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Roberti E, Turati C, Actis-Grosso R. Single point motion kinematics convey emotional signals in children and adults. PLoS One 2024; 19:e0301896. [PMID: 38598520 PMCID: PMC11006184 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301896] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/04/2023] [Accepted: 03/25/2024] [Indexed: 04/12/2024] Open
Abstract
This study investigates whether humans recognize different emotions conveyed only by the kinematics of a single moving geometrical shape and how this competence unfolds during development, from childhood to adulthood. To this aim, animations in which a shape moved according to happy, fearful, or neutral cartoons were shown, in a forced-choice paradigm, to 7- and 10-year-old children and adults. Accuracy and response times were recorded, and the movement of the mouse while the participants selected a response was tracked. Results showed that 10-year-old children and adults recognize happiness and fear when conveyed solely by different kinematics, with an advantage for fearful stimuli. Fearful stimuli were also accurately identified at 7-year-olds, together with neutral stimuli, while, at this age, the accuracy for happiness was not significantly different than chance. Overall, results demonstrates that emotions can be identified by a single point motion alone during both childhood and adulthood. Moreover, motion contributes in various measures to the comprehension of emotions, with fear recognized earlier in development and more readily even later on, when all emotions are accurately labeled.
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Affiliation(s)
- Elisa Roberti
- Psychology Department, University of Milano–Bicocca, Milan, Italy
- Neuromi, Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy
| | - Chiara Turati
- Psychology Department, University of Milano–Bicocca, Milan, Italy
- Neuromi, Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy
| | - Rossana Actis-Grosso
- Psychology Department, University of Milano–Bicocca, Milan, Italy
- Neuromi, Milan Center for Neuroscience, Milan, Italy
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2
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Preißler L, Keck J, Krüger B, Munzert J, Schwarzer G. Recognition of emotional body language from dyadic and monadic point-light displays in 5-year-old children and adults. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 235:105713. [PMID: 37331307 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105713] [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: 12/23/2022] [Revised: 04/13/2023] [Accepted: 05/16/2023] [Indexed: 06/20/2023]
Abstract
Most child studies on emotion perception used faces and speech as emotion stimuli, but little is known about children's perception of emotions conveyed by body movements, that is, emotional body language (EBL). This study aimed to investigate whether processing advantages for positive emotions in children and negative emotions in adults found in studies on emotional face and term perception also occur in EBL perception. We also aimed to uncover which specific movement features of EBL contribute to emotion perception from interactive dyads compared with noninteractive monads in children and adults. We asked 5-year-old children and adults to categorize happy and angry point-light displays (PLDs), presented as pairs (dyads) and single actors (monads), in a button-press task. By applying representational similarity analyses, we determined intra- and interpersonal movement features of the PLDs and their relation to the participants' emotional categorizations. Results showed significantly higher recognition of happy PLDs in 5-year-olds and of angry PLDs in adults in monads but not in dyads. In both age groups, emotion recognition depended significantly on kinematic and postural movement features such as limb contraction and vertical movement in monads and dyads, whereas in dyads recognition also relied on interpersonal proximity measures such as interpersonal distance. Thus, EBL processing in monads seems to undergo a similar developmental shift from a positivity bias to a negativity bias, as was previously found for emotional faces and terms. Despite these age-specific processing biases, children and adults seem to use similar movement features in EBL processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Lucie Preißler
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Gießen, Germany.
| | - Johannes Keck
- Neuromotor Behavior Lab, Department of Sport Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Gießen, Germany
| | - Britta Krüger
- Neuromotor Behavior Lab, Department of Sport Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Gießen, Germany
| | - Jörn Munzert
- Neuromotor Behavior Lab, Department of Sport Science, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Gießen, Germany
| | - Gudrun Schwarzer
- Department of Developmental Psychology, Justus Liebig University Giessen, 35394 Gießen, Germany
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3
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Grossmann T. Extending and refining the fearful ape hypothesis. Behav Brain Sci 2023; 46:e81. [PMID: 37154374 DOI: 10.1017/s0140525x22002837] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 05/10/2023]
Abstract
The fearful ape hypothesis (FAH) presents an evolutionary-developmental framework stipulating that in the context of cooperative caregiving, unique to human great ape group life, heightened fearfulness was adaptive. This is because from early in human ontogeny fearfulness expressed and perceived enhanced care-based responding and cooperation with mothers and others. This response extends and refines the FAH by incorporating the commentaries' suggestions and additional lines of empirical work, providing a more comprehensive and nuanced version of the FAH. Specifically, it encourages and hopes to inspire cross-species and cross-cultural, longitudinal work elucidating evolutionary and developmental functions of fear in context. Beyond fear, it can be seen as a call for an evolutionary-developmental approach to affective science.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tobias Grossmann
- Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904,
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4
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Xiao NG, Angeli V, Fang W, Manera V, Liu S, Castiello U, Ge L, Lee K, Simion F. The discrimination of expressions in facial movements by infants: A study with point-light displays. J Exp Child Psychol 2023; 232:105671. [PMID: 37003155 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105671] [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: 06/17/2022] [Revised: 02/27/2023] [Accepted: 02/28/2023] [Indexed: 04/03/2023]
Abstract
Perceiving facial expressions is an essential ability for infants. Although previous studies indicated that infants could perceive emotion from expressive facial movements, the developmental change of this ability remains largely unknown. To exclusively examine infants' processing of facial movements, we used point-light displays (PLDs) to present emotionally expressive facial movements. Specifically, we used a habituation and visual paired comparison (VPC) paradigm to investigate whether 3-, 6-, and 9-month-olds could discriminate between happy and fear PLDs after being habituated with a happy PLD (happy-habituation condition) or a fear PLD (fear-habituation condition). The 3-month-olds discriminated between the happy and fear PLDs in both the happy- and fear-habituation conditions. The 6- and 9-month-olds showed discrimination only in the happy-habituation condition but not in the fear-habituation condition. These results indicated a developmental change in processing expressive facial movements. Younger infants tended to process low-level motion signals regardless of the depicted emotions, and older infants tended to process expressions, which emerged in familiar facial expressions (e.g., happy). Additional analyses of individual difference and eye movement patterns supported this conclusion. In Experiment 2, we concluded that the findings of Experiment 1 were not due to a spontaneous preference for fear PLDs. Using inverted PLDs, Experiment 3 further suggested that 3-month-olds have already perceived PLDs as face-like stimuli.
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Affiliation(s)
- Naiqi G Xiao
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada.
| | - Valentina Angeli
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Wei Fang
- Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4L8, Canada
| | - Valeria Manera
- Cognition Behaviour Technology (CoBTeK), EA 7276, Edmond and Lily Safra Center, University of Nice Sophia Antipolis, 06000 Nice, France
| | - Shaoying Liu
- Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou 310018, China
| | - Umberto Castiello
- Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
| | - Liezhong Ge
- Center for Psychological Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China
| | - Kang Lee
- Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5R 2X2, Canada
| | - Francesca Simion
- Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy; Cognitive Neuroscience Center, University of Padova, 35131 Padova, Italy
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5
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Geangu E, Vuong QC. Seven-months-old infants show increased arousal to static emotion body expressions: Evidence from pupil dilation. INFANCY 2023. [PMID: 36917082 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12535] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/07/2022] [Revised: 12/23/2022] [Accepted: 02/10/2023] [Indexed: 03/16/2023]
Abstract
Human body postures provide perceptual cues that can be used to discriminate and recognize emotions. It was previously found that 7-months-olds' fixation patterns discriminated fear from other emotion body expressions but it is not clear whether they also process the emotional content of those expressions. The emotional content of visual stimuli can increase arousal level resulting in pupil dilations. To provide evidence that infants also process the emotional content of expressions, we analyzed variations in pupil in response to emotion stimuli. Forty-eight 7-months-old infants viewed adult body postures expressing anger, fear, happiness and neutral expressions, while their pupil size was measured. There was a significant emotion effect between 1040 and 1640 ms after image onset, when fear elicited larger pupil dilations than neutral expressions. A similar trend was found for anger expressions. Our results suggest that infants have increased arousal to negative-valence body expressions. Thus, in combination with previous fixation results, the pupil data show that infants as young as 7-months can perceptually discriminate static body expressions and process the emotional content of those expressions. The results extend information about infant processing of emotion expressions conveyed through other means (e.g., faces).
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Affiliation(s)
- Elena Geangu
- Department of Psychology, University of York, York, UK
| | - Quoc C Vuong
- Biosciences Institute and School of Psychology, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
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6
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Polver S, Quadrelli E, Turati C, Bulf H. Decoding functional brain networks through graph measures in infancy: The case of emotional faces. Biol Psychol 2022; 170:108292. [PMID: 35217132 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108292] [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: 09/30/2021] [Revised: 02/02/2022] [Accepted: 02/21/2022] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
Abstract
Graph measures represent an optimal way to investigate neural networks' organization, yet their application is still limited in developmental samples. To uncover the organization of 7-month-old infants' functional brain networks during an emotional perception task, we combined a decoding technique (i.e., Principal Component Regression) to graph metrics computation. Nodes' Within Module Degree Z Score (WMDZ) was computed as a measure of modular organization, and we decoded networks' functional organizations across EEG alpha and theta bands in response to static and dynamic facial expressions of emotions. We found that infants' brain topological activity differentiates between static and dynamic emotional faces due to the involvement of visual streams and sensorimotor areas, as often observed in adults. Moreover, network invariances point toward an already present rudimental network structure tuned to face processing already at 7-months of age. Overall, our results affirm the fruitfulness of the application of graph measures in developmental samples, due to their flexibility and the wealth of information they provide over infants' networks functional organization.
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Affiliation(s)
- Silvia Polver
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy.
| | - Ermanno Quadrelli
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy; NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy.
| | - Chiara Turati
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy; NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy.
| | - Hermann Bulf
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy; NeuroMI, Milan Center for Neuroscience, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126 Milano (MI), Italy.
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7
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8
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Pollux PM. Age-of-actor effects in body expression recognition of children. Acta Psychol (Amst) 2021; 220:103421. [PMID: 34564027 DOI: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2021.103421] [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: 05/05/2020] [Revised: 09/14/2021] [Accepted: 09/20/2021] [Indexed: 10/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Investigations of developmental trajectories for emotion recognition suggest that both face- and body expression recognition increases rapidly in early childhood and reaches adult levels of performance near the age of ten. So far, little is known about whether children's ability to recognise body expressions is influenced by the age of the person they are observing. This question is investigated here by presenting 119 children and 42 young adults with videos of children, young adults and older adults expressing emotions with their whole body. The results revealed an own-age advantage for children, reflected in adult-level accuracy for videos of children for most expressions but reduced accuracy for videos of older adults. Children's recognition of older adults' expressions was not correlated with children's estimated amount of contact with older adults. Support for potential influences of social biases on performance measures was minimal. The own-age advantage was explained in terms of children's reduced familiarity with body expressions of older adults due to aging related changes in the kinematics characteristics of movements and potentially due to stronger embodiment of other children's bodily movements.
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9
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Schneider N, Greenstreet E, Deoni SCL. Connecting inside out: Development of the social brain in infants and toddlers with a focus on myelination as a marker of brain maturation. Child Dev 2021; 93:359-371. [PMID: 34463347 PMCID: PMC9290142 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.13649] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2020] [Revised: 06/15/2021] [Accepted: 07/05/2021] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Abstract
Early childhood is a sensitive period for learning and social skill development. The maturation of cerebral regions underlying social processing lays the foundation for later social‐emotional competence. This study explored myelin changes in social brain regions and their association with changes in parent‐rated social‐emotional development in a cohort of 129 children (64 females, 0–36 months, 77 White). Results reveal a steep increase in myelination throughout the social brain in the first 3 years of life that is significantly associated with social‐emotional development scores. These findings add knowledge to the emerging picture of social brain development by describing neural underpinnings of human social behavior. They can contribute to identifying age‐/stage‐appropriate early life factors in this developmental domain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nora Schneider
- Brain Health Department, Nestlé Institute of Health Science, Nestlé Research, Société des Produits Nestlé SA, Switzerland
| | | | - Sean C L Deoni
- Advanced Baby Imaging Lab, Rhode Island Hospital, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.,Department of Pediatrics, Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.,Department of Radiology, Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
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10
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Addabbo M, Bolognini N, Turati C. Neural time course of pain observation in infancy. Dev Sci 2020; 24:e13074. [PMID: 33314507 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13074] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/14/2020] [Revised: 11/18/2020] [Accepted: 12/02/2020] [Indexed: 01/05/2023]
Abstract
Perception of pain in others is of great evolutionary significance for the development of human empathy. However, infants' sensitivity to others' painful experiences has not been investigated so far. Here, we explored the neural time course of infants' processing of others' pain by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) while 6-month-old infants observed a painful tactile stimulation directed towards the eye and a neutral tactile stimulation on the eyebrow. We analyzed both the Negative Central (Nc) and the later Late Positive Potential (LPP) ERP components, indexing respectively attention allocation and cognitive evaluation of perceptual stimuli. Results showed that observing painful touch elicits a mid-latency Nc (300-500 ms) over the right fronto-central site, which is greater in amplitude as compared to neutral touch. A divergent activity was also visible in the centro-parietal early (550-750 ms) and late (800-1000 ms) LPP, showing increased amplitudes in response to neutral compared to painful touch. The cognitive evaluation of painful stimuli, reflected by the LPP, might thus not be fully developed at 6 months of age, as adults typically show a larger LPP in response to painful as compared to neutral stimuli. Overall, infants show early attentional attuning to others' pain. This early sensitivity to others' painful tactile experiences might form a prerequisite for the development of human empathy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret Addabbo
- Department of Psychology & Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMi, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
| | - Nadia Bolognini
- Department of Psychology & Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMi, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy.,Laboratory of Neuropsychology, IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano, Milan, Italy
| | - Chiara Turati
- Department of Psychology & Milan Center for Neuroscience (NeuroMi, University of Milan-Bicocca, Milan, Italy
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11
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Geangu E, Vuong QC. Look up to the body: An eye-tracking investigation of 7-months-old infants' visual exploration of emotional body expressions. Infant Behav Dev 2020; 60:101473. [PMID: 32739668 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2020.101473] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/23/2019] [Revised: 07/22/2020] [Accepted: 07/22/2020] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
The human body is an important source of information to infer a person's emotional state. Research with adult observers indicate that the posture of the torso, arms and hands provide important perceptual cues for recognising anger, fear and happy expressions. Much less is known about whether infants process body regions differently for different body expressions. To address this issue, we used eye tracking to investigate whether infants' visual exploration patterns differed when viewing body expressions. Forty-eight 7-months-old infants were randomly presented with static images of adult female bodies expressing anger, fear and happiness, as well as an emotionally-neutral posture. Facial cues to emotional state were removed by masking the faces. We measured the proportion of looking time, proportion and number of fixations, and duration of fixations on the head, upper body and lower body regions for the different expressions. We showed that infants explored the upper body more than the lower body. Importantly, infants at this age fixated differently on different body regions depending on the expression of the body posture. In particular, infants spent a larger proportion of their looking times and had longer fixation durations on the upper body for fear relative to the other expressions. These results extend and replicate the information about infant processing of emotional expressions displayed by human bodies, and they support the hypothesis that infants' visual exploration of human bodies is driven by the upper body.
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12
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van Schaik JE, Dominici N. Motion tracking in developmental research: Methods, considerations, and applications. PROGRESS IN BRAIN RESEARCH 2020; 254:89-111. [PMID: 32859295 DOI: 10.1016/bs.pbr.2020.06.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
In this chapter, we explore the use of motion tracking methodology in developmental research. With motion tracking, also called motion capture, human movements can be precisely recorded and analyzed. Motion tracking provides developmental researchers with objective measurements of motor and (socio-)cognitive development. It can further be used to create carefully-controlled stimuli videos and can offer means of measuring development outside of the lab. We discuss three types of motion tracking that lend themselves to developmental applications. First, marker-based systems track optical or electromagnetic markers or sensors placed on the body and offer high accuracy measurements. Second, markerless methods entail image processing of videos to track the movement of bodies without participants being hindered by physical markers. Third, inertial motion tracking measures three-dimensional movements and can be used in a variety of settings. The chapter concludes by examining three example topics from developmental literature in which motion tracking applications have contributed to our understanding of human development.
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Affiliation(s)
- Johanna E van Schaik
- Department of Educational and Family Studies, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
| | - Nadia Dominici
- Department of Human Movement Sciences, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
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13
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Ross P, Atkinson AP. Expanding Simulation Models of Emotional Understanding: The Case for Different Modalities, Body-State Simulation Prominence, and Developmental Trajectories. Front Psychol 2020; 11:309. [PMID: 32194476 PMCID: PMC7063097 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00309] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/18/2019] [Accepted: 02/10/2020] [Indexed: 12/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent models of emotion recognition suggest that when people perceive an emotional expression, they partially activate the respective emotion in themselves, providing a basis for the recognition of that emotion. Much of the focus of these models and of their evidential basis has been on sensorimotor simulation as a basis for facial expression recognition - the idea, in short, that coming to know what another feels involves simulating in your brain the motor plans and associated sensory representations engaged by the other person's brain in producing the facial expression that you see. In this review article, we argue that simulation accounts of emotion recognition would benefit from three key extensions. First, that fuller consideration be given to simulation of bodily and vocal expressions, given that the body and voice are also important expressive channels for providing cues to another's emotional state. Second, that simulation of other aspects of the perceived emotional state, such as changes in the autonomic nervous system and viscera, might have a more prominent role in underpinning emotion recognition than is typically proposed. Sensorimotor simulation models tend to relegate such body-state simulation to a subsidiary role, despite the plausibility of body-state simulation being able to underpin emotion recognition in the absence of typical sensorimotor simulation. Third, that simulation models of emotion recognition be extended to address how embodied processes and emotion recognition abilities develop through the lifespan. It is not currently clear how this system of sensorimotor and body-state simulation develops and in particular how this affects the development of emotion recognition ability. We review recent findings from the emotional body recognition literature and integrate recent evidence regarding the development of mimicry and interoception to significantly expand simulation models of emotion recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Paddy Ross
- Department of Psychology, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
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14
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Ogren M, Kaplan B, Peng Y, Johnson KL, Johnson SP. Motion or emotion: Infants discriminate emotional biological motion based on low-level visual information. Infant Behav Dev 2019; 57:101324. [PMID: 31112859 PMCID: PMC6859203 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2019.04.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/09/2019] [Revised: 04/17/2019] [Accepted: 04/17/2019] [Indexed: 10/26/2022]
Abstract
Infants' ability to discriminate emotional facial expressions and tones of voice is well-established, yet little is known about infant discrimination of emotional body movements. Here, we asked if 10-20-month-old infants rely on high-level emotional cues or low-level motion related cues when discriminating between emotional point-light displays (PLDs). In Study 1, infants viewed 18 pairs of angry, happy, sad, or neutral PLDs. Infants looked more at angry vs. neutral, happy vs. neutral, and neutral vs. sad. Motion analyses revealed that infants preferred the PLD with more total body movement in each pairing. Study 2, in which infants viewed inverted versions of the same pairings, yielded similar findings except for sad-neutral. Study 3 directly paired all three emotional stimuli in both orientations. The angry and happy stimuli did not significantly differ in terms of total motion, but both had more motion than the sad stimuli. Infants looked more at angry vs. sad, more at happy vs. sad, and about equally to angry vs. happy in both orientations. Again, therefore, infants preferred PLDs with more total body movement. Overall, the results indicate that a low-level motion preference may drive infants' discrimination of emotional human walking motions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marissa Ogren
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, United States.
| | - Brianna Kaplan
- Department of Psychology, New York University, United States
| | - Yujia Peng
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
| | - Kerri L Johnson
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
| | - Scott P Johnson
- Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, United States
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15
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Hartkopf J, Moser J, Schleger F, Preissl H, Keune J. Changes in event-related brain responses and habituation during child development - A systematic literature review. Clin Neurophysiol 2019; 130:2238-2254. [PMID: 31711004 DOI: 10.1016/j.clinph.2019.08.029] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/02/2019] [Revised: 08/07/2019] [Accepted: 08/24/2019] [Indexed: 01/09/2023]
Abstract
OBJECTIVE This systematic review highlights the influence of developmental changes of the central nervous system on habituation assessment during child development. Therefore, studies on age dependant changes in event-related brain responses as well as studies on behavioural and neurophysiological habituation during child development are compiled and discussed. METHODS Two PubMed searches with terms "(development evoked brain response (fetus OR neonate OR children) (electroencephalography OR magnetoencephalography))" and with terms "(psychology habituation (fetal OR neonate OR children) (human brain))" were performed to identify studies on developmental changes in event-related brain responses as well as habituation studies during child development. RESULTS Both search results showed a wide diversity of subjects' ages, stimulation protocols and examined behaviour or components of event-related brain responses as well as a demand for more longitudinal study designs. CONCLUSIONS A conclusive statement about clear developmental trends in event-related brain responses or in neurophysiological habituation studies is difficult to draw. Future studies should implement longitudinal designs, combination of behavioural and neurophysiological habituation measurement and more complex habituation paradigms to assess several habituation criteria. SIGNIFICANCE This review emphasizes that event-related brain responses underlie certain changes during child development which should be more considered in the context of neurophysiological habituation studies.
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Affiliation(s)
- Julia Hartkopf
- Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases/German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 10, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; fMEG-Center, University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 47, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
| | - Julia Moser
- Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases/German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 10, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; fMEG-Center, University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 47, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
| | - Franziska Schleger
- Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases/German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 10, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; fMEG-Center, University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 47, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
| | - Hubert Preissl
- Institute for Diabetes Research and Metabolic Diseases/German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD e.V.) of the Helmholtz Center Munich at the University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 10, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; fMEG-Center, University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 47, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany.
| | - Jana Keune
- fMEG-Center, University of Tuebingen, Otfried-Mueller-Strasse 47, 72076 Tuebingen, Germany; Department of Neurology, Klinikum Bayreuth GmbH, Hohe Warte 8, 95445 Bayreuth, Germany.
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Addabbo M, Vacaru SV, Meyer M, Hunnius S. 'Something in the way you move': Infants are sensitive to emotions conveyed in action kinematics. Dev Sci 2019; 23:e12873. [PMID: 31144771 DOI: 10.1111/desc.12873] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/13/2018] [Revised: 05/20/2019] [Accepted: 05/27/2019] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Body movements, as well as faces, communicate emotions. Research in adults has shown that the perception of action kinematics has a crucial role in understanding others' emotional experiences. Still, little is known about infants' sensitivity to body emotional expressions, since most of the research in infancy focused on faces. While there is some first evidence that infants can recognize emotions conveyed in whole-body postures, it is still an open question whether they can extract emotional information from action kinematics. We measured electromyographic (EMG) activity over the muscles involved in happy (zygomaticus major, ZM), angry (corrugator supercilii, CS) and fearful (frontalis, F) facial expressions, while 11-month-old infants observed the same action performed with either happy or angry kinematics. Results demonstrate that infants responded to angry and happy kinematics with matching facial reactions. In particular, ZM activity increased while CS activity decreased in response to happy kinematics and vice versa for angry kinematics. Our results show for the first time that infants can rely on kinematic information to pick up on the emotional content of an action. Thus, from very early in life, action kinematics represent a fundamental and powerful source of information in revealing others' emotional state.
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Affiliation(s)
- Margaret Addabbo
- Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy
| | - Stefania V Vacaru
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radbound University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Marlene Meyer
- Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
| | - Sabine Hunnius
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radbound University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
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17
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How to build a helpful baby: a look at the roots of prosociality in infancy. Curr Opin Psychol 2018; 20:21-24. [DOI: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2017.08.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/09/2017] [Revised: 06/26/2017] [Accepted: 08/03/2017] [Indexed: 12/21/2022]
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18
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Heck A, Chroust A, White H, Jubran R, Bhatt RS. Development of body emotion perception in infancy: From discrimination to recognition. Infant Behav Dev 2017; 50:42-51. [PMID: 29131968 DOI: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2017.10.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/13/2017] [Revised: 09/21/2017] [Accepted: 10/24/2017] [Indexed: 11/25/2022]
Abstract
Research suggests that infants progress from discrimination to recognition of emotions in faces during the first half year of life. It is unknown whether the perception of emotions from bodies develops in a similar manner. In the current study, when presented with happy and angry body videos and voices, 5-month-olds looked longer at the matching video when they were presented upright but not when they were inverted. In contrast, 3.5-month-olds failed to match even with upright videos. Thus, 5-month-olds but not 3.5-month-olds exhibited evidence of recognition of emotions from bodies by demonstrating intermodal matching. In a subsequent experiment, younger infants did discriminate between body emotion videos but failed to exhibit an inversion effect, suggesting that discrimination may be based on low-level stimulus features. These results document a developmental change from discrimination based on non-emotional information at 3.5 months to recognition of body emotions at 5 months. This pattern of development is similar to face emotion knowledge development and suggests that both the face and body emotion perception systems develop rapidly during the first half year of life.
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19
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Neural correlates of infants' sensitivity to vocal expressions of peers. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2017; 26:39-44. [PMID: 28456088 PMCID: PMC6987768 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.04.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2016] [Revised: 04/10/2017] [Accepted: 04/11/2017] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Responding to others' emotional expressions is an essential and early developing social skill among humans. Much research has focused on how infants process facial expressions, while much less is known about infants' processing of vocal expressions. We examined 8-month-old infants' processing of other infants' vocalizations by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to positive (infant laughter), negative (infant cries), and neutral (adult hummed speech) vocalizations. Our ERP results revealed that hearing another infant cry elicited an enhanced negativity (N200) at temporal electrodes around 200ms, whereas listening to another infant laugh resulted in an enhanced positivity (P300) at central electrodes around 300ms. This indexes that infants' brains rapidly respond to a crying peer during early auditory processing stages, but also selectively respond to a laughing peer during later stages associated with familiarity detection processes. These findings provide evidence for infants' sensitivity to vocal expressions of peers and shed new light on the neural processes underpinning emotion processing in infants.
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20
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Hock A, Oberst L, Jubran R, White H, Heck A, Bhatt RS. Integrated Emotion Processing in Infancy: Matching of Faces and Bodies. INFANCY 2017; 22:608-625. [PMID: 29623007 DOI: 10.1111/infa.12177] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Accurate assessment of emotion requires the coordination of information from different sources such as faces, bodies, and voices. Adults readily integrate facial and bodily emotions. However, not much is known about the developmental origin of this capacity. Using a familiarization paired-comparison procedure, 6.5-month-olds in the current experiments were familiarized to happy, angry, or sad emotions in faces or bodies and tested with the opposite image type portraying the familiar emotion paired with a novel emotion. Infants looked longer at the familiar emotion across faces and bodies (except when familiarized to angry images and tested on the happy/angry contrast). This matching occurred not only for emotions from different affective categories (happy, angry) but also within the negative affective category (angry, sad). Thus, 6.5-month-olds, like adults, integrate emotions from bodies and faces in a fairly sophisticated manner, suggesting rapid development of emotion processing early in life.
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21
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Grossmann T, Jessen S. When in infancy does the “fear bias” develop? J Exp Child Psychol 2017; 153:149-154. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.06.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/25/2016] [Revised: 06/02/2016] [Accepted: 06/02/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
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22
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Pollux PMJ, Hermens F, Willmott AP. Age-congruency and contact effects in body expression recognition from point-light displays (PLD). PeerJ 2016; 4:e2796. [PMID: 27994986 PMCID: PMC5157186 DOI: 10.7717/peerj.2796] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2016] [Accepted: 11/15/2016] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Recognition of older people’s body expressions is a crucial social skill. We here investigate how age, not just of the observer, but also of the observed individual, affects this skill. Age may influence the ability to recognize other people’s body expressions by changes in one’s own ability to perform certain action over the life-span (i.e., an own-age bias may occur, with best recognition for one’s own age). Whole body point light displays of children, young adults and older adults (>70 years) expressing six different emotions were presented to observers of the same three age-groups. Across two variations of the paradigm, no evidence for the predicted own-age bias (a cross-over interaction between one’s own age and the observed person’s age) was found. Instead, experience effects were found with children better recognizing older actors’ expressions of ‘active emotions,’ such as anger and happiness with greater exposure in daily life. Together, the findings suggest that age-related changes in one own’s mobility only influences body expression categorization in young children who interact frequently with older adults.
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Affiliation(s)
- Petra M J Pollux
- School of Psychology, University of Lincoln , Lincoln , United Kingdom
| | - Frouke Hermens
- School of Psychology, University of Lincoln , Lincoln , United Kingdom
| | - Alexander P Willmott
- School of Sport and Exercise Science, University of Lincoln , Lincoln , United Kingdom
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23
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Heck A, Hock A, White H, Jubran R, Bhatt RS. Further evidence of early development of attention to dynamic facial emotions: Reply to Grossmann and Jessen. J Exp Child Psychol 2016; 153:155-162. [PMID: 27686256 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2016.08.006] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/17/2016] [Accepted: 08/22/2016] [Indexed: 10/20/2022]
Abstract
Adults exhibit enhanced attention to negative emotions like fear, which is thought to be an adaptive reaction to emotional information. Previous research, mostly conducted with static faces, suggests that infants exhibit an attentional bias toward fearful faces only at around 7months of age. In a recent study (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016, Vol. 147, pp. 100-110), we found that 5-month-olds also exhibit heightened attention to fear when tested with dynamic face videos. This indication of an earlier development of an attention bias to fear raises questions about developmental mechanisms that have been proposed to underlie this function. However, Grossmann and Jessen (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 2016, Vol. 153, pp. 149-154) argued that this result may have been due to differences in the amount of movement in the videos rather than a response to emotional information. To examine this possibility, we tested a new sample of 5-month-olds exactly as in the original study (Heck, Hock, White, Jubran, & Bhatt, 2016) but with inverted faces. We found that the fear bias seen in our study was no longer apparent with inverted faces. Therefore, it is likely that infants' enhanced attention to fear in our study was indeed a response to emotions rather than a reaction to arbitrary low-level stimulus features. This finding indicates enhanced attention to fear at 5months and underscores the need to find mechanisms that engender the development of emotion knowledge early in life.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alison Heck
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
| | - Alyson Hock
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
| | - Hannah White
- University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506, USA
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24
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The association of temperament and maternal empathy with individual differences in infants' neural responses to emotional body expressions. Dev Psychopathol 2016; 27:1205-16. [PMID: 26439071 DOI: 10.1017/s0954579415000772] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
We examined the role of infant temperament and maternal dispositional empathy in the neural processing of happy and fearful emotional body expressions in 8-month-old infants by measuring event-related brain potentials. Our results revealed that infants' tendency to approach novel objects and people was positively correlated with the neural sensitivity (attention allocation) to fearful expressions, while infant fearfulness was negatively correlated to the neural sensitivity to fearful expressions. Maternal empathic concern was associated with infants' neural discrimination between happy and fearful expression, with infants of more empathetically concerned mothers showing greater neural sensitivity (attention allocation) to fearful compared to happy expressions. It is critical that our results also revealed that individual differences in the sensitivity to emotional information are explained by an interaction between infant temperament and maternal empathic concern. Specifically, maternal empathy appears to impact infants' neural responses to emotional body expressions, depending on infant fearfulness. These findings support the notion that the way in which infants respond to emotional signals in the environment is fundamentally linked to their temperament and maternal empathic traits. This adds an early developmental neuroscience dimension to existing accounts of social-emotional functioning, suggesting a complex and integrative picture of why and how infants' emotional sensitivity varies.
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25
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Bhatt RS, Hock A, White H, Jubran R, Galati A. The Development of Body Structure Knowledge in Infancy. CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES 2016; 10:45-52. [PMID: 28663770 PMCID: PMC5486992 DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12162] [Citation(s) in RCA: 24] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Although we know much about the development of face processing, we know considerably less about the development of body knowledge-despite bodies also being significant sources of social information. One set of studies indicated that body structure knowledge is poor during the 1st year of life and spawned a model that posits that, unlike the development of face knowledge, which benefits from innate propensities and dedicated learning mechanisms, the development of body knowledge relies on general learning mechanisms and develops slowly. In this article, we review studies on infants' knowledge about the structure of bodies and their processing of gender and emotion that paint a different picture. Although questions remain, a general social cognition system likely engenders similar trajectories of development of knowledge about faces and bodies, and may equip developing infants with the capacity to obtain socially critical information from many sources.
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26
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Putting the face in context: Body expressions impact facial emotion processing in human infants. Dev Cogn Neurosci 2016; 19:115-21. [PMID: 26974742 PMCID: PMC6988095 DOI: 10.1016/j.dcn.2016.01.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 29] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/10/2015] [Revised: 01/28/2016] [Accepted: 01/30/2016] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Brain responses were measured by presenting emotional faces in the context of emotional bodies. ERP data showed that 8-month-old infants discriminate between facial expressions only when presented in the context of congruent body expressions. Neural evidence for the existence of context-sensitive facial emotion perception in infants.
Body expressions exert strong contextual effects on facial emotion perception in adults. Specifically, conflicting body cues hamper the recognition of emotion from faces, as evident on both the behavioral and neural level. We examined the developmental origins of the neural processes involved in emotion perception across body and face in 8-month-old infants by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs). We primed infants with body postures (fearful, happy) that were followed by either congruent or incongruent facial expressions. Our results revealed that body expressions impact facial emotion processing and that incongruent body cues impair the neural discrimination of emotional facial expressions. Priming effects were associated with attentional and recognition memory processes, as reflected in a modulation of the Nc and Pc evoked at anterior electrodes. These findings demonstrate that 8-month-old infants possess neural mechanisms that allow for the integration of emotion across body and face, providing evidence for the early developmental emergence of context-sensitive facial emotion perception.
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27
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Boyce WT. Differential Susceptibility of the Developing Brain to Contextual Adversity and Stress. Neuropsychopharmacology 2016; 41:142-62. [PMID: 26391599 PMCID: PMC4677150 DOI: 10.1038/npp.2015.294] [Citation(s) in RCA: 76] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/01/2015] [Revised: 09/11/2015] [Accepted: 09/15/2015] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
A swiftly growing volume of literature, comprising both human and animal studies and employing both observational and experimental designs, has documented striking individual differences in neurobiological sensitivities to environmental circumstances within subgroups of study samples. This differential susceptibility to social and physical environments operates bidirectionally, in both adverse and beneficial contexts, and results in a minority subpopulation with remarkably poor or unusually positive trajectories of health and development, contingent upon the character of environmental conditions. Differences in contextual susceptibility appear to emerge in early development, as the interactive and adaptive product of genetic and environmental attributes. This paper surveys what is currently known of the mechanisms or mediators of differential susceptibility, at the levels of temperament and behavior, physiological systems, brain circuitry and neuronal function, and genetic and epigenetic variation. It concludes with the assertion that differential susceptibility is inherently grounded within processes of biological moderation, the complexities of which are at present only partially understood.
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Affiliation(s)
- W Thomas Boyce
- Departments of Pediatrics and Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
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28
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Body maps in the infant brain. Trends Cogn Sci 2015; 19:499-505. [PMID: 26231760 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.06.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 93] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/29/2015] [Revised: 06/27/2015] [Accepted: 06/29/2015] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Researchers have examined representations of the body in the adult brain but relatively little attention has been paid to ontogenetic aspects of neural body maps in human infants. Novel applications of methods for recording brain activity in infants are delineating cortical body maps in the first months of life. Body maps may facilitate infants' registration of similarities between self and other - an ability that is foundational to developing social cognition. Alterations in interpersonal aspects of body representations might also contribute to social deficits in certain neurodevelopmental disorders.
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29
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Krol KM, Rajhans P, Missana M, Grossmann T. Duration of exclusive breastfeeding is associated with differences in infants' brain responses to emotional body expressions. Front Behav Neurosci 2015; 8:459. [PMID: 25657620 PMCID: PMC4302883 DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00459] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/06/2014] [Accepted: 12/29/2014] [Indexed: 12/01/2022] Open
Abstract
Much research has recognized the general importance of maternal behavior in the early development and programing of the mammalian offspring's brain. Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) duration, the amount of time in which breastfed meals are the only source of sustenance, plays a prominent role in promoting healthy brain and cognitive development in human children. However, surprisingly little is known about the influence of breastfeeding on social and emotional development in infancy. In the current study, we examined whether and how the duration of EBF impacts the neural processing of emotional signals by measuring electro-cortical responses to body expressions in 8-month-old infants. Our analyses revealed that infants with high EBF experience show a significantly greater neural sensitivity to happy body expressions than those with low EBF experience. Moreover, regression analyses revealed that the neural bias toward happiness or fearfulness differs as a function of the duration of EBF. Specifically, longer breastfeeding duration is associated with a happy bias, whereas shorter breastfeeding duration is associated with a fear bias. These findings suggest that breastfeeding experience can shape the way in which infants respond to emotional signals.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathleen M. Krol
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
| | - Purva Rajhans
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
| | - Manuela Missana
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
| | - Tobias Grossmann
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
- Department of Psychology, University of Virgina, CharlottesvilleVA, USA
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30
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Missana M, Rajhans P, Atkinson AP, Grossmann T. Discrimination of fearful and happy body postures in 8-month-old infants: an event-related potential study. Front Hum Neurosci 2014; 8:531. [PMID: 25104929 PMCID: PMC4109437 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00531] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/04/2014] [Accepted: 06/30/2014] [Indexed: 01/07/2023] Open
Abstract
Responding to others' emotional body expressions is an essential social skill in humans. Adults readily detect emotions from body postures, but it is unclear whether infants are sensitive to emotional body postures. We examined 8-month-old infants' brain responses to emotional body postures by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) to happy and fearful bodies. Our results revealed two emotion-sensitive ERP components: body postures evoked an early N290 at occipital electrodes and a later Nc at fronto-central electrodes that were enhanced in response to fearful (relative to happy) expressions. These findings demonstrate that: (a) 8-month-old infants discriminate between static emotional body postures; and (b) similar to infant emotional face perception, the sensitivity to emotional body postures is reflected in early perceptual (N290) and later attentional (Nc) neural processes. This provides evidence for an early developmental emergence of the neural processes involved in the discrimination of emotional body postures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Manuela Missana
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
| | - Purva Rajhans
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
| | | | - Tobias Grossmann
- Early Social Development Group, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain SciencesLeipzig, Germany
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