Development and Standardization of Extended ChaeLee Korean Facial Expressions of Emotions

The effect of feedback in attention training on Attention Bias to Threat in individuals with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

This study was conducted to identify the characteristics of attentional bias of individuals with Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT) and how Attention Bias to Threat (ABT) changes when feedback was provided in attention training.

METHODS

First, a dot probe task was conducted to confirm the ABT of the SCT feedback group (N = 27) and SCT no feedback group (N = 25), and healthy control group (N = 30) before intervention. Thereafter, a VR-based attention training was conducted three times with feedback or no feedback. Finally, a dot probe task was executed again.

RESULTS

The SCT groups showed a higher ABT than the healthy control group. A result of the attention training, the reaction time of disengage was significantly reduced when provided feedback. In addition, it was confirmed that the ABT of the SCT group that received feedback, was significantly reduced.

LIMITATIONS

First, the only stimulus used to examine the ABT was the angry face, and the reaction time to other threatening facial expressions was not confirmed. Second, attention training was conducted three times, but further studies are needed on the effect of the duration of training on the magnitude of effect.

CONCLUSIONS

This study identified ABT associated with internalizing symptoms of SCT and suggests that attention training with immediate and continuous feedback is needed to reduce ABT.

Deficits of Facial Emotion Recognition in Elderly Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment

INTRODUCTION

The study of facial emotion recognition is under-explored in subjects with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). We investigated whether deficits in facial emotion recognition are present in patients with MCI. We also analyzed the relationship between facial emotion recognition and different domains of cognitive function.

METHODS

This study included 300 participants aged 60 years or older with cognitive decline. We evaluated 181 MCI and 119 non-MCI subjects using the Seoul Neuropsychological Screening Battery-Core (SNSB-C) and facial emotion recognition task using six facial expressions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness and surprise). A Generalized Linear Model (GLM) was used to assess the association between cognitive performance and accuracy of facial emotion recognition and to compare facial emotion recognition in the MCI group based on the impairment of five different domains of cognitive function. The model was adjusted for age, sex, years of education, and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

Patients with MCI had a lower score for accurately recognizing total facial emotion (0.48 vs. 0.53; ρ = 0.0003) and surprise (0.73 vs. 0.81; ρ = 0.0215) when compared to cognitively healthy subjects. We also discovered that frontal/executive function domain (Digit Symbol Coding [DSC, 0.38 vs. 0.49; p < 0.0001], Controlled Oral Word Association Test [COWAT, 0.42 vs. 0.49; p = 0.0001], Korean-Trail Making Test [K-TMT, 0.37 vs. 0.48; p = 0.0073], Korean-Color Word Stroop Test [K-CWST, 0.43 vs. 0.49; p = 0.0219]) and language domain (Korean-Boston Naming Test [S-K-BNT, 0.46 vs. 0.47; p = 0.003]) were statistically associated with the deficits of facial emotion recognition in patients with MCI.

CONCLUSION

We observed a significant association between deficits in facial emotion recognition and cognitive impairment in elderly individuals.

The effect of training to target cognitive biases towards social rejection in eating disorders

OBJECTIVE

This study examined the effect of cognitive bias modification for interpretation (CBM-I) training in Korean women with eating disorders (EDs).

METHOD

Sixty-three women with EDs participated in the study. Participants were randomly assigned to the intervention group where they received six sessions of CBM-I training (n = 31) in addition to treatment-as-usual or were put on a waiting list (n = 32). Participants' interpretation and attention biases, emotion regulation, affect, and ED psychopathology were assessed at baseline, end-of-intervention (4 weeks), and follow-up (8 weeks).

RESULTS

Participants who completed the CBM-I training displayed greater reductions in negative interpretation bias (Δη2 = 0.107) and emotion dysregulation (Δη2 = 0.085) with medium to large effect sizes compared to the control group, which were maintained from baseline to follow-up. Disengagement from negative faces and a focus on positive faces was found in the intervention group with a moderate effect size at the end-of-intervention (Δη2 = 0.090). Both intervention and control groups showed improvements in ED psychopathology. Baseline neuroticism was positively correlated with CBM-I effect.

DISCUSSION

The results suggest that modifying interpretation bias towards ambiguous social stimuli might be an effective adjuvant treatment to reduce negative expectations of social situations and improve emotion regulation in women with bulimia nervosa and anorexia nervosa.

Diminished emotion recognition with reduced face gaze in complex situation in individuals with broad autism phenotype

Background/objective

Individuals with broad autism phenotype (BAP) showed a diminished ability to recognize emotion. This study aims to examine whether their decline in emotion recognition ability could be more clearly identified as task complexity increased and whether their decline could be influenced by their eye-gaze patterns.

Method

41 individuals with BAP and 40 healthy controls performed two types of emotion recognition tasks. After confirming conditions wherein the BAP group did not perform well compared to the control group, we compared gaze proportion on faces and context between groups when performing the conditions.

Results

The more difficult the task, the clearer the significant relationships between the level of autistic traits and emotion recognition ability. The BAP group showed lower accuracy compared to the control group when a face with mild emotional intensity was presented with context. In terms of gaze proportion, the BAP group looked less at faces when recognizing emotions compared to the control group.

Conclusion

These findings indicate that diminished emotion recognition ability in individuals with BAP may be influenced by face gaze.

Reliability of self-reported dispositional mindfulness scales and their association with working memory performance and functional connectivity

We systematically investigated the link between trait mindfulness scores and functional connectivity (FC) features or behavioral data, to emphasize the importance of the reliability of self-report mindfulness scores. Sixty healthy young male participants underwent two functional MRI runs with three mindfulness or mind-wandering task blocks with an N-back task (NBT) block. The data from 49 participants (age: 23.3 ± 2.8) for whom two sets of the self-reported Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and NBT performance were available were analyzed. We divided participants into two groups based on the consistency level of their MAAS scores (i.e., a "consistent" and an "inconsistent" group). Then, the association between the MAAS scores and FC features or NBT performance was investigated using linear regression analysis with p-value correction and bootstrapping. Meaningful associations (a) between MAAS and NBT accuracy (slope = 0.41, CI = [0.10, 0.73], corrected p < 0.05), (b) between MAAS and the FC edges in the frontoparietal network, and (c) between the FC edges and NBT performance were only observed in the consistent group (n = 26). Our findings demonstrate the importance of appropriate screening mechanisms for self-report-based dispositional mindfulness scores when trait mindfulness scores are combined with neuronal features and behavioral data.

Diminished ability to integrate target stimuli with context during emotional recognition in individuals with broad autism phenotype

Individuals with broad autism phenotype (BAP) have a tendency not to integrate emotional stimuli with the surrounding context. They have also shown different patterns and abilities in processing positive and negative emotions. This study aimed to examine whether the effect of context on target stimuli could vary depending on the type of target emotion in individuals with BAP. Based on the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) and Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), 36 individuals with BAP and 33 healthy controls were selected. All the participants performed an overlap-emotional task consisting of six conditions: 2 (congruence: congruent and incongruent) × 3 (emotion: fearful, sad, and happy). Reaction time and accuracy were measured as dependent variables. The results revealed that the individuals with BAP showed no difference in reaction time between the condition of congruence and incongruence, but that the control group was faster to categorize facial expression on the condition of congruence than that of incongruence regardless of the type of target emotion. There were no differences between the two groups in any of the conditions with regard to accuracy. These findings indicate that individuals with BAP tend not to integrate target emotions with contextual information, a feature that could worsen the speed of emotional recognition in individuals with BAP. This study confirmed that the individuals with BAP have different cognition patterns in emotional recognition than the control group.

Correlations Between Psychological Status and Perception of Facial Expression

OBJECTIVE

Facial affect recognition is associated with neuropsychological status and psychiatric diseases. We hypothesized that facial affect recognition is associated with psychological status and perception of other affects.

METHODS

A total of 80 images depicting facial affect, including 20 Neutral, 20 Angry, 20 Fear, and 20 Sad, were screened for use in our research. A total of 100 healthy individuals were asked to rate these images using a 10-point Likert scale and complete psychological scales assessing the emotional statuses and cognitive functions.

RESULTS

The participants' emotional state of aggression, attention, and impulsivity may have been associated with their interpretation of the Angry facial expressions. The participants often rated the Angry facial expressions as Fear. The participants rated Fear images as Angry or Sad. In response to a Sad facial expression, the participants reported psychological statuses of attention and impulsivity which were associated with the facial expression rating. The participants rated the Sad expression as Angry or Fear.

CONCLUSION

The psychological statuses of the participants were significantly correlated with their interpretation of facial affects. In particular, a psychological state of attention was often correlated with incorrect affect ratings. Attention and impulsivity could affect the rating of the sad facial expressions.

Validation of the Tunisian Test for Facial Emotions Recognition: Study in Children From 7 to 12 Years Old

Background: Facial expressions transmit information about emotional state, facilitating communication and regulation in interpersonal relationships. Their acute recognition is essential in social adaptation and lacks among children suffering from autism spectrum disorders. The aim of our study was to validate the "Recognition of Facial Emotions: Tunisian Test for Children" among Tunisian children in order to assess facial emotion recognition in children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among neurotypical children from the general population. The final version of or test consisted of a static subtest of 114 photographs and a dynamic subtest of 36 videos expressing the six basic emotions (happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, fear and surprise), presented by actors of different ages and genders. The test items were coded according to Ekman's "Facial Action Coding System" method. The validation study focused on the validity of the content, the validity of the construct and the reliability. Results: We included 116 neurotypical children, from 7 to 12 years old. Our population was made up of 54 boys and 62 girls. The reliability's study showed good internal consistency for each subtest: the Cronbach coefficient was 0.88 for the static subtest and 0.85 for the dynamic subtest. The study of the internal structure through the exploratory factor analysis of the items of emotions and those of intensity showed that the distribution of the items in sub-domains was similar to their theoretical distribution. Age was significantly correlated to the mean of the overall score for both subtests (p < 10-3). Gender was no significantly correlated to the overall score (p = 0.15). High intensity photographs were better recognized. The emotion of happiness was the most recognized in both subtests. A significant difference between the overall score of the static and dynamic subtest, in favor of the dynamic one, was identified (p < 10-3). Conclusion: This work provides clinicians with a reliable tool to assess recognition of facial emotions in typically developing children.

The Neurobehavioral Mechanisms Underlying Attitudes Toward People With Mental or Physical Illness

Social factors play a significant role in the health outcomes of those struggling with mental or physical health issues. People with mental illness experience more social stigmatization and receive less concern for their welfare than do those with physical illness. However, the cognitive and neural mechanisms by which such a bias in attitude arises remain unclear. This functional MRI study examined whether a lack of self-other similarity during mental state attribution affects perceivers' theory of mind and, subsequently, how they value a patient's welfare. During scanning, participants were asked to respond to an expression of caring and sympathetic concern from either their own perspective or while adopting the perspective of patients labeled physically ill or mentally ill. Participants reported that physically ill patients would share their affective responses to the situations, but mentally ill patients would not. Furthermore, mentalizing about physically ill patients was associated with increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a critical region for empathic concern and value-based decisions. In contrast, mentalizing about mentally ill patients preferentially engaged the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula, regions previously implicated in empathic distress, in which activity correlated with individual differences in prejudice control. The findings indicate that a lack of perceived self-other similarity poses a challenge to the theory of mind and thus requires greater cognitive resources and neural computations. This might give rise to stereotyped beliefs about and prejudice against the mentally ill and failure to respond with appropriate empathy and care.

Age-related Differences and Individual Differences of the Positivity Effect in Korean Older Adults: Focused on Attentional Process for Emotional Faces

OBJECTIVES

Most prior studies on the positivity effect have been conducted in Western cultures, and research in East Asian cultures has been limited, with inconsistent findings. Herein we investigate whether the positivity effect is present in Korean older adults. Moreover, we examined individual indifferences alongside age differences in the positivity effect because not all older adults display the positivity effect.

METHOD

Forty older adults and 40 undergraduate students completed a series of self-report questionnaires and a dot probe task for 500 ms and 1000 ms. Next, we divided the subjects into groups who showed and did not show the positivity effect.

RESULTS

In the dot probe task, older adults were more positive at the presentation duration of 500 ms and less negative at presentation times of 1000 ms, suggesting that the positivity effect is present in the attentional process. On the other hand, older adults who do show the positivity effect exhibit less negative affect, are less anxious, have fewer difficulties in emotion regulation, and achieve higher scores in a digit span task.

DISCUSSION

These results suggest that the positivity effect emerges during more controlled stages of informational processing, and it is important to consider individual differences when investigating age-related differences in the positivity effect.

Development and Validation of the Yonsei Face Database (YFace DB)

The purposes of this study were to develop the Yonsei Face Database (YFace DB), consisting of both static and dynamic face stimuli for six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, fear, and disgust), and to test its validity. The database includes selected pictures (static stimuli) and film clips (dynamic stimuli) of 74 models (50% female) aged between 19 and 40. Thousand four hundred and eighty selected pictures and film clips were assessed for the accuracy, intensity, and naturalness during the validation procedure by 221 undergraduate students. The overall accuracy of the pictures was 76%. Film clips had a higher accuracy, of 83%; the highest accuracy was observed in happiness and the lowest in fear across all conditions (static with mouth open or closed, or dynamic). The accuracy was higher in film clips across all emotions but happiness and disgust, while the naturalness was higher in the pictures than in film clips except for sadness and anger. The intensity varied the most across conditions and emotions. Significant gender effects were found in perception accuracy for both the gender of models and raters. Male raters perceived surprise more accurately in static stimuli with mouth open and in dynamic stimuli while female raters perceived fear more accurately in all conditions. Moreover, sadness and anger expressed in static stimuli with mouth open and fear expressed in dynamic stimuli were perceived more accurately when models were male. Disgust expressed in static stimuli with mouth open and dynamic stimuli, and fear expressed in static stimuli with mouth closed were perceived more accurately when models were female. The YFace DB is the largest Asian face database by far and the first to include both static and dynamic facial expression stimuli, and the current study can provide researchers with a wealth of information about the validity of each stimulus through the validation procedure.

Effects of Intranasal Oxytocin on Emotion Recognition in Korean Male: A Dose-Response Study

OBJECTIVE

Research has shown that intranasal oxytocin affects social cognition and behavior; however, its effects vary based on social context, individual characteristics and dose. The present study aimed to determine effective dose of oxytocin spray on emotion recognition in healthy Korean males.

METHODS

The study followed a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled design. Thirty-seven Korean males underwent two experimental sessions, with one week in between. They received either 32 (n=19) or 40 (n=18) international units (IU) of oxytocin and placebo, and then completed a face emotion recognition task. The effect of oxytocin on emotion recognition was examined using repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each dose condition.

RESULTS

The higher dose (40 IU) was found to improve recognition of happy faces, while the lower dose (32 IU) had no effect. There were no statistical differences in age, education, attachment style or empathic ability between the two dose groups.

CONCLUSION

The results suggest that oxytocin increases the ability of Korean males to recognize positive emotion, and this effect is dose-dependent. Additional studies evaluating the effect of higher doses of oxytocin on social cognition will help to determine the optimal dose for Korean populations.

Effects of intranasal oxytocin on the attentional bias to emotional stimuli in patients with bulimia nervosa

BACKGROUND

Bulimia nervosa (BN) is characterized by binge eating and emotional dysregulation including increased negative affectivity (anger, anxiety). The aim of this study was to examine the effect of oxytocin on attentional processes towards anger in patients with BN.

METHOD

The study design consisted of a double-blind, placebo-controlled within-subject crossover, single dose experiment. Sixty-four women (31 patients with BN and 33 healthy comparisons) completed self-reported measures to evaluate emotional difficulties and were administered a single dose of intranasal oxytocin (40IU) or placebo followed by a visual probe detection task to examine attentional orienting to angry or happy faces.

RESULTS

Patients with BN reported higher emotional dysregulation and more difficulties in controlling anger compared to the healthy comparison group. Patients with BN and the healthy women exhibited similar attentional bias to angry faces in the placebo condition. Intranasal oxytocin reduced the attentional bias towards angry faces in both the BN patients and the healthy women.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that a single dose of oxytocin reduced vigilance towards angry faces in patients with BN as well as healthy women. The results showed that patients with BN are not different from healthy women in terms of vigilance towards threat.

Altered brain activity and the effect of personality traits in excessive smartphone use during facial emotion processing

Excessive smartphone use is a phenomenon related to maladaptive smartphone use, leading to negative consequences. This study set out with the aim of assessing the effects of excessive smartphone use on behavioral and neural responses during facial emotional processing. We examined 25 excessive smartphone users and 27 normal control users using functional MRI during facial emotion processing and investigated Behavioral Inhibition System/Behavioral Activation System (BIS/BAS). The excessive smartphone use group (SP) showed neural deactivation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) during the presentation of an angry face and emotional transition compared to that of the normal control group (NC). Additionally, the SP revealed neural deactivation of the superior temporal sulcus and temporo-parietal junction related to social interaction during emotional transition compared to the NC. We found that BAS-Reward Responsiveness level was correlated with behavioral responses during repeated happy faces related to emotional reward in SP compared to NC. It can thus be suggested that excessive smartphone use is likely to fail on cognitive control during emotional processing, and this impairment might be influenced on emotional processing related to social interaction.

Development of the Korean Facial Emotion Stimuli: Korea University Facial Expression Collection 2nd Edition

Background: Developing valid emotional facial stimuli for specific ethnicities creates ample opportunities to investigate both the nature of emotional facial information processing in general and clinical populations as well as the underlying mechanisms of facial emotion processing within and across cultures. Given that most entries in emotional facial stimuli databases were developed with western samples, and given that very few of the eastern emotional facial stimuli sets were based strictly on the Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System, developing valid emotional facial stimuli of eastern samples remains a high priority.

Aims: To develop and examine the psychometric properties of six basic emotional facial stimuli recruiting professional Korean actors and actresses based on the Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System for the Korea University Facial Expression Collection-Second Edition (KUFEC-II).

Materials And Methods: Stimulus selection was done in two phases. First, researchers evaluated the clarity and intensity of each stimulus developed based on the Facial Action Coding System. Second, researchers selected a total of 399 stimuli from a total of 57 actors and actresses, which were then rated on accuracy, intensity, valence, and arousal by 75 independent raters.

Conclusion: The hit rates between the targeted and rated expressions of the KUFEC-II were all above 80%, except for fear (50%) and disgust (63%). The KUFEC-II appears to be a valid emotional facial stimuli database, providing the largest set of emotional facial stimuli. The mean intensity score was 5.63 (out of 7), suggesting that the stimuli delivered the targeted emotions with great intensity. All positive expressions were rated as having a high positive valence, whereas all negative expressions were rated as having a high negative valence. The KUFEC II is expected to be widely used in various psychological studies on emotional facial expression. KUFEC-II stimuli can be obtained through contacting the corresponding authors.

Reappraisal Modulates Attentional Bias to Angry Faces

Heightened attentional bias to emotional information is one of the main characteristics of disorders related to emotion dysregulation such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Although reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy, is known to effectively modulate subjective experience of emotions, it remains unknown whether reappraisal can alter attentional biases to emotional information. In the current research, we investigated the influence of instruction-induced state reappraisal (Study 1) and trait reappraisal (Study 2) on attentional biases to happy and angry faces. In Study 1, healthy young women were recruited and randomly assigned to one of the three groups: up-, down-, and no-regulation. Participants were instructed to reappraise their emotions to increase and decrease emotional experience while viewing an emotionally negative film clip. Attentional bias was assessed with a dot-probe task with pictures of angry and happy facial expressions. In Study 2, a separate group of healthy young men and women participated. Participants’ trait reappraisal and suppression as well as state and trait anxiety were assessed. A dot-probe task was completed by all participants. Statistical tests in Study 1 revealed that participants who reappraised to decrease negative emotions while viewing an emotionally negative film clip had reduced attentional bias to subsequently presented angry faces compared to participants who reappraised to increase negative emotions. Multiple regression analyses in Study 2 revealed that trait reappraisal predicted slower orienting toward angry faces, whereas state anxiety predicted slower disengagement from angry faces. Interestingly, trait suppression predicted slower disengagement from happy faces. Taken together, these results suggest that both instruction-induced state reappraisal and trait reappraisal are linked to reduced attentional bias to negative information and contribute to better understanding of how everyday emotion regulation styles contribute to attentional processing of emotional information.

Decreased neural response for facial emotion processing in subjects with high genetic load for schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

Patients with schizophrenia show impairment in facial emotion processing which is essential for successful social cognition. Using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study aimed to investigate the implicit facial emotion recognition processing in participants with high genetic load for schizophrenia (GHR) as a possible trait marker of developing schizophrenia.

METHODS

Block design fMRI of implicit facial emotion processing was used in 20 participants with GHR aged 16-35, and 17 age, sex, and education year-matched healthy controls (HC). During the facial emotional processing for fearful, happy, and neutral face stimuli, participants were asked to explicitly determine the gender per stimuli.

RESULTS

Occipito-temporo-limbic area in fearful face condition and involvement of broader region including prefrontal cortex in neutral face condition revealed significant attenuation of BOLD signal activation in GHR compared to HC. The GHR demonstrated less activity in right amygdala during fearful and neutral face condition.

CONCLUSION

The study presented that GHR displayed abnormal brain activity in occipito-temporo-limbic-frontal network implicated in facial emotion processing. It indicates that abnormal facial emotion processing may be influenced by a genetic factor and could be a trait marker in schizophrenia.

Impaired Perception of Emotional Expression in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

Background and Purpose

The increasing recognition that deficits in social emotions occur in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is helping to explain the spectrum of neuropsychological dysfunctions, thus supporting the view of ALS as a multisystem disorder involving neuropsychological deficits as well as motor deficits. The aim of this study was to characterize the emotion perception abilities of Korean patients with ALS based on the recognition of facial expressions.

Methods

Twenty-four patients with ALS and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy controls completed neuropsychological tests and facial emotion recognition tasks [ChaeLee Korean Facial Expressions of Emotions (ChaeLee-E)]. The ChaeLee-E test includes facial expressions for seven emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, surprise, and neutral.

Results

The ability to perceive facial emotions was significantly worse among ALS patients performed than among healthy controls [65.2±18.0% vs. 77.1±6.6% (mean±SD), p=0.009]. Eight of the 24 patients (33%) scored below the 5th percentile score of controls for recognizing facial emotions.

Conclusions

Emotion perception deficits occur in Korean ALS patients, particularly regarding facial expressions of emotion. These findings expand the spectrum of cognitive and behavioral dysfunction associated with ALS into emotion processing dysfunction.

Effects of Oxytocin on Neural Response to Facial Expressions in Patients with Schizophrenia

Impaired facial emotion recognition is a core deficit in schizophrenia. Oxytocin has been shown to improve social perception in patients with schizophrenia; however, the effect of oxytocin on the neural activity underlying facial emotion recognition has not been investigated. This study was aimed to assess the effect of a single dose of intranasal oxytocin on brain activity in patients with schizophrenia using an implicit facial emotion-recognition paradigm. Sixteen male patients with schizophrenia and 16 age-matched healthy male control subjects participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial at Seoul National University Hospital. Delivery of a single dose of 40 IU intranasal oxytocin and the placebo was separated by 1 week. Drug conditions were compared by performing a region of interest (ROI) analysis of the bilateral amygdala on responses to the emotion recognition test. It was found that nasal spray decreased amygdala activity for fearful emotion and increased activity for happy faces. Further, oxytocin elicited differential effects between the patient and control groups. Intranasal oxytocin attenuated amygdala activity for emotional faces in patients with schizophrenia, whereas intranasal oxytocin significantly increased amygdala activity in healthy controls. Oxytocin-induced BOLD signal changes in amygdala in response to happy faces was related to attachment style in the control group. Our result provides new evidence of a modulatory effect of oxytocin on neural response to emotional faces for patients with schizophrenia. Future studies are needed to investigate the effectiveness of long-term treatment with intranasal oxytocin on neural activity in patients with schizophrenia.

Korean facial emotion recognition tasks for schizophrenia research

OBJECTIVE

Despite the fact that facial emotion recognition (FER) tasks using Western faces should be applied with caution to non-Western participants or patients, there are few psychometrically sound and validated FER tasks featuring Easterners' facial expressions for emotions. Thus, we aimed to develop and establish the psychometric properties of the Korean Facial Emotion Identification Task (K-FEIT) and the Korean Facial Emotion Discrimination Task (K-FEDT) for individuals with schizophrenia.

METHODS

The K-FEIT and K-FEDT were administered to 42 Korean individuals with schizophrenia to evaluate their psychometric properties. To test the convergent and divergent validities, the Social Behavior Sequencing Task (SBST) and hinting task were administered as social-cognitive measures, and the Trail Making Test (TMT)-A and -B were administered as neurocognitive measures.

RESULTS

Average accuracy on the K-FEIT and K-FEDT were 63% and 74%, respectively, and internal consistencies of the K-FEIT and K-FEDT were 0.82 and 0.95, respectively. The K-FEIT and K-FEDT were significantly correlated with SBST and Hinting Task, but not with TMT-A and B.

CONCLUSION

Following replication studies in a larger sample, the K-FEIT and K-FEDT are expected to facilitate future studies targeting facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia in Korea. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

Meta-analysis of face processing event-related potentials in schizophrenia

BACKGROUND

Schizophrenia is associated with impaired face processing. N170 and N250 are two event-related potentials that have been studied in relation to face processing in schizophrenia, but the results have been mixed. The aim of this article was to conduct a meta-analysis of N170 and N250 in schizophrenia to evaluate trends and resolve the inconsistencies.

METHODS

Twenty-one studies of N170 (n = 438 schizophrenia patients, n = 418 control subjects) and six studies of N250 (n = 149 schizophrenia patients, n = 151 control subjects) were evaluated. Hedges' g was calculated for each study, and the overall weighted mean effect size (ES) was calculated for N170 and N250. Homogeneity of the ES distributions, potential publication bias, and impact of potential moderators were also assessed.

RESULTS

The amplitude of both N170 and N250 to face stimuli was smaller in patients than control subjects (N170 ES = .64; N250 ES = .49; ps < .001). The distributions of the ES were homogeneous (ps > .90), and there was no indication of a publication bias. We found no significant effect of task requirements regarding judgments of the face stimuli. Moreover, we found no significant difference between the ES for N170 and N250.

CONCLUSIONS

Though findings of individual studies have been mixed, the results of the meta-analysis strongly support disruption of N170 and N250 in schizophrenia. The comparable effect sizes across the two waveforms suggest that the well-established behavioral deficit in face emotion processing is mirrored in an underlying neural impairment for processing faces.