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Sgadò P, Pross A, Lamanna J, Adiletta A. Face processing in animal models: implications for autism spectrum disorder. Front Neurosci 2024; 18:1462272. [PMID: 39184326 PMCID: PMC11341390 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1462272] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/09/2024] [Accepted: 07/29/2024] [Indexed: 08/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Processing facial features is crucial to identify social partners (prey, predators, or conspecifics) and recognize and accurately interpret emotional expressions. Numerous studies in both human and non-human primates provided evidence promoting the notion of inherent mechanisms for detecting facial features. These mechanisms support a representation of faces independent of prior experiences and are vital for subsequent development in social and language domains. Moreover, deficits in processing faces are a reliable biomarker of autism spectrum disorder, appearing early and correlating with symptom severity. Face processing, however, is not only a prerogative of humans: other species also show remarkable face detection abilities. In this review, we present an overview of the current literature on face detection in vertebrate models that could be relevant to the study of autism.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paola Sgadò
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Alessandra Pross
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
| | - Jacopo Lamanna
- Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and Communication (BNC), Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
- Faculty of Psychology, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University, Milan, Italy
| | - Alice Adiletta
- Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto, Italy
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Gong M, Pan C, Pan R, Wang X, Wang J, Xu H, Hu Y, Wang J, Jia K, Chen Q. Distinct patterns of monocular advantage for facial emotions in social anxiety. J Anxiety Disord 2024; 104:102871. [PMID: 38723406 DOI: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2024.102871] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/18/2023] [Revised: 04/11/2024] [Accepted: 04/29/2024] [Indexed: 06/16/2024]
Abstract
Individuals with social anxiety often exhibit atypical processing of facial expressions. Previous research in social anxiety has primarily emphasized cognitive bias associated with face processing and the corresponding abnormalities in cortico-limbic circuitry, yet whether social anxiety influences early perceptual processing of emotional faces remains largely unknown. We used a psychophysical method to investigate the monocular advantage for face perception (i.e., face stimuli are better recognized when presented to the same eye compared to different eyes), an effect that is indicative of early, subcortical processing of face stimuli. We compared the monocular advantage for different emotional expressions (neutral, angry and sad) in three groups (N = 24 per group): individuals clinically diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD), individuals with high social anxiety in subclinical populations (SSA), and a healthy control (HC) group of individuals matched for age and gender. Compared to SSA and HC groups, we found that individuals with SAD exhibited a greater monocular advantage when processing neutral and sad faces. While the magnitudes of monocular advantages were similar across three groups when processing angry faces, individuals with SAD performed better in this condition when the faces were presented to different eye. The former findings suggest that social anxiety leads to an enhanced role of subcortical structures in processing nonthreatening expressions. The latter findings, on the other hand, likely reflect an enhanced cortical processing of threatening expressions in SAD group. These distinct patterns of monocular advantage indicate that social anxiety altered representation of emotional faces at various stages of information processing, starting at an early stage of the visual system.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mengyuan Gong
- Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Chaoya Pan
- Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Ruibo Pan
- Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
| | - Xiaohua Wang
- Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
| | - Jiafeng Wang
- Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
| | - Han Xu
- Department of Neurobiology and Department of Psychiatry of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
| | - Yuzheng Hu
- Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
| | - Jun Wang
- Department of Neurobiology and Department of Psychiatry of the Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China
| | - Ke Jia
- Department of Neurobiology, Affiliated Mental Health Center & Hangzhou Seventh People's Hospital, Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China; Liangzhu Laboratory, MOE Frontier Science Center for Brain Science and Brain-Machine Integration, State Key Laboratory of Brain-Machine Intelligence, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China; NHC and CAMS Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
| | - Qiaozhen Chen
- Department of Psychiatry, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China; Key Laboratory of Medical Molecular Imaging of Zhejiang Province, Hangzhou, China.
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Behrmann M, Avidan G. Face perception: computational insights from phylogeny. Trends Cogn Sci 2022; 26:350-363. [PMID: 35232662 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2022.01.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/01/2021] [Revised: 01/21/2022] [Accepted: 01/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/19/2022]
Abstract
Studies of face perception in primates elucidate the psychological and neural mechanisms that support this critical and complex ability. Recent progress in characterizing face perception across species, for example in insects and reptiles, has highlighted the ubiquity over phylogeny of this key ability for social interactions and survival. Here, we review the competence in face perception across species and the types of computation that support this behavior. We conclude that the computational complexity of face perception evinced by a species is not related to phylogenetic status and is, instead, largely a product of environmental context and social and adaptive pressures. Integrating findings across evolutionary data permits the derivation of computational principles that shed further light on primate face perception.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marlene Behrmann
- Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
| | - Galia Avidan
- Department of Psychology, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel
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