Facial Emotion Perceptual Tendency in Violent and Non-violent Offenders

Neurobiology of Aggression-Review of Recent Findings and Relationship with Alcohol and Trauma

Aggression can be conceptualized as any behavior, physical or verbal, that involves attacking another person or animal with the intent of causing harm, pain or injury. Because of its high prevalence worldwide, aggression has remained a central clinical and public safety issue. Aggression can be caused by several risk factors, including biological and psychological, such as genetics and mental health disorders, and socioeconomic such as education, employment, financial status, and neighborhood. Research over the past few decades has also proposed a link between alcohol consumption and aggressive behaviors. Alcohol consumption can escalate aggressive behavior in humans, often leading to domestic violence or serious crimes. Converging lines of evidence have also shown that trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) could have a tremendous impact on behavior associated with both alcohol use problems and violence. However, although the link between trauma, alcohol, and aggression is well documented, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms and their impact on behavior have not been properly discussed. This article provides an overview of recent advances in understanding the translational neurobiological basis of aggression and its intricate links to alcoholism and trauma, focusing on behavior. It does so by shedding light from several perspectives, including in vivo imaging, genes, receptors, and neurotransmitters and their influence on human and animal behavior.

Law Enforcement Officers’ Ability to Recognize Emotions: The Role of Personality Traits and Basic Needs’ Satisfaction

Background: This study intended to explore the role of personality traits and basic psychological needs in law enforcement officers’ ability to recognize emotions: anger, joy, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, and neutral. It was significant to analyze law enforcement officers’ emotion recognition and the contributing factors, as this field has been under-researched despite increased excessive force use by officers in many countries. Methods: This study applied the Big Five–2 (BFI-2), the Basic Psychological Needs Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS), and the Karolinska Directed Emotional Faces set of stimuli (KDEF). The data was gathered using an online questionnaire provided directly to law enforcement agencies. A total of 154 law enforcement officers participated in the study, 50.65% were females, and 49.35% were males. The mean age was 41.2 (age range = 22–61). In order to analyze the data, SEM and multiple linear regression methods were used. Results: This study analyzed variables of motion recognition, personality traits, and needs satisfaction and confirmed that law enforcement officers’ personality traits play a significant role in emotion recognition. Respondents’ agreeableness significantly predicted increased overall emotion recognition; conscientiousness predicted increased anger recognition; joy recognition was significantly predicted by extraversion, neuroticism, and agreeableness. This study also confirmed that law enforcement officers’ basic psychological needs satisfaction/frustration play a significant role in emotion recognition. Respondents’ relatedness satisfaction significantly predicted increased overall emotion recognition, fear recognition, joy recognition, and sadness recognition. Relatedness frustration significantly predicted decreased anger recognition, surprise recognition, and neutral face recognition. Furthermore, this study confirmed links between law enforcement officers’ personality traits, satisfaction/frustration of basic psychological needs, and emotion recognition, χ2 = 57.924; df = 41; p = 0.042; TLI = 0.929; CFI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.042 [0.009–0.065]. Discussion: The findings suggested that agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, and neuroticism play an essential role in satisfaction and frustration of relatedness needs, which, subsequently, link to emotion recognition. Due to the relatively small sample size, the issues of validity/reliability of some instruments, and other limitations, the results of this study should preferably be regarded with concern.

Interpersonal Affective Touch in a Virtual World: Feeling the Social Presence of Others to Overcome Loneliness

Humans are by nature social beings tuned to communicate and interact from the very beginning of their lives. The sense of touch represents the most direct and intimate channel of communication and a powerful means of connection between the self and the others. In our digital age, the development and diffusion of internet-based technologies and virtual environments offer new opportunities of communication overcoming physical distance. It however, happens that social interactions are often mediated, and the tactile aspects of communication are overlooked, thus diminishing the feeling of social presence, which may contribute to an increased sense of social disconnection and loneliness. The current manuscript aims to review the extant literature about the socio-affective dimension of touch and current advancements in interactive virtual environments in order to provide a new perspective on multisensory virtual communication. Specifically, we suggest that interpersonal affective touch might critically impact virtual social exchanges, promoting a sense of co-presence and social connection between individuals, possibly overcoming feelings of sensory loneliness. This topic of investigation will be of crucial relevance from a theoretical perspective aiming to understand how we integrate multisensory signals in processing and making sense of interpersonal exchanges, this is important in both typical and atypical populations. Moreover, it will pave the way to promising applications by exploring the possibility to use technical innovations to communicate more interactively in the case of people who suffer from social isolation and disconnection from others.