Gender and parental status affect the visual cortical response to infant facial expression

Reduced spatial frequency differentiation and sex-related specificities in fearful face detection in autism: Insights from EEG and the predictive brain model

Face processing relies on predictive processes driven by low spatial frequencies (LSF) that convey coarse information prior to fine information conveyed by high spatial frequencies. However, autistic individuals might have atypical predictive processes, contributing to facial processing difficulties. This may be more normalized in autistic females, who often exhibit better socio-communicational abilities than males. We hypothesized that autistic females would display a more typical coarse-to-fine processing for socio-emotional stimuli compared to autistic males. To test this hypothesis, we asked adult participants (44 autistic, 51 non-autistic) to detect fearful faces among neutral faces, filtered in two orders: from coarse-to-fine (CtF) and from fine-to-coarse (FtC). Results show lower d' values and longer reaction times for fearful detection in autism compared to non-autistic (NA) individuals, regardless of the filtering order. Both groups presented shorter P100 latency after CtF compared to FtC, and larger amplitude for N170 after FtC compared to CtF. However, autistic participants presented a reduced difference in source activity between CtF and FtC in the fusiform. There was also a more spatially spread activation pattern in autistic females compared to NA females. Finally, females had faster P100 and N170 latencies, as well as larger occipital activation for FtC sequences than males, irrespective of the group. Overall, the results do not suggest impaired predictive processes from LSF in autism despite behavioral differences in fear detection. However, they do indicate reduced brain modulation by spatial frequency in autism. In addition, the findings highlight sex differences that warrant consideration in understanding autistic females.

EEG responses to infant faces in young adults can be influenced by the quality of early care experiences with caregivers

BACKGROUND

The quality of early experiences with caregivers affects individual adjustment and can modulate adults' responses to salient social stimuli, like infant faces. However, in the framework of Interpersonal Acceptance-Rejection Theory (IPARTheory), no research to date has examined whether early experiences of acceptance or rejection from caregivers are associated with individual differences in the electrophysiological (EEG) responses to infant faces.

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the associations between the perceived quality of care during childhood and the behavioral and EEG responses to infant and adult faces in non-parent young adults.

METHODS

N = 60 non-parent young adults (30 males; 30 females) completed an Emotion Recognition task displaying emotional and unemotional infant and adult faces during an EEG recording. Memories of past care experiences with mothers and fathers were collected using the short form version of the Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale.

RESULTS

At the behavioral level, slower Reaction Times (RTs) in recognizing all faces were related to higher levels of perceived maternal rejection in young adults; in particular, males who reported higher levels of maternal rejection displayed longer RTs in recognizing faces compared to females. At the neurophysiological level, as the level of perceived paternal rejection increased, the N170 amplitude to infant faces increased. Females who reported higher levels of paternal rejection, compared to males, had a larger increase in the N170 amplitude and a larger decrease in the LPP amplitude in response to emotional faces.

CONCLUSIONS

While a higher perception of maternal rejection hindered the behavioral responses of adults in recognizing faces, those who felt more rejected by their own father during childhood showed an enhanced N170 amplitude to infant faces. This might reflect a greater need for discrimination resources, at a very early stage of infant face processing, in those adults who perceived higher levels of paternal rejection. Adults' sex modulated the associations found at the behavioral and neurophysiological levels. Overall, our findings extended the IPARTheory postulates that being neglected during childhood might trigger perceptual changes in adults, hindering the elaboration of social cues like infant and adult faces at different levels.

You're Beautiful When You Smile: Event-Related Brain Potential (ERP) Evidence of Early Opposite-Gender Bias in Happy Faces

Studies of social cognition have shown gender differences regarding human face processing. One interesting finding is the enhanced processing of opposite-gender faces at different time stages, as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Crucially, from an evolutionary perspective, such a bias might interact with the emotional expression of the face. To investigate this, 100 participants (50 female, 50 male) completed an expression-detection task while their EEG was recorded. In three blocks, fearful, happy and neutral faces (female and male) were randomly presented, with participants instructed to respond to only one predefined target expression level in each block. Using linear mixed models, we observed both faster reaction times as well as larger P1 and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes for women compared to men, supporting a generally greater female interest in faces. Highly interestingly, the analysis revealed an opposite-gender bias at P1 for happy target faces. This suggests that participants' attentional templates may include more opposite-gender facial features when selectively attending to happy faces. While N170 was influenced by neither the face nor the participant gender, LPP was modulated by the face gender and specific combinations of the target status, face gender and expression, which is interpreted in the context of gender-emotion stereotypes. Future research should further investigate this expression and attention dependency of early opposite-gender biases.

Modulation of the attentional response to baby schema by testosterone in pedohebephilic men and its relation to the nurturing system

Previous fMRI research found increased brain responses in men with pedophilic interest to non-sexual pictures of child and animal faces. This raised the question of whether an aberrant nurturing system could be linked to pedophilia. To further explore this hypothesis, 20 pedohebephilic and 23 teleiophilic men performed a target detection task with adult versus infant human and animal faces, which measured selective attention towards the baby schema by comparing reaction times to infant versus adult targets that were presented amongst distractors of the other category. Since the response to baby schema can be influenced by steroid hormones, saliva samples were additionally collected to determine endogenous testosterone, progesterone, estradiol and cortisol. Contrary to expectations, all men did not react faster to infant than adult faces. Yet, pedohebephilic men were more distracted by infant's faces than teleiophilic men. Pedohebephilic men with higher testosterone were faster in orienting attention to infant targets in the context of adult distractors. This association was not observed in teleiophilic men. Our results support the idea of an overactive nurturing system in pedophilia, which may be influenced by the endogenous testosterone level.

Characteristics of the time processing of adults' strongest sustained attentional bias toward neutral infant faces

Previous studies have shown that adults exhibit the strongest attentional bias toward neutral infant faces when viewing faces with different expressions at different attentional processing stages due to different stimulus presentation times. However, it is not clear how the characteristics of the temporal processing associated with the strongest effect change over time. Thus, we combined a free-viewing task with eye-tracking technology to measure adults' attentional bias toward infant and adult faces with happy, neutral, and sad expressions of the same face. The results of the analysis of the total time course indicated that the strongest effect occurred during the strategic processing stage. However, the results of the analysis of the split time course revealed that sad infant faces first elicited adults' attentional bias at 0 to 500 ms, whereas the strongest effect of attentional bias toward neutral infant faces was observed at 1000 to 3000 ms, peaking at 1500 to 2000 ms. In addition, women and men had no differences in their responses to different expressions. In summary, this study provides further evidence that adults' attentional bias toward infant faces across stages of attention processing is modulated by expressions. Specifically, during automatic processing adults' attentional bias was directed toward sad infant faces, followed by a shift to the processing of neutral infant faces during strategic processing, which ultimately resulted in the strongest effect. These findings highlight that this strongest effect is dynamic and associated with a specific time window in the strategic process.

Lorenz's classic 'baby schema': a useful biological concept?

Konrad Lorenz introduced the concept of a 'baby schema', suggesting that infants have specific physical features, such as a relatively large head, large eyes and protruding cheeks, which function as an innate releaser to promote caretaking motivation from perceivers. Over the years, a large body of research has been conducted on the baby schema. However, there are two critical problems underpinning the current literature. First, the term 'baby schema' lacks consistency among researchers. Some researchers use the term baby schema to refer to infant stimuli (often faces) in comparison with adults (categorical usage), while others use the term to refer to the extent that features contribute to cuteness perception (spectrum usage). Second, cross-species continuity of the 'baby schema' has been assumed despite few empirical demonstrations. The evolutionary and comparative relevance of the concept is, therefore, debatable, and we cannot exclude the possibility that extreme sensitivity to the baby schema is a uniquely human trait. This article critically reviews the state of the existing literature and evaluates the significance of the baby schema from an evolutionary perspective.

Neither Parents' Sex Nor the Type of Family Modulates Attentional Bias Toward Infant Faces: A Preliminary Study in Different-Sex and Same-Sex Parents

An attentional bias toward infant versus adult faces has been detected in parents and positively associated with sensitive caregiving behaviors. In previous research, the attentional bias has been measured as the difference in attention, in terms of reaction times, captured by infant versus adult faces; the larger the difference, the greater the cognitive engagement that adults deployed to infant faces. However, research so far has been mostly confined to samples of mothers, who have been more represented than fathers. Moreover, new family forms, especially same-sex families of men, have been left out of research. To clarify potential sex differences and extend previous findings to diverse family forms, we implemented a modified Go/no-Go attentional task measuring attentional bias to infant faces in parents with children aged from 2 to 36 months. The sample (N = 86) was matched and included 22 fathers and 22 mothers from different-sex families and 20 fathers and 22 mothers from same-sex families. Overall, the results confirmed that infant faces induced a greater attentional bias compared to adult faces. Moreover, we found that neither the type of family nor parents' sex modulated the attentional bias toward infant faces. The findings are discussed in relation to the importance of understanding the correlates of parental response to infant cues going beyond a heteronormative perspective on parenting.

Moral approval of xenotransplantation in Egypt: associations with religion, attitudes towards animals and demographic factors

Xenotransplantation has great potential as an alternative to alleviate the shortage of organs for donation. However, given that the animal most suited for xenotransplantation is the pig, there are concerns that people in Muslim countries may be more hesitant to morally approve of these procedures. In this study, the moral approval of xenotransplantation was assessed in a group of 895 participants in Egypt. The results showed that religiosity itself does not predict moral approval of xenotransplantation, but religious identity does, as Muslims are less likely to approve of xenotransplantation than Christians. However, the strongest predictor of moral approval of xenotransplantation was gender, with women displaying less approval. A partial mediating factor in this association was concern for animal welfare. Based on these results, some implications for public policy are discussed.

Sex modulation of faces prediction error in the autistic brain

Recent research suggests that autistic females may have superior socio-cognitive abilities compared to autistic males, potentially contributing to underdiagnosis in females. However, it remains unclear whether these differences arise from distinct neurophysiological functioning in autistic males and females. This study addresses this question by presenting 41 autistic and 48 non-autistic adults with a spatially filtered faces oddball paradigm. Analysis of event-related potentials from scalp electroencephalography reveal a neurophysiological profile in autistic females that fell between those of autistic males and non-autistic females, highlighting sex differences in autism from the initial stages of face processing. This finding underscores the urgent need to explore neurophysiological sex differences in autism and encourages efforts toward a better comprehension of compensation mechanism and a clearer definition of what is meant by camouflaging.

Maternal psychological risk and the neural correlates of infant face processing: A latent profile analysis

Maternal psychological factors, including anxiety, depression, and substance use, may negatively affect parenting. Previous works with mothers have often assessed each of these factors in isolation despite their frequent co-occurrence. Psychological factors have also been associated with neural processing of facial stimuli, specifically the amplitude (i.e., size) and latency (i.e., timing) of the face-specific N170 event-related potential. In the current study, 106 mothers completed measures assessing maternal psychological factors-anxiety, depression, and substance use. A latent profile analysis was used to identify profiles of psychological factors and assess profile associations with the N170 elicited by infant faces and with parental reflective functioning (PRF) as a measure related to caregiving. Two profiles (termed high and low psychological risk) were identified, with the higher risk profile associated with delayed N170 latency responses to infant faces. An exploratory analysis evidenced an indirect effect between the higher psychological risk profile and lower PRF through delayed N170 latency responses to infant faces. Taken together, maternal psychological risk across multiple indicators may together shape neural processing of infant faces, which may have downstream consequences for caregiving.

Identifying the cortical face network with dynamic face stimuli: A large group fMRI study

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have identified a network of face-selective regions distributed across the human brain. In the present study, we analyzed data from a large group of gender-balanced participants to investigate how reliably these face-selective regions could be identified across both cerebral hemispheres. Participants ( N =52) were scanned with fMRI while viewing short videos of faces, bodies, and objects. Results revealed that five face-selective regions: the fusiform face area (FFA), posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), anterior superior temporal sulcus (aSTS), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and the amygdala were all larger in the right than in the left hemisphere. The occipital face area (OFA) was larger in the right hemisphere as well, but the difference between the hemispheres was not significant. The neural response to moving faces was also greater in face-selective regions in the right than in the left hemisphere. An additional analysis revealed that the pSTS and IFG were significantly larger in the right hemisphere compared to other face-selective regions. This pattern of results demonstrates that moving faces are preferentially processed in the right hemisphere and that the pSTS and IFG appear to be the strongest drivers of this laterality. An analysis of gender revealed that face-selective regions were typically larger in females ( N =26) than males ( N =26), but this gender difference was not statistically significant.

In the mind of the beholder: The effects of familiarisation on the perception of atypical infant facial configurations

Infant facial attractiveness is an important facilitator for adult-infant caregiving behaviour. Disruption to typical infant facial configurations can, however, attenuate their perceived attractiveness, as rated by adult observers. Previous research has either focused on how ratings are affected by observer characteristics (e.g., male/female), or alterations to infant faces, either experimentally, or naturalistically induced, such as the presence of a cleft lip. Little research has however been conducted on the effects of observer experience on adult ratings of infant facial attractiveness. Such effects could inform clinical work and policies aimed at promoting positive perception of facial malformations. The present study thus explored the effects of familiarisation on how typical and atypical infant facial configurations are evaluated by adults. We recruited two groups of female participants and compared their subjective attractiveness ratings of infant faces (24 typical and 24 cleft-affected), at baseline, and at one-week post-test. Between the two assessments, one group (n = 41) underwent a week-long training phase, where they were familiarised with cleft lip/palate-related visual and informational stimuli, while the control group (n = 44) received no training. Significantly higher ratings were provided for faces of typically developing versus cleft-affected infants by both groups of participants at baseline. At post-test, this pattern of ratings was repeated in participants belonging to the control group, while familiarised participants showed an increase, compared to baseline, in their ratings of cleft-affected faces and no difference between their evaluation of the latter and that of typically developing faces. These findings extend our understanding of the observer's experience in the evaluation of infant faces, beyond the effects of the structural characteristics of the observed faces. Results also highlight familiarity as a potentially protective influence against the negative consequences of alterations to typical facial configurations, suggesting avenues for intervention in supporting adult caregivers in the context of neonatal facial malformations.

Comparative survey of multigraph integration methods for holistic brain connectivity mapping

One of the greatest scientific challenges in network neuroscience is to create a representative map of a population of heterogeneous brain networks, which acts as a connectional fingerprint. The connectional brain template (CBT), also named network atlas, presents a powerful tool for capturing the most representative and discriminative traits of a given population while preserving its topological patterns. The idea of a CBT is to integrate a population of heterogeneous brain connectivity networks, derived from different neuroimaging modalities or brain views (e.g., structural and functional), into a unified holistic representation. Here we review current state-of-the-art methods designed to estimate well-centered and representative CBT for populations of single-view and multi-view brain networks. We start by reviewing each CBT learning method, then we introduce the evaluation measures to compare CBT representativeness of populations generated by single-view and multigraph integration methods, separately, based on the following criteria: Centeredness, biomarker-reproducibility, node-level similarity, global-level similarity, and distance-based similarity. We demonstrate that the deep graph normalizer (DGN) method significantly outperforms other multi-graph and all single-view integration methods for estimating CBTs using a variety of healthy and disordered datasets in terms of centeredness, reproducibility (i.e., graph-derived biomarkers reproducibility that disentangle the typical from the atypical connectivity variability), and preserving the topological traits at both local and global graph-levels.

Emojis Are Comprehended Better than Facial Expressions, by Male Participants

Emojis are colorful ideograms resembling stylized faces commonly used for expressing emotions in instant messaging, on social network sites, and in email communication. Notwithstanding their increasing and pervasive use in electronic communication, they are not much investigated in terms of their psychological properties and communicative efficacy. Here, we presented 112 different human facial expressions and emojis (expressing neutrality, happiness, surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) to a group of 96 female and male university students engaged in the recognition of their emotional meaning. Analyses of variance showed that male participants were significantly better than female participants at recognizing emojis (especially negative ones) while the latter were better than male participants at recognizing human facial expressions. Quite interestingly, male participants were better at recognizing emojis than human facial expressions per se. These findings are in line with more recent evidence suggesting that male individuals may be more competent and inclined to use emojis to express their emotions in messaging (especially sarcasm, teasing, and love) than previously thought. Finally, the data indicate that emojis are less ambiguous than facial expressions (except for neutral and surprise emotions), possibly because of the limited number of fine-grained details and the lack of morphological features conveying facial identity.

Racial disparities in EEG research and their implications for our understanding of the maternal brain

Racial disparities in maternal health are alarming and persistent. Use of electroencephalography (EEG) and event-related potentials (ERPs) to understand the maternal brain can improve our knowledge of maternal health by providing insight into mechanisms underlying maternal well-being, including implications for child development. However, systematic racial bias exists in EEG methodology-particularly for Black individuals-and in psychological and health research broadly. This paper discusses these biases in the context of EEG/ERP research on the maternal brain. First, we assess the racial/ethnic diversity of existing ERP studies of maternal neural responding to infant/child emotional expressions, using papers from a recent meta-analysis, finding that the majority of mothers represented in this research are of White/European ancestry and that the racially and ethnically diverse samples that are present are limited in terms of geography. Therefore, our current knowledge base in this area may be biased and not generalizable across racially diverse mothers. We outline factors underlying this problem, beginning with the racial bias in EEG equipment that systematically excludes individuals of African descent, and also considering factors specific to research with mothers. Finally, we highlight recent innovations to EEG hardware to better accommodate diverse hairstyles and textures, and other important steps to increase racial and ethnic representativeness in EEG/ERP research with mothers. We urge EEG/ERP researchers who study the maternal brain-including our own research group-to take action to increase racial diversity so that this research area can confidently inform understanding of maternal health and contribute to minimizing maternal health disparities.

Adult attachment is related to maternal neural response to infant cues: an ERP study

Maternal attachment security is an important predictor of caregiving . However, little is known regarding the neurobiological mechanisms by which attachment influences processing of infant cues, a critical component of caregiving. We examined whether attachment security, measured by the Adult Attachment Interview, might relate to neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials. Secure (n=35) and insecure (n=24) mothers viewed photographs of infant faces and heard recordings of infant vocalizations while electroencephalography was recorded. We examined initial processing of infant faces (N170) and cries (N100), and attentional allocation to infant faces and cries (P300). Secure mothers were significantly faster than insecure mothers to orient to infant cries (N100), structurally encode their own infant's face (N170), and attend to infant faces (P300). These differences may elucidate mechanisms underlying how attachment may shape neural processing of infant cues and highlight the use ofsocial neuroscientific approaches in examining clinically relevant aspects of attachment.

Functional near-infrared spectroscopy is a useful tool for multi-perspective psychobiological study of neurophysiological correlates of parenting behaviour

The quality of the relationship between caregiver and child has long-term effects on the cognitive and socio-emotional development of children. A process involved in human parenting is the bio-behavioural synchrony that occurs between the partners in the relationship during interaction. Through interaction, bio-behavioural synchronicity allows the adaptation of the physiological systems of the parent to those of the child and promotes the positive development and modelling of the child's social brain. The role of bio-behavioural synchrony in building social bonds could be investigated using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). In this paper we have (a) highlighted the importance of the quality of the caregiver-child relationship for the child's cognitive and socio-emotional development, as well as the relevance of infantile stimuli in the activation of parenting behaviour; (b) discussed the tools used in the study of the neurophysiological substrates of the parental response; (c) proposed fNIRS as a particularly suitable tool for the study of parental responses; and (d) underlined the need for a multi-systemic psychobiological approach to understand the mechanisms that regulate caregiver-child interactions and their bio-behavioural synchrony. We propose to adopt a multi-system psychobiological approach to the study of parental behaviour and social interaction.

Attentional Prioritization of Infant Faces in Parents: The Influence of Parents' Experiences of Care

Infant faces are prioritized by the attentional system in parents, resulting in a greater cognitive engagement in terms of response time. However, many biological, contextual and environmental factors relating to this cognitive mechanism have been left unexplored. To fill this gap, this study aims to (i) confirm that infant faces engage more attention compared to adult faces; (ii) investigate whether the attention to infant faces is affected early care experiences of parents; (iii) explore the effect of parents' sex by taking the amount of involvement with early childcare into consideration. 51 mothers and 46 fathers completed a modified Go/no-Go task, a brief sociodemographic questionnaire, the short version of the Adult Parental Acceptance-Rejection scale, and an ad-hoc question relating to the amount of parental involvement with early childcare. Parents' response times were slowed in the presence of infant versus adult faces. Parents whose mother was perceived as more sensitively accepting were more engaged by infant cues. By considering the amount of early parental involvement, the sex of parents did not significantly interact with the type of face. These findings provide new insights on the attention process in response to infant cues in parents and suggest that the investigation of experience-based factors may shed further light on this topic.

Hormonal and behavioral responses to an infant simulator in women with and without children

We investigated the impact of maternal status on hormonal reactivity and behavioral responses to an infant simulator in 117 women (54 primiparous, 63 nulliparous). The amount of affectionate touch and motherese were analyzed as behavioral measures of caregiving. Saliva was collected before and 10 min after interaction with the infant simulator to analyze oxytocin, testosterone, cortisol, and estradiol levels. Nulliparous women also provided information about their fertility motivation. Linear mixed models indicated that greater use of affectionate touch was associated with lower overall testosterone levels. Cortisol decreased in response to the interaction in both groups. In the primiparous group, the amount of affectionate touch associated inversely with cortisol levels, whereas in the nulliparous group such association was not found. Oxytocin or estradiol reactivity to the simulator did not differ between the groups, nor were these hormones associated with behavior. Higher fertility motivation in nulliparous women was related to more motherese, and lower testosterone levels. Our results indicate that the simulator elicits hormonal reactivity both in mothers and nonmothers, but the patterns of associations between caregiving behavior and hormonal levels may be partially different. These results encourage using the infant simulator to explore hormonal processes related to the transition to parenthood.

Mothers need more information to recognise associated emotions in child facial expressions

Parenting requires mothers to read social cues and understand their children. It is particularly important that they recognise their child's emotions to react appropriately, for example, with compassion to sadness or compersion to happiness. Despite this importance, it is unclear how motherhood affects women's ability to recognise emotions associated with facial expressions in children. Using videos of an emotionally neutral face continually and gradually taking on a facial expression associated with an emotion, we quantified the amount of information needed to match the emotion with the facial expression. Mothers needed more information than non-mothers to match the emotions with the facial expressions. Both mothers and non-mothers performed equally on a control task identifying animals instead of emotions, and both groups needed less information when recognising the emotions associated with facial expressions in adolescents than pre-schoolers. These results indicate that mothers need more information for to correctly recognise typically associated emotions in child facial expressions but not for similar tasks not involving emotions. A possible explanation is that child facial expressions associated with emotions may have a greater emotional impact on mothers than non-mothers leading to task interference but possibly also to increased compassion and compersion.

The physiology of maternal sensitivity to distress: An exploratory study of mothers' electrocortical and sympathetic nervous system reactivity

Maternal sensitivity in response to infant distress is related to a number of physiological processes, including electrocortical activity and activation of the sympathetic nervous system. Several studies have examined these systems in isolation, but limited work to date has investigated how they may moderate one another in relation to maternal behavior. The current exploratory study aimed to investigate the interactive effect of the late positive potential (LPP) and skin conductance level (SCL) on observed maternal sensitivity to distress. Ninety-five mothers of 6- to 12-month-old infants participated in two reactivity tasks measuring their LPP and SCL responses to child crying stimuli. Maternal sensitivity to distress was coded from video-recorded mother-infant interactions. Results showed a significant interaction effect, such that LPP reactivity to infant crying was positively related to maternal sensitivity to distress among mothers with relatively low SCL reactivity. The findings highlight the importance of examining multiple systems when characterizing the physiological basis of maternal behavior.

The multiple indicator multiple cause model for cognitive neuroscience: An analytic tool which emphasizes the behavior in brain–behavior relationships

Cognitive neuroscience has inspired a number of methodological advances to extract the highest signal-to-noise ratio from neuroimaging data. Popular techniques used to summarize behavioral data include sum-scores and item response theory (IRT). While these techniques can be useful when applied appropriately, item dimensionality and the quality of information are often left unexplored allowing poor performing items to be included in an itemset. The purpose of this study is to highlight how the application of two-stage approaches introduces parameter bias, differential item functioning (DIF) can manifest in cognitive neuroscience data and how techniques such as the multiple indicator multiple cause (MIMIC) model can identify and remove items with DIF and model these data with greater sensitivity for brain–behavior relationships. This was performed using a simulation and an empirical study. The simulation explores parameter bias across two separate techniques used to summarize behavioral data: sum-scores and IRT and formative relationships with those estimated from a MIMIC model. In an empirical study participants performed an emotional identification task while concurrent electroencephalogram data were acquired across 384 trials. Participants were asked to identify the emotion presented by a static face of a child across four categories: happy, neutral, discomfort, and distress. The primary outcomes of interest were P200 event-related potential (ERP) amplitude and latency within each emotion category. Instances of DIF related to correct emotion identification were explored with respect to an individual’s neurophysiology; specifically an item’s difficulty and discrimination were explored with respect to an individual’s average P200 amplitude and latency using a MIMIC model. The MIMIC model’s sensitivity was then compared to popular two-stage approaches for cognitive performance summary scores, including sum-scores and an IRT model framework and then regressing these onto the ERP characteristics. Here sensitivity refers to the magnitude and significance of coefficients relating the brain to these behavioral outcomes. The first set of analyses displayed instances of DIF within all four emotions which were then removed from all further models. The next set of analyses compared the two-stage approaches with the MIMIC model. Only the MIMIC model identified any significant brain–behavior relationships. Taken together, these results indicate that item performance can be gleaned from subject-specific biomarkers, and that techniques such as the MIMIC model may be useful tools to derive complex item-level brain–behavior relationships.

Deliberate control over facial expressions in motherhood. Evidence from a Stroop-like task

The deliberate control of facial expressions is an important ability in human interactions, in particular for mothers with prelinguistic infants. Because research on this topic is still scarce, we investigated the control over facial expressions in a Stroop-like paradigm. Mothers of 2-6 months old infants and nullipara women produced smiles and frowns in response to verbal commands written on distractor faces of adults or infants showing expressions of happiness or anger/distress. Analyses of video recordings with a machine classifier for facial expression revealed pronounced effects of congruency between the expressions required by the participants and those displayed by the face stimuli on the onset latencies of the deliberate facial expressions. With adult distractor faces this Stroop effect was similar whether participants smiled or frowned. With infant distractor faces mothers and non-mothers showed indistinguishable Stroop effects on smile responses; however, for frown responses, the Stroop effect in mothers was smaller than in non-mothers. We suggest that for frown responses in mothers when facing infants, the effect of mimicry or stimulus response compatibility, leading to the Stroop effect, is offset by a caregiving response or empathy.

The Recognition of Facial Expressions Under Surgical Masks: The Primacy of Anger

Background

The need to wear surgical masks in everyday life has drawn the attention of psychologists to the negative effects of face covering on social processing. A recent but not homogeneous literature has highlighted large costs in the ability to recognize emotions.

Methods

Here it was investigated how mask covering impaired the recognition of facial mimicry in a large group of 220 undergraduate students. Sex differences in emotion recognition were also analyzed in two subgroups of 94 age-matched participants. Subjects were presented with 112 pictures displaying the faces of eight actors (4 women and 4 men) wearing or not wearing real facemasks, and expressing seven emotional states (neutrality, surprise, happiness, sadness, disgust, anger and fear). The task consisted in categorizing facial expressions while indicating the emotion recognizability with a 3-point Likert scale. Scores underwent repeated measures ANOVAs.

Results

Overall, face masking reduced emotion recognition by 31%. All emotions were affected by mask covering except for anger. Face covering was most detrimental to sadness and disgust, both relying on mouth and nose expressiveness. Women showed a better performance for subtle expressions such as surprise and sadness, both in masked and natural conditions, and men for fear recognition (in natural but especially masked conditions).

Conclusion

Anger display was unaffected by masking, also because corrugated forehead and frowning eyebrows were clearly exposed. Overall, facial masking seems to polarize non-verbal communication toward the happiness/anger dimension, while minimizing emotions that stimulate an empathic response in the observer.

Motherhood and theory of mind: increased activation in the posterior cingulate cortex and insulae

Despite growing evidence on effects of parenthood on social understanding, little is known about the influence of parenthood on theory of mind (ToM), the capacity to infer mental and affective states of others. It is also unclear whether any possible effects of parenthood on ToM would generalise to inferring states of adults or are specific to children. We investigated neural activation in mothers and women without children while they predicted action intentions from child and adult faces. Region-of-interest analyses showed stronger activation in mothers in the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex, precuneus (ToM-related areas) and insulae (emotion-related areas). Whole-brain analyses revealed that mothers compared to non-mothers more strongly activated areas including the left angular gyrus and the ventral prefrontal cortex but less strongly activated the right supramarginal gyrus and the dorsal prefrontal cortex. These differences were not specific to child stimuli but occurred in response to both adult and child stimuli and might indicate that mothers and non-mothers employ different strategies to infer action intentions from affective faces. Whether these general differences in affective ToM between mothers and non-mothers are due to biological or experience-related changes should be subject of further investigation.

Processing children's faces in the parental brain: A meta-analysis of ERP studies

Event-related potentials (ERPs) are an excellent tool for investigating parental neural responses to child stimuli. Using meta-analysis, we quantified the results of available studies reporting N170 or LPP/P3 ERP responses to children's faces, targeting three questions: 1) Do parents and non-parents differ in ERP responses to child faces? 2) Are parental ERP responses larger to own vs. unfamiliar child faces? 3) Are parental ERP responses to child faces associated with indicators of parenting quality, such as observed parental sensitivity? Across 23 studies (N = 1035), key findings showed 1) larger N170 amplitudes to child faces in parents than in non-parents (r = 0.19), 2) larger LPP/P3 responses to own vs. unfamiliar child faces in parents (r = 0.19), and 3) positive associations between parental LPP/P3 responses to child faces and parenting quality outcomes (r = 0.15). These results encourage further research particularly with the LPP/P3 to assess attentional-motivational processes of parenting, but also highlight the need for larger samples and more systematic assessments of associations between ERPs and parenting.

Increased child‐evoked activation in the precuneus during facial affect recognition in mothers

Successful parenting requires constant inferring of affective states. Especially vital is the correct identification of facial affect. Previous studies have shown that infant faces are processed preferentially compared to adult faces both on the behavioural and the neural level. This study specifically investigates the child‐evoked neural responses to affective faces and their modulation by motherhood and attention to affect. To do so, we used a paradigm to measure neural responses during both explicit and implicit facial affect recognition (FAR) in mothers and non‐mothers using child and adult faces. Increased activation to child compared to adult faces was found for mothers and non‐mothers in face processing areas (bilateral fusiform gyri) and areas associated with social understanding (bilateral insulae and medial superior frontal gyrus) when pooling implicit and explicit affect recognition. Furthermore, this child‐evoked activation was modulated by motherhood with an increase in mothers compared to non‐mothers in the left precuneus. Additionally, explicitly recognising the affect increased child‐evoked activation in the medial superior frontal gyrus in both mothers and non‐mothers. These results suggest preferential treatment of affective child over adult faces, modulated by motherhood and attention to affect.

Does neural face processing explain effects of an attachment-based intervention on maternal sensitivity? A randomized controlled study including pre- and postintervention measures

BACKGROUND

Although there is a large body of literature highlighting the behavioral effects of parenting interventions, studies on the neurocognitive mechanisms involved in such intervention effects remain scarce.

PURPOSE

The aim of the current study was to test whether changes in neural face processing (as reflected in N170 amplitudes) would act as a mediator in the association between the Video-feedback Intervention to promote Positive Parenting and Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD) and maternal sensitivity.

METHODS

A total of 66 mothers of whom a random 33% received the VIPP-SD and the others a "dummy" intervention participated in pre- and postintervention assessments. We recorded mothers' electroencephalographic (EEG) activity in response to photographs of children's neutral, happy, and angry facial expressions. Maternal sensitivity was observed while mothers interacted with their offspring in a semi-structured play situation.

RESULTS

In contrast with our expectations, we did not find evidence for mediation of intervention effects on maternal sensitivity by the N170.

CONCLUSION

We discuss that parenting support programs may yield different effects on neurocognitive processes depending on the population and provide recommendations for future research. Our study underscores the importance of reporting null findings and preregistering studies in the field of neurocognitive research.

Increased activation in the bilateral anterior insulae in response to others in pain in mothers compared to non-mothers

Empathy allows us to share emotions and encourages us to help others. It is especially important in the context of parenting where children's wellbeing is dependent on their parents' understanding and fulfilment of their needs. To date, little is known about differences in empathy responses of parents and non-parents. Using stimuli depicting adults and children in pain, this study focuses on the interaction of motherhood and neural responses in areas associated with empathy. Mothers showed higher activation to both adults and children in pain in the bilateral anterior insulae, key regions of empathy for pain. Additionally, mothers more strongly activated the inferior frontal, superior temporal and the medial superior frontal gyrus. Differences between adult and child stimuli were only found in occipital areas in both mothers and non-mothers. Our results suggest a stronger neural response to others in pain in mothers than non-mothers regardless of whether the person is a child or an adult. This could indicate a possible influence of motherhood on overall neural responses to others in pain rather than motherhood specifically shaping child-related responses. Alternatively, stronger responses to others in pain could increase the likelihood for women to be in a relationship and subsequently to have a child.

Maternal perinatal anxiety and neural responding to infant affective signals: Insights, challenges, and a road map for neuroimaging research

Anxiety symptoms are common among women during pregnancy and the postpartum period, potentially having detrimental effects on both mother and child's well-being. Perinatal maternal anxiety interferes with a core facet of adaptive caregiving: mothers' sensitive responsiveness to infant affective communicative 'cues.' This review summarizes the current research on the neural correlates of maternal processing of infant cues in the presence of perinatal anxiety, outlines its limitations, and offers next steps to advance future research. Functional neuroimaging studies examining the neural circuitry involved in, and electrophysiological studies examining the temporal dynamics of, processing infant cues during pregnancy and postpartum are reviewed. Studies have generally indicated mixed findings, although emerging themes suggest that anxiety may be implicated in several stages of processing infant cues- detection, interpretation, and reaction- contingent upon cue valence. Limitations include inconsistent designs, lack of differentiation between anxiety and depression symptoms, and limited consideration of parenting-specific (versus domain-general) anxiety. Future studies should incorporate longitudinal investigation of multiple levels of analysis spanning neural, cognitive, and observed aspects of sensitive caregiving.

Estimation of gender-specific connectional brain templates using joint multi-view cortical morphological network integration

The estimation of a connectional brain template (CBT) integrating a population of brain networks while capturing shared and differential connectional patterns across individuals remains unexplored in gender fingerprinting. This paper presents the first study to estimate gender-specific CBTs using multi-view cortical morphological networks (CMNs) estimated from conventional T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Specifically, each CMN view is derived from a specific cortical attribute (e.g. thickness), encoded in a network quantifying the dissimilarity in morphology between pairs of cortical brain regions. To this aim, we propose Multi-View Clustering and Fusion Network (MVCF-Net), a novel multi-view network fusion method, which can jointly identify consistent and differential clusters of multi-view datasets in order to capture simultaneously similar and distinct connectional traits of samples. Our MVCF-Net method estimates a representative and well-centered CBTs for male and female populations, independently, to eventually identify their fingerprinting regions of interest (ROIs) in four main steps. First, we perform multi-view network clustering model based on manifold optimization which groups CMNs into shared and differential clusters while preserving their alignment across views. Second, for each view, we linearly fuse CMNs belonging to each cluster, producing local CBTs. Third, for each cluster, we non-linearly integrate the local CBTs across views, producing a cluster-specific CBT. Finally, by linearly fusing the cluster-specific centers we estimate a final CBT of the input population. MVCF-Net produced the most centered and representative CBTs for male and female populations and identified the most discriminative ROIs marking gender differences. The most two gender-discriminative ROIs involved the lateral occipital cortex and pars opercularis in the left hemisphere and the middle temporal gyrus and lingual gyrus in the right hemisphere.

Sexual Dimorphism in Hemispheric Processing of Faces in Humans: A Meta-Analysis of 817 Cases

A well-established neuroimaging literature predicts a right-sided asymmetry in the activation of face-devoted areas such as the fusiform gyrus (FG) and its resulting M/N170 response during face processing. However, the face-related response sometimes appears to be bihemispheric. A few studies have argued that bilaterality depended on the sex composition of the sample. To shed light on this matter, two meta-analyses were conducted starting from a large initial database of 250 ERP (Event-related potentials)/MEG (Magnetoencephalography) peer-reviewed scientific articles. Paper coverage was from 1985 to 2020. Thirty-four articles met the inclusion criteria of a sufficiently large and balanced sample size with strictly right-handed and healthy participants aged 18–35 years and N170 measurements in response to neutral front view faces at left and right occipito/temporal sites. The data of 817 male (n = 414) and female (n = 403) healthy adults were subjected to repeated-measures analyses of variance. The results of statistical analyses from the data of 17 independent studies (from Asia, Europe and America) seem to robustly indicate the presence of a sex difference in the way the two cerebral hemispheres process facial information in humans, with a marked right-sided asymmetry of the bioelectrical activity in males and a bilateral or left-sided activity in females.

Neurocognitive processing of infant stimuli in mothers and non-mothers: psychophysiological, cognitive and neuroimaging evidence

Emerging evidence indicates that mothers and non-mothers show different neurocognitive responses to infant stimuli. This study investigated mothers' psychophysiological, cognitive and neuronal responses to emotional infant stimuli. A total of 35 mothers with 4-month-old infants and 18 control women without young children underwent computerized tests assessing neurocognitive processing of infant stimuli. Their eye gazes and eye fixations, galvanic skin responses (GSRs) and facial expressions towards infant emotional stimuli were recorded during the tasks. Participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during which they viewed pictures of an unknown infant and, for mothers, their own infants. Mothers gazed more and had increased GSR towards infant stimuli and displayed more positive facial expressions to infant laughter, and self-reported more positive ratings of infant vocalizations than control women. At a neural level, mothers showed greater neural response in insula, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and occipital brain regions within a predefined 'maternal neural network' while watching images of their own vs unknown infants. This specific neural response to own infants correlated with less negative ratings of own vs unknown infants' signals of distress. Differences between mothers and control women without young children could be interpreted as neurocognitive adaptation to motherhood in the mothers.

Imagining the baby: Neural reactivity to infant distress and mind-mindedness in expectant parents

Neural and psychological processes in pregnancy may be important antecedents for caregiving postpartum. Employing event-related potentials, we examined neural reactivity to infant emotional faces during the third trimester of pregnancy in expectant mothers (n = 38) and expectant fathers (n = 30). Specifically, expectant parents viewed infant distress and infant neutral faces while electroencephalography was simultaneously recorded. As a psychological measure, we assessed prenatal mind-mindedness towards the unborn child and examined whether neural processing of infant cues was associated with levels of mind-mindedness. Expectant fathers evidenced greater P300 reactivity to infant distress, relative to neutral, faces than expectant mothers. Furthermore, P300 reactivity to infant distress, relative to infant neutral, faces was associated with levels of prenatal mind-mindedness in expectant fathers but not expectant mothers. These findings indicate significant sex differences in the prenatal neural processing of infant cues and relations between neural reactivity to infant distress and the emergence of parental mind-mindedness.

Sex differences in the social brain and in social cognition

Many studies have reported sex differences in empathy and social skills. In this review, several lines of empirical evidences about sex differences in functions and anatomy of social brain are discussed. The most relevant differences involve face processing, facial expression recognition, response to baby schema, the ability to see faces in things, the processing of social interactions, the response to the others' pain, interest in social information, processing of gestures and actions, biological motion, erotic, and affective stimuli. Sex differences in oxytocin-based parental response are also reported. In conclusion, the female and male brains show several neuro-functional differences in various aspects of social cognition, and especially in emotional coding, face processing, and response to baby schema. An interpretation of this sexual dimorphism is provided in the view of evolutionary psychobiology.

Pupillary and Attentional Responses to Infant Facial Expressions in Mothers Across Socioeconomic Variations

Maternal responses to infant facial expressions were examined in two socioeconomically diverse samples of South African mothers (Study I, N = 111; and Study II, N = 214; age: 17-44 years) using pupil and gaze tracking. Study I showed increased pupil response to infant distress expressions in groups recruited from private as compared to public maternity clinics, possibly reflecting underlying differences in socioeconomic status (SES) across the groups. Study II, sampling uniformly low-SES neighborhoods, found increased pupil dilation and faster orientation to expressions of infant distress, but only in the highest income group. These results are consistent with maternal physiological and attentional sensitivity to infant distress cues but challenge the universality of this sensitivity across socioeconomic diversity.

Methylation of oxytocin related genes and early life trauma together shape the N170 response to human faces

Childhood trauma fundamentally shapes social cognition and basic processing of social cues, which frequently cascade into adverse behavioral outcomes. Recent studies indicate that epigenetic changes in oxytocin functioning might contribute to these long-term effects, although a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms is still lacking. The electroencephalographic N170 response to faces might capture a neural response at the core of these interactive effects of oxytocin gene methylation and childhood adversity, given that this response is considered to reflect fundamental face processing, to be susceptible to oxytocin administration and also to be a biomarker of various psychiatric disorders. We assessed the N170 response to neutral faces in relation to participant's (81, women) recalled childhood trauma, methylation of their oxytocin structural (OXTg) and oxytocin receptor (OXTRg) genes, and endogenous levels of cortisol and testosterone. Additionally, we investigated the interactive effect of OXTg methylation and CTQ across three face sets of varying maturity. Methylation of OXTg relates to a weakened N170 response towards adults, children and infants. Moreover, methylation of both OXTRg and OXTg shaped the directionality of adversity effects, predicting a weakened N170 response in those with high methylation and hyper-vigilance with participants with low methylation. Our results are the first to relate OXT(R)g methylation to the N170 response. They shed light on biological processes linking childhood adversity and epigenetic marks to altered behavior and potentially psychopathologies.

Facial recognition during early motherhood: Investigating the persistence of age and affect biases

Converging evidence demonstrates increased levels of sensitivity to infant faces in mothers. This may be reflective of a series of psychological and neurobiological changes that occur in the transition to, and during early, parenthood for the purpose of appropriate caregiving; however, this enhanced infant facial recognition is in contrast with the general adult literature regarding facial processing. In the current study, we aimed to replicate a prior study of emotion facial recognition in pregnant women in a sample of mothers with children under a year old, utilizing a paradigm in which adult and infant faces gradually changed from neutral expressions to either happy or sad expressions. Mothers were faster at the recognition of adult faces in comparison to infant faces, and were also faster at happy faces in comparison to sad faces. Results are discussed in context of the current processing literature regarding the perinatal period, and implications for the persistence of the own-age bias and happy face advantage are considered.

Does anxiety impact the neural processing of child faces in mothers of school-aged children? An ERP study using an emotional Go/NoGo task

Maternal anxiety during pregnancy and the early postpartum period is associated with heightened neural processing of neutral infant faces as measured by event-related potentials (ERPs). However, less is known about how anxiety shapes neural face processing in mothers of older children. In our study, 36 mothers of 8-10 year old children completed a Go/NoGo task consisting of neutral and emotional (happy, fearful) facial expressions posed by unfamiliar school-aged children while EEG was recorded. Higher levels of maternal anxiety -indexed via self-report- were associated with delayed behavioral responses to children's fearful faces and increased N170 and LPP amplitudes elicited by children's neutral faces. While anxiety was also positively related to the LPP elicited by children's emotional faces, it only led to increased N170 amplitude responses to children's fearful, but not happy, faces and only when they were NoGo cues. The study replicates and extends prior findings examining the impact of maternal anxiety on neural responses to neutral infant faces to later stages of parenting with further neural markers and emotional expressions being affected. Findings evidence the importance of studying these associations beyond infancy to increase our knowledge about processes potentially underlying the relation between anxiety and less optimal parenting across development.

Brain Responses to Emotional Infant Faces in New Mothers and Nulliparous Women

The experience of motherhood is one of the most salient events in a woman’s life. Motherhood is associated with a series of neurophysiological, psychological, and behavioral changes that allow women to better adapt to their new role as mothers. Infants communicate their needs and physiological states mainly through salient emotional expressions, and maternal responses to infant signals are critical for infant survival and development. In this study, we investigated the whole brain functional response to emotional infant faces in 20 new mothers and 22 nulliparous women during functional magnetic resonance imaging scans. New mothers showed higher brain activation in regions involved in infant facial expression processing and empathic and mentalizing networks than nulliparous women. Furthermore, magnitudes of the activation of the left parahippocampal gyrus and the left fusiform gyrus, recruited during facial expression processing, were positively correlated with empathic concern (EC) scores in new mothers when viewing emotional (happy-sad) faces contrasted to neutral faces. Taken together, these results indicate that the experience of being a mother affects human brain responses in visual and social cognitive brain areas and in brain areas associated with theory-of-mind related and empathic processing.

What a cute baby! Preliminary evidence from a fMRI study for the association between mothers' neural responses to infant faces and activation of the parental care system

Infant facial characteristics, i.e., baby schema, are thought to automatically elicit parenting behavior and affective orientation toward infants. Only a few studies, conducted in non-parents, have directly examined the neural underpinnings of this baby schema effect by manipulating distinctiveness of baby schema in infant faces. This study aims to further our understanding of the intuitive nature of parenting, by studying the baby schema effect in mothers of young children (at least one child aged between 2 and 6 years old). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to examine mothers' (N = 23) neural responses to unfamiliar infant faces varying in distinctiveness of baby schema. Also, it was studied how this neural activation to infant faces was associated with maternal nurturance. Results revealed that infant faces elicited widespread activation in bilateral visual cortices, the hippocampus, sensory-motor areas, parietal and frontal cortices, and the insula, which was not modulated by the distinctiveness of baby schema in the infant faces. Furthermore, higher self-reported maternal nurturance was related to increased neural responses to infant faces in the putamen and amygdala, brain regions known to be associated with reward and salience processing. These findings could suggest that in our small sample of mothers some of the core networks involved in reward and salience processing might be less sensitive to variation in distinctiveness of baby schema. Also, unfamiliar infant faces seem to be rewarding only for mothers who report high nurturance. These findings should be considered preliminary, because they need to be replicated in studies with larger samples.

Neural Responses to Infant Emotions and Emotional Self-Awareness in Mothers and Fathers during Pregnancy

Neuroscientific research has largely investigated the neurobiological correlates of maternal and (to a much lesser extent) paternal responsiveness in the post-partum period. In contrast, much less is known about the neural processing of infant emotions during pregnancy. Twenty mothers and 19 fathers were recruited independently during the third trimester of pregnancy. High-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was recorded while expectant parents passively viewed images representing distressed, ambiguous, happy, and neutral faces of unknown infants. Correlational analyses were performed to detect a link between neural responses to infant facial expressions and emotional self-awareness. In response to infant emotions, mothers and fathers showed similar cerebral activity in regions involved in high-order socio-affective processes. Mothers and fathers also showed different brain activity in premotor regions implicated in high-order motor control, in occipital regions involved in visuo-spatial information processing and visual mental imagery, as well as in inferior parietal regions involved in attention allocation. Low emotional self-awareness negatively correlated with activity in parietal regions subserving empathy in mothers, while it positively correlated with activity in temporal and occipital areas implicated in mentalizing and visual mental imagery in fathers. This study may enlarge knowledge on the neural response to infant emotions during pregnancy.

Attention bias to infant faces in pregnant women predicts maternal sensitivity

While research has shown that attention bias to infant faces is linked to parenting, this work is largely cross-sectional and limited to the postpartum period. Because the transition to motherhood from pregnancy to birth constitutes a sensitive period in cortical reorganization linked to the quality of mother-infant interactions, evaluating attention processes in the maternal cortex prior to the experience of mother-infant face-to-face interactions is critical. To assess behavioural attention and neural responses to infant faces in pregnant mothers, behavioral and electrocortical indices were collected using a Go/No Go task, in which infant and adult faces served as distractors. Results showed that heightened processing of infant faces relative to adult faces (behavioral and electrocortical indices) was related to observations of greater maternal sensitivity. These findings show that prenatal maternal attention bias to and the perceived salience of infant faces serves as an individual cognitive hallmark of maternal sensitivity that acts independently of caregiving experience.

Substance use and mothers' neural responses to infant cues

Substance use may influence mothers' responsiveness to their infants and negatively impact the parent-infant relationship. Maternal substance use may co-opt neural circuitry involved in caregiving, thus reducing the salience of infant cues and diminishing the sense of reward experienced by caring for infants. Gaps in understanding exist with regard to the mechanisms by which substance use operates to influence mothers' processing of infant cues and how this translates to caregiving. Therefore, we examined how substance use might relate to maternal neural responses to infant cues using event-related potentials (ERPs). Substance-using (n = 29) and nonsubstance-using (n = 29) mothers viewed photographs of infant faces and heard recordings of infant vocalizations while electroencephalography was recorded simultaneously. Three specific ERP components were used to examine initial processing of infant faces (N170) and cries (N100), and attentional allocation to infant faces and cries (P300). Substance-using mothers did not discriminate facial affect at early encoding stages (N170), were generally slower to orient to infant cries (N100), showed heightened responses to neutral faces (P300), and failed to adaptively differentiate between high-distress versus low-distress cries (P300). These differences may be important to caregiving behaviors associated with the formation of mother-child attachment. Implications are discussed, as are limitations and future directions.

Multimodal Recognition of Emotions in Music and Facial Expressions

The aim of the study was to investigate the neural processing of congruent vs. incongruent affective audiovisual information (facial expressions and music) by means of ERPs (Event Related Potentials) recordings. Stimuli were 200 infant faces displaying Happiness, Relaxation, Sadness, Distress and 32 piano musical pieces conveying the same emotional states (as specifically assessed). Music and faces were presented simultaneously, and paired so that in half cases they were emotionally congruent or incongruent. Twenty subjects were told to pay attention and respond to infrequent targets (adult neutral faces) while their EEG was recorded from 128 channels. The face-related N170 (160-180 ms) component was the earliest response affected by the emotional content of faces (particularly by distress), while visual P300 (250-450 ms) and auditory N400 (350-550 ms) responses were specifically modulated by the emotional content of both facial expressions and musical pieces. Face/music emotional incongruence elicited a wide N400 negativity indicating the detection of a mismatch in the expressed emotion. A swLORETA inverse solution applied to N400 (difference wave Incong. - Cong.), showed the crucial role of Inferior and Superior Temporal Gyri in the multimodal representation of emotional information extracted from faces and music. Furthermore, the prefrontal cortex (superior and medial, BA 10) was also strongly active, possibly supporting working memory. The data hints at a common system for representing emotional information derived by social cognition and music processing, including uncus and cuneus.