Effects of age and mood on emotional face processing differ depending on the intensity of the facial expression

Inventory of sensory, emotional, and cognitive reserve (SECri): Proposal of a new instrument and preliminary data

A new model of reserve, the Sensory, Emotional, and Cognitive Reserve (SEC) model, has been recently proposed, but so far this model has not been operationalized in instruments to evaluate the different domains of the reserve. This study introduces the SEC reserve inventory (SECri) along with preliminary data obtained from a study involving 57 adults, aged 35 and older. The SECri assesses the SEC domains using specific proxies: (a) sensory reserve (SR) through sensory acuity and sensory perception proxies; (b) emotional reserve (ER) through life events, resilience, and emotional regulation proxies; and (c) cognitive reserve (CR) through education, occupation, socioeconomic status, bilingualism, leisure activities, and personality traits proxies. Key features of SECri include self- and informant-report forms, fine-grained response scales, and the evaluation of reserve development across the lifespan. Findings on the acceptability, convergent validity between SECri domains and validated tests for the same constructs, internal consistency of each domain, and predictive validity of Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores support further research with this inventory. Future studies should consider determining SECri's psychometric properties in clinical and subclinical conditions to evaluate its prognostic value in cases of neurocognitive decline.

In the mood to be social: Affective state influences facial emotion recognition in healthy adults

The ability to accurately recognize facial expressions is a key element of social interaction. Facial emotion recognition (FER) assessments show promise as a clinical screening and therapeutic tool, but realizing this potential requires better understanding of the stability of this skill. Transient mood states are known to bias emotion recognition in some contexts and may represent a critical factor impacting FER ability. In particular, it is unclear how natural fluctuations in individuals' mood state over time contribute to specific changes in the ability to recognize facial expressions. The current study tested 55 neurotypical participants across multiple visits using the Emotion Recognition test and found that fluctuations in positive and negative mood state altered recognition of specific emotions. Surprisingly, effects of mood state on emotion recognition were noncongruent; increased positive mood was associated with improved recognition of scared expressions but worsened recognition of happy expressions. Our results suggest that minor fluctuations in mood state in a neurotypical population affect emotion recognition. Therefore, mood should be taken into account by researchers and clinicians assessing FER skills. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions in Healthy Young Men: Event-Related Potential and Behavioral Evidence

Background: Individuals exposed to childhood maltreatment present with a deficiency in emotional processing in later life. Most studies have focused mainly on childhood physical or sexual abuse; however, childhood emotional abuse, a core issue underlying different forms of childhood maltreatment, has received relatively little attention. The current study explored whether childhood emotional abuse is related to the impaired processing of emotional facial expressions in healthy young men. Methods: The emotional facial processing was investigated in a classical gender discrimination task while the event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected. Childhood emotional abuse was assessed by a Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) among 60 healthy young men. The relationship between the score of emotional abuse and the behavioral and the ERP index of emotional facial expression (angry, disgust, and happy) were explored. Results: Participants with a higher score of childhood emotional abuse responded faster on the behavioral level and had a smaller P2 amplitude on the neural level when processing disgust faces compared to neutral faces. Discussion: Individuals with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse may quickly identify negative faces with less cognitive resources consumed, suggesting altered processing of emotional facial expressions in young men with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse.