Selecting pure-emotion materials from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) by Chinese university students: A study based on intensity-ratings only

Higher cortical excitability to negative emotions involved in musculoskeletal pain in Parkinson's disease

OBJECTIVE

Changes in brain structure and neurotransmitter systems are involved in pain in Parkinson's disease (PD), and emotional factors are closely related to pain. Our study applied electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate the role of emotion in PD patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

METHODS

Forty-two PD patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and 38 without were enrolled. EEG data were recorded under resting conditions, and while viewing pictures with neutral, positive, and negative content. We compared spectrum power, functional connectivity, and late positive potential (LPP), an event-related potential (ERP), between the groups.

RESULTS

PD patients with pain tended to have higher scores for the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD). In the resting EEG, mean β-band amplitude was significantly higher in patients with pain than in those without. Logistic regression analysis showed that higher HRSD scores and higher mean β-band amplitude were associated with pain. ERP analysis revealed that the amplitudes of LPP difference waves (the absolute difference between positive and negative condition LPP and neutral condition LPP) at the central-parietal region were significantly reduced in patients with pain (P = 0.029). Spearman correlation analysis showed that the amplitudes of late (700-1000 ms) negative versus neutral condition LPP difference waves were negatively correlated with pain intensity, assessed by visual analogue scale, (r = -0.393, P = 0.010) and HRSD scores (r = -0.366, P = 0.017).

CONCLUSION

Dopaminergic and non-dopaminergic systems may be involved in musculoskeletal pain in PD by increasing β-band activity and weakening the connection of the θ-band at the central-parietal region. PD patients with musculoskeletal pain have higher cortical excitability to negative emotions. The changes in pain-related EEG may be used as electrophysiological markers and therapeutic targets in PD patients with chronic pain.

A Systematic Review of International Affective Picture System (IAPS) around the World

Standardized Emotion Elicitation Databases (SEEDs) allow studying emotions in laboratory settings by replicating real-life emotions in a controlled environment. The International Affective Pictures System (IAPS), containing 1182 coloured images as stimuli, is arguably the most popular SEED. Since its introduction, multiple countries and cultures have validated this SEED, making its adoption on the study of emotion a worldwide success. For this review, 69 studies were included. Results focus on the discussion of validation processes by combining self-report and physiological data (Skin Conductance Level, Heart Rate Variability and Electroencephalography) and self-report only. Cross-age, cross-cultural and sex differences are discussed. Overall, IAPS is a robust instrument for emotion elicitation around the world.

Brain activation and individual differences of emotional perception and imagery in healthy adults: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study

The current study investigated the brain activation and individual differences in perception and imagery of sad pictures versus happy and neutral pictures. Sixty-eight healthy adults were instructed to view and visualize sad, happy, and neutral pictures during 64-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) recording. The results indicated that emotional perception evoked increased occipital activation, while emotional imagery involved increased activation in the bilateral prefrontal and parietal cortex. Sad pictures evoked decreased brain activation in the occipital and prefrontal cortex than happy and neutral pictures. For women, imagery activation was greater than perception activation in the right parietal cortex. Additionally, participants' self-rated imagery vividness was positively correlated with the occipital activation during happy imagery and trait rumination was negatively correlated with the occipital activation during perception. The findings suggest that emotional perception may involve the bottom-up sensory input, while emotional imagery may involve the top-down cognitive processes. Healthy individuals engage decreased cognitive resources for sad perception and imagery. Moreover, our observation could provide useful information to establish fNIRS assessment as an objective tool to monitor the emotional status on an individual trait basis.

Emotionally-loaded Visual Stimuli to Alter Brain Arousal: A Flicker Fusion Study

Background: Human brain performance and arousal are still challenging and critical, especially in environments such as power plants. Since different emotions are common in daily work life and have inevitable effects on cognitive performance, it is important to evaluate whether or not emotional interventions can, in any way, alter brain arousal, leading to mental fatigue in control room operators (CROs) and affecting their cognitive emotion regulation. To address this issue, flicker fusion frequency (FFF) was employed as a simple and reproducible surrogate index for mental fatigue. Objectives: This study aimed to investigate whether or not emotionally loaded visual stimuli can alter brain arousal (brain fatigue) or is associated with cognitive emotion regulation (CER) ability. Methods: Flicker fusion frequency was assessed by RT-961, and the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) was adopted as the picture database of stimuli. Additionally, the Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ) was used to determine the participants’ cognitive emotion CER ability. Twenty volunteer CROs from Fars Combined Cycle Power Plant participated in this study. They completed CERQ and then were assessed at two different time points, i.e., before and after presenting emotional stimuli. At each round, FFF was assessed 20 times, and the average frequency was recorded. Emotionally-loaded images were considered as stimuli. The stimuli sets were classified based on their arousal level and valence, yet they were presented in a random order. Subjects were exposed to each image for five seconds (30 minutes in total). Results: The participants’ mean age was 39.55 ± 7.02 years. The first and second FFFs were 42.15 ± 3.90 and 41.96 ± 3.98 in the appropriate group and 42.82 ± 3.59 and 42.26 ± 4.07 in the inappropriate group, respectively. Based on the statistical tests, there were no significant relationships between the measurements (P > 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that CROs may positively maintain their brain arousal during specific emotional stimuli when the intervention lasts less than 30 minutes. Considering the prolonged working hours in such industries (roughly over eight hours a day) and the importance of cognitive aptitude in preventing work-related errors, we propose this line of research to gain momentum.

Smokers show increased fear responses towards safety signals during fear generalization, independent from acute smoking

Smoking is highly prevalent among patients with anxiety disorders. Previous studies suggest that smokers show altered fear learning as compared to non-smokers. To test the effect of acute smoking on fear learning and generalization, we conducted a fear learning experiment online. 202 healthy subjects learned to differentiate a danger and a safe cue on day 1 and were tested for generalization of threat responses 24 h later. To see if the timing of smoking impacts fear learning, we formed three smoker groups with manipulations of acute smoking and withdrawal at different time-points (each group: n = 46) and one non-smoker control group (n = 64). Smoking manipulations contained a 6 h withdrawal after fear learning, smoking directly before or after fear learning. We found no group differences between smoker manipulation groups for fear learning or generalization. However, we found differences in fear generalization between smokers and non-smokers. Smokers showed increased fear ratings towards the stimulus that has been learned as safe and higher US expectancy to stimuli similar to the safe stimulus, when compared to non-smokers. Smoking might constitute a risk factor for impaired discrimination between danger and safety and smoking restrictions could be an effective way to reduce the risks of development or maintenance of anxiety disorders.

Emotional processing of sadness and disgust evoked by disaster scenes

OBJECTIVE

Disaster scenes produce long-term negative feelings in those who experience them. Previous studies have focused on mitigating disaster impacts through directed forgetting or conscious suppression. However, the initial emotional processing of disaster scenes is not fully understood, hindering the comprehension of long-term disaster impacts. This study aims to investigate how pictures of disaster scenes evoking disgust and sadness are processed via cortical electrical activity.

METHODS

Pictures of grief and mutilation from disasters were used to evoke sadness and disgust, respectively. Event-related desynchronization (ERD) and event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to quantify the intensity and time-course of emotional processing.

RESULTS

The information processing of emotional pictures was stronger than neutral pictures, represented by greater declines of alpha ERD. In the posterior ERP components of N1 and EPN, amplitudes for emotional pictures were larger than those for neutral pictures, which reflected the effects of arousal on visual perception. In the anterior ERP components of P2, P3, and LPP, disgust pictures showed higher attention attraction and enhanced encoding memory processing.

CONCLUSIONS

Disgust disaster scenarios induced long-term prominent LPP, which may correspond with the long-term negative impacts of the disaster.

Responses to External Emotions or their Transitions at Central to Peripheral Nervous System Levels: A Methodological Contribution to Mental Health

Background:

Responses to external emotional-stimuli or their transitions might help to elucidate the scientific background and assist the clinical management of psychiatric problems, but pure emotional-materials and their utilization at different levels of neurophysiological processing are few.

Objective:

We aimed to describe the responses at central and peripheral levels in healthy volunteers and psychiatric patients when facing external emotions and their transitions.

Methods:

Using pictures and sounds with pure emotions of Disgust, Erotica, Fear, Happiness, Neutral, and Sadness or their transitions as stimuli, we have developed a series of non-invasive techniques, i.e., the event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging, excitatory and inhibitory brainstem reflexes, and polygraph, to assess different levels of neurophysiological responses in different populations.

Results:

Sample outcomes on various conditions were specific and distinguishable at cortical to peripheral levels in bipolar I and II disorder patients compared to healthy volunteers.

Conclusions:

Methodologically, designs with these pure emotions and their transitions are applicable, and results per se are specifically interpretable in patients with emotion-related problems.

Complex Scenes From the International Affective Picture System (IAPS)

Complex scenes from standardized stimuli databases such as the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) are organized dimensionally rather than discretely. Further, the potentially unique function of socially relevant scenes is often overlooked. This study sought to identify discrete categories of complex scenes from the IAPS and to explore if there were qualitative features that make the emotional content of some social scenes identifiable with higher levels of agreement. One hundred and three participants (53.4% female, mean age 24.4) judged 118 IAPS scenes as reflecting fear, happy, sad, or neutral. A second judgment study was conducted with a separate group of participants (N = 117; 79.2% female; mean age 30.41) to further characterize valid affective scenes across the full range of basic emotions. Sixty images received agreement on their emotional category from >70% of judges and were considered valid. IAPS identifier codes for these images are available for reference (along with the supplementary material from the second judgment study), organized by emotional and social content. An incidental observation was such that compared to nonsocial scenes, lower agreement rates were observed for social scenes across the board. Qualitative features of social scenes that were classified into emotional categories based on higher levels of agreement are discussed.

Basic emotions expressed in music: factor analyses on intensity ratings by non-musical professional Chinese university students

BACKGROUND

Previous studies of musical emotion largely depended on the lexical approach which suffered from overlaps between emotions.

METHODS

In the present study, we explored emotional domains through a dimensional approach based on the intensity ratings on the emotion perceived in music. Altogether, 488 university students were invited to listen to 60 musical excerpts (most of them classical), to rate the intensity of emotion perceived without naming the emotion. Later, we conducted the exploratory factor analysis on the intensity ratings to look for the latent structures of musical emotion and then applied the confirmatory factor analysis to verify the validity of the proposed model of emotional structure.

RESULTS

After first- and second-order factor analyses, seven emotional factors (domains, with 38 musical excerpts) were identified: Happiness, Tenderness, Sadness, Passion, Anger, Anxiousness, and Depression, which formed a satisfactory model. No gender difference was found regarding the perceived intensity of musical emotion.

CONCLUSION

Our study has offered evidence to delineate basic musical emotions into seven domains.