1
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Peng B, Huang JJ, Li Z, Zhang LI, Tao HW. Cross-modal enhancement of defensive behavior via parabigemino-collicular projections. Curr Biol 2024; 34:3616-3631.e5. [PMID: 39019036 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.06.052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/06/2024] [Revised: 05/19/2024] [Accepted: 06/20/2024] [Indexed: 07/19/2024]
Abstract
Effective detection and avoidance from environmental threats are crucial for animals' survival. Integration of sensory cues associated with threats across different modalities can significantly enhance animals' detection and behavioral responses. However, the neural circuit-level mechanisms underlying the modulation of defensive behavior or fear response under simultaneous multimodal sensory inputs remain poorly understood. Here, we report in mice that bimodal looming stimuli combining coherent visual and auditory signals elicit more robust defensive/fear reactions than unimodal stimuli. These include intensified escape and prolonged hiding, suggesting a heightened defensive/fear state. These various responses depend on the activity of the superior colliculus (SC), while its downstream nucleus, the parabigeminal nucleus (PBG), predominantly influences the duration of hiding behavior. PBG temporally integrates visual and auditory signals and enhances the salience of threat signals by amplifying SC sensory responses through its feedback projection to the visual layer of the SC. Our results suggest an evolutionarily conserved pathway in defense circuits for multisensory integration and cross-modality enhancement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Bo Peng
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA
| | - Junxiang J Huang
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Graduate Program in Biomedical and Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Zhong Li
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA
| | - Li I Zhang
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
| | - Huizhong Whit Tao
- Zilkha Neurogenetic Institute, Center for Neural Circuits and Sensory Processing Disorders, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA; Department of Physiology and Neuroscience, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
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2
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Varkevisser T, Geuze E, van Honk J. Amygdala fMRI-A Critical Appraisal of the Extant Literature. Neurosci Insights 2024; 19:26331055241270591. [PMID: 39148643 PMCID: PMC11325331 DOI: 10.1177/26331055241270591] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2024] [Accepted: 07/08/2024] [Indexed: 08/17/2024] Open
Abstract
Even before the advent of fMRI, the amygdala occupied a central space in the affective neurosciences. Yet this amygdala-centred view on emotion processing gained even wider acceptance after the inception of fMRI in the early 1990s, a landmark that triggered a goldrush of fMRI studies targeting the amygdala in vivo. Initially, this amygdala fMRI research was mostly confined to task-activation studies measuring the magnitude of the amygdala's response to emotional stimuli. Later, interest began to shift more towards the study of the amygdala's resting-state functional connectivity and task-based psychophysiological interactions. Later still, the test-retest reliability of amygdala fMRI came under closer scrutiny, while at the same time, amygdala-based real-time fMRI neurofeedback gained widespread popularity. Each of these major subdomains of amygdala fMRI research has left its marks on the field of affective neuroscience at large. The purpose of this review is to provide a critical assessment of this literature. By integrating the insights garnered by these research branches, we aim to answer the question: What part (if any) can amygdala fMRI still play within the current landscape of affective neuroscience? Our findings show that serious questions can be raised with regard to both the reliability and validity of amygdala fMRI. These conclusions force us to cast doubt on the continued viability of amygdala fMRI as a core pilar of the affective neurosciences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tim Varkevisser
- University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Brain Research and Innovation Center, Ministry of Defence, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Elbert Geuze
- University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Brain Research and Innovation Center, Ministry of Defence, Utrecht, The Netherlands
| | - Jack van Honk
- Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
- University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
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3
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Kam C. Enhancing Enneagram Therapy with Contemporary Research on the Conscious and Unconscious Mind. Integr Psychol Behav Sci 2024; 58:711-730. [PMID: 35381962 DOI: 10.1007/s12124-022-09685-5] [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] [Accepted: 03/20/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
The Enneagram is a personality framework with ancient philosophical underpinnings and cross cultural roots. It outlines nine different pathways of growth for nine different personalities. In recent years, it has started to gain traction in the peer reviewed level of research. Since the Enneagram has a conceptual versatility in addressing various levels and dimensions of the human psyche, it can both contribute and benefit from cross pollinating its insights with the latest scientific research on how the human mind works. One area of research that has the potential for this type of symbiotic partnership with the Enneagram is the study of the interaction between the conscious and unconscious mind. There is rich potential for the multi-leveled integration of contemporary findings on how the conscious and unconscious mind mutually interact with one another along with insights into personality structures from the Enneagram. These integrative insights have clinical implications and create possible directions for future research.
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4
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Weidner EM, Moratti S, Schindler S, Grewe P, Bien CG, Kissler J. Amygdala and cortical gamma-band responses to emotional faces are modulated by attention to valence. Psychophysiology 2024; 61:e14512. [PMID: 38174584 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14512] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2023] [Revised: 09/22/2023] [Accepted: 12/13/2023] [Indexed: 01/05/2024]
Abstract
The amygdala might support an attentional bias for emotional faces. However, whether and how selective attention toward a specific valence modulates this bias is not fully understood. Likewise, it is unclear whether amygdala and cortical signals respond to emotion and attention in a similar way. We recorded gamma-band activity (GBA, > 30 Hz) intracranially in the amygdalae of 11 patients with epilepsy and collected scalp recordings from 19 healthy participants. We presented angry, neutral, and happy faces randomly, and we denoted one valence as the target. Participants detected happy targets most quickly and accurately. In the amygdala, during attention to negative faces, low gamma-band activity (LGBA, < 90 Hz) increased for angry compared with happy faces from 160 ms. From 220 ms onward, amygdala high gamma-band activity (HGBA, > 90 Hz) was higher for angry and neutral faces than for happy ones. Monitoring neutral faces increased amygdala HGBA for emotions compared with neutral faces from 40 ms. Expressions were not differentiated in GBA while monitoring positive faces. On the scalp, only threat monitoring resulted in expression differentiation. Here, posterior LGBA was increased selectively for angry targets from 60 ms. The data show that GBA differentiation of emotional expressions is modulated by attention to valence: Top-down-controlled threat vigilance coordinates widespread GBA in favor of angry faces. Stimulus-driven emotion differentiation in amygdala GBA occurs during a neutral attentional focus. These findings align with a multi-pathway model of emotion processing and specify the role of GBA in this process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enya M Weidner
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Stephan Moratti
- Department of Experimental Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Philip Grewe
- Deptartment of Epileptology, Krankenhaus Mara, Bethel Epilepsy Center, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
- Clinical Neuropsychology and Epilepsy Research, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Christian G Bien
- Deptartment of Epileptology, Krankenhaus Mara, Bethel Epilepsy Center, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Johanna Kissler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
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5
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Yeung MK, Wan JCH, Chan MMK, Cheung SHY, Sze SCY, Siu WWY. Motivation and emotional distraction interact and affect executive functions. BMC Psychol 2024; 12:188. [PMID: 38581067 PMCID: PMC10998358 DOI: 10.1186/s40359-024-01695-9] [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: 09/21/2023] [Accepted: 03/28/2024] [Indexed: 04/07/2024] Open
Abstract
Previous research on cool-hot executive function (EF) interactions has examined the effects of motivation and emotional distraction on cool EF separately, focusing on one EF component at a time. Although both incentives and emotional distractors have been shown to modulate attention, how they interact and affect cool EF processes is still unclear. Here, we used an experimental paradigm that manipulated updating, inhibition, and shifting demands to determine the interactions of motivation and emotional distraction in the context of cool EF. Forty-five young adults (16 males, 29 females) completed the go/no-go (inhibition), two-back (updating), and task-switching (shifting) tasks. Monetary incentives were implemented to manipulate motivation, and task-irrelevant threatening or neutral faces were presented before the target stimulus to manipulate emotional distraction. We found that incentives significantly improved no-go accuracy, two-back accuracy, and reaction time (RT) switch cost. While emotional distractors had no significant effects on overall task performance, they abolished the incentive effects on no-go accuracy and RT switch cost. Altogether, these findings suggest that motivation and emotional distraction interact in the context of cool EF. Specifically, transient emotional distraction disrupts the upregulation of control activated by incentives. The present investigation has advanced knowledge about the relationship between cool and hot EF and highlights the importance of considering motivation-emotion interactions for a fuller understanding of control.
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Affiliation(s)
- Michael K Yeung
- Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China.
| | - Jaden Cheuk-Hei Wan
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China
| | - Michelle Mei-Ka Chan
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China
| | - Sam Ho-Yu Cheung
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China
| | - Steven Chun-Yui Sze
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China
| | - Winnie Wing-Yi Siu
- Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Hong Kong, China
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6
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Salsano I, Tain R, Giulietti G, Williams DP, Ottaviani C, Antonucci G, Thayer JF, Santangelo V. Negative emotions enhance memory-guided attention in a visual search task by increasing frontoparietal, insular, and parahippocampal cortical activity. Cortex 2024; 173:16-33. [PMID: 38354670 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2023.12.014] [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: 03/21/2023] [Revised: 08/18/2023] [Accepted: 12/12/2023] [Indexed: 02/16/2024]
Abstract
Previous literature demonstrated that long-term memory representations guide spatial attention during visual search in real-world pictures. However, it is currently unknown whether memory-guided visual search is affected by the emotional content of the picture. During functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), participants were asked to encode the position of high-contrast targets embedded in emotional (negative or positive) or neutral pictures. At retrieval, they performed a visual search for targets presented at the same location as during encoding, but at a much lower contrast. Behaviorally, participants detected more accurately targets presented in negative pictures compared to those in positive or neutral pictures. They were also faster in detecting targets presented at encoding in emotional (negative or positive) pictures than in neutral pictures, or targets not presented during encoding (i.e., memory-guided attention effect). At the neural level, we found increased activation in a large circuit of regions involving the dorsal and ventral frontoparietal cortex, insular and parahippocampal cortex, selectively during the detection of targets presented in negative pictures during encoding. We propose that these regions might form an integrated neural circuit recruited to select and process previously encoded target locations (i.e., memory-guided attention sustained by the frontoparietal cortex) embedded in emotional contexts (i.e., emotional contexts recollection supported by the parahippocampal cortex and emotional monitoring supported by the insular cortex). Ultimately, these findings reveal that negative emotions can enhance memory-guided visual search performance by increasing neural activity in a large-scale brain circuit, contributing to disentangle the complex relationship between emotion, attention, and memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilenia Salsano
- Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS, Rome, Italy; PhD Program in Behavioral Neuroscience, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy.
| | - Rongwen Tain
- Campus Center of Neuroimaging, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA
| | - Giovanni Giulietti
- Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS, Rome, Italy; SAIMLAL Department, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy
| | - DeWayne P Williams
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA
| | | | - Gabriella Antonucci
- Department of Psychology, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy; Santa Lucia Foundation, IRCCS, Rome, Italy
| | - Julian F Thayer
- Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA
| | - Valerio Santangelo
- Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation IRCCS, Rome, Italy; Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences & Education, University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy.
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7
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Chen Y, Zhao Q, Ding Y, Lu Y. Task relevance alters the effect of emotion on congruency judgments during action understanding. Conscious Cogn 2024; 120:103682. [PMID: 38554524 DOI: 10.1016/j.concog.2024.103682] [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: 07/09/2023] [Revised: 03/01/2024] [Accepted: 03/19/2024] [Indexed: 04/01/2024]
Abstract
The congruency judgments in action understanding helps individuals make timely adjustments to unexpected occurrence, and this process may be influenced by emotion. Previous research has showed contradictory effect of emotion on conflict processing, possibly due to the degree of relevance between emotion and task. However, to date, no study has systematically manipulated the relevance to explore how emotion affects congruency judgments in action understanding. We employed a cue-target paradigm and controlled the way emotional stimuli were presented on the target interface, setting up three experiments: emotion served as task-irrelevant distractor, task-irrelevant target and task-relevant target. The results showed that when emotion was irrelevant to the task, it impaired congruency judgements performance, regardless of a distractor or a target, while task-relevant emotion facilitated this process. These findings indicate that the impact of emotion on congruency judgements during action understanding depends on the degree of emotion-task relevance.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yiheng Chen
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, China
| | - Qiwei Zhao
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, China
| | - Yueyi Ding
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, China
| | - Yingzhi Lu
- School of Psychology, Shanghai University of Sport, China; Research Center for Exercise and Brain Science, Shanghai University of Sport, China; Key Laboratory of Sports Cognition Assessment and Regulation of the General Administration of Sport of China, Shanghai University of Sport, China.
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8
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Romero-Martínez Á, Beser M, Cerdá-Alberich L, Aparici F, Martí-Bonmatí L, Sarrate-Costa C, Lila M, Moya-Albiol L. The role of intimate partner violence perpetrators' resting state functional connectivity in treatment compliance and recidivism. Sci Rep 2024; 14:2472. [PMID: 38291063 PMCID: PMC10828382 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-52443-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/20/2023] [Accepted: 01/18/2024] [Indexed: 02/01/2024] Open
Abstract
To expand the scientific literature on how resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) (or the measurement of the strength of the coactivation of two brain regions over a sustained period of time) can be used to explain treatment compliance and recidivism among intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. Therefore, our first aim was to assess whether men convicted of IPV (n = 53) presented different rsFC patterns from a control group of non-violent (n = 47) men. We also analyzed if the rsFC of IPV perpetrators before staring the intervention program could explain treatment compliance and recidivism one year after the intervention ended. The rsFC was measured by applying a whole brain analysis during a resting period, which lasted 45 min. IPV perpetrators showed higher rsFC in the occipital brain areas compared to controls. Furthermore, there was a positive association between the occipital pole (OP) and temporal lobes (ITG) and a negative association between the occipital (e.g., occipital fusiform gyrus, visual network) and both the parietal lobe regions (e.g., supramarginal gyrus, parietal operculum cortex, lingual gyrus) and the putamen in IPV perpetrators. This pattern was the opposite in the control group. The positive association between many of these occipital regions and the parietal, frontal, and temporal regions explained treatment compliance. Conversely, treatment compliance was also explained by a reduced rsFC between the rostral prefrontal cortex and the frontal gyrus and both the occipital and temporal gyrus, and between the temporal and the occipital and cerebellum areas and the sensorimotor superior networks. Last, the enhanced rsFC between the occipital regions and both the cerebellum and temporal gyrus predicted recidivism. Our results highlight that there are specific rsFC patterns that can distinguish IPV perpetrators from controls. These rsFC patterns could be useful to explain treatment compliance and recidivism among IPV perpetrators.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - María Beser
- Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230), La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | - Leonor Cerdá-Alberich
- Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230), La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | - Fernando Aparici
- Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230), La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | - Luis Martí-Bonmatí
- Biomedical Imaging Research Group (GIBI230), La Fe Health Research Institute, Valencia, Spain
| | | | - Marisol Lila
- Department of Social Psychology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
| | - Luis Moya-Albiol
- Department of Psychobiology, University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain
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9
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Yu Z, Moses E, Kritikos A, Pegna AJ. Looming Angry Faces: Preliminary Evidence of Differential Electrophysiological Dynamics for Filtered Stimuli via Low and High Spatial Frequencies. Brain Sci 2024; 14:98. [PMID: 38275518 PMCID: PMC10813450 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci14010098] [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: 10/23/2023] [Revised: 01/15/2024] [Accepted: 01/17/2024] [Indexed: 01/27/2024] Open
Abstract
Looming motion interacts with threatening emotional cues in the initial stages of visual processing. However, the underlying neural networks are unclear. The current study investigated if the interactive effect of threat elicited by angry and looming faces is favoured by rapid, magnocellular neural pathways and if exogenous or endogenous attention influences such processing. Here, EEG/ERP techniques were used to explore the early ERP responses to moving emotional faces filtered for high spatial frequencies (HSF) and low spatial frequencies (LSF). Experiment 1 applied a passive-viewing paradigm, presenting filtered angry and neutral faces in static, approaching, or receding motions on a depth-cued background. In the second experiment, broadband faces (BSF) were included, and endogenous attention was directed to the expression of faces. Our main results showed that regardless of attentional control, P1 was enhanced by BSF angry faces, but neither HSF nor LSF faces drove the effect of facial expressions. Such findings indicate that looming motion and threatening expressions are integrated rapidly at the P1 level but that this processing relies neither on LSF nor on HSF information in isolation. The N170 was enhanced for BSF angry faces regardless of attention but was enhanced for LSF angry faces during passive viewing. These results suggest the involvement of a neural pathway reliant on LSF information at the N170 level. Taken together with previous reports from the literature, this may indicate the involvement of multiple parallel neural pathways during early visual processing of approaching emotional faces.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | - Alan J. Pegna
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Saint Lucia, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia; (Z.Y.); (E.M.); (A.K.)
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10
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Spence JS, Turner MP, Rypma B, D'Esposito M, Chapman SB. Toward precision brain health: accurate prediction of a cognitive index trajectory using neuroimaging metrics. Cereb Cortex 2024; 34:bhad435. [PMID: 37968568 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhad435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/23/2023] [Revised: 10/25/2023] [Accepted: 10/26/2023] [Indexed: 11/17/2023] Open
Abstract
The goal of precision brain health is to accurately predict individuals' longitudinal patterns of brain change. We trained a machine learning model to predict changes in a cognitive index of brain health from neurophysiologic metrics. A total of 48 participants (ages 21-65) completed a sensorimotor task during 2 functional magnetic resonance imaging sessions 6 mo apart. Hemodynamic response functions (HRFs) were parameterized using traditional (amplitude, dispersion, latency) and novel (curvature, canonicality) metrics, serving as inputs to a neural network model that predicted gain on indices of brain health (cognitive factor scores) for each participant. The optimal neural network model successfully predicted substantial gain on the cognitive index of brain health with 90% accuracy (determined by 5-fold cross-validation) from 3 HRF parameters: amplitude change, dispersion change, and similarity to a canonical HRF shape at baseline. For individuals with canonical baseline HRFs, substantial gain in the index is overwhelmingly predicted by decreases in HRF amplitude. For individuals with non-canonical baseline HRFs, substantial gain in the index is predicted by congruent changes in both HRF amplitude and dispersion. Our results illustrate that neuroimaging measures can track cognitive indices in healthy states, and that machine learning approaches using novel metrics take important steps toward precision brain health.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeffrey S Spence
- Center for BrainHealth, 2200 West Mockingbird Road, Dallas, TX 75235, United States
| | - Monroe P Turner
- Center for BrainHealth, 2200 West Mockingbird Road, Dallas, TX 75235, United States
| | - Bart Rypma
- Center for BrainHealth, 2200 West Mockingbird Road, Dallas, TX 75235, United States
| | - Mark D'Esposito
- Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, University of California Berkeley, 175 Li Ka Shing Center, MC#3370, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
| | - Sandra Bond Chapman
- Center for BrainHealth, 2200 West Mockingbird Road, Dallas, TX 75235, United States
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11
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Schniter E, Shields TW. Better-than-chance prediction of cooperative behaviour from first and second impressions. EVOLUTIONARY HUMAN SCIENCES 2024; 6:e2. [PMID: 38516366 PMCID: PMC10955359 DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2023.30] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2023] [Revised: 11/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/12/2023] [Indexed: 03/23/2024] Open
Abstract
Could cooperation among strangers be facilitated by adaptations that use sparse information to accurately predict cooperative behaviour? We hypothesise that predictions are influenced by beliefs, descriptions, appearance and behavioural history available for first and second impressions. We also hypothesise that predictions improve when more information is available. We conducted a two-part study. First, we recorded thin-slice videos of university students just before their choices in a repeated Prisoner's Dilemma with matched partners. Second, a worldwide sample of raters evaluated each player using videos, photos, only gender labels or neither images nor labels. Raters guessed players' first-round Prisoner's Dilemma choices and then their second-round choices after reviewing first-round behavioural histories. Our design allows us to investigate incremental effects of gender, appearance and behavioural history gleaned during first and second impressions. Predictions become more accurate and better-than-chance when gender, appearance or behavioural history is added. However, these effects are not incrementally cumulative. Predictions from treatments showing player appearance were no more accurate than those from treatments revealing gender labels and predictions from videos were no more accurate than those from photos. These results demonstrate how people accurately predict cooperation under sparse information conditions, helping explain why conditional cooperation is common among strangers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Eric Schniter
- Economic Science Institute, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
- Center for the Study of Human Nature, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA 92831, USA
- Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
- Division of Anthropology, California State University Fullerton, Fullerton, CA 92831, USA
| | - Timothy W. Shields
- Economic Science Institute, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
- Argyros School of Business and Economics, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866, USA
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12
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Zhao D, Shen X, Li S, He W. The Impact of Spatial Frequency on the Perception of Crowd Emotion: An fMRI Study. Brain Sci 2023; 13:1699. [PMID: 38137147 PMCID: PMC10742193 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci13121699] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/09/2023] [Revised: 12/06/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023] Open
Abstract
Recognizing the emotions of faces in a crowd is crucial for understanding overall behavior and intention as well as for smooth and friendly social interactions. However, it is unclear whether the spatial frequency of faces affects the discrimination of crowd emotion. Although high- and low-spatial-frequency information for individual faces is processed by distinct neural channels, there is a lack of evidence on how this applies to crowd faces. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate neural representations of crowd faces at different spatial frequencies. Thirty-three participants were asked to compare whether a test face was happy or more fearful than a crowd face that varied in high, low, and broad spatial frequencies. Our findings revealed that fearful faces with low spatial frequencies were easier to recognize in terms of accuracy (78.9%) and response time (927 ms). Brain regions, such as the fusiform gyrus, located in the ventral visual stream, were preferentially activated in high spatial frequency crowds, which, however, were the most difficult to recognize behaviorally (68.9%). Finally, the right inferior frontal gyrus was found to be better activated in the broad spatial frequency crowds. Our study suggests that people are more sensitive to fearful crowd faces with low spatial frequency and that high spatial frequency does not promote crowd face recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dongfang Zhao
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; (D.Z.); (X.S.); (S.L.)
- Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China
| | - Xiangnan Shen
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; (D.Z.); (X.S.); (S.L.)
- Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China
| | - Shuaixia Li
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; (D.Z.); (X.S.); (S.L.)
- Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China
| | - Weiqi He
- Research Center of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian 116029, China; (D.Z.); (X.S.); (S.L.)
- Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Neuroscience, Liaoning Province, Dalian 116029, China
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13
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Levitas DJ, Folco KL, James TW. Impact of aversive affect on neural mechanisms of categorization decisions. Brain Behav 2023; 13:e3312. [PMID: 37969052 PMCID: PMC10726818 DOI: 10.1002/brb3.3312] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/28/2023] [Revised: 09/13/2023] [Accepted: 10/24/2023] [Indexed: 11/17/2023] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Many theories contend that evidence accumulation is a critical component of decision-making. Cognitive accumulation models typically interpret two main parameters: a drift rate and decision threshold. The former is the rate of accumulation, based on the quality of evidence, and the latter is the amount of evidence required for a decision. Some studies have found neural signals that mimic evidence accumulators and can be described by the two parameters. However, few studies have related these neural parameters to experimental manipulations of sensory data or memory representations. Here, we investigated the influence of affective salience on neural accumulation parameters. High affective salience has been repeatedly shown to influence decision-making, yet its effect on neural evidence accumulation has been unexamined. METHODS The current study used a two-choice object categorization task of body images (feet or hands). Half the images in each category were high in affective salience because they contained highly aversive features (gore and mutilation). To study such quick categorization decisions with a relatively slow technique like functional magnetic resonance imaging, we used a gradual reveal paradigm to lengthen cognitive processing time through the gradual "unmasking" of stimuli. RESULTS Because the aversive features were task-irrelevant, high affective salience produced a distractor effect, slowing decision time. In visual accumulation regions of interest, high affective salience produced a longer time to peak activation. Unexpectedly, the later peak appeared to be the product of changes to both drift rate and decision threshold. The drift rate for high affective salience was shallower, and the decision threshold was greater. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of an experimental manipulation of sensory data or memory representations that changed the neural decision threshold. CONCLUSION These findings advance our knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying affective responses in general and the influence of high affective salience on object representations and categorization decisions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel J. Levitas
- Department of Psychological and Brain SciencesIndiana UniversityBloomingtonIndianaUSA
| | - Kess L. Folco
- Department of Psychological and Brain SciencesIndiana UniversityBloomingtonIndianaUSA
| | - Thomas W. James
- Department of Psychological and Brain SciencesIndiana UniversityBloomingtonIndianaUSA
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14
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Ziereis A, Schacht A. Gender congruence and emotion effects in cross-modal associative learning: Insights from ERPs and pupillary responses. Psychophysiology 2023; 60:e14380. [PMID: 37387451 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14380] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Revised: 05/01/2023] [Accepted: 06/17/2023] [Indexed: 07/01/2023]
Abstract
Social and emotional cues from faces and voices are highly relevant and have been reliably demonstrated to attract attention involuntarily. However, there are mixed findings as to which degree associating emotional valence to faces occurs automatically. In the present study, we tested whether inherently neutral faces gain additional relevance by being conditioned with either positive, negative, or neutral vocal affect bursts. During learning, participants performed a gender-matching task on face-voice pairs without explicit emotion judgments of the voices. In the test session on a subsequent day, only the previously associated faces were presented and had to be categorized regarding gender. We analyzed event-related potentials (ERPs), pupil diameter, and response times (RTs) of N = 32 subjects. Emotion effects were found in auditory ERPs and RTs during the learning session, suggesting that task-irrelevant emotion was automatically processed. However, ERPs time-locked to the conditioned faces were mainly modulated by the task-relevant information, that is, the gender congruence of the face and voice, but not by emotion. Importantly, these ERP and RT effects of learned congruence were not limited to learning but extended to the test session, that is, after removing the auditory stimuli. These findings indicate successful associative learning in our paradigm, but it did not extend to the task-irrelevant dimension of emotional relevance. Therefore, cross-modal associations of emotional relevance may not be completely automatic, even though the emotion was processed in the voice.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annika Ziereis
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Anne Schacht
- Department for Cognition, Emotion and Behavior, Affective Neuroscience and Psychophysiology Laboratory, Institute of Psychology, Georg-August-University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
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15
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Entzmann L, Guyader N, Kauffmann L, Peyrin C, Mermillod M. Detection of emotional faces: The role of spatial frequencies and local features. Vision Res 2023; 211:108281. [PMID: 37421829 DOI: 10.1016/j.visres.2023.108281] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Revised: 06/18/2023] [Accepted: 06/28/2023] [Indexed: 07/10/2023]
Abstract
Models of emotion processing suggest that threat-related stimuli such as fearful faces can be detected based on the rapid extraction of low spatial frequencies. However, this remains debated as other models argue that the decoding of facial expressions occurs with a more flexible use of spatial frequencies. The purpose of this study was to clarify the role of spatial frequencies and differences in luminance contrast between spatial frequencies, on the detection of facial emotions. We used a saccadic choice task in which emotional-neutral face pairs were presented and participants were asked to make a saccade toward the neutral or the emotional (happy or fearful) face. Faces were displayed either in low, high, or broad spatial frequencies. Results showed that participants were better to saccade toward the emotional face. They were also better for high or broad than low spatial frequencies, and the accuracy was higher with a happy target. An analysis of the eye and mouth saliency ofour stimuli revealed that the mouth saliency of the target correlates with participants' performance. Overall, this study underlines the importance of local more than global information, and of the saliency of the mouth region in the detection of emotional and neutral faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Léa Entzmann
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France; Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, 38000 Grenoble, France; Icelandic Vision Lab, School of Health Sciences, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland.
| | - Nathalie Guyader
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Grenoble INP, GIPSA-lab, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Louise Kauffmann
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Carole Peyrin
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
| | - Martial Mermillod
- Univ. Grenoble Alpes, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc, CNRS, LPNC, 38000 Grenoble, France
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16
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Qiu Z, Lei X, Becker SI, Pegna AJ. Faces capture spatial attention only when we want them to: An inattentional blindness EEG study. Biol Psychol 2023; 183:108665. [PMID: 37619811 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108665] [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: 05/13/2023] [Revised: 08/16/2023] [Accepted: 08/21/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
Previous research on emotional face processing has shown that emotional faces such as fearful faces may be processed without visual awareness. However, evidence for nonconscious attention capture by fearful faces is limited. In fact, studies using sensory manipulation of awareness (e.g., backward masking paradigms) have shown that fearful faces do not attract attention during subliminal viewings nor when they were task-irrelevant. Here, we used a three-phase inattentional blindness paradigm and electroencephalography to examine whether faces (fearful and neutral) capture attention under different conditions of awareness and task-relevancy. We found that the electrophysiological marker for attention capture, the N2-posterior-contralateral (N2pc), was elicited by face stimuli only when participants were aware of the faces and when they were task-relevant (phase 3). When participants were unaware of the presence of faces (phase 1) or when the faces were irrelevant to the task (phase 2), no N2pc was observed. Together with our previous work, we concluded that fearful faces, or faces in general, do not attract attention unless we want them to.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zeguo Qiu
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
| | - Xue Lei
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia
| | - Stefanie I Becker
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia
| | - Alan J Pegna
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia
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17
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Gong M, Chen Y, Li F, Lin Z. The availability of attentional resources modulates the anger superiority effect. Psych J 2023; 12:628-636. [PMID: 37421365 DOI: 10.1002/pchj.664] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2022] [Accepted: 05/16/2023] [Indexed: 07/10/2023]
Abstract
It is much debated whether there is an anger superiority effect (ASE) in the recognition of facial expressions. Recent research has shown that the attentional demand of a task plays a vital role in the emergence and magnitude of the ASE. However, only a visual crowding task was employed to manipulate attentional demands, and it is unclear whether the emergence and magnitude of the ASE was contingent on the availability of attentional resources in general. The present study employed a dual-task paradigm to manipulate the availability of attentional resources for facial expression discrimination in which participants were instructed to perform a central letter discrimination task and a peripheral facial expression discrimination task concurrently. Experiment 1 showed an ASE in the dual task but no ASE was yielded when the facial expression discrimination task was performed alone. Experiment 2 replicated this finding and further demonstrated a gradual shift from no ASE to an attenuated ASE and finally to a strong ASE as attentional resources that were available for facial expression discrimination gradually became limited. Together, these results suggest that the emergence and magnitude of the ASE is modulated by the availability of attentional resources, which supports an Attentional Demands Modulation Hypothesis of the ASE.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mingliang Gong
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People's Republic of China
| | - Yufei Chen
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People's Republic of China
| | - Fanghui Li
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People's Republic of China
| | - Zhen Lin
- School of Psychology, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, People's Republic of China
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18
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Castro AA, Hummel JE, Berenbaum H. An experimental and simulation study of the impact of emotional information on analogical reasoning. Cognition 2023; 238:105510. [PMID: 37336023 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105510] [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: 08/19/2021] [Revised: 06/04/2023] [Accepted: 06/05/2023] [Indexed: 06/21/2023]
Abstract
We investigated whether and how emotional information would affect analogical reasoning. We hypothesized that task-irrelevant emotional information would impair performance whereas task-relevant emotional information would enhance it. In Study 1, 233 undergraduates completed a novel version of the People Pieces Task (Emotional Faces People Task), an analogical reasoning task in which the task characters displayed emotional or neutral facial expressions (within-participants). The emotional faces were relevant or irrelevant to the task (between-participants). We simulated the behavioral results using the Learning and Inference with Schemas and Analogies (LISA) model of relational reasoning. LISA is a neurally plausible, symbolic-connectionist computational model of analogical reasoning. In comparison to neutral trials, participants were slower but more accurate on emotion-relevant trials, and were faster but less accurate on emotion-irrelevant trials. Simulations using the LISA model demonstrated that it is possible to account for the effects of emotional information on reasoning in terms of how emotional stimuli attract attention during a reasoning task. In Study 2, 255 undergraduates completed the Emotional Faces People Task at either a high- or low-working memory load. The high working memory load condition of Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1, showing that participants were more accurate on emotion-relevant trials than on emotion-irrelevant trials; in Study 2, this increased accuracy could not be accounted for by a speed-accuracy tradeoff. The working memory manipulation influenced the manner in which the congruence (with the correct answer) of emotion-irrelevant emotion influenced performance. Simulations using the LISA model showed that manipulating the salience of emotion, the error penalty, as well as vigilance (which determines the likelihood that LISA will notice it has attended to an irrelevant relation), could reasonably reproduce the behavioral results of both low and high working memory load conditions of Study 2.
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19
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Babenko VV, Yavna DV, Ermakov PN, Anokhina PV. Nonlocal contrast calculated by the second order visual mechanisms and its significance in identifying facial emotions. F1000Res 2023; 10:274. [PMID: 37767361 PMCID: PMC10521119 DOI: 10.12688/f1000research.28396.2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 09/29/2023] Open
Abstract
Background: Previously obtained results indicate that faces are / preattentively/ detected in the visual scene very fast, and information on facial expression is rapidly extracted at the lower levels of the visual system. At the same time different facial attributes make different contributions in facial expression recognition. However, it is known, among the preattentive mechanisms there are none that would be selective for certain facial features, such as eyes or mouth. The aim of our study was to identify a candidate for the role of such a mechanism. Our assumption was that the most informative areas of the image are those characterized by spatial heterogeneity, particularly with nonlocal contrast changes. These areas may be identified / in the human visual system/ by the second-order visual / mechanisms/ filters selective to contrast modulations of brightness gradients. Methods: We developed a software program imitating the operation of these / mechanisms/ filters and finding areas of contrast heterogeneity in the image. Using this program, we extracted areas with maximum, minimum and medium contrast modulation amplitudes from the initial face images, then we used these to make three variants of one and the same face. The faces were demonstrated to the observers along with other objects synthesized the same way. The participants had to identify faces and define facial emotional expressions. Results: It was found that the greater is the contrast modulation amplitude of the areas shaping the face, the more precisely the emotion is identified. Conclusions: The results suggest that areas with a greater increase in nonlocal contrast are more informative in facial images, and the second-order visual / mechanisms/ filters can claim the role of /filters/ elements that detect areas of interest, attract visual attention and are windows through which subsequent levels of visual processing receive valuable information.
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Affiliation(s)
- Vitaly V. Babenko
- Department of Psychophysiology and Clinical Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Education Sciences, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation
| | - Denis V. Yavna
- Department of Psychophysiology and Clinical Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Education Sciences, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation
| | - Pavel N. Ermakov
- Department of Psychophysiology and Clinical Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Education Sciences, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation
| | - Polina V. Anokhina
- Department of Psychophysiology and Clinical Psychology, Academy of Psychology and Education Sciences, Southern Federal University, Rostov-on-Don, Russian Federation
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20
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Qiu Z, Becker SI, Xia H, Hamblin-Frohman Z, Pegna AJ. Fixation-related electrical potentials during a free visual search task reveal the timing of visual awareness. iScience 2023; 26:107148. [PMID: 37408689 PMCID: PMC10319232 DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107148] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/17/2022] [Revised: 04/26/2023] [Accepted: 06/12/2023] [Indexed: 07/07/2023] Open
Abstract
It has been repeatedly claimed that emotional faces readily capture attention, and that they may be processed without awareness. Yet some observations cast doubt on these assertions. Part of the problem may lie in the experimental paradigms employed. Here, we used a free viewing visual search task during electroencephalographic recordings, where participants searched for either fearful or neutral facial expressions among distractor expressions. Fixation-related potentials were computed for fearful and neutral targets and the response compared for stimuli consciously reported or not. We showed that awareness was associated with an electrophysiological negativity starting at around 110 ms, while emotional expressions were distinguished on the N170 and early posterior negativity only when stimuli were consciously reported. These results suggest that during unconstrained visual search, the earliest electrical correlate of awareness may emerge as early as 110 ms, and fixating at an emotional face without reporting it may not produce any unconscious processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zeguo Qiu
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Stefanie I. Becker
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Hongfeng Xia
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
| | | | - Alan J. Pegna
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia
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21
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Riontino L, Fournier R, Lapteva A, Silvestrini N, Schwartz S, Corradi-Dell'Acqua C. Cognitive exertion affects the appraisal of one's own and other people's pain. Sci Rep 2023; 13:8165. [PMID: 37208455 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35103-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2023] [Accepted: 05/12/2023] [Indexed: 05/21/2023] Open
Abstract
Correctly evaluating others' pain is a crucial prosocial ability. In both clinical and private settings, caregivers assess their other people's pain, sometimes under the effect of poor sleep and high workload and fatigue. However, the effect played by such cognitive strain in the appraisal of others' pain remains unclear. Fifty participants underwent one of two demanding tasks, involving either working memory (Experiment 1: N-Back task) or cognitive interference (Experiment 2: Stroop task). After each task, participants were exposed to painful laser stimulations at three intensity levels (low, medium, high), or video-clips of patients experiencing three intensity levels of pain (low, medium, high). Participants rated the intensity of each pain event on a visual analogue scale. We found that the two tasks influenced rating of both one's own and others' pain, by decreasing the sensitivity to medium and high events. This was observed either when comparing the demanding condition to a control (Stroop), or when modelling linearly the difficulty/performance of each depleting task (N-Back). We provide converging evidence that cognitive exertion affects the subsequent appraisal of one's own and likewise others' pain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura Riontino
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
- Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
- University of Geneva - Campus Biotech, Chemin Des Mines 9, 1211, Geneva, Switzerland.
| | - Raphaël Fournier
- Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | | | - Nicolas Silvestrini
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Sophie Schwartz
- Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Geneva Neuroscience Center, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
| | - Corrado Corradi-Dell'Acqua
- Department of Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Department of Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
- Geneva Neuroscience Center, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
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22
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Leistiko NM, Madanat L, Yeung WKA, Stone JM. Effects of gamma frequency binaural beats on attention and anxiety. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY 2023:1-8. [PMID: 37359672 PMCID: PMC10157589 DOI: 10.1007/s12144-023-04681-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/15/2023] [Indexed: 06/28/2023]
Abstract
Binaural beats (BB) are an auditory phenomenon produced from a combination of two sine waves with slightly different frequencies presented to each ear. Previous research has implicated the role of BBs through brainwave entrainment in potentially giving rise to benefits ranging from enhanced memory and attention to reduced anxiety and stress. Here, we investigated the effect of gamma (40-Hz) BBs on attention using the attention network test (ANT), a previously unused task that assesses three subtypes of attention: Alerting, Orienting, and Executive Control. Fifty-eight healthy adults performed the ANT remotely under the exposure of 340-Hz BBs and a 380-Hz control tone. All completed a rating scale for levels of anxiety before and after each exposure. Performance on the ANT task (reaction time and error rates) between BB and control groups was evaluated using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. We found no significant differences in Reaction Time (RT), Error Rate (ER), or the efficacy of the Attention Networks (AN) between the experimental and control conditions (p > 0.05). We found no effect of BB on self-rated measures of anxiety. Our findings do not provide evidence for improvement in attention with gamma BB. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-023-04681-3.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Louay Madanat
- King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, London, UK
| | | | - James M. Stone
- King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience, London, UK
- Brighton and Sussex Medical School, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
- Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, Eastbourne, BN21 2UD UK
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Gnoni V, Mesquita M, O’Regan D, Delogu A, Chakalov I, Antal A, Young AH, Bucks RS, Jackson ML, Rosenzweig I. Distinct cognitive changes in male patients with obstructive sleep apnoea without co-morbidities. FRONTIERS IN SLEEP 2023; 2:1097946. [PMID: 38213473 PMCID: PMC7615516 DOI: 10.3389/frsle.2023.1097946] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2024]
Abstract
Introduction Obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) is a multisystem, debilitating, chronic disorder of breathing during sleep, resulting in a relatively consistent pattern of cognitive deficits. More recently, it has been argued that those cognitive deficits, especially in middle-aged patients, may be driven by cardiovascular and metabolic comorbidities, rather than by distinct OSA-processes, such as are for example ensuing nocturnal intermittent hypoxaemia, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation, and sleep fragmentation. Methods Thus, we undertook to define cognitive performance in a group of 27 middle-aged male patients with untreated OSA, who had no concomitant comorbidities, compared with seven matched controls (AHI mean ± S.D.: 1.9 ± 1.4 events/h; mean age 34.0 ± 9.3 years; mean BMI 23.8 ± 2.3 kg/m2). Of the 27 patients, 16 had mild OSA (AHI mean ± S.D.:11.7 ± 4.0 events/h; mean age 42.6 ± 8.2 years; mean BMI 26.7 ± 4.1 kg/m2), and 11 severe OSA (AHI 41.8 ± 20.7 events/h; age: 46.9 ± 10.9 years, BMI: 28.0 ± 3.2 kg/m2). Results In our patient cohort, we demonstrate poorer executive-functioning, visuospatial memory, and deficits in vigilance sustained attention, psychomotor and impulse control. Remarkably, we also report, for the first time, effects on social cognition in this group of male, middle-aged OSA patients. Conclusion Our findings suggest that distinct, OSA-driven processes may be sufficient for cognitive changes to occur as early as in middle age, in otherwise healthy individuals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Valentina Gnoni
- Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre, Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | | | - David O’Regan
- Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre, Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- Sleep Disorder Centre, Nuffield House, Guy’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom
- Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Alessio Delogu
- Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Ivan Chakalov
- Department of Anesthesiology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Andrea Antal
- Department of Neurology, University Medical Center Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany
| | - Allan H. Young
- Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- South London and Maudsley National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, Bethlem Royal Hospital, Beckenham, United Kingdom
| | - Romola S. Bucks
- School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
- The Raine Study, School of Population and Global Health, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia
| | - Melinda L. Jackson
- Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
| | - Ivana Rosenzweig
- Sleep and Brain Plasticity Centre, Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
- Sleep Disorder Centre, Nuffield House, Guy’s Hospital, London, United Kingdom
- Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King’s College London, London, United Kingdom
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Long H, Peluso N, Baker CI, Japee S, Taubert J. A database of heterogeneous faces for studying naturalistic expressions. Sci Rep 2023; 13:5383. [PMID: 37012369 PMCID: PMC10070342 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32659-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/29/2022] [Accepted: 03/30/2023] [Indexed: 04/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Facial expressions are thought to be complex visual signals, critical for communication between social agents. Most prior work aimed at understanding how facial expressions are recognized has relied on stimulus databases featuring posed facial expressions, designed to represent putative emotional categories (such as 'happy' and 'angry'). Here we use an alternative selection strategy to develop the Wild Faces Database (WFD); a set of one thousand images capturing a diverse range of ambient facial behaviors from outside of the laboratory. We characterized the perceived emotional content in these images using a standard categorization task in which participants were asked to classify the apparent facial expression in each image. In addition, participants were asked to indicate the intensity and genuineness of each expression. While modal scores indicate that the WFD captures a range of different emotional expressions, in comparing the WFD to images taken from other, more conventional databases, we found that participants responded more variably and less specifically to the wild-type faces, perhaps indicating that natural expressions are more multiplexed than a categorical model would predict. We argue that this variability can be employed to explore latent dimensions in our mental representation of facial expressions. Further, images in the WFD were rated as less intense and more genuine than images taken from other databases, suggesting a greater degree of authenticity among WFD images. The strong positive correlation between intensity and genuineness scores demonstrating that even the high arousal states captured in the WFD were perceived as authentic. Collectively, these findings highlight the potential utility of the WFD as a new resource for bridging the gap between the laboratory and real world in studies of expression recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Houqiu Long
- The School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
| | - Natalie Peluso
- The School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
| | - Chris I Baker
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Shruti Japee
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA
| | - Jessica Taubert
- The School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia.
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, MD, USA.
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Lodha S, Gupta R. Are You Distracted by Pleasure? Practice Mindfulness Meditation. JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE ENHANCEMENT 2023. [DOI: 10.1007/s41465-023-00257-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 03/28/2023]
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Ye S, So JJM, Ng TK, Ma MZ. The day-of-week (DOW) effect on liberalism-conservatism: Evidence from a large-scale online survey in China. Front Psychol 2023; 13:1074334. [PMID: 36865674 PMCID: PMC9971015 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1074334] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/19/2022] [Accepted: 12/29/2022] [Indexed: 02/16/2023] Open
Abstract
Introduction Past research has shown that psychological states tend to fluctuate across the days of a week, which is referred to as the day-of-week (DOW) effect. This study investigated the DOW effect on liberalism-conservatism among Chinese people by testing two competing hypotheses. According to the cognitive states hypothesis, it was predicted that liberalism would be high on Mondays but gradually decrease to Fridays due to the depletion of cognitive resources over the weekdays. In contrast, the affective states hypothesis predicted the opposite, considering the more positive affect brought by the approaching weekends. Both hypotheses predicted the level of liberalism would peak at weekends. Methods Data (n = 171,830) were collected via an online questionnaire, the Chinese Political Compass (CPC) survey, which includes 50 items to measure people' liberalism-conservatism in three domains (i.e., political, economic, and social). Results The results showed the level of liberalism decreased gradually from Mondays until Wednesdays, rebounded from Wednesdays to Fridays, and peaked at weekends. Discussion The V-shaped pattern suggested that the DOW fluctuation in liberalism-conservatism could derive from the synergy of both cognitive and affective processes, instead of either one alone. The findings have important implications for practice and policy-making, including the recent pilot scheme of 4-day workweek.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shengquan Ye
- Department of Social and Behavioural Science, Colleague of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China,*Correspondence: Shengquan Ye, ✉
| | - Justin Juk Man So
- Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| | - Ting Kin Ng
- Department of Psychology, Lingnan University, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong SAR, China
| | - Mac Zewei Ma
- Department of Social and Behavioural Science, Colleague of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China
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Attentional modulation as a mechanism for enhanced facial emotion discrimination: The case of action video game players. COGNITIVE, AFFECTIVE & BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE 2023; 23:276-289. [PMID: 36670293 PMCID: PMC10050043 DOI: 10.3758/s13415-022-01055-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/21/2022] [Indexed: 01/21/2023]
Abstract
Action video game players (AVGPs) outperform nonvideo game players (NVGPs) on a wide variety of attentional tasks, mediating benefits to perceptual and cognitive decision processes. A key issue in the literature is the extent to which such benefits transfer beyond cognition. Using steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) as a neural measure of attentional resource allocation, we investigated whether the attentional benefit of AVGPs generalizes to the processing of rapidly presented facial emotions. AVGPs (n = 36) and NVGPs (n = 32) performed a novel, attention-demanding emotion discrimination task, requiring the identification of a target emotion in one of two laterally presented streams of emotional faces. The emotional faces flickered at either 2.0 Hz or 2.5 Hz. AVGPs outperformed NVGPs at detecting the target emotions regardless of the type of emotion. Correspondingly, attentional modulation of the SSVEP at parieto-occipital recording sites was larger in AVGPs compared with NVGPs. This difference appeared to be driven by a larger response to attended information, as opposed to a reduced response to irrelevant distractor information. Exploratory analyses confirmed that this novel paradigm elicited the expected pattern of event-related potentials associated with target detection and error processing. These components did not, however, differ between groups. Overall, the results indicate enhanced discrimination of facial emotions in AVGPs arising from enhanced attentional processing of emotional information. This presents evidence for the attentional advantage of AVGPs to extend beyond perceptual and cognitive processes.
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Higher polygenic risk scores for anxiety disorders are associated with reduced area in the anterior cingulate gyrus. J Affect Disord 2023; 320:291-297. [PMID: 36150406 DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2022.09.041] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Revised: 08/27/2022] [Accepted: 09/19/2022] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
Anxiety disorders are heterogeneous, show a moderate genetic contribution and are associated with inconsistent cortical structure alterations. Here, we investigated whether genetic factors for anxiety disorders contribute to cortical alterations by conducting polygenic risk score (PRS) analyses. We calculated PRSs for anxiety disorders at several P value thresholds (from PT ≤ 5.0 × 10-8 to PT ≤ 1.0) based on the latest large-scale genome-wide association study of anxiety disorders from the UK biobank (25,453 cases; 58,113 controls) in an independent sample of psychiatrically and physically healthy subjects (n = 174). Using regression after adjusting for confounding factors, we tested whether these PRSs were associated with the surface area and cortical thickness in 34 bilateral brain regions extracted using FreeSurfer. A higher PRS for anxiety disorders at PT ≤ 1.0 was significantly associated with a reduced right caudal anterior cingulate area (beta = -0.25, puncorrected = 9.51 × 10-4, pcorrected = 0.032). PRSs based on more common SNPs, especially from PT ≤ 0.01 to PT ≤ 1.0, were associated with the right caudal anterior cingulate area (a maximum at PT ≤ 0.5: R2 = 0.066, beta = -0.27, puncorr = 3.81 × 10-4, pcorr = 0.013). Furthermore, individuals in the highest quartile for anxiety disorder PRS had lower surface area and volume in the right anterior cingulate gyrus than those in the lowest quartile. We suggest a shared genetic etiology between anxiety disorders and structural features of the anterior cingulate gyrus, possibly contributing to the pathogenesis of anxiety disorders via emotional dysregulations. Our findings suggest the potential usefulness of PRS to reduce pathological heterogeneity among anxiety disorders.
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Wang J, Wang C, Liu Y, Yue T, Wang Y, You F. Multimodal Warnings Design for In-Vehicle Robots under Driving Safety Scenarios. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2022; 23:156. [PMID: 36616755 PMCID: PMC9823533 DOI: 10.3390/s23010156] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/04/2022] [Revised: 12/18/2022] [Accepted: 12/19/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
In case of dangerous driving, the in-vehicle robot can provide multimodal warnings to help the driver correct the wrong operation, so the impact of the warning signal itself on driving safety needs to be reduced. This study investigates the design of multimodal warnings for in-vehicle robots under driving safety warning scenarios. Based on transparency theory, this study addressed the content and timing of visual and auditory modality warning outputs and discussed the effects of different robot speech and facial expressions on driving safety. Two rounds of experiments were conducted on a driving simulator to collect vehicle data, subjective data, and behavioral data. The results showed that driving safety and workload were optimal when the robot was designed to use negative expressions for the visual modality during the comprehension (SAT 2) phase and speech at a rate of 345 words/minute for the auditory modality during the comprehension (SAT 2) and prediction (SAT 3) phases. The design guideline obtained from the study provides a reference for the interaction design of driver assistance systems with robots as the interface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jianmin Wang
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
- Shenzhen Research Institute, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen 518057, China
- Nanchang Research Institute, Sun Yat-Sen University, Nanchang 330224, China
| | - Chengji Wang
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
| | - Yujia Liu
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
| | - Tianyang Yue
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
| | - Yuxi Wang
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
| | - Fang You
- Car Interaction Design Lab, College of Arts and Media, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China
- Shenzhen Research Institute, Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen 518057, China
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Task-irrelevant emotional faces impact BOLD responses more for prosaccades than antisaccades in a mixed saccade fMRI task. Neuropsychologia 2022; 177:108428. [PMID: 36414100 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108428] [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: 11/04/2021] [Revised: 11/12/2022] [Accepted: 11/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
Cognitive control allows individuals to flexibly and efficiently perform tasks by attending to relevant stimuli while inhibiting distraction from irrelevant stimuli. The antisaccade task assesses cognitive control by requiring participants to inhibit a prepotent glance towards a peripheral stimulus and generate an eye movement to the mirror image location. This task can be administered with various contextual manipulations to investigate how factors such as trial timing or emotional content interact with cognitive control. In the current study, 26 healthy adults completed a mixed antisaccade and prosaccade fMRI task that included task irrelevant emotional faces and gap/overlap timing. The results showed typical antisaccade and gap behavioral effects with greater BOLD activation in frontal and parietal brain regions for antisaccade and overlap trials. Conversely, there were no differences in behavior based on the emotion of the task irrelevant face, but trials with neutral faces had greater activation in widespread visual regions than trials with angry faces, particularly for prosaccade and overlap trials. Together, these effects suggest that a high level of cognitive control and inhibition was required throughout the task, minimizing the impact of the face presentation on saccade behavior, but leading to increased attention to the neutral faces on overlap prosaccade trials when both the task cue (look towards) and emotion stimulus (neutral, non-threatening) facilitated disinhibition of visual processing.
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Kleiser R, Raffelsberger T, Trenkler J, Meckel S, Seitz R. What influence do face masks have on reading emotions in faces? NEUROIMAGE: REPORTS 2022. [DOI: 10.1016/j.ynirp.2022.100141] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
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Watanabe R, Kim Y, Kuruma H, Takahashi H. Imitation encourages empathic capacity toward other individuals with physical disabilities. Neuroimage 2022; 264:119710. [PMID: 36283544 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2022.119710] [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: 01/19/2022] [Revised: 10/20/2022] [Accepted: 10/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/09/2022] Open
Abstract
Many people have difficulty empathizing with others who have dissimilar characteristics, such as physical disabilities. We hypothesized that people with no disabilities imitating the movements of individuals with disabilities could improve the empathic capacity toward their difficulties. To evaluate this hypothesis, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure the neural activity patterns of 26 healthy participants while they felt the difficulties of individuals with hemiplegia by adopting their perspective. The participants initially either imitated or observed hemiplegic hand movements shown in video clips. Subsequently, the videos were rewatched and their difficulties were rated. Analysis of the subjective rating scores indicated that after imitating the hemiplegic movements, the participants felt into the difficulties of hemiplegia better than if they simply observed them. The cross-validation approach of multivoxel pattern analyses demonstrated that the information regarding the effect of imitation on empathizing with the difficulties was represented in specific activation patterns of brain regions involved in the mirror neuron system and cognitive empathy by comparing to other conditions that did not contain the information. The cross-classification approach detected distinct activation patterns in the brain regions involved in affective and cognitive empathy, commonly while imitating the hemiplegic movements and subsequently feeling them. This indicated that the common representation related to these two types of empathy existed between imitating and feeling the hemiplegic movements. Furthermore, representational similarity analysis revealed that activity patterns in the anterior cingulate cortex linked to affective empathy tuned to the subjective assessment of hemiplegic movements. Our findings indicate that imitating the movements of individuals with hemiplegia triggered the affective empathic response and improved the cognitive empathic response toward them. The affective empathic response also linked the subjective assessment to the difficulties of hemiplegia, which was especially modulated by the experience of imitation. Imitating the movements of individuals with disabilities likely encourages empathic capacity from both affective and cognitive aspects, resulting in people with no disabilities precisely feeling what they are feeling.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rui Watanabe
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45 Yusima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8549, Japan; Department of Physical Therapy Science, Division of Human Health Science, Graduate School of Tokyo Metropolitan University, 7-2-10 Higashiogu, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo 116-8551, Japan.
| | - Yuri Kim
- Department of Diagnistics and Theraputics for brain Diseases, Molecular Neuroscience Research Center, Shiga University of Medical Science, Setatsukinowacho, Otsu, Shiga 520-2121 Japan
| | - Hironobu Kuruma
- Department of Physical Therapy Science, Division of Human Health Science, Graduate School of Tokyo Metropolitan University, 7-2-10 Higashiogu, Arakawa-ku, Tokyo 116-8551, Japan
| | - Hidehiko Takahashi
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 1-5-45 Yusima, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8549, Japan
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Goold S, Murphy MJ, Goodale MA, Crewther SG, Laycock R. Faster social attention disengagement in individuals with higher autism traits. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol 2022; 44:755-767. [PMID: 36694386 DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2023.2167943] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/26/2023]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION Atypical visual and social attention has often been associated with clinically diagnosed autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and with the broader autism phenotype. Atypical social attention is of particular research interest given the importance of facial expressions for social communication, with faces tending to attract and hold attention in neurotypical individuals. In autism, this is not necessarily so, where there is debate about the temporal differences in the ability to disengage attention from a face. METHOD Thus, we have used eye-tracking to record saccadic latencies as a measure of time to disengage attention from a central task-irrelevant face before orienting to a newly presented peripheral nonsocial target during a gap-overlap task. Neurotypical participants with higher or lower autism-like traits (AT) completed the task that included central stimuli with varied expressions of facial emotion as well as an inverted face. RESULTS High AT participants demonstrated faster saccadic responses to detect the nonsocial target than low AT participants when disengaging attention from a face. Furthermore, faster saccadic responses were recorded when comparing disengagement from upright to inverted faces in low AT but not in high AT participants. CONCLUSIONS Together, these results extend findings of atypical social attention disengagement in autism and highlight how differences in attention to faces in the broader autism phenotype can lead to apparently superior task performance under certain conditions. Specifically, autism traits were linked to faster attention orienting to a nonsocial target due to the reduced attentional hold of the task irrelevant face stimuli. The absence of an inversion effect in high AT participants also reinforces the suggestion that they process upright or inverted faces similarly, unlike low AT participants for whom inverted faces are thought to be less socially engaging, thus allowing faster disengagement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Saxon Goold
- School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Melanie J Murphy
- School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Melvyn A Goodale
- Western Institute for Neuroscience, The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada
| | - Sheila G Crewther
- School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
| | - Robin Laycock
- School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.,School of Health and Biomedical Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
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Alkalay S, Dan O. Effect of short-term methylphenidate on social impairment in children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder: systematic review. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 2022; 16:93. [PMID: 36443766 PMCID: PMC9706974 DOI: 10.1186/s13034-022-00526-2] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/17/2022] [Accepted: 11/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is one of the most common disorders in school-age children. In addition to learning difficulties associated with the disorder's core symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity, children with ADHD display substantial social impairments. Methylphenidate (MPH) in formulations such as Ritalin or Concerta mitigates inattention and hyperactivity, but the effects of the therapy on social behavior in children with ADHD are not clear. This review aims to determine the effectiveness of short term (up to 6 months) MPH treatment on three domains of social skills in children aged 6-14 with ADHD: (i) Recognition of nonverbal emotional expressions, which are a marker of inherent (unlearned) social understanding, (ii) theory of mind (ToM) components that relate to learned cognition and social communication, and (iii) social competence in everyday environments. 15 relevant studies were identified based on inclusion/exclusion criteria. The results show mixed effects: the overall social performance as evaluated by parents, teachers or peers, and some components of ToM, were found to improve following a weeks-long course of MPH treatment. However, the effects of the medication are less clear when evaluating momentary/nonverbal social responses such as reactions to emotional facial expressions. While the findings of this review indicate that an MPH medication regime of order weeks to months could improve, to a degree, social impairment in children with ADHD, more studies are required to identify the medications' mechanism and confirm such a conclusion.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sarit Alkalay
- Department of Psychology, The Center for Psychobiological Research, Max Stern Jezreel Valley Academic College, P.O.B. 72, 10806, Sede Nahum, Israel.
| | - Orrie Dan
- Department of Psychology, The Center for Psychobiological Research, Max Stern Jezreel Valley Academic College, P.O.B. 72, 10806 Sede Nahum, Israel
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Chen J, Cheng Y. The relationship between aesthetic preferences of people for ceramic tile design and neural responses: An event-related potential study. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:994195. [DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.994195] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2022] [Accepted: 11/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
IntroductionThe aesthetic preferences of people can determine the success of a design and are often closely related to design features. The discovery of designs that match user preferences can provide a reference for designers. Ceramic tiles are widely used in environmental design; however, little attention has been paid to the aesthetic preferences of people for tiles. This study aimed to explore the relationship between aesthetic preferences for tile design and neural responses.Materials and methodsIn this study, two groups of tiles with different preference levels were randomly presented to 16 participants, and their electroencephalograms were recorded. The mean amplitudes of event-related potentials were analyzed by ANOVA.ResultsThe results showed that: (1) the aesthetic preferences of people for tiles could modulate brain activity; (2) tiles that people liked triggered higher N100 amplitudes; and (3) tiles that people disliked triggered higher P200 and late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes.DiscussionThese results suggest that N100, P200, and LPP are significantly related to the aesthetic preferences of people for ceramic tiles. The difference in N100 and P200 amplitudes indicates that participants developed aesthetic perceptions of the tiles in the early and middle stages of vision and formed different attention allocations to tiles with varying levels of aesthetic preference; in the middle and late stages of visual processing, the difference in the LPP amplitude indicates that the impression of people for tiles is further deepened in the later stage, forming a top-down emotion-driven evaluation. Exploring the relationship between the aesthetic preferences of people and neural responses is significant in establishing objective aesthetic judgment indicators for tiles and understanding the process of aesthetic cognition. This study provides relevant information for quantitative aesthetic assessments of environmental design, interior design, and marketing involving ceramic tiles.
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Hou X, Zhao J, Zhang H. Reconstruction of perceived face images from brain activities based on multi-attribute constraints. Front Neurosci 2022; 16:1015752. [PMID: 36389231 PMCID: PMC9643433 DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1015752] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2022] [Accepted: 10/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Reconstruction of perceived faces from brain signals is a hot topic in brain decoding and an important application in the field of brain-computer interfaces. Existing methods do not fully consider the multiple facial attributes represented in face images, and their different activity patterns at multiple brain regions are often ignored, which causes the reconstruction performance very poor. In the current study, we propose an algorithmic framework that efficiently combines multiple face-selective brain regions for precise multi-attribute perceived face reconstruction. Our framework consists of three modules: a multi-task deep learning network (MTDLN), which is developed to simultaneously extract the multi-dimensional face features attributed to facial expression, identity and gender from one single face image, a set of linear regressions (LR), which is built to map the relationship between the multi-dimensional face features and the brain signals from multiple brain regions, and a multi-conditional generative adversarial network (mcGAN), which is used to generate the perceived face images constrained by the predicted multi-dimensional face features. We conduct extensive fMRI experiments to evaluate the reconstruction performance of our framework both subjectively and objectively. The results show that, compared with the traditional methods, our proposed framework better characterizes the multi-attribute face features in a face image, better predicts the face features from brain signals, and achieves better reconstruction performance of both seen and unseen face images in both visual effects and quantitative assessment. Moreover, besides the state-of-the-art intra-subject reconstruction performance, our proposed framework can also realize inter-subject face reconstruction to a certain extent.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiaoyuan Hou
- School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Jing Zhao
- School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- School of Biological Science and Medical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China
| | - Hui Zhang
- School of Engineering Medicine, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- Key Laboratory of Biomechanics and Mechanobiology, Ministry of Education, Beihang University, Beijing, China
- Key Laboratory of Big Data-Based Precision Medicine, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China, Beihang University, Beijing, China
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Liu TT, Fu JZ, Chai Y, Japee S, Chen G, Ungerleider LG, Merriam EP. Layer-specific, retinotopically-diffuse modulation in human visual cortex in response to viewing emotionally expressive faces. Nat Commun 2022; 13:6302. [PMID: 36273204 PMCID: PMC9588045 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-33580-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2021] [Accepted: 09/22/2022] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Viewing faces that are perceived as emotionally expressive evokes enhanced neural responses in multiple brain regions, a phenomenon thought to depend critically on the amygdala. This emotion-related modulation is evident even in primary visual cortex (V1), providing a potential neural substrate by which emotionally salient stimuli can affect perception. How does emotional valence information, computed in the amygdala, reach V1? Here we use high-resolution functional MRI to investigate the layer profile and retinotopic distribution of neural activity specific to emotional facial expressions. Across three experiments, human participants viewed centrally presented face stimuli varying in emotional expression and performed a gender judgment task. We found that facial valence sensitivity was evident only in superficial cortical layers and was not restricted to the retinotopic location of the stimuli, consistent with diffuse feedback-like projections from the amygdala. Together, our results provide a feedback mechanism by which the amygdala directly modulates activity at the earliest stage of visual processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tina T. Liu
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Jason Z Fu
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Yuhui Chai
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Shruti Japee
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Gang Chen
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Scientific and Statistical Computing Core, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Leslie G. Ungerleider
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
| | - Elisha P. Merriam
- grid.416868.50000 0004 0464 0574Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH, Bethesda, 20892 MD USA
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Allen CH, Maurer JM, Edwards BG, Gullapalli AR, Harenski CL, Harenski KA, Calhoun VD, Kiehl KA. Aberrant resting-state functional connectivity in incarcerated women with elevated psychopathic traits. FRONTIERS IN NEUROIMAGING 2022; 1:971201. [PMID: 37555166 PMCID: PMC10406317 DOI: 10.3389/fnimg.2022.971201] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/16/2022] [Accepted: 09/20/2022] [Indexed: 08/10/2023]
Abstract
Previous work in incarcerated men suggests that individuals scoring high on psychopathy exhibit aberrant resting-state paralimbic functional network connectivity (FNC). However, it is unclear whether similar results extend to women scoring high on psychopathy. This study examined whether psychopathic traits [assessed via the Hare Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R)] were associated with aberrant inter-network connectivity, intra-network connectivity (i.e., functional coherence within a network), and amplitude of fluctuations across limbic and surrounding paralimbic regions among incarcerated women (n = 297). Resting-state networks were identified by applying group Independent Component Analysis to resting-state fMRI scans. We tested the association of psychopathic traits (PCL-R Factor 1 measuring interpersonal/affective psychopathic traits and PCL-R Factor 2 assessing lifestyle/antisocial psychopathic traits) to the three FNC measures. PCL-R Factor 1 scores were associated with increased low-frequency fluctuations in executive control and attentional networks, decreased high-frequency fluctuations in executive control and visual networks, and decreased intra-network FNC in default mode network. PCL-R Factor 2 scores were associated with decreased high-frequency fluctuations and default mode networks, and both increased and decreased intra-network functional connectivity in visual networks. Similar to previous analyses in incarcerated men, our results suggest that psychopathic traits among incarcerated women are associated with aberrant intra-network amplitude fluctuations and connectivity across multiple networks including limbic and surrounding paralimbic regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Corey H. Allen
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, United States
| | | | - Bethany G. Edwards
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, United States
- Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, United States
| | | | | | | | - Vince D. Calhoun
- Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, United States
- Tri-Institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia Institute of Technology, Georgia State University, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
- Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, United States
| | - Kent A. Kiehl
- The Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, United States
- Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, United States
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Valenti L, Pucci IW, Garcia RB, Jackson M, Galera C. EXPRESS: Attentional Load Effects on Emotional Content in Face Working Memory. Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2022:17470218221125216. [PMID: 36062351 DOI: 10.1177/17470218221125216] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
Abstract
This study investigated the role of attentional resources in processing emotional faces in working memory (WM). Participants memorised two face arrays with the same emotion but different identities and were required to judge whether the test face had the same identity as one of the previous faces. Concurrently during encoding and maintenance, a sequence of high-or-low pitched tones (high load) or white noise bursts (low load) was presented, and participants were required to count how many low-tones were heard. Experiments 1 and 2 used an emotional and neutral test face, respectively. Results revealed a significant WM impairment for sad and angry faces in the high load vs low load condition but not for happy faces. In Experiment 1, participants remembered happy faces better than other emotional faces. In contrast, Experiment 2 showed that performance was poorer for happy than sad faces but not for angry faces. This evidence suggests that depleting attentional resources has less impact on WM for happy faces than other emotional faces, but also that differential effects on WM for emotional faces depend on the presence or absence of emotion in the probe face at retrieval.
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Affiliation(s)
- Livia Valenti
- Department of Psychology, University of São Paulo - Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil 28133
| | - Isabella Wada Pucci
- Department of Psychology, University of São Paulo - Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil 28133
| | - Ricardo Basso Garcia
- Graduate Program in Cognitive Neuroscience and Behavior, Department of Psychology, Federal University of Paraiba, João Pessoa, Brazil 124588
| | - Margaret Jackson
- School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, United Kingdom 1019
| | - Cesar Galera
- Department of Psychology, University of São Paulo - Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters at Ribeirão Preto, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil 124588
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Weidner EM, Schindler S, Grewe P, Moratti S, Bien CG, Kissler J. Emotion and attention in face processing: Complementary evidence from surface event-related potentials and intracranial amygdala recordings. Biol Psychol 2022; 173:108399. [PMID: 35850159 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2022] [Revised: 07/13/2022] [Accepted: 07/14/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Abstract
Face processing is biased by emotional and voluntarily directed attention, both of which modulate processing in distributed cortical areas. The amygdala is assumed to contribute to an attentional bias for emotional faces, although its interaction with directed attention awaits further clarification. Here, we studied the interaction of emotion and attention during face processing via scalp EEG potentials of healthy participants and intracranial EEG (iEEG) recordings of the right amygdala in one patient. Three randomized blocks consisting of angry, neutral, and happy facial expressions were presented, and one expression was denoted as the target category in each block. Happy targets were detected fastest and most accurately both in the group study and by the iEEG patient. Occipital scalp potentials revealed emotion differentiation for happy faces in the early posterior negativity (EPN) around 300 ms after stimulus onset regardless of the target condition. A similar response to happy faces occurred in the amygdala only for happy targets. On the scalp, a late positive potential (LPP, around 600 ms) enhancement for targets occurred for all target conditions alike. A simultaneous late signal in the amygdala was largest for emotional targets. No late signal enhancements were found for neutral targets in the amygdala. Cortical modulations, by contrast, showed both attention-independent effects of emotion and emotion-independent effects of attention. These results demonstrate an attention-dependence of amygdala activity during the processing of facial expressions and partly independent cortical mechanisms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Enya M Weidner
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany.
| | - Sebastian Schindler
- Institute of Medical Psychology and Systems Neuroscience, University of Münster, Münster, Germany
| | - Philip Grewe
- Clinical Neuropsychology and Epilepsy Research, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany; Department of Epileptology (Krankenhaus Mara), Bielefeld University, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Stephan Moratti
- Laboratory for Clinical Neuroscience, Centre for Biomedical Technology, Technical University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Department of Experimental Psychology, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
| | - Christian G Bien
- Department of Epileptology (Krankenhaus Mara), Bielefeld University, Medical School OWL, Bielefeld, Germany
| | - Johanna Kissler
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
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Bounoua N, Spielberg JM, Sadeh N. Clarifying the synergistic effects of emotion dysregulation and inhibitory control on physical aggression. Hum Brain Mapp 2022; 43:5358-5369. [PMID: 35838011 PMCID: PMC9812242 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/17/2022] [Revised: 05/19/2022] [Accepted: 06/24/2022] [Indexed: 01/15/2023] Open
Abstract
Rising rates of violence underscore the need to better understand how systems that regulate distress and impulse control jointly modulate aggression risk. The goals of the current study were to investigate the unique and interactive effects of emotional dysregulation and inhibitory control on the perpetration of physical aggression. We recruited a high-risk community sample of 206 adults (M/SDage = 33.55/10.89 years old; 47.1% female) who reported a range of physically aggressive behaviors. All participants completed a self-report measure (Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale), neuropsychological testing (Color Word Interference Test), and clinical interviewing (Lifetime History of Aggression Interview), and a subset of individuals (n = 134) underwent a neuroanatomical scan. As expected, the interplay of emotional and inhibitory control explained unique variance in physical aggression above and beyond their main effects. The positive association between emotion dysregulation and aggression strengthened as inhibitory control decreased. Cortical thickness in two right prefrontal clusters, one that peaked in the superior frontal gyrus and one that peaked in the caudal middle frontal gyrus, was also associated with the interactive effects of emotional dysregulation and inhibitory control. Notably, thickness in the superior frontal gyrus mediated the association between emotion dysregulation and physical aggression at low levels of inhibitory control. Using a multilevel and multimethod approach, the present study revealed neuroanatomical correlates of emotion-cognition interactions that have translational relevance to violence perpetration. These findings extend previous work primarily focused on functional-based neural assessments and point to the utility of examining neuroanatomical correlates of emotion-cognition interactions for understanding human aggression.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nadia Bounoua
- Department of Psychological & Brain SciencesUniversity of DelawareNewarkDelawareUSA
| | - Jeffrey M. Spielberg
- Department of Psychological & Brain SciencesUniversity of DelawareNewarkDelawareUSA
| | - Naomi Sadeh
- Department of Psychological & Brain SciencesUniversity of DelawareNewarkDelawareUSA
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Gee DG, Hanson C, Caglar LR, Fareri DS, Gabard-Durnam LJ, Mills-Finnerty C, Goff B, Caldera CJ, Lumian DS, Flannery J, Hanson SJ, Tottenham N. Experimental evidence for a child-to-adolescent switch in human amygdala-prefrontal cortex communication: A cross-sectional pilot study. Dev Sci 2022; 25:e13238. [PMID: 35080089 PMCID: PMC9232876 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13238] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/23/2020] [Revised: 12/20/2021] [Accepted: 01/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Interactions between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex are fundamental to human emotion. Despite the central role of frontoamygdala communication in adult emotional learning and regulation, little is known about how top-down control emerges during human development. In the present cross-sectional pilot study, we experimentally manipulated prefrontal engagement to test its effects on the amygdala during development. Inducing dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) activation resulted in developmentally-opposite effects on amygdala reactivity during childhood versus adolescence, such that dACC activation was followed by increased amygdala reactivity in childhood but reduced amygdala reactivity in adolescence. Bayesian network analyses revealed an age-related switch between childhood and adolescence in the nature of amygdala connectivity with the dACC and ventromedial PFC (vmPFC). Whereas adolescence was marked by information flow from dACC and vmPFC to amygdala (consistent with that observed in adults), the reverse information flow, from the amygdala to dACC and vmPFC, was dominant in childhood. The age-related switch in information flow suggests a potential shift from bottom-up co-excitatory to top-down regulatory frontoamygdala connectivity and may indicate a profound change in the circuitry supporting maturation of emotional behavior. These findings provide novel insight into the developmental construction of amygdala-cortical connections and implications for the ways in which childhood experiences may influence subsequent prefrontal function.
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Affiliation(s)
- Dylan G. Gee
- Yale University, Department of Psychology, 2 Hillhouse Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511
- To whom correspondence should be addressed: ,
| | - Catherine Hanson
- Rutgers University, Department of Psychology, 101 Warren Street, Newark, NJ 07102
| | - Leyla Roksan Caglar
- Rutgers University, Department of Psychology, 101 Warren Street, Newark, NJ 07102
| | - Dominic S. Fareri
- Adelphi University, Department of Psychology, Blodgett Hall, Garden City, NY 11530
| | | | | | - Bonnie Goff
- University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychology, 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095
| | - Christina J. Caldera
- University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Psychology, 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095
| | - Daniel S. Lumian
- University of Denver, Department of Psychology, 2155 S. Race Street, Denver, CO 80210
| | - Jessica Flannery
- University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Department of Psychology, 235 E. Cameron Ave, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
| | - Stephen J. Hanson
- Rutgers University, Department of Psychology, 101 Warren Street, Newark, NJ 07102
| | - Nim Tottenham
- Columbia University, Department of Psychology, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027
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Qiu Z, Lei X, Becker SI, Pegna AJ. Neural activities during the Processing of unattended and unseen emotional faces: a voxel-wise Meta-analysis. Brain Imaging Behav 2022; 16:2426-2443. [PMID: 35739373 PMCID: PMC9581832 DOI: 10.1007/s11682-022-00697-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 06/03/2022] [Indexed: 11/27/2022]
Abstract
Voxel-wise meta-analyses of task-evoked regional activity were conducted for healthy individuals during the unconscious processing of emotional and neutral faces with an aim to examine whether and how different experimental paradigms influenced brain activation patterns. Studies were categorized into sensory and attentional unawareness paradigms. Thirty-four fMRI studies including 883 healthy participants were identified. Across experimental paradigms, unaware emotional faces elicited stronger activation of the limbic system, striatum, inferior frontal gyrus, insula and the temporal lobe, compared to unaware neutral faces. Crucially, in attentional unawareness paradigms, unattended emotional faces elicited a right-lateralized increased activation (i.e., right amygdala, right temporal pole), suggesting a right hemisphere dominance for processing emotional faces during inattention. By contrast, in sensory unawareness paradigms, unseen emotional faces elicited increased activation of the left striatum, the left amygdala and the right middle temporal gyrus. Additionally, across paradigms, unconsciously processed positive emotions were found associated with more activation in temporal and parietal cortices whereas unconsciously processed negative emotions elicited stronger activation in subcortical regions, compared to neutral faces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zeguo Qiu
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia.
| | - Xue Lei
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia
| | - Stefanie I Becker
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia
| | - Alan J Pegna
- School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia
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Liu F, Gao C, Gao H, Liu W. The Automatic Emotion Regulation of Children Aged 8–12: An ERP Study. Front Behav Neurosci 2022; 16:921802. [PMID: 35801095 PMCID: PMC9255229 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.921802] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/16/2022] [Accepted: 05/26/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Emotion regulation in childhood and adolescence is related to their social development. Better emotion regulation is associated with great individual academic performance and mental health. However, compared with the research on emotion regulation strategies, children’s automatic emotion regulation has been less investigated. Using event-related potential (ERP) technology, this study adopts the cued-emotion Go/Nogo paradigm to investigate the processing characteristics of automatic emotion regulation in children aged 8–12 years. The current study selected 34 younger group [16 boys, 18 girls, mean (M) ± SD = 8.91 ± 0.75], and 31 older group [18 boys, 13 girls, M ± SD = 11.26 ± 0.45]. The results showed that, for Nogo trials, the amplitude of N2 and P3 evoked by emotional faces were significantly larger than those evoked by neutral faces, reflecting the cognitive conflict experienced and the process of children’s automatic response inhibition to emotional stimuli, respectively. However, no significant difference in N2 and P3 amplitude were found in Go trials, which may indicate that children aged 8–12 showed similar top-down control and similar motivated attention in this experiment, respectively. Further analysis found that the negative affect of temperament was significantly positively correlated with Nogo-P3 induced by neutral pictures (r = 0.37, p < 0.001), and preadolescents’ social anxiety was significantly positively correlated with Nogo-P3 followed by neutral pictures (r = 0.31, p < 0.01). These findings can provide inspiration and empirical support for the promotion and intervention of emotion regulation in children and adolescents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fang Liu
- College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
- Department and Institute of Psychology, Ningbo University, Ningbo, China
| | - Chao Gao
- College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Heming Gao
- College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
| | - Wen Liu
- College of Psychology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, China
- *Correspondence: Wen Liu,
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45
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Don't look now! Emotion-induced blindness: The interplay between emotion and attention. Atten Percept Psychophys 2022; 84:2741-2761. [PMID: 35701659 PMCID: PMC9630228 DOI: 10.3758/s13414-022-02525-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 05/28/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
Scientists have long been interested in understanding the influence of emotionally salient stimuli on attention and perception. One experimental paradigm that has shown great promise in demonstrating the effect of such stimuli is emotion-induced blindness. That is, when emotionally salient stimuli are presented in a rapid stream of stimuli, they produce impairments in the perception of task-relevant stimuli, even though they themselves are task irrelevant. This is known as emotion-induced blindness, and it is a profound and robust form of attentional bias. Here, we review the literature on emotion-induced blindness, such as identifying the types of stimuli that elicit it, and its temporal dynamics. We discuss the role of dimensional versus categorical approaches to emotion in relation to emotion-induced blindness. We also synthesize the work examining whether certain individuals, such as those high in anxiety versus psychopathy, succumb to emotion-induced blindness to different extents, and we discuss whether the deficit can be reduced or even abolished. We review the theoretical models that have been proposed to explain the phenomenon. Finally, we identify exciting questions for future research, and elucidate useful frameworks to guide future investigations.
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46
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Weisholtz DS, Kreiman G, Silbersweig DA, Stern E, Cha B, Butler T. Localized task-invariant emotional valence encoding revealed by intracranial recordings. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2022; 17:549-558. [PMID: 34941992 PMCID: PMC9164208 DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsab134] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2021] [Revised: 09/05/2021] [Accepted: 12/22/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The ability to distinguish between negative, positive and neutral valence is a key part of emotion perception. Emotional valence has conceptual meaning that supersedes any particular type of stimulus, although it is typically captured experimentally in association with particular tasks. We sought to identify neural encoding for task-invariant emotional valence. We evaluated whether high-gamma responses (HGRs) to visually displayed words conveying emotions could be used to decode emotional valence from HGRs to facial expressions. Intracranial electroencephalography was recorded from 14 individuals while they participated in two tasks, one involving reading words with positive, negative, and neutral valence, and the other involving viewing faces with positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions. Quadratic discriminant analysis was used to identify information in the HGR that differentiates the three emotion conditions. A classifier was trained on the emotional valence labels from one task and was cross-validated on data from the same task (within-task classifier) as well as the other task (between-task classifier). Emotional valence could be decoded in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex and middle temporal gyrus, both using within-task classifiers and between-task classifiers. These observations suggest the presence of task-independent emotional valence information in the signals from these regions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel S Weisholtz
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Gabriel Kreiman
- Boston Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - David A Silbersweig
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Emily Stern
- Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.,Ceretype Neuromedicine, Inc
| | - Brannon Cha
- University of California San Diego School of Medicine.,Department of Neurology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
| | - Tracy Butler
- Department of Radiology, Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York 10065, USA
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47
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Szaflarski JP, Allendorfer JB, Goodman AM, Byington CG, Philip NS, Correia S, LaFrance WC. Diagnostic delay in functional seizures is associated with abnormal processing of facial emotions. Epilepsy Behav 2022; 131:108712. [PMID: 35526462 DOI: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2022.108712] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2022] [Revised: 04/10/2022] [Accepted: 04/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE In patients with functional seizures (FS), delay in diagnosis (DD) may negatively affect outcomes. Altered brain responses to emotional stimuli have been shown in adults with FS. We hypothesized that DD would be associated with differential fMRI activation in emotion processing circuits. METHODS Fifty-two adults (38 females) with video-EEG confirmed FS prospectively completed assessments related to symptoms of depression (BDI-II), anxiety (BAI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PCL-S), a measure of how their symptoms affect day-to-day life (GAF), and fMRI at 3T with emotional faces task (EFT). During fMRI, subjects indicated "male" or "female" via button press while implicitly processing happy, sad, fearful, and neutral faces. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) response to each emotion was modeled and group analyses were performed in AFNI within pre-specified regions-of-interest involved in emotion processing. A median split (507 days) defined short- (s-DD) and long-delay diagnosis (l-DD) groups. Voxelwise regression analyses were also performed to examine linear relationship between DD and emotion processing. FMRI signal was extracted from clusters showing group differences and Spearman's correlations assessed relationships with symptom scores. RESULTS Groups did not differ in FS age of onset, sex distribution, years of education, TBI characteristics, EFT in-scanner or post-test performance, or scores on the GAF, BDI-II, BAI, and PCL-S measures. The s-DD group was younger than l-DD (mean age 32.6 vs. 40.1; p = 0.022) at the time of study participation. After correcting for age, compared to s-DD, the l-DD group showed greater fMRI activation to sad faces in the bilateral posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and to neutral faces in the right anterior insula. Within-group linear regression revealed that with increasing DD, there was increased fMRI activation to sad faces in the PCC and to happy faces in the right anterior insula/inferior frontal gyrus (AI/IFG). There were positive correlations between PCC response to sad faces and BDI-II scores in the l-DD group (rho = 0.48, p = 0.012) and the combined sample (rho = 0.30, p = 0.029). Increased PCC activation to sad faces in those in the l-DD group was associated with worse symptoms of depression (i.e. higher BDI-II score). CONCLUSIONS Delay in FS diagnosis is associated with fMRI changes in PCC and AI/IFG. As part of the default mode network, PCC is implicated in mood control, self-referencing, and other emotion-relevant processes. In our study, PCC changes are linked to depression. Future studies should assess the effects of interventions on these abnormalities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jerzy P Szaflarski
- Department of Neurology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), UAB Epilepsy Center, Birmingham, AL, USA.
| | - Jane B Allendorfer
- Department of Neurology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), UAB Epilepsy Center, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Adam M Goodman
- Department of Neurology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), UAB Epilepsy Center, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Caroline G Byington
- Department of Neurology, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), UAB Epilepsy Center, Birmingham, AL, USA
| | - Noah S Philip
- VA RR&D Center for Neurorestoration & Neurotechnology, VA Providence Healthcare System, Providence, RI, USA; Dept of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
| | - Stephen Correia
- VA RR&D Center for Neurorestoration & Neurotechnology, VA Providence Healthcare System, Providence, RI, USA
| | - W Curt LaFrance
- VA RR&D Center for Neurorestoration & Neurotechnology, VA Providence Healthcare System, Providence, RI, USA; Dept of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, RI, USA
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Gibbons H, Kirsten H, Seib-Pfeifer LE. Attention to affect 2.0: Multiple effects of emotion and attention on event-related potentials of visual word processing in a valence-detection task. Psychophysiology 2022; 59:e14059. [PMID: 35484815 DOI: 10.1111/psyp.14059] [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: 05/05/2021] [Revised: 10/18/2021] [Accepted: 03/07/2022] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Here we continue recent work on the specific mental processes engaged in a valence-detection task. Fifty-seven participants responded to one predefined target level of valence (negative, neutral, or positive), and ignored the remaining two levels. This enables more precise fine-tuning of neuronal pathways, compared to valence categorization where attention is divided between different levels of valence. Our group recently used valence detection with emotional words. Posterior P1 and N170 effects in the event-related potential (ERP) supported the idea of valent word forms that can be tuned by selective attention to valence. Here we report findings on three distinct posterior N2 components, P300, N400, and the late positive potential (LPP). Target but not nontarget words showed an arousal effect (emotional > neutral) on left-side early posterior negativity (180-280 ms). In contrast, an arousal effect on a sharp N2 deflection in left-minus-right difference ERPs (230-270 ms), suggesting facilitation of lexical access for emotional words, was independent of target status. This also applied to increased medial parieto-occipital N2 (260-300 ms) specific to negative words, indicating attentional capture. Medial-central N400 was specifically enhanced for negative nontarget words, further supporting attentional capture. The typical LPP arousal effect was observed, being stronger and more left-lateralized in target words. An exploratory finding concerned a broad component-overarching ERP valence effect (250-650 ms). Independent of target status, ERPs were more positive for positive than negative words. Combined with our previous results, data suggest multiple loci of emotion-attention interactions in valence detection.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Hannah Kirsten
- Department of Psychology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
| | - Laura-Effi Seib-Pfeifer
- Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, University Hospital of Bonn, Bonn, Germany
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Zhang M, Ding Y, Zhang J, Jiang X, Xu N, Zhang L, Yu W. Effect of Group Impromptu Music Therapy on Emotional Regulation and Depressive Symptoms of College Students: A Randomized Controlled Study. Front Psychol 2022; 13:851526. [PMID: 35432107 PMCID: PMC9008882 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.851526] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/16/2022] [Accepted: 03/07/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Difficulty in emotional regulation is significantly correlated with depression. Depression is a psychological disease that seriously affects the physical and mental health of college students. Therefore, it is of great importance to develop diversified preventive interventions such as group impromptu music therapy (GIMT). The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of GIMT on the improvement of emotional regulation ability and the reduction of depressive symptoms in college students. A 71 college students (36 in the experimental group and 35 in the control group) were recruited to carry out randomized controlled trial was used. The experimental group was intervened by GIMT. After the 4th week of intervention, follow-up and scale measurement were carried out. In the experimental group, emotional regulation difficulty scales (DERS) showed significant difference before and after GIMT, implying the improvement in the emotional regulation. But there was no significant improvement in the control group. In addition, the depressive symptoms of experimental group were relieved. All findings showed that GIMT can effectively improve college students’ emotional regulation and reduce depressive symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ming Zhang
- Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Yi Ding
- Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Jing Zhang
- Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Xuefeng Jiang
- Business School of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Nannan Xu
- Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Lei Zhang
- The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Institute for Translational Medicine, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
| | - Wenjie Yu
- Qingdao Medical College, Qingdao University, Qingdao, China
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50
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Seitz RJ. Believing and Beliefs-Neurophysiological Underpinnings. Front Behav Neurosci 2022; 16:880504. [PMID: 35517575 PMCID: PMC9063518 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.880504] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2022] [Accepted: 03/23/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Rüdiger J. Seitz
- Department of Neurology, Centre of Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf, Medical Faculty, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany
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