1
|
Monachesi B, Deruti A, Grecucci A, Vaes J. Electrophysiological, emotional and behavioural responses of female targets of sexual objectification. Sci Rep 2023; 13:5777. [PMID: 37031255 PMCID: PMC10082788 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-32379-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/17/2022] [Accepted: 03/27/2023] [Indexed: 04/10/2023] Open
Abstract
Sexual objectification and the interiorized objectifying gaze (self-objectification) are dangerous phenomena for women's psychological wellness. However, their specific effects on women's socio-affective reactions are still poorly understood, and their neural activity has never been explored before. In the present study, we investigated women's emotional and electrophysiological responses during simulated computer-based objectifying social interactions, and we examined consequent punishing behaviours towards the perpetrator using the ultimatum game. Behavioural results (N = 36) showed that during objectifying encounters women generally felt angrier/disgusted and tended to punish the perpetrator in later interactions. However, the more the women self-objectified, the more they felt ashamed (p = 0.011) and tended to punish the perpetrators less (p = 0.008). At a neural level (N = 32), objectifying interactions modulated female participants' neural signal elicited during the processing of the perpetrator, increasing early (N170) and later (EPN, LPP) ERP components. In addition, only the amplitude of the LPP positively correlated with shame (p = 0.006) and the level of self-objectification (p = 0.018). This finding provides first evidence for the specific time-course of sexual objectification, self-objectification and its associated shame response, and proves that emotional and social consequences of sexual objectification in women may depend on their tendency to self-objectify.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Bianca Monachesi
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy.
| | - Alice Deruti
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Alessandro Grecucci
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
- Centre for Medical Sciences, CISMed, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| | - Jeroen Vaes
- Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Tanzilli A, Trentini C, Grecucci A, Carone N, Ciacchella C, Lai C, Sabogal-Rueda MD, Lingiardi V. Therapist reactions to patient personality: A pilot study of clinicians’ emotional and neural responses using three clinical vignettes from in treatment series. Front Hum Neurosci 2022; 16:1037486. [DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.1037486] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/05/2022] [Accepted: 11/02/2022] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
IntroductionTherapists’ responses to patients play a crucial role in psychotherapy and are considered a key component of the patient–clinician relationship, which promotes successful treatment outcomes. To date, no empirical research has ever investigated therapist response patterns to patients with different personality disorders from a neuroscience perspective.MethodsIn the present study, psychodynamic therapists (N = 14) were asked to complete a battery of instruments (including the Therapist Response Questionnaire) after watching three videos showing clinical interactions between a therapist and three patients with narcissistic, histrionic/borderline, and depressive personality disorders, respectively. Subsequently, participants’ high-density electroencephalography (hdEEG) was recorded as they passively viewed pictures of the patients’ faces, which were selected from the still images of the previously shown videos. Supervised machine learning (ML) was used to evaluate whether: (1) therapists’ responses predicted which patient they observed during the EEG task and whether specific clinician reactions were involved in distinguishing between patients with different personality disorders (using pairwise comparisons); and (2) therapists’ event-related potentials (ERPs) predicted which patient they observed during the laboratory experiment and whether distinct ERP components allowed this forecast.ResultsThe results indicated that therapists showed distinct patterns of criticized/devalued and sexualized reactions to visual depictions of patients with different personality disorders, at statistically systematic and clinically meaningful levels. Moreover, therapists’ late positive potentials (LPPs) in the hippocampus were able to determine which patient they observed during the EEG task, with high accuracy.DiscussionThese results, albeit preliminary, shed light on the role played by therapists’ memory processes in psychotherapy. Clinical and neuroscience implications of the empirical investigation of therapist responses are discussed.
Collapse
|
3
|
Bigelow FJ, Clark GM, Lum JAG, Enticott PG. Moral content influences facial emotion processing development during early-to-middle childhood. Neuropsychologia 2022; 176:108372. [PMID: 36155775 DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2022.108372] [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: 11/17/2021] [Revised: 08/14/2022] [Accepted: 09/19/2022] [Indexed: 11/19/2022]
Abstract
Facial emotions are often processed in light of moral information, which can assist in predicting and interpreting the intentions of another. Neurophysiological measures of facial emotion processing (FEP) may be sensitive to moral content. Relatively little is known, however, about the relationship between moral content and FEP during early-to-middle childhood, and how this relationship may change across development. Eighty-four children aged 4-12 years completed a task assessing whether child faces primed within the moral harm/care domain influenced face sensitive event-related potentials (ERPs; N170 and LPP). Results demonstrated that N170 amplitude decreased with age for faces primed with positive moral content, whilst LPP amplitude decreased with age for faces primed with negative moral content. Collectively, this suggests that morally relevant content within the harm/care domain is integrated during the early stages of FEP in early-to-middle childhood. Moreover, stronger language ability was positively correlated with the LPP for fearful faces primed with negative moral content. Overall, findings provide novel evidence to suggest that FEP development may be modulated by moral content, and emotion-specific results may be influenced by language. Findings from this research highlight the complex relationship between broader social cognitive skills during child development.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Felicity J Bigelow
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, Geelong, Australia, 3121.
| | - Gillian M Clark
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, Geelong, Australia, 3121
| | - Jarrad A G Lum
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, Geelong, Australia, 3121
| | - Peter G Enticott
- Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, School of Psychology, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria, Geelong, Australia, 3121
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
Fernandes JM, Soares S, Lopes R, Jerónimo R, Barahona-Corrêa JB. Attribution of intentions in autism spectrum disorder: A study of event-related potentials. Autism Res 2022; 15:847-860. [PMID: 35274469 DOI: 10.1002/aur.2702] [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: 06/03/2021] [Revised: 02/23/2022] [Accepted: 02/24/2022] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by social cognition deficits, including difficulties inferring the intentions of others. Although deficits in attribution of intentions (AI) have been consistently replicated in ASD, their exact nature remains unexplored. Here we registered the electrophysiological correlates of a nonverbal social cognition task to investigate AI in autistic adults. Twenty-one male autistic adults and 30 male neurotypical volunteers performed a comic strips task depicting either intentional action (AI) or physical causality with or without human characters, while their electroencephalographic signal was recorded. Compared to neurotypical volunteers, autistic participants were significantly less accurate in correctly identifying congruence in the AI condition, but not in the physical causality conditions. In the AI condition a bilateral posterior positive event-related potential (ERP) occurred 200-400 ms post-stimulus (the ERP intention effect) in both groups. This waveform comprised a P200 and a P300 component, with the P200 component being larger for the AI condition in neurotypical volunteers but not in autistic individuals, who also showed a longer latency for this waveform. Group differences in amplitude of the ERP intention effect only became evident when we compared autistic participants to a subgroup of similarly performing neurotypical participants, suggesting that the atypical ERP waveform in ASD is an effect of group, rather than a marker of low-task performance. Together, these results suggest that the lower accuracy of the ASD group in the AI task may result from impaired early attentional processing and contextual integration of socially relevant cues. LAY SUMMARY: To understand why autistic people have difficulties in inferring others' intentions, we asked participants to judge the congruence of the endings of comic strips depicting either intentional actions (e.g., fetching a chair to reach for something) or situations solely following physical rules (e.g., an apple falling on someone's head), while their electrical brain activity was recorded. Autistic individuals had more difficulties in inferring intentions than neurotypical controls, which may reflect impaired attention and contextual integration of social cues.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- João Miguel Fernandes
- NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
- CADIn-Neurodevelopment & Inclusion, Non-Profit Association, Cascais, Portugal
| | - Sara Soares
- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte-IUL), CIS_Iscte, Lisbon, Portugal
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (Unescog), Center for Research in Cognition & Neurosciences (CRCN), Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium
| | - Ricardo Lopes
- CADIn-Neurodevelopment & Inclusion, Non-Profit Association, Cascais, Portugal
- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte-IUL), CIS_Iscte, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - Rita Jerónimo
- Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (Iscte-IUL), CIS_Iscte, Lisbon, Portugal
| | - J Bernardo Barahona-Corrêa
- NOVA Medical School, Faculdade de Ciências Médicas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal
- Champalimaud Research & Clinical Centre, Champalimaud Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Pell MD, Sethi S, Rigoulot S, Rothermich K, Liu P, Jiang X. Emotional voices modulate perception and predictions about an upcoming face. Cortex 2022; 149:148-164. [DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2021.12.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/01/2021] [Revised: 09/15/2021] [Accepted: 01/05/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
|