bilingual emotion processing. Furthermore, language-dependent emotions in self-reports seem to be linked to sociocultural frames that go beyond the scope of context and processing-based explanations. Originality: The study is among the first to systematically examine discrepancies between automatic and conscious measures of bilingual language-dependent emotions with different types of bilinguals and within one experimental paradigm. Significance: The findings imply that theories of bilingual emotions need further development to explain consistently and explicitly why language-dependent emotional reactions vary with bilingualism and emotion measures. Methodologically, the findings advocate for multi-measure approaches to enhance the validity of future research.

Time distortions induced by high-arousing emotional compared to low-arousing neutral faces: an event-related potential study.

Emotions influence our perception of time. Arousal and valence are considered different dimensions of emotions that might interactively affect the perception of time. In the present study, we aimed to investigate the possible time distortions induced by emotional (happy/angry) high-arousing faces compared to neutral, low-arousing faces. Previous works suggested that emotional stimuli enhance the amplitudes of several posterior components, such as Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) and Late Positive Potential (LPP). These components reflect several stages of emotional processing. To this end, we conducted an event-related potential (ERP) study with a temporal bisection task. We hypothesized that the partial dissociation of these ERP components would shed more light on the possible relations of valence and arousal on emotional facial regulation and their consequential effects on behavioral timing. The behavioral results demonstrated a significant effect for emotional stimuli, as happy faces were overestimated relative to angry faces. Our results also indicated higher temporal sensitivity for angry faces. The analyzed components (EPN and LLP) provided further insights into the qualitative differences between stimuli. Finally, the results were interpreted considering the internal clock model and two-stage processing of emotional stimuli.

Event-Related Potentials in Women on the Pill: Neural Correlates of Positive and Erotic Stimulus Processing in Oral Contraceptive Users.

Background/Aims: Exposure toward positive emotional cues with – and without – reproductive significance plays a crucial role in daily life and regarding well-being as well as mental health. While possible adverse effects of oral contraceptive (OC) use on female mental and sexual health are widely discussed, neural processing of positive emotional stimuli has not been systematically investigated in association with OC use. Considering reported effects on mood, well-being and sexual function, and proposed associations with depression, it was hypothesized that OC users showed reduced neural reactivity toward positive and erotic emotional stimuli during early as well as later stages of emotional processing and also rated these stimuli as less pleasant and less arousing compared to naturally cycling (NC) women.Method: Sixty-two female subjects (29 NC and 33 OC) were assessed at three time points across the natural menstrual cycle and corresponding time points of the OC regimen. Early (early posterior negativity, EPN) and late (late positive potential, LPP) event-related potentials in reaction to positive, erotic and neutral stimuli were collected during an Emotional Picture Stroop Paradigm (EPSP). At each appointment, subjects provided saliva samples for analysis of gonadal steroid concentration. Valence and arousal ratings were collected at the last appointment.Results: Oral contraceptive users had significantly lower endogenous estradiol and progesterone concentrations compared to NC women. No significant group differences in either subjective stimulus evaluations or neural reactivity toward positive and erotic emotional stimuli were observed. For the OC group, LPP amplitudes in reaction to erotic vs. neutral pictures differed significantly between measurement times across the OC regimen.Discussion: In this study, no evidence regarding alterations of neural reactivity toward positive and erotic stimuli in OC users compared to NC was found. Possible confounding factors and lines for future research are elaborated and discussed.

The Neurophysiology of the Cerebellum in Emotion.

Neuroscientific investigation of the detailed neurophysiology of emotion processing is a rapidly progressing field, which has opened discussion on key findings regarding the timing characteristics of the neuronal networks involved. Study designs incorporating quantitative electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERP) have mapped neuronal representations at various stages of emotion processing, identifying early and late stages corresponding to cerebral activity in attention and in appraisal of emotion. Interestingly, in addition to confirming aspects of cerebral cortex involvement, these investigations have also implicated the cerebellum in emotion processing. This has led to research aimed at distinguishing the contributions of cerebellar and cerebral networks and how these may interrelate. With respect to underlying neurophysiological mechanisms, ERP studies confirm that the cerebellum is involved in both early and late stages of processing of salient emotion cues, and also in capturing emotions in facial expressions. Topological analyses indicate direct connections between the vermis, Crus I, and Crus II areas of the cerebellum and the cerebral area of lateral prefrontal cortex. This suggests a broad evolutionary development of large-scale cerebral networks in emotion. In this chapter, we highlight findings to date of neurophysiological activity related to cerebellar participation in emotion processing. The neurophysiological findings, which by inference represent underlying neural activity, emphasize an integrative role of the cerebellum in emotion.

Mindfulness Versus Cognitive Reappraisal: the Impact of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) on the Early and Late Brain Potential Markers of Emotion Regulation

ObjectivesA positive association between trait mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal has previously been found. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), we investigated the impact of an 8-week MBSR course on early and late stages of emotion regulation using mindfulness and reappraisal.MethodsParticipants were allocated into an 8-week MBSR training group (n = 14 for task reports and self-reports; n = 10 for ERPs) or a wait-list control group (n = 15 for task reports and self-reports; n = 11 for ERPs). Pre and post the 8-week training, participants completed an affective picture viewing task and were instructed to regulate their responses to negative and neutral images using mindfulness, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression.ResultsAt post-test, only the training group showed significant improvements in self-reported trait mindfulness and trait cognitive reappraisal, together with improvements in the self-reported ability to employ mindfulness and cognitive reappraisal during the task. The training group showed decreased 200–280 ms positivity across all three strategies at post-test. The LPP did not change over time but overall showed more positive mean amplitudes to cognitive appraisal.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that MBSR may adaptively modulate early attention deployment to emotional stimuli, but modulations of later stages of emotion processing may require more extensive mindfulness training. In addition, conscious employment of mindfulness may require less cognitive effort than cognitive reappraisal.

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.

Moderating effect of emotional awareness on the association between maltreatment experiences and resilience

Childhood maltreatment experiences are closely related to aberrant emotional processing that may be associated with resilience. Although different stages of emotion processing, such as identification of emotion, selection of regulation strategies, and implementation of regulation strategies, can be affected by maltreatment experiences, it is still unclear which part of emotion processing is closely associated with the vulnerability the victims have. In this study, we investigated the effects of different emotion regulation strategies on psychological resilience. Among a total of 360 participants, 89 maltreatment and 112 no-maltreatment subjects were included in the analysis of a questionnaire survey. An additional cognitive reappraisal task was conducted in 25 maltreatment and 25 age-, gender-, and education-matched no-maltreatment subjects. The maltreatment group reported greater difficulties in identifying emotion, such as lack of emotional awareness or clarity. Moderation analysis revealed that lack of emotional awareness has a significant effect on the relationship between childhood maltreatment experiences and low psychological resilience. In the cognitive reappraisal task, the maltreatment subjects reported higher negative valence scores on ambiguous neutral pictures than the no-maltreatment subjects. Our results suggest that difficulties in emotional awareness, especially with ambiguous emotional cues, play a crucial role in low resilience in maltreatment victims.

P 10 Automatic processing of masked facial emotions in social anhedonia

Background Anhedonia, the reduced ability to experience pleasure, is a prominent feature of major depression and schizophrenia-spectrum disorders. Anhedonia is not only a state accompanying psychiatric disorders but is also considered as a personality trait, which might increase the susceptibility to psychiatric disorders. Only few neuroimaging studies investigated neural alterations in high anhedonia, isolated from other psychopathological variables, by including only participants without clinical diagnoses. Although findings from previous studies in healthy populations are rather heterogeneous, prior research suggests neurobiological alterations in the perception of emotional and rewarding stimuli as underlying mechanisms in the manifestation of anhedonia. Methods The present study examined healthy individuals scoring high vs. low in social anhedonia, thoroughly selected from a sample of N = 282 participants. As a subtype of reduced hedonic capacity in general, social anhedonia refers to a diminished hedonic experience in interpersonal contacts. In order to reveal differences in automatic brain responses to social-affective stimuli between high compared to low social anhedonia participants, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging. To assess early, automatic stages of emotion processing, we administered a paradigm presenting brief (33 ms) and backward-masked happy, sad, and neutral facial expressions. Results Individuals high in social anhedonia demonstrated increased activation in the bilateral thalamus and left red nucleus in response to masked sad faces relative to individuals low in social anhedonia. Regardless of stimulus valence, no significant group differences in brain activation emerged in other regions known to be involved in emotion and reward processing, including amygdala and nucleus accumbens. Discussion Our results suggest that high social anhedonia in otherwise healthy individuals is associated with exaggerated automatic reactivity in the thalamus, a brain structure that has been implicated in the pathophysiology of major depression. Heightened processing of depression-related stimuli in the thalamus might be a mechanism through which social anhedonia increases the vulnerability to major depression.

Facial decoding in schizophrenia is underpinned by basic visual processing impairments

Schizophrenia is associated with a strong deficit in the decoding of emotional facial expression (EFE). Nevertheless, it is still unclear whether this deficit is specific for emotions or due to a more general impairment for any type of facial processing. This study was designed to clarify this issue. Thirty patients suffering from schizophrenia and 30 matched healthy controls performed several tasks evaluating the recognition of both changeable (i.e. eyes orientation and emotions) and stable (i.e. gender, age) facial characteristics. Accuracy and reaction times were recorded. Schizophrenic patients presented a performance deficit (accuracy and reaction times) in the perception of both changeable and stable aspects of faces, without any specific deficit for emotional decoding. Our results demonstrate a generalized face recognition deficit in schizophrenic patients, probably caused by a perceptual deficit in basic visual processing. It seems that the deficit in the decoding of emotional facial expression (EFE) is not a specific deficit of emotion processing, but is at least partly related to a generalized perceptual deficit in lower-level perceptual processing, occurring before the stage of emotion processing, and underlying more complex cognitive dysfunctions. These findings should encourage future investigations to explore the neurophysiologic background of these generalized perceptual deficits, and stimulate a clinical approach focusing on more basic visual processing.

Amygdala Response to Emotional Stimuli without Awareness: Facts and Interpretations.

Over the past two decades, evidence has accumulated that the human amygdala exerts some of its functions also when the observer is not aware of the content, or even presence, of the triggering emotional stimulus. Nevertheless, there is as of yet no consensus on the limits and conditions that affect the extent of amygdala’s response without focused attention or awareness. Here we review past and recent studies on this subject, examining neuroimaging literature on healthy participants as well as brain-damaged patients, and we comment on their strengths and limits. We propose a theoretical distinction between processes involved in attentional unawareness, wherein the stimulus is potentially accessible to enter visual awareness but fails to do so because attention is diverted, and in sensory unawareness, wherein the stimulus fails to enter awareness because its normal processing in the visual cortex is suppressed. We argue this distinction, along with data sampling amygdala responses with high temporal resolution, helps to appreciate the multiplicity of functional and anatomical mechanisms centered on the amygdala and supporting its role in non-conscious emotion processing. Separate, but interacting, networks relay visual information to the amygdala exploiting different computational properties of subcortical and cortical routes, thereby supporting amygdala functions at different stages of emotion processing. This view reconciles some apparent contradictions in the literature, as well as seemingly contrasting proposals, such as the dual stage and the dual route model. We conclude that evidence in favor of the amygdala response without awareness is solid, albeit this response originates from different functional mechanisms and is driven by more complex neural networks than commonly assumed. Acknowledging the complexity of such mechanisms can foster new insights on the varieties of amygdala functions without awareness and their impact on human behavior.

Cultural immersion alters emotion perception: Neurophysiological evidence from Chinese immigrants to Canada

ABSTRACTTo explore how cultural immersion modulates emotion processing, this study examined how Chinese immigrants to Canada process multisensory emotional expressions, which were compared to existing data from two groups, Chinese and North Americans. Stroop and Oddball paradigms were employed to examine different stages of emotion processing. The Stroop task presented face–voice pairs expressing congruent/incongruent emotions and participants actively judged the emotion of one modality while ignoring the other. A significant effect of cultural immersion was observed in the immigrants’ behavioral performance, which showed greater interference from to-be-ignored faces, comparable with what was observed in North Americans. However, this effect was absent in their N400 data, which retained the same pattern as the Chinese. In the Oddball task, where immigrants passively viewed facial expressions with/without simultaneous vocal emotions, they exhibited a larger visual MMN for faces accompanied by voices, again mirroring patterns observed in Chinese. Correlation analyses indicated that the immigrants’ living duration in Canada was associated with neural patterns (N400 and visual mismatch negativity) more closely resembling North Americans. Our data suggest that in multisensory emotion processing, adopting to a new culture first leads to behavioral accommodation followed by alterations in brain activities, providing new evidence on human’s neurocognitive plasticity in communication.

Coherent emotional perception from body expressions and the voice

Perceiving emotion from multiple modalities enhances the perceptual sensitivity of an individual. This allows more accurate judgments of others' emotional states, which is crucial to appropriate social interactions. It is known that body expressions effectively convey emotional messages, although fewer studies have examined how this information is combined with the auditory cues. The present study used event-related potentials (ERP) to investigate the interaction between emotional body expressions and vocalizations. We also examined emotional congruency between auditory and visual information to determine how preceding visual context influences later auditory processing. Consistent with prior findings, a reduced N1 amplitude was observed in the audiovisual condition compared to an auditory-only condition. While this component was not sensitive to the modality congruency, the P2 was sensitive to the emotionally incompatible audiovisual pairs. Further, the direction of these congruency effects was different in terms of facilitation or suppression based on the preceding contexts. Overall, the results indicate a functionally dissociated mechanism underlying two stages of emotional processing whereby N1 is involved in cross-modal processing, whereas P2 is related to assessing a unifying perceptual content. These data also indicate that emotion integration can be affected by the specific emotion that is presented.

Neural correlates of attention to emotional facial expressions in dysphoria

The present study investigated whether dysphoric individuals have a difficulty in disengaging attention from negative stimuli and/or reduced attention to positive information. Sad, neutral and happy facial stimuli were presented in an attention-shifting task to 18 dysphoric and 18 control participants. Reaction times to neutral shapes (squares and diamonds) and the event-related potentials to emotional faces were recorded. Dysphoric individuals did not show impaired attentional disengagement from sad faces or facilitated disengagement from happy faces. Right occipital lateralisation of P100 was absent in dysphoric individuals, possibly indicating reduced attention-related sensory facilitation for faces. Frontal P200 was largest for sad faces among dysphoric individuals, whereas controls showed larger amplitude to both sad and happy as compared with neutral expressions, suggesting that dysphoric individuals deployed early attention to sad, but not happy, expressions. Importantly, the results were obtained controlling for the participants' trait anxiety. We conclude that at least under some circumstances the presence of depressive symptoms can modulate early, automatic stages of emotional processing.

EPA-1001 - Molecular Underpinnings of Cognitive and Emotion Processing in Mood Disorders

Mood disorders have been frequently associated with limbic hyper-responsiveness to emotionally negative stimuli as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Such aberrations of limbic, and particularly amygdala activity during emotion processing appear to be associated with negative cognitive processing biases implicated in the onset and maintenance of depression. In a series of studies, the authors investigated molecular underpinnings of pathological amygdala function using different fMRI paradigms designed to target automatic and controlled stages of emotion processing. Strong effects of selected candidate genotypes and amygdala responsiveness as well as amygdalaprefrontal coupling were observed across independent samples of depressed patients and healthy control subjects, supporting the notion of genetically influenced brain activation patterns associated with mood disorders. The frequently investigated 5-HTTLPR polymorphism was linked to amygdala hyper-responsiveness to negative but not positive facial expressions in paradigms assessing automatic amygdala responsiveness by means of subliminally presented stimuli. In later, controlled stages of emotion processing, genetic variations in COMT, MAO-A, Neuropeptides, and pro-inflammatory cytokines were associated with amygdala activity and amygdala-prefrontal coupling, pointing to dysfunctions in emotion regulation circuitries. In forthcoming studies, gene x environment interaction and epigenetic markers such as DNA methylation will inform about the degree of genetic and environmental influence on brain activation patterns in mood disorders.

Alexithymia slows performance but preserves spontaneous semantic decoding of negative expressions in the emostroop task

Alexithymia is a multifaceted personality construct related to deficits in the recognition and verbalization of emotions. It is uncertain what causes alexithymia or which stage of emotion processing is first affected. The current study was designed to determine if trait alexithymia was associated with impaired early semantic decoding of facial emotion. Participants performed the Emostroop task, which varied the presentation time of faces depicting neutral, angry, or sad expressions before the classification of angry or sad adjectives. The Emostroop effect was replicated, represented by slowed responses when the classified word was incongruent with the background facial emotion. Individuals with high alexithymia were slower overall across all trials, particularly when classifying sad adjectives; however, they did not differ on the basic Emostroop effect. Our results suggest that alexithymia does not stem from lower-level problems detecting and categorizing others’ facial emotions. Moreover, their impairment does not appear to extend uniformly across negative emotions and is not specific to angry or threatening stimuli as previously reported, at least during early processing. Almost in contrast to the expected impairment, individuals with high alexithymia and lower verbal IQ scores had even more pronounced Emostroop effects, especially when the face was displayed longer.To better understand the nature of alexithymia, future research needs to further disentangle the precise phase of emotion processing and forms of affect most affected in this relatively common condition

Behavioural correlates of brain activity during Self- versus Other- referential emotion processing depend on emotion awareness

Event Abstract Back to Event Behavioural correlates of brain activity during Self- versus Other- referential emotion processing depend on emotion awareness Aimee Mavratzakis1, 2*, Cornelia Herbert3, 4 and Peter Walla1, 2 1 University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Australia 2 Priority Research Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Newcastle, Australia 3 University of Wuerzburg, Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Germany 4 University of Tuebingen, University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy,, Germany Aims: Recognising our own and others emotions is vital for healthy social development. The aim of the current study was to determine how the brain integrates Self and Other emotion ownership concepts, and how the integration of this information influences behavioural expressions of emotion. Method: EEG was used to record changes in neural activity during the ‘input’ stage of emotion processing, while facial EMG was used to record the ‘output’ stage when behavioural responses are elicited, including spontaneous facial muscle activity. Eighteen participants passively viewed negative, positive and neutral emotional pictures during three blocks of referential instructions. Each participant imagined themself, an unknown person or no one experiencing the emotional scenario, with the priming words ‘You’, ‘Him’ or ‘None’ presented before each picture for the respective block of instructions. Emotion awareness (EA) was also recorded using the TAS-20 Alexithymia questionnaire. Results: The late positive potential over the central-parietal cortex was significantly greater when participants were not imagining anyone experiencing the scenario. As expected, Corrugator Supercilii (CS) muscle activity increased significantly between 500-1000ms post-stimulus onset during negative picture presentations regardless of ownership. Independent of valence, CS activity was greatest during the ‘No one’ task and lowest during the ‘Self’ task from less than 250-1000ms. Interestingly, the degree of CS activation during referential tasks was further modulated by EA. Low EA corresponded to significantly stronger CS activity overall compared to high EA, and this effect was even more pronounced during the ‘No one’ task. Conclusions: The findings suggest that cognitive processes related to the perception of emotion ownership can influence the course of neural affective processing, and that a greater degree of integration between higher cognitive and lower affective levels of information may alter or suppress behavioural expressions of emotion. These findings are discussed with reference to current models of cognitive-affective regulation. Keywords: Emotion Ownership, EEG, facial emg, Affective-cognitive interactions, Emotion Awareness, self-awareness Conference: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology, Wollongong, Australia, 20 Nov - 22 Nov, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Emotion Citation: Mavratzakis A, Herbert C and Walla P (2013). Behavioural correlates of brain activity during Self- versus Other- referential emotion processing depend on emotion awareness. Conference Abstract: ASP2013 - 23rd Annual meeting of the Australasian Society for Psychophysiology. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.213.00048 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 05 Nov 2013; Published Online: 05 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Miss. Aimee Mavratzakis, University of Newcastle, School of Psychology, Newcastle, Australia, Aimee.Mavratzakis@uon.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Scholar Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla PubMed Aimee Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

We can’t help but think of ourselves: A simultaneous EEG and EMG study on the automaticity of Self-referential emotion processing

Event Abstract Back to Event We can’t help but think of ourselves: A simultaneous EEG and EMG study on the automaticity of Self-referential emotion processing Aimee L. Mavratzakis1, 2*, Cornelia Herbert3 and Peter Walla1, 2 1 University of Newcastle, Australia 2 Priority Research Centre for Translational Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Newcastle, Australia 3 University of Wuerzburg, Department of Psychology, Biological Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Germany Background: The ability to recognise our own and others emotions has become a fundamental aspect of current emotion research, with focus having been on either the neural correlates or the behavioural correlates. The aim of the current study was to combine these approaches to determine how Self- versus Other-referential information influences the ‘input’ stage of emotion processing (neural activity), compared to the ‘output’ stage, when behavioural responses are elicited, including spontaneous facial muscle activity. Method: EEG and facial EMG activity were recorded simultaneously for 18 participants while they passively viewed negative, positive and neutral emotional pictures during three blocks of referential instructions. Each participant imagined themself, an unknown person or no one, experiencing the emotional scenario, with the priming words ‘You’, ‘Him’ or ‘None’ presented before each picture for the respective block of instructions. Participants rated each picture for emotional valence and arousal immediately after each 5 second presentation. In addition, emotion awareness was recorded using the TAS-20 Alexithymia questionnaire. Results: Neural activity (the ‘input stage’) revealed a significantly greater Late Positive Potential over the central-parietal cortex when participants were not imagining anyone experiencing the scenario. As expected, corrugator Supercilii (CS) muscle activity (the ‘output stage’) increased significantly between 500-1000ms post-stimulus onset during negative picture presentations regardless of referential task and level of emotion awareness. Surprisingly though, CS activity was greatest during the ‘No one’ task and lowest during the ‘Self’ task across the entire first second of picture viewing. Even more important however, was the finding that the degree of CS activation during referential tasks was strongly dependent on emotion awareness. Low emotion awareness evoked significantly stronger CS activity compared to high emotion awareness, and this effect was even more pronounced during the ‘No one’ task. Discussion: The results are discussed in terms of how higher cognitive processes interact with and modulate automatic or basic affective processes, as well as how these interactions may influence behavioural expressions of emotion. Keywords: emotion, self-awareness, EEG, EMG, affective processing Conference: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference, Clayton, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov - 1 Dec, 2013. Presentation Type: Oral Topic: Emotion and Social Citation: Mavratzakis AL, Herbert C and Walla P (2013). We can’t help but think of ourselves: A simultaneous EEG and EMG study on the automaticity of Self-referential emotion processing. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2013 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Society Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2013.212.00177 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 15 Oct 2013; Published Online: 25 Nov 2013. * Correspondence: Miss. Aimee L Mavratzakis, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia, Aimee.Mavratzakis@uon.edu.au Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Aimee L Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Aimee L Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Google Scholar Aimee L Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla PubMed Aimee L Mavratzakis Cornelia Herbert Peter Walla Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

S20-03 - Neurogenetics of emotion processing in major depression

Converging lines of research suggest that major depression is characterized by abnormalities in different stages of emotion processing (e.g., automatic emotion processing, emotion regulation, or reward processing). Using functional neuroimaging, the neurobiological correlates of these emotion processing biases have been intensively investigated during the last decade. Depressed patients appear to be characterized by a hyper-responsive amygdala to negative stimuli, dysfunctional prefrontal activity during emotion regulation and blunted activity of the ventral striatum in response to positive cues or reward.We present a series of studies investigating genetic underpinnings of these neurobiological abnormalities frequently observed in depression. We demonstrate a consistent pattern of serotonergic and neuropeptide genes that bias automatic amygdala responsiveness towards subliminally presented negative stimuli. Other genes were shown to impact prefrontal engagement during conscious emotion processing, e.g. genetic variants in the interleukin 1 beta gene. Further polymorphisms, e.g. in the endocannabinoid system rather seem to influence striatal responsiveness to positive social cues.We conclude that the neurobiological abnormalities in major depression which are linked to biased emotional processes are strongly under genetic influence. The investigation of neurogenetic pathways to different aspects of depression psychopathology might help to better characterize patients according to their neurobiological dysfunctions and might ultimately lead to individualized therapy plans.

Orbito-frontal lesions cause impairment during late but not early emotional prosodic processing

The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is functionally linked to a variety of cognitive and emotional functions. In particular, lesions of the human OFC lead to large-scale changes in social and emotional behavior. For example, patients with OFC lesions are reported to suffer from deficits in affective decision-making, including impaired emotional face and voice expression recognition (e.g., Hornak et al., 1996, 2003). However, previous studies have failed to acknowledge that emotional processing is a multistage process. Thus, different stages of emotional processing (e.g., early vs. late) in the same patient group could be affected in a qualitatively different manner. The present study investigated this possibility and tested implicit emotional speech processing in an ERP experiment followed by an explicit behavioral emotional recognition task. OFC patients listened to vocal emotional expressions of anger, fear, disgust, and happiness compared to a neutral baseline spoken either with or without lexical content. In line with previous evidence (Paulmann & Kotz, 2008b), both patients and healthy controls differentiate emotional and neutral prosody within 200 ms (P200). However, the recognition of emotional vocal expressions is impaired in OFC patients as compared to healthy controls. The current data serve as first evidence that emotional prosody processing is impaired only at a late, and not at an early processing stage in OFC patients.