Emotion processing facilitates working memory performance.

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Lindström, Björn R; Bohlin, Gunilla

2011-11-01

The effect of emotional stimulus content on working memory performance has been investigated with conflicting results, as both emotion-dependent facilitation and impairments are reported in the literature. To clarify this issue, 52 adult participants performed a modified visual 2-back task with highly arousing positive stimuli (sexual scenes), highly arousing negative stimuli (violent death) and low-arousal neutral stimuli. Emotional stimulus processing was found to facilitate task performance relative to that of neutral stimuli, both in regards to response accuracy and reaction times. No emotion-dependent differences in false-alarm rates were found. These results indicate that emotional information can have a facilitating effect on working memory maintenance and processing of information.

Neural processing of emotional-intensity predicts emotion regulation choice.

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Shafir, Roni; Thiruchselvam, Ravi; Suri, Gaurav; Gross, James J; Sheppes, Gal

2016-12-01

Emotional-intensity is a core characteristic of affective events that strongly determines how individuals choose to regulate their emotions. Our conceptual framework suggests that in high emotional-intensity situations, individuals prefer to disengage attention using distraction, which can more effectively block highly potent emotional information, as compared with engagement reappraisal, which is preferred in low emotional-intensity. However, existing supporting evidence remains indirect because prior intensity categorization of emotional stimuli was based on subjective measures that are potentially biased and only represent the endpoint of emotional-intensity processing. Accordingly, this study provides the first direct evidence for the role of online emotional-intensity processing in predicting behavioral regulatory-choices. Utilizing the high temporal resolution of event-related potentials, we evaluated online neural processing of stimuli's emotional-intensity (late positive potential, LPP) prior to regulatory-choices between distraction and reappraisal. Results showed that enhanced neural processing of intensity (enhanced LPP amplitudes) uniquely predicted (above subjective measures of intensity) increased tendency to subsequently choose distraction over reappraisal. Additionally, regulatory-choices led to adaptive consequences, demonstrated in finding that actual implementation of distraction relative to reappraisal-choice resulted in stronger attenuation of LPPs and self-reported arousal. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Whole Student: Cognition, Emotion, and Information Literacy

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Matteson, Miriam L.

2014-01-01

Information literacy skill acquisition is a form of learning that is influenced by cognitive, emotional, and social processes. This research studied how two emotional constructs (emotional intelligence and dispositional affect) and two cognitive constructs (motivation and coping skills) interacted with students' information literacy scores. Two…

The effects of cognitive style and emotional trade-off difficulty on information processing in decision-making.

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Wang, Dawei; Hao, Leilei; Maguire, Phil; Hu, Yixin

2016-12-01

This study investigated the effects of cognitive style and emotional trade-off difficulty (ETOD) on information processing in decision-making. Eighty undergraduates (73.75% female, M = 21.90), grouped according to their cognitive style (field-dependent or field-independent), conducted an Information Display Board (IDB) task, through which search time, search depth and search pattern were measured. Participants' emotional states were assessed both before and after the IDB task. The results showed that participants experienced significantly more negative emotion under high ETOD compared to those under low ETOD. While both cognitive style and ETOD had significant effects on search time and search depth, only ETOD significantly influenced search pattern; individuals in both cognitive style groups tended to use attribute-based processing under high ETOD and to use alternative-based processing under low ETOD. There was also a significant interaction between cognitive style and ETOD for search time and search depth. We propose that these results are best accounted for by the coping behaviour framework under high ETOD, and by the negative emotion hypothesis under low ETOD. © 2016 International Union of Psychological Science.

Neural activity, neural connectivity, and the processing of emotionally valenced information in older adults: links with life satisfaction.

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Waldinger, Robert J; Kensinger, Elizabeth A; Schulz, Marc S

2011-09-01

This study examines whether differences in late-life well-being are linked to how older adults encode emotionally valenced information. Using fMRI with 39 older adults varying in life satisfaction, we examined how viewing positive and negative images would affect activation and connectivity of an emotion-processing network. Participants engaged most regions within this network more robustly for positive than for negative images, but within the PFC this effect was moderated by life satisfaction, with individuals higher in satisfaction showing lower levels of activity during the processing of positive images. Participants high in satisfaction showed stronger correlations among network regions-particularly between the amygdala and other emotion processing regions-when viewing positive, as compared with negative, images. Participants low in satisfaction showed no valence effect. Findings suggest that late-life satisfaction is linked with how emotion-processing regions are engaged and connected during processing of valenced information. This first demonstration of a link between neural recruitment and late-life well-being suggests that differences in neural network activation and connectivity may account for the preferential encoding of positive information seen in some older adults.

The impact of negative emotions on self-concept abstraction depends on accessible information processing styles.

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Isbell, Linda M; Rovenpor, Daniel R; Lair, Elicia C

2016-10-01

Research suggests that anger promotes global, abstract processing whereas sadness and fear promote local, concrete processing (see Schwarz & Clore, 2007 for a review). Contrary to a large and influential body of work suggesting that specific affective experiences are tethered to specific cognitive outcomes, the affect-as-cognitive-feedback account maintains that affective experiences confer positive or negative value on currently dominant processing styles, and thus can lead to either global or local processing (Huntsinger, Isbell, & Clore, 2014). The current work extends this theoretical perspective by investigating the impact of discrete negative emotions on the self-concept. By experimentally manipulating information processing styles and discrete negative emotions that vary in appraisals of certainty, we demonstrate that the impact of discrete negative emotions on the spontaneous self-concept depends on accessible processing styles. When global processing was accessible, individuals in angry (negative, high certainty) states generated more abstract statements about themselves than individuals in either sad (Experiment 1) or fearful (Experiment 2; negative, low certainty) states. When local processing was made accessible, however, the opposite pattern emerged, whereby individuals in angry states generated fewer abstract statements than individuals in sad or fearful states. Together these studies provide new insights into the mechanisms through which discrete emotions influence cognition. In contrast to theories assuming a dedicated link between emotions and processing styles, these results suggest that discrete emotions provide feedback about accessible ways of thinking, and are consistent with recent evidence suggesting that the impact of affect on cognition is highly context-dependent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional sounds modulate early neural processing of emotional pictures

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Antje B M Gerdes

2013-10-01

Full Text Available In our natural environment, emotional information is conveyed by converging visual and auditory information; multimodal integration is of utmost importance. In the laboratory, however, emotion researchers have mostly focused on the examination of unimodal stimuli. Few existing studies on multimodal emotion processing have focused on human communication such as the integration of facial and vocal expressions. Extending the concept of multimodality, the current study examines how the neural processing of emotional pictures is influenced by simultaneously presented sounds. Twenty pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral pictures of complex scenes were presented to 22 healthy participants. On the critical trials these pictures were paired with pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sounds. Sound presentation started 500 ms before picture onset and each stimulus presentation lasted for 2s. EEG was recorded from 64 channels and ERP analyses focused on the picture onset. In addition, valence, and arousal ratings were obtained. Previous findings for the neural processing of emotional pictures were replicated. Specifically, unpleasant compared to neutral pictures were associated with an increased parietal P200 and a more pronounced centroparietal late positive potential (LPP, independent of the accompanying sound valence. For audiovisual stimulation, increased parietal P100 and P200 were found in response to all pictures which were accompanied by unpleasant or pleasant sounds compared to pictures with neutral sounds. Most importantly, incongruent audiovisual pairs of unpleasant pictures and pleasant sounds enhanced parietal P100 and P200 compared to pairings with congruent sounds. Taken together, the present findings indicate that emotional sounds modulate early stages of visual processing and, therefore, provide an avenue by which multimodal experience may enhance perception.

Creativity, Psychopathology, and Emotion Processing: A Liberal Response Bias for Remembering Negative Information Is Associated with Higher Creativity

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Drus, Marina; Kozbelt, Aaron; Hughes, Robert R.

2014-01-01

To what extent do more creative people process emotional information differently than less creative people? This study examined the role of emotion processing in creativity and its implications for the creativity-psychopathology association. A total of 117 participants performed a memory recognition task for negative, positive, and neutral words;…

Preprocessing of emotional visual information in the human piriform cortex.

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Schulze, Patrick; Bestgen, Anne-Kathrin; Lech, Robert K; Kuchinke, Lars; Suchan, Boris

2017-08-23

This study examines the processing of visual information by the olfactory system in humans. Recent data point to the processing of visual stimuli by the piriform cortex, a region mainly known as part of the primary olfactory cortex. Moreover, the piriform cortex generates predictive templates of olfactory stimuli to facilitate olfactory processing. This study fills the gap relating to the question whether this region is also capable of preprocessing emotional visual information. To gain insight into the preprocessing and transfer of emotional visual information into olfactory processing, we recorded hemodynamic responses during affective priming using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Odors of different valence (pleasant, neutral and unpleasant) were primed by images of emotional facial expressions (happy, neutral and disgust). Our findings are the first to demonstrate that the piriform cortex preprocesses emotional visual information prior to any olfactory stimulation and that the emotional connotation of this preprocessing is subsequently transferred and integrated into an extended olfactory network for olfactory processing.

Mapping emotions through time: how affective trajectories inform the language of emotion.

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Kirkland, Tabitha; Cunningham, William A

2012-04-01

The words used to describe emotions can provide insight into the basic processes that contribute to emotional experience. We propose that emotions arise partly from interacting evaluations of one's current affective state, previous affective state, predictions for how these may change in the future, and the experienced outcomes following these predictions. These states can be represented and inferred from neural systems that encode shifts in outcomes and make predictions. In two studies, we demonstrate that emotion labels are reliably differentiated from one another using only simple cues about these affective trajectories through time. For example, when a worse-than-expected outcome follows the prediction that something good will happen, that situation is labeled as causing anger, whereas when a worse-than-expected outcome follows the prediction that something bad will happen, that situation is labeled as causing sadness. Emotion categories are more differentiated when participants are required to think categorically than when participants have the option to consider multiple emotions and degrees of emotions. This work indicates that information about affective movement through time and changes in affective trajectory may be a fundamental aspect of emotion categories. Future studies of emotion must account for the dynamic way that we absorb and process information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).

Reasoning strategies modulate gender differences in emotion processing.

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Markovits, Henry; Trémolière, Bastien; Blanchette, Isabelle

2018-01-01

The dual strategy model of reasoning has proposed that people's reasoning can be understood asa combination of two different ways of processing information related to problem premises: a counterexample strategy that examines information for explicit potential counterexamples and a statistical strategy that uses associative access to generate a likelihood estimate of putative conclusions. Previous studies have examined this model in the context of basic conditional reasoning tasks. However, the information processing distinction that underlies the dual strategy model can be seen asa basic description of differences in reasoning (similar to that described by many general dual process models of reasoning). In two studies, we examine how these differences in reasoning strategy may relate to processing very different information, specifically we focus on previously observed gender differences in processing negative emotions. Study 1 examined the intensity of emotional reactions to a film clip inducing primarily negative emotions. Study 2 examined the speed at which participants determine the emotional valence of sequences of negative images. In both studies, no gender differences were observed among participants using a counterexample strategy. Among participants using a statistical strategy, females produce significantly stronger emotional reactions than males (in Study 1) and were faster to recognize the valence of negative images than were males (in Study 2). Results show that the processing distinction underlying the dual strategy model of reasoning generalizes to the processing of emotions. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotion recognition in borderline personality disorder: effects of emotional information on negative bias.

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Fenske, Sabrina; Lis, Stefanie; Liebke, Lisa; Niedtfeld, Inga; Kirsch, Peter; Mier, Daniela

2015-01-01

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by severe deficits in social interactions, which might be linked to deficits in emotion recognition. Research on emotion recognition abilities in BPD revealed heterogeneous results, ranging from deficits to heightened sensitivity. The most stable findings point to an impairment in the evaluation of neutral facial expressions as neutral, as well as to a negative bias in emotion recognition; that is the tendency to attribute negative emotions to neutral expressions, or in a broader sense to report a more negative emotion category than depicted. However, it remains unclear which contextual factors influence the occurrence of this negative bias. Previous studies suggest that priming by preceding emotional information and also constrained processing time might augment the emotion recognition deficit in BPD. To test these assumptions, 32 female BPD patients and 31 healthy females, matched for age and education, participated in an emotion recognition study, in which every facial expression was preceded by either a positive, neutral or negative scene. Furthermore, time constraints for processing were varied by presenting the facial expressions with short (100 ms) or long duration (up to 3000 ms) in two separate blocks. BPD patients showed a significant deficit in emotion recognition for neutral and positive facial expression, associated with a significant negative bias. In BPD patients, this emotion recognition deficit was differentially affected by preceding emotional information and time constraints, with a greater influence of emotional information during long face presentations and a greater influence of neutral information during short face presentations. Our results are in line with previous findings supporting the existence of a negative bias in emotion recognition in BPD patients, and provide further insights into biased social perceptions in BPD patients.

Effect of Undergraduates’ Emotional Intelligence on Information Search Behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wang Haocheng

2017-06-01

Full Text Available [Purpose/significance] Information search capability is the focus of information literacy education. This paper explores the relationship between emotional intelligence and information search behavior. [Method/process] Based on the data from the questionnaires by 250 undergraduates, this paper used IBM SPSS Statistics 19.0 for statistical data analysis. [Result/conclusion]The correlation between emotional intelligence and information search capability is positively obvious. When it comes to all variables in the regression equation, information search behavior is mainly affected by regulation and utilization of the dimension of emotion. Utilization of emotion mainly affects retrieval strategies, information evaluation, behavior adjustment and total score; regulation of emotions mainly affects the information reference.

Social-Emotional Correlates of Early Stage Social Information Processing Skills in Children With and Without Autism Spectrum Disorder.

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Russo-Ponsaran, Nicole M; McKown, Clark; Johnson, Jason K; Allen, Adelaide W; Evans-Smith, Bernadette; Fogg, Louis

2015-10-01

Difficulty processing social information is a defining feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Yet the failure of children with ASD to process social information effectively is poorly understood. Using Crick and Dodge's model of social information processing (SIP), this study examined the relationship between social-emotional (SE) skills of pragmatic language, theory of mind, and emotion recognition on the one hand, and early stage SIP skills of problem identification and goal generation on the other. The study included a sample of school-aged children with and without ASD. SIP was assessed using hypothetical social situations in the context of a semistructured scenario-based interview. Pragmatic language, theory of mind, and emotion recognition were measured using direct assessments. Social thinking differences between children with and without ASD are largely differences of quantity (overall lower performance in ASD), not discrepancies in cognitive processing patterns. These data support theoretical models of the relationship between SE skills and SIP. Findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms giving rise to SIP deficits in ASD and may ultimately inform treatment development for children with ASD. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Independent and Collaborative Contributions of the Cerebral Hemispheres to Emotional Processing

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Shobe, Elizabeth R.

2014-01-01

Presented is a model suggesting that the right hemisphere (RH) directly mediates the identification and comprehension of positive and negative emotional stimuli, whereas the left hemisphere (LH) contributes to higher level processing of emotional information that has been shared via the corpus callosum. RH subcortical connections provide initial processing of emotional stimuli, and their innervation to cortical structures provides a secondary pathway by which the hemispheres process emotional information more fully. It is suggested that the LH contribution to emotion processing is in emotional regulation, social well-being, and adaptation, and transforming the RH emotional experience into propositional and verbal codes. Lastly, it is proposed that the LH has little ability at the level of emotion identification, having a default positive bias and no ability to identify a stimulus as negative. Instead, the LH must rely on the transfer of emotional information from the RH to engage higher-order emotional processing. As such, either hemisphere can identify positive emotions, but they must collaborate for complete processing of negative emotions. Evidence presented draws from behavioral, neurological, and clinical research, including discussions of subcortical and cortical pathways, callosal agenesis, commissurotomy, emotion regulation, mood disorders, interpersonal interaction, language, and handedness. Directions for future research are offered. PMID:24795597

The trade-offs of emotional reactivity for youths’ social information processing in the context of maternal depression

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Megan eFlynn

2012-07-01

Full Text Available Although research demonstrates that emotional experiences can influence cognitive processing, little is known about individual differences in this association, particularly in youth. The present study examined how the emotional backdrop of the caregiving environment, as reflected in exposure to maternal depression and anxiety, was linked to biases in youths’ cognitive processing of mother-referent information. Further, we investigated whether this association differed according to variation in youths’ emotional reactivity to stress. Youth (50 boys, 46 girls; M age = 12.36, SD = 1.05 completed a behavioral task assessing cognitive bias. Semi-structured interviews were administered to assess (a youths’ emotional reactivity to naturally occurring stressors, and (b maternal depression and anxiety. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that emotional reactivity to interpersonal stressors moderated the linkage between maternal depression and cognitive bias such that maternal depression predicted a greater negative bias in youth exhibiting high and average, but not low, levels of emotional reactivity. At low levels of maternal depression, youth with heightened interpersonal emotional reactivity showed a greater positive cognitive bias. This pattern of effects was specific to interpersonal (but not noninterpersonal emotional reactivity and to maternal depression (but not anxiety. These findings illuminate one personal characteristic of youth that moderates emotion-cognition linkages, and reveal that emotional reactivity both enhances and impairs youths’ cognitive processing as a function of socialization context.

Social emotional information processing in adults: Development and psychometrics of a computerized video assessment in healthy controls and aggressive individuals.

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Coccaro, Emil F; Fanning, Jennifer R; Fisher, Eliana; Couture, Laurel; Lee, Royce J

2017-02-01

A computerized version of an assessment of Social-Emotional Information Processing (SEIP) using audio-video film stimuli instead of written narrative vignettes was developed for use in adult participants. This task allows for an assessment of encoding or relevant/irrelevant social-emotional information, attribution bias, and endorsement of appropriate, physically aggressive, and relationally aggressive responses to aversive social-emotional stimuli. The psychometric properties of this Video-SEIP (V-SEIP) assessment were examined in 75 healthy controls (HC) and in 75 individuals with DSM-5 Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED) and were also compared with the original questionnaire (SEIP-Q) version of the task (HC=26; IED=26). Internal consistency, inter-rater reliability, and test-retest properties of the V-SEIP were good to excellent. In addition, IED participants displayed reduced encoding of relevant information from the film clips, elevated hostile attribution bias, elevated negative emotional response, and elevated endorsement of physically aggressive and relationally aggressive responses to the ambiguous social-emotional stimuli presented in the V-SEIP. These data indicate that the V-SEIP represents a valid and comprehensive alternative to the paper-and-pencil assessment of social-emotional information processing biases in adults. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Social Information Processing, Security of Attachment, and Emotion Regulation in Children with Learning Disabilities

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Bauminger, Nirit; Kimhi-Kind, Ilanit

2008-01-01

This study examined the contribution of attachment security and emotion regulation (ER) to the explanation of social information processing (SIP) in middle childhood boys with learning disabilities (LD) and without LD matched on age and grade level. Children analyzed four social vignettes using Dodge's SIP model and completed the Kerns security…

The Role of Emotion Regulation in the Predictive Association between Social Information Processing and Aggressive Behavior in Adolescents

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Calvete, Esther; Orue, Izaskun

2012-01-01

The primary aim of this study was to assess the moderating role of emotion regulation in the relationship between some components of social information processing (hostile interpretation and anger) and aggressive behavior. The secondary aim was to assess whether emotion regulation, hostile interpretation, and anger account for gender differences…

Emotion processing in the criminal psychopath: the role of attention in emotion-facilitated memory.

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Glass, Samantha J; Newman, Joseph P

2009-02-01

The response modulation hypothesis specifies that low-anxious psychopathic individuals have difficulty processing information outside their primary attentional focus. To evaluate the applicability of this model to affective processing, the authors had 239 offenders, classified with the Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (R. D. Hare, 2003) and the Welsh Anxiety Scale (G. Welsh, 1956), perform 1 of 3 emotion memory tasks that examined the effects of emotion on memory for primary and contextual information. Regardless of anxiety level, psychopathic and control offenders demonstrated a significant and comparable memory bias for emotional over neutral words in the primary conditions. However, psychopathic individuals showed significantly less memory bias than did controls in the contextual conditions. Results indicate that the impact of emotion on memory is moderated by attentional factors.

Positive emotion impedes emotional but not cognitive conflict processing.

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Zinchenko, Artyom; Obermeier, Christian; Kanske, Philipp; Schröger, Erich; Kotz, Sonja A

2017-06-01

Cognitive control enables successful goal-directed behavior by resolving a conflict between opposing action tendencies, while emotional control arises as a consequence of emotional conflict processing such as in irony. While negative emotion facilitates both cognitive and emotional conflict processing, it is unclear how emotional conflict processing is affected by positive emotion (e.g., humor). In 2 EEG experiments, we investigated the role of positive audiovisual target stimuli in cognitive and emotional conflict processing. Participants categorized either spoken vowels (cognitive task) or their emotional valence (emotional task) and ignored the visual stimulus dimension. Behaviorally, a positive target showed no influence on cognitive conflict processing, but impeded emotional conflict processing. In the emotional task, response time conflict costs were higher for positive than for neutral targets. In the EEG, we observed an interaction of emotion by congruence in the P200 and N200 ERP components in emotional but not in cognitive conflict processing. In the emotional conflict task, the P200 and N200 conflict effect was larger for emotional than neutral targets. Thus, our results show that emotion affects conflict processing differently as a function of conflict type and emotional valence. This suggests that there are conflict- and valence-specific mechanisms modulating executive control.

Emotional Persuasion in Advertising: A Hierarchy-of-Processing Model

OpenAIRE

Heath, R

2007-01-01

There is a widespread belief that effective advertising works persuasively within an information processing paradigm. High attention is regarded as being of critical importance in facilitating this process, and emotional content is seen as supporting information processing by raising levels of attention. Recent research, however, suggests that emotional content in advertising can influence brand favourability even when rational content has no effect. This article explores the psychology behin...

Social Information Processing, Moral Reasoning, and Emotion Attributions: Relations with Adolescents' Reactive and Proactive Aggression

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Arsenio, William F.; Adams, Erin; Gold, Jason

2009-01-01

Connections between adolescents' social information processing (SIP), moral reasoning, and emotion attributions and their reactive and proactive aggressive tendencies were assessed. One hundred mostly African American and Latino 13- to 18-year-olds from a low-socioeconomic-status (SES) urban community and their high school teachers participated.…

The relationship of positive and negative expressiveness to the processing of emotion information.

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Knyazev, Gennady G; Barchard, Kimberly A; Razumnikova, Olga M; Mitrofanova, Larisa G

2012-06-01

The tendency to express emotions non-verbally is positively related to perception of emotions in oneself. This study examined its relationship to perception of emotions in others. In 40 healthy adults, EEG theta synchronization was used to indicate emotion processing following presentation of happy, angry, and neutral faces. Both positive and negative expressiveness were associated with higher emotional sensitivity, as shown by cortical responses to facial expressions during the early, unconscious processing stage. At the late, conscious processing stage, positive expressiveness was associated with higher sensitivity to happy faces but lower sensitivity to angry faces. Thus, positive expressiveness predisposes people to allocate fewer attentional resources for conscious perception of angry faces. In contrast, negative expressiveness was consistently associated with higher sensitivity. The effects of positive expressiveness occurred in cortical areas that deal with emotions, but the effects of negative expressiveness occurred in areas engaged in self-referential processes in the context of social relationships. © 2012 The Authors. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2012 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

Mineralocorticoid receptor haplotype moderates the effects of oral contraceptives and menstrual cycle on emotional information processing.

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Hamstra, Danielle A; de Kloet, E Ronald; Tollenaar, Marieke; Verkuil, Bart; Manai, Meriem; Putman, Peter; Van der Does, Willem

2016-10-01

The processing of emotional information is affected by menstrual cycle phase and by the use of oral contraceptives (OCs). The stress hormone cortisol is known to affect emotional information processing via the limbic mineralocorticoid receptor (MR). We investigated in an exploratory study whether the MR-genotype moderates the effect of both OC-use and menstrual cycle phase on emotional cognition. Healthy premenopausal volunteers (n=93) of West-European descent completed a battery of emotional cognition tests. Forty-nine participants were OC users and 44 naturally cycling, 21 of whom were tested in the early follicular (EF) and 23 in the mid-luteal (ML) phase of the menstrual cycle. In MR-haplotype 1/3 carriers, ML women gambled more than EF women when their risk to lose was relatively small. In MR-haplotype 2, ML women gambled more than EF women, regardless of their odds of winning. OC-users with MR-haplotype 1/3 recognised fewer facial expressions than ML women with MR-haplotype 1/3. MR-haplotype 1/3 carriers may be more sensitive to the influence of their female hormonal status. MR-haplotype 2 carriers showed more risky decision-making. As this may reflect optimistic expectations, this finding may support previous observations in female carriers of MR-haplotype 2 in a naturalistic cohort study. © The Author(s) 2016.

[Perception, processing of visual information and resistance to emotional stresses in athletes of different ages].

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Korobeĭnikova, L H; Makarchuk, M Iu

2013-01-01

Among the numerous studies devoted to the study of perception and information processing, no data available on the effects of age on these processes. In this paper we studied the influence of psycho-emotional stress and different levels of stress on the mental processes of perception and information processing in highly skilled athletes divided into two groups. The first group included the athletes aged 19-24 years (12 athletes, members of the Ukrainian team in Greco-Roman wrestling), the second group included the athletes aged 27-31 years (7 highly skilled athletes, members of the Ukrainian team in Greco-Roman wrestling). We revealed that the athletes of the first group had higher productivity and better visual perception and visual information processing efficiency, compared with athletes from the second group. This observation suggests a dependency of cognitive component of perception and information processing on the age of the athletes. Sportsmen from the second group had higher stress resistance compared to the older age group.

Socio-Emotional Adaptation Theory: Charting the Emotional Process of Alzheimer's Disease.

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Halpin, Sean N; Dillard, Rebecca L; Puentes, William J

2017-08-01

The emotional reactions to the progression of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's disease (MCI/AD) oftentimes present as cognitive or behavioral changes, leading to misguided interventions by Formal Support (paid health care providers). Despite a rich body of literature identifying cognitive and behavioral staging of MCI/AD, the emotional changes that accompany these diagnoses have been largely ignored. The objective of this study was to develop a model of the emotional aspects of MCI/AD. One hour, semistructured interviews, with 14 patient-Informal Support Partner dyads (N = 28) interviewed concurrently; patients were in various stages of MCI/AD. An interdisciplinary team employed a grounded theory coding process to detect emotional characteristics of the participants with MCI/AD. Emotional reactions were categorized into depression/sadness, apathy, concern/fear, anger/frustration, and acceptance. The emotions did not present linearly along the course of the disease and were instead entwined within a set of complex (positive/negative) interactions including: relationship with the Informal Support Partner (i.e., teamwork vs infantilization), relationship with the Formal Support (i.e., patient vs disengaged), coping (i.e., adaptive vs nonadaptive), and perceived control (i.e., internal vs external locus-of-control). For example, a person with poor formal and informal support and external locus-of-control may become depressed, a condition that is known to negatively affect cognitive status. Understanding the emotional reactions of individuals diagnosed with MCI/AD will provide clinicians with information needed to develop treatments suited to current needs of the patient and provide Informal Support Partners insight into cognitive and physical changes associated with MCI/AD. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

ERP evidence on the interaction between information structure and emotional salience of words.

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Wang, Lin; Bastiaansen, Marcel; Yang, Yufang; Hagoort, Peter

2013-06-01

Both emotional words and words focused by information structure can capture attention. This study examined the interplay between emotional salience and information structure in modulating attentional resources in the service of integrating emotional words into sentence context. Event-related potentials (ERPs) to affectively negative, neutral, and positive words, which were either focused or nonfocused in question-answer pairs, were evaluated during sentence comprehension. The results revealed an early negative effect (90-200 ms), a P2 effect, as well as an effect in the N400 time window, for both emotional salience and information structure. Moreover, an interaction between emotional salience and information structure occurred within the N400 time window over right posterior electrodes, showing that information structure influences the semantic integration only for neutral words, but not for emotional words. This might reflect the fact that the linguistic salience of emotional words can override the effect of information structure on the integration of words into context. The interaction provides evidence for attention-emotion interactions at a later stage of processing. In addition, the absence of interaction in the early time window suggests that the processing of emotional information is highly automatic and independent of context. The results suggest independent attention capture systems of emotional salience and information structure at the early stage but an interaction between them at a later stage, during the semantic integration of words.

Read-out of emotional information from iconic memory: the longevity of threatening stimuli.

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Kuhbandner, Christof; Spitzer, Bernhard; Pekrun, Reinhard

2011-05-01

Previous research has shown that emotional stimuli are more likely than neutral stimuli to be selected by attention, indicating that the processing of emotional information is prioritized. In this study, we examined whether the emotional significance of stimuli influences visual processing already at the level of transient storage of incoming information in iconic memory, before attentional selection takes place. We used a typical iconic memory task in which the delay of a poststimulus cue, indicating which of several visual stimuli has to be reported, was varied. Performance decreased rapidly with increasing cue delay, reflecting the fast decay of information stored in iconic memory. However, although neutral stimulus information and emotional stimulus information were initially equally likely to enter iconic memory, the subsequent decay of the initially stored information was slowed for threatening stimuli, a result indicating that fear-relevant information has prolonged availability for read-out from iconic memory. This finding provides the first evidence that emotional significance already facilitates stimulus processing at the stage of iconic memory.

Positively Biased Processing of Mother's Emotions Predicts Children's Social and Emotional Functioning.

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Donohue, Meghan Rose; Goodman, Sherryl H; Tully, Erin C

Risk for internalizing problems and social skills deficits likely emerges in early childhood when emotion processing and social competencies are developing. Positively biased processing of social information is typical during early childhood and may be protective against poorer psychosocial outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that young children with relatively less positively biased attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother's emotions would exhibit poorer prosocial skills and more internalizing problems. A sample of 4- to 6-year-old children ( N =82) observed their mothers express happiness, sadness and anger during a simulated emotional phone conversation. Children's attention to their mother when she expressed each emotion was rated from video. Immediately following the phone conversation, children were asked questions about the conversation to assess their interpretations of the intensity of mother's emotions and misattributions of personal responsibility for her emotions. Children's prosocial skills and internalizing problems were assessed using mother-report rating scales. Interpretations of mother's positive emotions as relatively less intense than her negative emotions, misattributions of personal responsibility for her negative emotions, and lack of misattributions of personal responsibility for her positive emotions were associated with poorer prosocial skills. Children who attended relatively less to mother's positive than her negative emotions had higher levels of internalizing problems. These findings suggest that children's attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother's emotions may be important targets of early interventions for preventing prosocial skills deficits and internalizing problems.

Dealing with feelings: characterization of trait alexithymia on emotion regulation strategies and cognitive-emotional processing.

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Marte Swart

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Alexithymia, or "no words for feelings", is a personality trait which is associated with difficulties in emotion recognition and regulation. It is unknown whether this deficit is due primarily to regulation, perception, or mentalizing of emotions. In order to shed light on the core deficit, we tested our subjects on a wide range of emotional tasks. We expected the high alexithymics to underperform on all tasks. METHOD: Two groups of healthy individuals, high and low scoring on the cognitive component of the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire, completed questionnaires of emotion regulation and performed several emotion processing tasks including a micro expression recognition task, recognition of emotional prosody and semantics in spoken sentences, an emotional and identity learning task and a conflicting beliefs and emotions task (emotional mentalizing. RESULTS: The two groups differed on the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, Berkeley Expressivity Questionnaire and Empathy Quotient. Specifically, the Emotion Regulation Quotient showed that alexithymic individuals used more suppressive and less reappraisal strategies. On the behavioral tasks, as expected, alexithymics performed worse on recognition of micro expressions and emotional mentalizing. Surprisingly, groups did not differ on tasks of emotional semantics and prosody and associative emotional-learning. CONCLUSION: Individuals scoring high on the cognitive component of alexithymia are more prone to suppressive emotion regulation strategies rather than reappraisal strategies. Regarding emotional information processing, alexithymia is associated with reduced performance on measures of early processing as well as higher order mentalizing. However, difficulties in the processing of emotional language were not a core deficit in our alexithymic group.

Toward an integrative understanding of narrative and emotion processes in Emotion-focused therapy of depression: implications for theory, research and practice.

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Angus, Lynne

2012-01-01

This paper addresses the fundamental contributions of client narrative disclosure in psychotherapy and its importance for the elaboration of new emotional meanings and self understanding in the context of Emotion-focused therapy (EFT) of depression. An overview of the multi-methodological steps undertaken to empirically investigate the contributions of client story telling, emotional differentiation and meaning-making processes (Narrative Processes Coding System; Angus et al., 1999) in EFT treatments of depression is provided, followed by a summary of key research findings that informed the development of a narrative-informed approach to Emotion-focused therapy of depression (Angus & Greenberg, 2011). Finally, the clinical practice and training implications of adopting a research-informed approach to working with narrative and emotion processes in EFT are described, and future research directions discussed.

The Impact of Experiential Avoidance on the Inference of Characters' Emotions: Evidence for an Emotional Processing Bias.

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Pickett, Scott M; Kurby, Christopher A

2010-12-01

Experiential avoidance is a functional class of maladaptive strategies that contribute to the development and maintenance of psychopathology. Although previous research has demonstrated group differences in the interpretation of aversive stimuli, there is limited work on the influence of experiential avoidance during the online processing of emotion. An experimental design investigated the influence of self-reported experiential avoidance during emotion processing by assessing emotion inferences during the comprehension of narratives that imply different emotions. Results suggest that experiential avoidance is partially characterized by an emotional information processing bias. Specifically, individuals reporting higher experiential avoidance scores exhibited a bias towards activating negative emotion inferences, whereas individuals reporting lower experiential avoidance scores exhibited a bias towards activating positive emotion inferences. Minimal emotional inference was observed for the non-bias affective valence. Findings are discussed in terms of the implications of experiential avoidance as a cognitive vulnerability for psychopathology.

Dissociable meta-analytic brain networks contribute to coordinated emotional processing.

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Riedel, Michael C; Yanes, Julio A; Ray, Kimberly L; Eickhoff, Simon B; Fox, Peter T; Sutherland, Matthew T; Laird, Angela R

2018-06-01

Meta-analytic techniques for mining the neuroimaging literature continue to exert an impact on our conceptualization of functional brain networks contributing to human emotion and cognition. Traditional theories regarding the neurobiological substrates contributing to affective processing are shifting from regional- towards more network-based heuristic frameworks. To elucidate differential brain network involvement linked to distinct aspects of emotion processing, we applied an emergent meta-analytic clustering approach to the extensive body of affective neuroimaging results archived in the BrainMap database. Specifically, we performed hierarchical clustering on the modeled activation maps from 1,747 experiments in the affective processing domain, resulting in five meta-analytic groupings of experiments demonstrating whole-brain recruitment. Behavioral inference analyses conducted for each of these groupings suggested dissociable networks supporting: (1) visual perception within primary and associative visual cortices, (2) auditory perception within primary auditory cortices, (3) attention to emotionally salient information within insular, anterior cingulate, and subcortical regions, (4) appraisal and prediction of emotional events within medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices, and (5) induction of emotional responses within amygdala and fusiform gyri. These meta-analytic outcomes are consistent with a contemporary psychological model of affective processing in which emotionally salient information from perceived stimuli are integrated with previous experiences to engender a subjective affective response. This study highlights the utility of using emergent meta-analytic methods to inform and extend psychological theories and suggests that emotions are manifest as the eventual consequence of interactions between large-scale brain networks. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Informational need of emotional stress

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Simonov, P. V.; Frolov, M. V.

According to the informational theory of emotions[1], emotions in humans depend on the power of some need (motivation) and the estimation by the subject of the probability (possibility) of the need staisfaction (the goal achievement). Low probability of need satisfaction leads to negative emotions, actively minimized by the subject. Increased probability of satisfaction, as compared to earlier forecast, generates positive emotions, which the subject tries to maximize, i.e. to enhance, to prolong, to repeat. The informational theory of emotions encompasses their reflective function, the laws of their appearance, the regulatory significance of emotions, and their role in organization of behavior. The level of emotional stress influences the operator's performance. A decrease in the emotional tonus leads to drowsiness, lack of vigilance, missing of significant signals and to slower reactions. An extremely high stress level disorganizes the activity, complicates it with a trend toward incorrect actions and reactions to insignificant signals (false alarms). The neurophysiological mechanisms of the influence of emotions on perceptual activity and operator performance as well as the significance of individuality are discussed.

Brain processing of task-relevant and task-irrelevant emotional words: an ERP study.

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González-Villar, Alberto J; Triñanes, Yolanda; Zurrón, Montserrat; Carrillo-de-la-Peña, María T

2014-09-01

Although there is evidence for preferential perceptual processing of written emotional information, the effects of attentional manipulations and the time course of affective processing require further clarification. In this study, we attempted to investigate how the emotional content of words modulates cerebral functioning (event-related potentials, ERPs) and behavior (reaction times, RTs) when the content is task-irrelevant (emotional Stroop Task, EST) or task-relevant (emotional categorization task, ECT), in a sample of healthy middle-aged women. In the EST, the RTs were longer for emotional words than for neutral words, and in the ECT, they were longer for neutral and negative words than for positive words. A principal components analysis of the ERPs identified various temporospatial factors that were differentially modified by emotional content. P2 was the first emotion-sensitive component, with enhanced factor scores for negative nouns across tasks. The N2 and late positive complex had enhanced factor scores for emotional relative to neutral information only in the ECT. The results reinforce the idea that written emotional information has a preferential processing route, both when it is task-irrelevant (producing behavioral interference) and when it is task-relevant (facilitating the categorization). After early automatic processing of the emotional content, late ERPs become more emotionally modulated as the level of attention to the valence increases.

Climate change and changing attitudes. Effect of negative emotion on information processing

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Meijnders, A.L.

1998-12-17

Chapter 2 describes our first study of the relations between negative emotion, information processing, and attitudes within the field of environmental communication. This study examined how the level of fear with regard to climate change influenced the processing of information about energy-efficient lighting. The consequences for the relations between attitudes, intentions, and behaviour were also assessed. A moderate fear level merely seemed to have an effect on attitudes by stimulating systematic information processing. Provided that strong arguments were presented this resulted in more favourable attitudes. Although there were indications that a high fear level also increased systematic information processing, this effect seemed to be dominated by a direct positive effect on attitudes. Though the relation between attitudes and behavioural intentions was fairly strong regardless of fear level, actual behaviour could only be reliably predicted from behavioural intentions when the level of fear was high. Chapter 3 describes a study aimed at replicating the findings of the first study. In addition this study took into account the effect of pre-existing differences in concern about climate change. The consequences for attitude stability were also examined. Again some indications were found that a moderate fear level increased systematic processing. Regarding the effect of level of pre-existing concern, we mainly found a direct positive effect on attitudes. No evidence was found that the level of fear or concern through stimulating systematic processing resulted in more persistent attitudes. Chapter 4 describes a study examining the effects of induced fear level and the level of pre-existing concern on the processing of information about the implementation of a European energy tax. No evidence was found that the induced fear level influenced,the elaboration of this information. However, the level of pre-existing concern did appear to have an impact: Elaboration was

Processing of emotional faces in congenital amusia: An emotional music priming event-related potential study.

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Zhishuai, Jin; Hong, Liu; Daxing, Wu; Pin, Zhang; Xuejing, Lu

2017-01-01

Congenital amusia is characterized by lifelong impairments in music perception and processing. It is unclear whether pitch detection deficits impact amusic individuals' perception of musical emotion. In the current work, 19 amusics and 21 healthy controls were subjected to electroencephalography (EEG) while being exposed to music excerpts and emotional faces. We assessed each individual's ability to discriminate positive- and negative-valenced emotional faces and analyzed electrophysiological indices, in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded at 32 sites, following exposure to emotionally positive or negative music excerpts. We observed smaller N2 amplitudes in response to facial expressions in the amusia group than in the control group, suggesting that amusics were less affected by the musical stimuli. The late-positive component (LPC) in amusics was similar to that in controls. Our results suggest that the neurocognitive deficit characteristic of congenital amusia is fundamentally an impairment in musical information processing rather than an impairment in emotional processing.

Processing of emotional faces in congenital amusia: An emotional music priming event-related potential study

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Jin Zhishuai

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Congenital amusia is characterized by lifelong impairments in music perception and processing. It is unclear whether pitch detection deficits impact amusic individuals' perception of musical emotion. In the current work, 19 amusics and 21 healthy controls were subjected to electroencephalography (EEG while being exposed to music excerpts and emotional faces. We assessed each individual's ability to discriminate positive- and negative-valenced emotional faces and analyzed electrophysiological indices, in the form of event-related potentials (ERPs recorded at 32 sites, following exposure to emotionally positive or negative music excerpts. We observed smaller N2 amplitudes in response to facial expressions in the amusia group than in the control group, suggesting that amusics were less affected by the musical stimuli. The late-positive component (LPC in amusics was similar to that in controls. Our results suggest that the neurocognitive deficit characteristic of congenital amusia is fundamentally an impairment in musical information processing rather than an impairment in emotional processing.

Subliminal Emotional Words Impact Syntactic Processing: Evidence from Performance and Event-Related Brain Potentials

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Laura Jiménez-Ortega

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Recent studies demonstrate that syntactic processing can be affected by emotional information and that subliminal emotional information can also affect cognitive processes. In this study, we explore whether unconscious emotional information may also impact syntactic processing. In an Event-Related brain Potential (ERP study, positive, neutral and negative subliminal adjectives were inserted within neutral sentences, just before the presentation of the supraliminal adjective. They could either be correct (50% or contain a morphosyntactic violation (number or gender disagreements. Larger error rates were observed for incorrect sentences than for correct ones, in contrast to most studies using supraliminal information. Strikingly, emotional adjectives affected the conscious syntactic processing of sentences containing morphosyntactic anomalies. The neutral condition elicited left anterior negativity (LAN followed by a P600 component. However, a lack of anterior negativity and an early P600 onset for the negative condition were found, probably as a result of the negative subliminal correct adjective capturing early syntactic resources. Positive masked adjectives in turn prompted an N400 component in response to morphosyntactic violations, probably reflecting the induction of a heuristic processing mode involving access to lexico-semantic information to solve agreement anomalies. Our results add to recent evidence on the impact of emotional information on syntactic processing, while showing that this can occur even when the reader is unaware of the emotional stimuli.

Effects of emotional tone and visual complexity on processing health information in prescription drug advertising.

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Norris, Rebecca L; Bailey, Rachel L; Bolls, Paul D; Wise, Kevin R

2012-01-01

This experiment explored how the emotional tone and visual complexity of direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertisements affect the encoding and storage of specific risk and benefit statements about each of the drugs in question. Results are interpreted under the limited capacity model of motivated mediated message processing framework. Findings suggest that DTC drug ads should be pleasantly toned and high in visual complexity in order to maximize encoding and storage of risk and benefit information.

Attentional bias in clinical depression and anxiety: The impact of emotional and non-emotional distracting information.

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Lichtenstein-Vidne, L; Okon-Singer, H; Cohen, N; Todder, D; Aue, T; Nemets, B; Henik, A

2017-01-01

Both anxiety and major depression disorder (MDD) were reported to involve a maladaptive selective attention mechanism, associated with bias toward negative stimuli. Previous studies investigated attentional bias using distractors that required processing as part of task settings, and therefore, in our view, these distractors should be regarded as task-relevant. Here, we applied a unique task that used peripheral distractors that presented emotional and spatial information simultaneously. Notably, the emotional information was not associated in any way to the task, and thus was task-irrelevant. The spatial information, however, was task-relevant as it corresponded with task instructions. Corroborating previous findings, anxious patients showed attentional bias toward negative information. MDD patients showed no indication of this bias. Spatial information influenced all groups similarly. These results indicate that anxiety, but not MDD, is associated with an inherent negative information bias, further illustrating that the two closely related disorders are characterized by different processing patterns. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Neurophysiological Markers of Emotion Processing in Burnout Syndrome.

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Golonka, Krystyna; Mojsa-Kaja, Justyna; Popiel, Katarzyna; Marek, Tadeusz; Gawlowska, Magda

2017-01-01

The substantial body of research employing subjective measures indicates that burnout syndrome is associated with cognitive and emotional dysfunctions. The growing amount of neurophysiological and neuroimaging research helps in broadening existing knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying core burnout components (emotional exhaustion and depersonalization/cynicism) that are inextricably associated with emotional processing. In the presented EEG study, a group of 93 participants (55 women; mean age = 35.8) were selected for the burnout group or the demographically matched control group on the basis of the results of the Maslach Burnout Inventory - General Survey (MBI-GS) and the Areas of Worklife Survey (AWS). Subjects then participated in an EEG experiment using two experimental procedures: a facial recognition task and viewing of passive pictures. The study focuses on analyzing event-related potentials (ERPs): N170, VPP, EPN, and LPP, as indicators of emotional information processing. Our results show that burnout subjects, as compared to the control group, demonstrate significantly weaker response to affect-evoking stimuli, indexed by a decline in VPP amplitude to emotional faces and decreased EPN amplitude in processing emotional scenes. The analysis of N170 and LPP showed no significant between-group difference. The correlation analyses revealed that VPP and EPN, which are ERP components related to emotional processing, are associated with two core burnout symptoms: emotional exhaustion and cynicism. To our knowledge, we are one of the first research groups to use ERPs to demonstrate such a relationship between neurophysiological activity and burnout syndrome in the context of emotional processing. Thus, in conclusion we emphasized that the decreased amplitude of VPP and EPN components in the burnout group may be a neurophysiological manifestation of emotional blunting and may be considered as neurophysiological markers of emotional exhaustion and cynicism

Attentional bias for emotional information in older adults: the role of emotion and future time perspective.

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Demeyer, Ineke; De Raedt, Rudi

2013-01-01

Research suggests that older adults display a positivity bias at the level of information processing. However, because studies investigating attentional bias for emotional information in older adults have produced mixed findings, research identifying inter-individual differences that may explain these inconsistent results is necessary. Therefore, we investigated whether mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective are related to attentional bias in older adults. Thirty-seven healthy older adults and 25 healthy middle-aged adults completed questionnaires to assess mood, symptoms of depression, symptoms of anxiety and future time perspective. Attentional bias towards happy, sad and neutral information was measured using a modified exogenous cueing paradigm with long cue presentations, to measure maintained attention versus avoidance of emotional stimuli. Older adults showed attentional avoidance for all emotional faces, whereas no attentional biases were found in the middle-aged group. Moreover, in the older adult group, avoidance for negative information was related to anxiety. Future time perspective was unrelated to attentional bias. These findings suggest that anxiety may lead to inter-individual differences in attentional bias in older adults, and that avoidance from negative information may be an emotion regulation strategy.

Valence, arousal, and task effects in emotional prosody processing

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Silke ePaulmann

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Previous research suggests that emotional prosody processing is a highly rapid and complex process. In particular, it has been shown that different basic emotions can be differentiated in an early event-related brain potential (ERP component, the P200. Often, the P200 is followed by later long lasting ERPs such as the late positive complex (LPC. The current experiment set out to explore in how far emotionality and arousal can modulate these previously reported ERP components. In addition, we also investigated the influence of task demands (implicit vs. explicit evaluation of stimuli. Participants listened to pseudo-sentences (sentences with no lexical content spoken in six different emotions or in a neutral tone of voice while they either rated the arousal level of the speaker or their own arousal level. Results confirm that different emotional intonations can first be differentiated in the P200 component, reflecting a first emotional encoding of the stimulus possibly including a valence tagging process. A marginal significant arousal effect was also found in this time-window with high arousing stimuli eliciting a stronger P200 than low arousing stimuli. The P200 component was followed by a long lasting positive ERP between 400 and 750 ms. In this late time-window, both emotion and arousal effects were found. No effects of task were observed in either time-window. Taken together, results suggest that emotion relevant details are robustly decoded during early processing and late processing stages while arousal information is only reliably taken into consideration at a later stage of processing.

Enhanced embodied response following ambiguous emotional processing.

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Beffara, Brice; Ouellet, Marc; Vermeulen, Nicolas; Basu, Anamitra; Morisseau, Tiffany; Mermillod, Martial

2012-08-01

It has generally been assumed that high-level cognitive and emotional processes are based on amodal conceptual information. In contrast, however, "embodied simulation" theory states that the perception of an emotional signal can trigger a simulation of the related state in the motor, somatosensory, and affective systems. To study the effect of social context on the mimicry effect predicted by the "embodied simulation" theory, we recorded the electromyographic (EMG) activity of participants when looking at emotional facial expressions. We observed an increase in embodied responses when the participants were exposed to a context involving social valence before seeing the emotional facial expressions. An examination of the dynamic EMG activity induced by two socially relevant emotional expressions (namely joy and anger) revealed enhanced EMG responses of the facial muscles associated with the related social prime (either positive or negative). These results are discussed within the general framework of embodiment theory.

Individual differences in emotion word processing: A diffusion model analysis.

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Mueller, Christina J; Kuchinke, Lars

2016-06-01

The exploratory study investigated individual differences in implicit processing of emotional words in a lexical decision task. A processing advantage for positive words was observed, and differences between happy and fear-related words in response times were predicted by individual differences in specific variables of emotion processing: Whereas more pronounced goal-directed behavior was related to a specific slowdown in processing of fear-related words, the rate of spontaneous eye blinks (indexing brain dopamine levels) was associated with a processing advantage of happy words. Estimating diffusion model parameters revealed that the drift rate (rate of information accumulation) captures unique variance of processing differences between happy and fear-related words, with highest drift rates observed for happy words. Overall emotion recognition ability predicted individual differences in drift rates between happy and fear-related words. The findings emphasize that a significant amount of variance in emotion processing is explained by individual differences in behavioral data.

Cocaine users manifest impaired prosodic and cross-modal emotion processing

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Lea M Hulka

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Background: A small number of previous studies have provided evidence that cocaine users exhibit impairments in complex social cognition tasks, while the more basic facial emotion recognition is widely unaffected. However, prosody and cross-modal emotion processing has not been systematically investigated in cocaine users so far. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess complex multisensory emotion processing in cocaine users in comparison to controls and to examine a potential association with drug use patterns.Method: The abbreviated version of the Comprehensive Affect Testing System (CATS-A was used to measure emotion perception across the three channels of facial affect, prosody, and semantic content in 58 cocaine users and 48 healthy control subjects who were matched for age, sex, verbal intelligence, and years of education.Results: Cocaine users had significantly lower scores than controls in the quotient scales of Emotion Recognition and Prosody Recognition and the subtests Conflicting Prosody/Meaning – Attend to Prosody and Match Emotional Prosody to Emotional Face either requiring to attend to prosody or to integrate cross-modal information. In contrast, no group difference emerged for the Affect Recognition Quotient. Cumulative cocaine doses and duration of cocaine use correlated negatively with emotion processing.Conclusion: Cocaine users show impaired cross-modal integration of different emotion processing channels particularly with regard to prosody, whereas more basic aspects of emotion processing such as facial affect perception are comparable to the performance of healthy controls.

Positively Biased Processing of Mother’s Emotions Predicts Children’s Social and Emotional Functioning

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Donohue, Meghan Rose; Goodman, Sherryl H.; Tully, Erin C.

2016-01-01

Risk for internalizing problems and social skills deficits likely emerges in early childhood when emotion processing and social competencies are developing. Positively biased processing of social information is typical during early childhood and may be protective against poorer psychosocial outcomes. We tested the hypothesis that young children with relatively less positively biased attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother’s emotions would exhibit poorer prosocial skills and more internalizing problems. A sample of 4- to 6-year-old children (N=82) observed their mothers express happiness, sadness and anger during a simulated emotional phone conversation. Children’s attention to their mother when she expressed each emotion was rated from video. Immediately following the phone conversation, children were asked questions about the conversation to assess their interpretations of the intensity of mother’s emotions and misattributions of personal responsibility for her emotions. Children’s prosocial skills and internalizing problems were assessed using mother-report rating scales. Interpretations of mother’s positive emotions as relatively less intense than her negative emotions, misattributions of personal responsibility for her negative emotions, and lack of misattributions of personal responsibility for her positive emotions were associated with poorer prosocial skills. Children who attended relatively less to mother’s positive than her negative emotions had higher levels of internalizing problems. These findings suggest that children’s attention to, interpretations of, and attributions for their mother’s emotions may be important targets of early interventions for preventing prosocial skills deficits and internalizing problems. PMID:28348456

Assessment of Social Information Processing in early childhood: development and initial validation of the Schultz Test of Emotion Processing-Preliminary Version.

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Schultz, David; Ambike, Archana; Logie, Sean Kevin; Bohner, Katherine E; Stapleton, Laura M; Vanderwalde, Holly; Min, Christopher B; Betkowski, Jennifer A

2010-07-01

Crick and Dodge's (Psychological Bulletin 115:74-101, 1994) social information processing model has proven very useful in guiding research focused on aggressive and peer-rejected children's social-cognitive functioning. Its application to early childhood, however, has been much more limited. The present study responds to this gap by developing and validating a video-based assessment tool appropriate for early childhood, the Schultz Test of Emotion Processing-Preliminary Version (STEP-P). One hundred twenty-five Head Start preschool children participated in the study. More socially competent children more frequently attributed sadness to the victims of provocation and labeled aggressive behaviors as both morally unacceptable and less likely to lead to positive outcomes. More socially competent girls labeled others' emotions more accurately. More disruptive children more frequently produced physically aggressive solutions to social provocations, and more disruptive boys less frequently interpreted social provocations as accidental. The STEP-P holds promise as an assessment tool that assesses knowledge structures related to the SIP model in early childhood.

Impaired socio-emotional processing in a developmental music disorder

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Lima, César F.; Brancatisano, Olivia; Fancourt, Amy; Müllensiefen, Daniel; Scott, Sophie K.; Warren, Jason D.; Stewart, Lauren

2016-01-01

Some individuals show a congenital deficit for music processing despite normal peripheral auditory processing, cognitive functioning, and music exposure. This condition, termed congenital amusia, is typically approached regarding its profile of musical and pitch difficulties. Here, we examine whether amusia also affects socio-emotional processing, probing auditory and visual domains. Thirteen adults with amusia and 11 controls completed two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants judged emotions in emotional speech prosody, nonverbal vocalizations (e.g., crying), and (silent) facial expressions. Target emotions were: amusement, anger, disgust, fear, pleasure, relief, and sadness. Compared to controls, amusics were impaired for all stimulus types, and the magnitude of their impairment was similar for auditory and visual emotions. In Experiment 2, participants listened to spontaneous and posed laughs, and either inferred the authenticity of the speaker’s state, or judged how much laughs were contagious. Amusics showed decreased sensitivity to laughter authenticity, but normal contagion responses. Across the experiments, mixed-effects models revealed that the acoustic features of vocal signals predicted socio-emotional evaluations in both groups, but the profile of predictive acoustic features was different in amusia. These findings suggest that a developmental music disorder can affect socio-emotional cognition in subtle ways, an impairment not restricted to auditory information. PMID:27725686

Neurophysiological processes and functional neuroanatomical structures underlying proactive effects of emotional conflicts.

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Schreiter, Marie Luise; Chmielewski, Witold; Beste, Christian

2018-07-01

There is a strong inter-relation of cognitive and emotional processes as evidenced by emotional conflict monitoring processes. In the cognitive domain, proactive effects of conflicts have widely been studied; i.e. effects of conflicts in the n-1 trial on trial n. Yet, the neurophysiological processes and associated functional neuroanatomical structures underlying such proactive effects during emotional conflicts have not been investigated. This is done in the current study combining EEG recordings with signal decomposition methods and source localization approaches. We show that an emotional conflict in the n-1 trial differentially influences processing of positive and negative emotions in trial n, but not the processing of conflicts in trial n. The dual competition framework stresses the importance of dissociable 'perceptual' and 'response selection' or cognitive control levels for interactive effects of cognition and emotion. Only once these coding levels were isolated in the neurophysiological data, processes explaining the behavioral effects were detectable. The data show that there is not only a close correspondence between theoretical propositions of the dual competition framework and neurophysiological processes. Rather, processing levels conceptualized in the framework operate in overlapping time windows, but are implemented via distinct functional neuroanatomical structures; the precuneus (BA31) and the insula (BA13). It seems that decoding of information in the precuneus, as well as the integration of information during response selection in the insula is more difficult when confronted with angry facial emotions whenever cognitive control resources have been highly taxed by previous conflicts. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

How clients "change emotion with emotion": A programme of research on emotional processing.

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Pascual-Leone, Antonio

2018-03-01

This paper reviews a body of research that has examined Pascual-Leone and Greenberg's sequential model of emotional processing or used its accompanying measure (the Classification of Affective Meaning States). Research from 24 studies using a plurality of methods examined process-outcome relationships from micro to macro levels of observation and builds support for emotional transformation as a possible causal mechanism of change in psychotherapy. A pooled sample of 310 clinical and 130 sub-clinical cases have been studied, reflecting the process of 7 different treatment approaches in addressing over 5 different presenting clinical problems (including depression, anxiety, relational trauma, and personality disorders). The initial findings on this model support the hypothesis that emotional transformation occurs in specific canonical sequences and these show large effects in the prediction of positive treatment outcomes. This model is the first in the field of psychotherapy to show how non-linear temporal patterns of moment-by-moment process relate to the unfolding of increasingly larger changes to create good psychotherapy treatment outcomes. Finally, clinical application of the model is also considered as a template for case formulations focused on emotion. Clinical or methodological significance of this article: This review article examines research on a specific model of emotional processing. (i) Experiencing certain key emotions during psychotherapy seems to predict good treatment outcomes, at both the session and treatment levels. (ii) There is also evidence to suggest that these productive emotional experiences unfold in an ordered pattern. Moreover, (iii) support for this way of understanding emotional processing comes from a number of very different treatment approaches and for several kinds of major disorders.

Behavioral assessment of emotional and motivational appraisal during visual processing of emotional scenes depending on spatial frequencies.

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Fradcourt, B; Peyrin, C; Baciu, M; Campagne, A

2013-10-01

Previous studies performed on visual processing of emotional stimuli have revealed preference for a specific type of visual spatial frequencies (high spatial frequency, HSF; low spatial frequency, LSF) according to task demands. The majority of studies used a face and focused on the appraisal of the emotional state of others. The present behavioral study investigates the relative role of spatial frequencies on processing emotional natural scenes during two explicit cognitive appraisal tasks, one emotional, based on the self-emotional experience and one motivational, based on the tendency to action. Our results suggest that HSF information was the most relevant to rapidly identify the self-emotional experience (unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral) while LSF was required to rapidly identify the tendency to action (avoidance, approach, and no action). The tendency to action based on LSF analysis showed a priority for unpleasant stimuli whereas the identification of emotional experience based on HSF analysis showed a priority for pleasant stimuli. The present study confirms the interest of considering both emotional and motivational characteristics of visual stimuli. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Inhibitory control and negative emotional processing in psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder.

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Verona, Edelyn; Sprague, Jenessa; Sadeh, Naomi

2012-05-01

The field of personality disorders has had a long-standing interest in understanding interactions between emotion and inhibitory control, as well as neurophysiological indices of these processes. More work in particular is needed to clarify differential deficits in offenders with antisocial personality disorder (APD) who differ on psychopathic traits, as APD and psychopathy are considered separate, albeit related, syndromes. Evidence of distinct neurobiological processing in these disorders would have implications for etiology-based personality disorder taxonomies in future psychiatric classification systems. To inform this area of research, we recorded event-related brain potentials during an emotional-linguistic Go/No-Go task to examine modulation of negative emotional processing by inhibitory control in three groups: psychopathy (n = 14), APD (n = 16), and control (n = 15). In control offenders, inhibitory control demands (No-Go vs. Go) modulated frontal-P3 amplitude to negative emotional words, indicating appropriate prioritization of inhibition over emotional processing. In contrast, the psychopathic group showed blunted processing of negative emotional words regardless of inhibitory control demands, consistent with research on emotional deficits in psychopathy. Finally, the APD group demonstrated enhanced processing of negative emotion words in both Go and No-Go trials, suggesting a failure to modulate negative emotional processing when inhibitory control is required. Implications for emotion-cognition interactions and putative etiological processes in these personality disorders are discussed.

The Process Model of Group-Based Emotion: Integrating Intergroup Emotion and Emotion Regulation Perspectives.

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Goldenberg, Amit; Halperin, Eran; van Zomeren, Martijn; Gross, James J

2016-05-01

Scholars interested in emotion regulation have documented the different goals and strategies individuals have for regulating their emotions. However, little attention has been paid to the regulation of group-based emotions, which are based on individuals' self-categorization as a group member and occur in response to situations perceived as relevant for that group. We propose a model for examining group-based emotion regulation that integrates intergroup emotions theory and the process model of emotion regulation. This synergy expands intergroup emotion theory by facilitating further investigation of different goals (i.e., hedonic or instrumental) and strategies (e.g., situation selection and modification strategies) used to regulate group-based emotions. It also expands emotion regulation research by emphasizing the role of self-categorization (e.g., as an individual or a group member) in the emotional process. Finally, we discuss the promise of this theoretical synergy and suggest several directions for future research on group-based emotion regulation. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Processing of unattended facial emotions: a visual mismatch negativity study.

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Stefanics, Gábor; Csukly, Gábor; Komlósi, Sarolta; Czobor, Pál; Czigler, István

2012-02-01

Facial emotions express our internal states and are fundamental in social interactions. Here we explore whether the repetition of unattended facial emotions builds up a predictive representation of frequently encountered emotions in the visual system. Participants (n=24) were presented peripherally with facial stimuli expressing emotions while they performed a visual detection task presented in the center of the visual field. Facial stimuli consisted of four faces of different identity, but expressed the same emotion (happy or fearful). Facial stimuli were presented in blocks of oddball sequence (standard emotion: p=0.9, deviant emotion: p=0.1). Event-related potentials (ERPs) to the same emotions were compared when the emotions were deviant and standard, respectively. We found visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) responses to unattended deviant emotions in the 170-360 ms post-stimulus range over bilateral occipito-temporal sites. Our results demonstrate that information about the emotional content of unattended faces presented at the periphery of the visual field is rapidly processed and stored in a predictive memory representation by the visual system. We also found evidence that differential processing of deviant fearful faces starts already at 70-120 ms after stimulus onset. This finding shows a 'negativity bias' under unattended conditions. Differential processing of fearful deviants were more pronounced in the right hemisphere in the 195-275 ms and 360-390 ms intervals, whereas processing of happy deviants evoked larger differential response in the left hemisphere in the 360-390 ms range, indicating differential hemispheric specialization for automatic processing of positive and negative affect. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A review of the neural and behavioral consequences for unitizing emotional and neutral information

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Brendan eMurray

2013-05-01

Full Text Available A special type of association, called a unitization, is formed when pieces of information are encoded as a single representation in memory (e.g., shirt and blue are encoded as a blue shirt; Graf & Schacter, 1989 and typically are later reactivated in memory as a single unit, allowing access to the features of multiple related stimuli at once (Bader et al., 2010; Diana et al., 2011. This review examines the neural processes supporting memory for unitizations and how the emotional content of the material may influence unitization. Although associative binding is typically reliant on hippocampal processes and supported by recollection, the first part of this review will present evidence to suggest that when two items are unitized into a single representation, memory for those bound items may be accomplished on the basis of familiarity and without reliance on the hippocampus. The second part of this review discusses how emotion may affect the processes that give rise to unitizations. Emotional information typically receives a mnemonic benefit over neutral information, but the literature is mixed on whether the presence of emotional information impedes or enhances the associative binding of neutral information (reviewed by Mather, 2007. It has been suggested that the way the emotional and neutral details are related together may be critical to whether the neutral details are enhanced or impeded (Mather, 2007; Mather & Sutherland, 2011. We focus on whether emotional arousal aides or inhibits the creation of a unitized representation, presenting preliminary data and future directions to test empirically the effects of forming and retrieving emotional and neutral unitizations.

Exposure to Androstenes Influences Processing of Emotional Words

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Patrizia d'Ettorre

2018-01-01

Full Text Available There is evidence that human-produced androstenes affect attitudinal, emotional, and physiological states in a context-dependent manner, suggesting that they could be involved in modulating social interactions. For instance, androstadienone appears to increase attention specifically to emotional information. Most of the previous work focused on one or two androstenes. Here, we tested whether androstenes affect linguistic processing, using three different androstene compounds. Participants (90 women and 77 men performed a lexical decision task after being exposed to an androstene or to a control treatment (all compounds were applied on the philtrum. We tested effects on three categories of target words, varying in emotional valence: positive, competitive, and neutral words (e.g., hope, war, and century, respectively. Results show that response times were modulated by androstene treatment and by emotional valence of words. Androstenone, but not androstadienone and androstenol, significantly slowed down the reaction time to words with competitive valence. Moreover, men exposed to androstenol showed a significantly reduced error rate, although men tended to make more errors than women in general. This suggests that these androstenes modulate the processing of emotional words, namely some particular lexical emotional content may become more salient under the effect of androstenes.

Women process multisensory emotion expressions more efficiently than men.

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Collignon, O; Girard, S; Gosselin, F; Saint-Amour, D; Lepore, F; Lassonde, M

2010-01-01

Despite claims in the popular press, experiments investigating whether female are more efficient than male observers at processing expression of emotions produced inconsistent findings. In the present study, participants were asked to categorize fear and disgust expressions displayed auditorily, visually, or audio-visually. Results revealed an advantage of women in all the conditions of stimulus presentation. We also observed more nonlinear probabilistic summation in the bimodal conditions in female than male observers, indicating greater neural integration of different sensory-emotional informations. These findings indicate robust differences between genders in the multisensory perception of emotion expression.

Crossmodal processing of emotions in alcohol-dependence and Korsakoff syndrome.

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Brion, Mélanie; D'Hondt, Fabien; Lannoy, Séverine; Pitel, Anne-Lise; Davidoff, Donald A; Maurage, Pierre

2017-09-01

Decoding emotional information from faces and voices is crucial for efficient interpersonal communication. Emotional decoding deficits have been found in alcohol-dependence (ALC), particularly in crossmodal situations (with simultaneous stimulations from different modalities), but are still underexplored in Korsakoff syndrome (KS). The aim of this study is to determine whether the continuity hypothesis, postulating a gradual worsening of cognitive and brain impairments from ALC to KS, is valid for emotional crossmodal processing. Sixteen KS, 17 ALC and 19 matched healthy controls (CP) had to detect the emotion (anger or happiness) displayed by auditory, visual or crossmodal auditory-visual stimuli. Crossmodal stimuli were either emotionally congruent (leading to a facilitation effect, i.e. enhanced performance for crossmodal condition compared to unimodal ones) or incongruent (leading to an interference effect, i.e. decreased performance for crossmodal condition due to discordant information across modalities). Reaction times and accuracy were recorded. Crossmodal integration for congruent information was dampened only in ALC, while both ALC and KS demonstrated, compared to CP, decreased performance for decoding emotional facial expressions in the incongruent condition. The crossmodal integration appears impaired in ALC but preserved in KS. Both alcohol-related disorders present an increased interference effect. These results show the interest of more ecological designs, using crossmodal stimuli, to explore emotional decoding in alcohol-related disorders. They also suggest that the continuum hypothesis cannot be generalised to emotional decoding abilities.

Level of processing modulates the neural correlates of emotional memory formation.

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Ritchey, Maureen; LaBar, Kevin S; Cabeza, Roberto

2011-04-01

Emotion is known to influence multiple aspects of memory formation, including the initial encoding of the memory trace and its consolidation over time. However, the neural mechanisms whereby emotion impacts memory encoding remain largely unexplored. The present study used a levels-of-processing manipulation to characterize the impact of emotion on encoding with and without the influence of elaborative processes. Participants viewed emotionally negative, neutral, and positive scenes under two conditions: a shallow condition focused on the perceptual features of the scenes and a deep condition that queried their semantic meaning. Recognition memory was tested 2 days later. Results showed that emotional memory enhancements were greatest in the shallow condition. fMRI analyses revealed that the right amygdala predicted subsequent emotional memory in the shallow more than deep condition, whereas the right ventrolateral PFC demonstrated the reverse pattern. Furthermore, the association of these regions with the hippocampus was modulated by valence: the amygdala-hippocampal link was strongest for negative stimuli, whereas the prefrontal-hippocampal link was strongest for positive stimuli. Taken together, these results suggest two distinct activation patterns underlying emotional memory formation: an amygdala component that promotes memory during shallow encoding, especially for negative information, and a prefrontal component that provides extra benefits during deep encoding, especially for positive information.

Level of processing modulates the neural correlates of emotional memory formation

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Ritchey, Maureen; LaBar, Kevin S.; Cabeza, Roberto

2010-01-01

Emotion is known to influence multiple aspects of memory formation, including the initial encoding of the memory trace and its consolidation over time. However, the neural mechanisms whereby emotion impacts memory encoding remain largely unexplored. The present study employed a levels-of-processing manipulation to characterize the impact of emotion on encoding with and without the influence of elaborative processes. Participants viewed emotionally negative, neutral, and positive scenes under two conditions: a shallow condition focused on the perceptual features of the scenes and a deep condition that queried their semantic meaning. Recognition memory was tested 2 days later. Results showed that emotional memory enhancements were greatest in the shallow condition. FMRI analyses revealed that the right amygdala predicted subsequent emotional memory in the shallow more than deep condition, whereas the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex demonstrated the reverse pattern. Furthermore, the association of these regions with the hippocampus was modulated by valence: the amygdala-hippocampal link was strongest for negative stimuli, whereas the prefrontal-hippocampal link was strongest for positive stimuli. Taken together, these results suggest two distinct activation patterns underlying emotional memory formation: an amygdala component that promotes memory during shallow encoding, especially for negative information, and a prefrontal component that provides extra benefits during deep encoding, especially for positive information. PMID:20350176

Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing

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Stockdale, Laura A.; Morrison, Robert G.; Kmiecik, Matthew J.; Garbarino, James; Silton, Rebecca L.

2015-01-01

Media violence exposure causes increased aggression and decreased prosocial behavior, suggesting that media violence desensitizes people to the emotional experience of others. Alterations in emotional face processing following exposure to media violence may result in desensitization to others’ emotional states. This study used scalp electroencephalography methods to examine the link between exposure to violence and neural changes associated with emotional face processing. Twenty-five particip...

Attention and emotion: an ERP analysis of facilitated emotional stimulus processing.

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Schupp, Harald T; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2003-06-11

Recent event-related potential studies observed an early posterior negativity (EPN) reflecting facilitated processing of emotional images. The present study explored if the facilitated processing of emotional pictures is sustained while subjects perform an explicit non-emotional attention task. EEG was recorded from 129 channels while subjects viewed a rapid continuous stream of images containing emotional pictures as well as task-related checkerboard images. As expected, explicit selective attention to target images elicited large P3 waves. Interestingly, emotional stimuli guided stimulus-driven selective encoding as reflected by augmented EPN amplitudes to emotional stimuli, in particular to stimuli of evolutionary significance (erotic contents, mutilations, and threat). These data demonstrate the selective encoding of emotional stimuli while top-down attentional control was directed towards non-emotional target stimuli.

Attention and emotion : An ERP analysis of facilitated emotional stimulus processing

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Schupp, Harald Thomas; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I.; Hamm, Alfons

2003-01-01

Recent event-related potential studies observed an early posterior negativity (EPN) reflecting facilitated processing of emotional images. The present study explored if the facilitated processing of emotional pictures is sustained while subjects perform an explicit non-emotional attention task. EEG was recorded from 129 channels while subjects viewed a rapid continuous stream of images containing emotional pictures as well as task-related checkerboard images. As expected, explicit selective a...

Emotionally anesthetized: media violence induces neural changes during emotional face processing.

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Stockdale, Laura A; Morrison, Robert G; Kmiecik, Matthew J; Garbarino, James; Silton, Rebecca L

2015-10-01

Media violence exposure causes increased aggression and decreased prosocial behavior, suggesting that media violence desensitizes people to the emotional experience of others. Alterations in emotional face processing following exposure to media violence may result in desensitization to others' emotional states. This study used scalp electroencephalography methods to examine the link between exposure to violence and neural changes associated with emotional face processing. Twenty-five participants were shown a violent or nonviolent film clip and then completed a gender discrimination stop-signal task using emotional faces. Media violence did not affect the early visual P100 component; however, decreased amplitude was observed in the N170 and P200 event-related potentials following the violent film, indicating that exposure to film violence leads to suppression of holistic face processing and implicit emotional processing. Participants who had just seen a violent film showed increased frontal N200/P300 amplitude. These results suggest that media violence exposure may desensitize people to emotional stimuli and thereby require fewer cognitive resources to inhibit behavior. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Age-related emotional bias in processing two emotionally valenced tasks.

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Allen, Philip A; Lien, Mei-Ching; Jardin, Elliott

2017-01-01

Previous studies suggest that older adults process positive emotions more efficiently than negative emotions, whereas younger adults show the reverse effect. We examined whether this age-related difference in emotional bias still occurs when attention is engaged in two emotional tasks. We used a psychological refractory period paradigm and varied the emotional valence of Task 1 and Task 2. In both experiments, Task 1 was emotional face discrimination (happy vs. angry faces) and Task 2 was sound discrimination (laugh, punch, vs. cork pop in Experiment 1 and laugh vs. scream in Experiment 2). The backward emotional correspondence effect for positively and negatively valenced Task 2 on Task 1 was measured. In both experiments, younger adults showed a backward correspondence effect from a negatively valenced Task 2, suggesting parallel processing of negatively valenced stimuli. Older adults showed similar negativity bias in Experiment 2 with a more salient negative sound ("scream" relative to "punch"). These results are consistent with an arousal-bias competition model [Mather and Sutherland (Perspectives in Psychological Sciences 6:114-133, 2011)], suggesting that emotional arousal modulates top-down attentional control settings (emotional regulation) with age.

Emotion processing for arousal and neutral content in Alzheimer's disease.

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Satler, Corina; Uribe, Carlos; Conde, Carlos; Da-Silva, Sergio Leme; Tomaz, Carlos

2010-02-01

Objective. To assess the ability of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients to perceive emotional information and to assign subjective emotional rating scores to audiovisual presentations. Materials and Methods. 24 subjects (14 with AD, matched to controls for age and educational levels) were studied. After neuropsychological assessment, they watched a Neutral story and then a story with Emotional content. Results. Recall scores for both stories were significantly lower in AD (Neutral and Emotional: P = .001). CG assigned different emotional scores for each version of the test, P = .001, while ratings of AD did not differ, P = .32. Linear regression analyses determined the best predictors of emotional rating and recognition memory for each group among neuropsychological tests battery. Conclusions. AD patients show changes in emotional processing on declarative memory and a preserved ability to express emotions in face of arousal content. The present findings suggest that these impairments are due to general cognitive decline.

Neural Processing of Emotional Musical and Nonmusical Stimuli in Depression.

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Rebecca J Lepping

Full Text Available Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC and striatum are part of the emotional neural circuitry implicated in major depressive disorder (MDD. Music is often used for emotion regulation, and pleasurable music listening activates the dopaminergic system in the brain, including the ACC. The present study uses functional MRI (fMRI and an emotional nonmusical and musical stimuli paradigm to examine how neural processing of emotionally provocative auditory stimuli is altered within the ACC and striatum in depression.Nineteen MDD and 20 never-depressed (ND control participants listened to standardized positive and negative emotional musical and nonmusical stimuli during fMRI scanning and gave subjective ratings of valence and arousal following scanning.ND participants exhibited greater activation to positive versus negative stimuli in ventral ACC. When compared with ND participants, MDD participants showed a different pattern of activation in ACC. In the rostral part of the ACC, ND participants showed greater activation for positive information, while MDD participants showed greater activation to negative information. In dorsal ACC, the pattern of activation distinguished between the types of stimuli, with ND participants showing greater activation to music compared to nonmusical stimuli, while MDD participants showed greater activation to nonmusical stimuli, with the greatest response to negative nonmusical stimuli. No group differences were found in striatum.These results suggest that people with depression may process emotional auditory stimuli differently based on both the type of stimulation and the emotional content of that stimulation. This raises the possibility that music may be useful in retraining ACC function, potentially leading to more effective and targeted treatments.

Hemispheric Lateralization in Processing Emotional and Non-Emotional Kanji Words

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NAGAE, Seiji

2013-01-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of both hemispheres to the processing of positive, negative, and non-emotional Kanji words in normal individuals. Right-handed subjects were asked to read aloud the Kanji word presented in the visual half-field. Results showed that responses to positive and non-emotional words were more accurate in RVF than those in LVF, but no difference was found fornegative emotional words. Reaction time results indicated that processing of nega...

Sexual Abuse Exposure Alters Early Processing of Emotional Words: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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Grégoire, Laurent; Caparos, Serge; Leblanc, Carole-Anne; Brisson, Benoit; Blanchette, Isabelle

2018-01-01

This study aimed to compare the time course of emotional information processing between trauma-exposed and control participants, using electrophysiological measures. We conceived an emotional Stroop task with two types of words: trauma-related emotional words and neutral words. We assessed the evoked cerebral responses of sexual abuse victims without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and no abuse participants. We focused particularly on an early wave (C1/P1), the N2pc, and the P3b. Our main result indicated an early effect (55–165 ms) of emotionality, which varied between non-exposed participants and sexual abuse victims. This suggests that potentially traumatic experiences modulate early processing of emotional information. Our findings showing neurobiological alterations in sexual abuse victims (without PTSD) suggest that exposure to highly emotional events has an important impact on neurocognitive function even in the absence of psychopathology. PMID:29379428

Sexual Abuse Exposure Alters Early Processing of Emotional Words: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials

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Laurent Grégoire

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This study aimed to compare the time course of emotional information processing between trauma-exposed and control participants, using electrophysiological measures. We conceived an emotional Stroop task with two types of words: trauma-related emotional words and neutral words. We assessed the evoked cerebral responses of sexual abuse victims without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD and no abuse participants. We focused particularly on an early wave (C1/P1, the N2pc, and the P3b. Our main result indicated an early effect (55–165 ms of emotionality, which varied between non-exposed participants and sexual abuse victims. This suggests that potentially traumatic experiences modulate early processing of emotional information. Our findings showing neurobiological alterations in sexual abuse victims (without PTSD suggest that exposure to highly emotional events has an important impact on neurocognitive function even in the absence of psychopathology.

Linking children's neuropsychological processing of emotion with their knowledge of emotion expression regulation.

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Watling, Dawn; Bourne, Victoria J

2007-09-01

Understanding of emotions has been shown to develop between the ages of 4 and 10 years; however, individual differences exist in this development. While previous research has typically examined these differences in terms of developmental and/or social factors, little research has considered the possible impact of neuropsychological development on the behavioural understanding of emotions. Emotion processing tends to be lateralised to the right hemisphere of the brain in adults, yet this pattern is not as evident in children until around the age of 10 years. In this study 136 children between 5 and 10 years were given both behavioural and neuropsychological tests of emotion processing. The behavioural task examined expression regulation knowledge (ERK) for prosocial and self-presentational hypothetical interactions. The chimeric faces test was given as a measure of lateralisation for processing positive facial emotion. An interaction between age and lateralisation for emotion processing was predictive of children's ERK for only the self-presentational interactions. The relationships between children's ERK and lateralisation for emotion processing changes across the three age groups, emerging as a positive relationship in the 10-year-olds. The 10-years-olds who were more lateralised to the right hemisphere for emotion processing tended to show greater understanding of the need for regulating negative emotions during interactions that would have a self-presentational motivation. This finding suggests an association between the behavioural and neuropsychological development of emotion processing.

The construction of emotional experience requires the integration of implicit and explicit emotional processes.

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Quirin, Markus; Lane, Richard D

2012-06-01

Although we agree that a constructivist approach to emotional experience makes sense, we propose that implicit (visceromotor and somatomotor) emotional processes are dissociable from explicit (attention and reflection) emotional processes, and that the conscious experience of emotion requires an integration of the two. Assessments of implicit emotion and emotional awareness can be helpful in the neuroscientific investigation of emotion.

Perceived social pressure not to experience negative emotion is linked to selective attention for negative information.

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Bastian, Brock; Pe, Madeline Lee; Kuppens, Peter

2017-02-01

Social norms and values may be important predictors of how people engage with and regulate their negative emotional experiences. Previous research has shown that social expectancies (the perceived social pressure not to feel negative emotion (NE)) exacerbate feelings of sadness. In the current research, we examined whether social expectancies may be linked to how people process emotional information. Using a modified classical flanker task involving emotional rather than non-emotional stimuli, we found that, for those who experienced low levels of NE, social expectancies were linked to the selective avoidance of negative emotional information. Those who experienced high levels of NE did not show a selective avoidance of negative emotional information. The findings suggest that, for people who experience many NEs, social expectancies may lead to discrepancies between how they think they ought to feel and the kind of emotional information they pay attention to.

Neurofunctional Underpinnings of Audiovisual Emotion Processing in Teens with Autism Spectrum Disorders

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Doyle-Thomas, Krissy A.R.; Goldberg, Jeremy; Szatmari, Peter; Hall, Geoffrey B.C.

2013-01-01

Despite successful performance on some audiovisual emotion tasks, hypoactivity has been observed in frontal and temporal integration cortices in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Little is understood about the neurofunctional network underlying this ability in individuals with ASD. Research suggests that there may be processing biases in individuals with ASD, based on their ability to obtain meaningful information from the face and/or the voice. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study examined brain activity in teens with ASD (n = 18) and typically developing controls (n = 16) during audiovisual and unimodal emotion processing. Teens with ASD had a significantly lower accuracy when matching an emotional face to an emotion label. However, no differences in accuracy were observed between groups when matching an emotional voice or face-voice pair to an emotion label. In both groups brain activity during audiovisual emotion matching differed significantly from activity during unimodal emotion matching. Between-group analyses of audiovisual processing revealed significantly greater activation in teens with ASD in a parietofrontal network believed to be implicated in attention, goal-directed behaviors, and semantic processing. In contrast, controls showed greater activity in frontal and temporal association cortices during this task. These results suggest that in the absence of engaging integrative emotional networks during audiovisual emotion matching, teens with ASD may have recruited the parietofrontal network as an alternate compensatory system. PMID:23750139

Attention Modulates the Neural Processes Underlying Multisensory Integration of Emotion

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Hao Tam Ho

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Integrating emotional information from multiple sensory modalities is generally assumed to be a pre-attentive process (de Gelder et al., 1999. This assumption, however, presupposes that the integrative process occurs independent of attention. Using event-potentials (ERP the present study investigated whether the neural processes underlying the integration of dynamic facial expression and emotional prosody is indeed unaffected by attentional manipulations. To this end, participants were presented with congruent and incongruent face-voice combinations (eg, an angry face combined with a neutral voice and performed different two-choice tasks in four consecutive blocks. Three of the tasks directed the participants' attention to emotion expressions in the face, the voice or both. The fourth task required participants to attend to the synchronicity between voice and lip movements. The results show divergent modulations of early ERP components by the different attentional manipulations. For example, when attention was directed to the face (or the voice, incongruent stimuli elicited a reduced N1 as compared to congruent stimuli. This effect was absent, when attention was diverted away from the emotionality in both face and voice suggesting that the detection of emotional incongruence already requires attention. Based on these findings, we question whether multisensory integration of emotion occurs indeed pre-attentively.

Emotion Processing for Arousal and Neutral Content in Alzheimer's Disease

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Corina Satler

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. To assess the ability of Alzheimer's disease (AD patients to perceive emotional information and to assign subjective emotional rating scores to audiovisual presentations. Materials and Methods. 24 subjects (14 with AD, matched to controls for age and educational levels were studied. After neuropsychological assessment, they watched a Neutral story and then a story with Emotional content. Results. Recall scores for both stories were significantly lower in AD (Neutral and Emotional: P=.001. CG assigned different emotional scores for each version of the test, P=.001, while ratings of AD did not differ, P=.32. Linear regression analyses determined the best predictors of emotional rating and recognition memory for each group among neuropsychological tests battery. Conclusions. AD patients show changes in emotional processing on declarative memory and a preserved ability to express emotions in face of arousal content. The present findings suggest that these impairments are due to general cognitive decline.

Improved emotional conflict control triggered by the processing priority of negative emotion.

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Yang, Qian; Wang, Xiangpeng; Yin, Shouhang; Zhao, Xiaoyue; Tan, Jinfeng; Chen, Antao

2016-04-18

The prefrontal cortex is responsible for emotional conflict resolution, and this control mechanism is affected by the emotional valence of distracting stimuli. In the present study, we investigated effects of negative and positive stimuli on emotional conflict control using a face-word Stroop task in combination with functional brain imaging. Emotional conflict was absent in the negative face context, in accordance with the null activation observed in areas regarding emotional face processing (fusiform face area, middle temporal/occipital gyrus). Importantly, these visual areas negatively coupled with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, the significant emotional conflict was observed in the positive face context, this effect was accompanied by activation in areas associated with emotional face processing, and the default mode network (DMN), here, DLPFC mainly negatively coupled with DMN, rather than visual areas. These results suggested that the conflict control mechanism exerted differently between negative faces and positive faces, it implemented more efficiently in the negative face condition, whereas it is more devoted to inhibiting internal interference in the positive face condition. This study thus provides a plausible mechanism of emotional conflict resolution that the rapid pathway for negative emotion processing efficiently triggers control mechanisms to preventively resolve emotional conflict.

Lateralized hybrid faces: evidence of a valence-specific bias in the processing of implicit emotions.

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Prete, Giulia; Laeng, Bruno; Tommasi, Luca

2014-01-01

It is well known that hemispheric asymmetries exist for both the analyses of low-level visual information (such as spatial frequency) and high-level visual information (such as emotional expressions). In this study, we assessed which of the above factors underlies perceptual laterality effects with "hybrid faces": a type of stimulus that allows testing for unaware processing of emotional expressions, when the emotion is displayed in the low-frequency information while an image of the same face with a neutral expression is superimposed to it. Despite hybrid faces being perceived as neutral, the emotional information modulates observers' social judgements. In the present study, participants were asked to assess friendliness of hybrid faces displayed tachistoscopically, either centrally or laterally to fixation. We found a clear influence of the hidden emotions also with lateral presentations. Happy faces were rated as more friendly and angry faces as less friendly with respect to neutral faces. In general, hybrid faces were evaluated as less friendly when they were presented in the left visual field/right hemisphere than in the right visual field/left hemisphere. The results extend the validity of the valence hypothesis in the specific domain of unaware (subcortical) emotion processing.

Emotional voice processing: investigating the role of genetic variation in the serotonin transporter across development.

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Tobias Grossmann

Full Text Available The ability to effectively respond to emotional information carried in the human voice plays a pivotal role for social interactions. We examined how genetic factors, especially the serotonin transporter genetic variation (5-HTTLPR, affect the neurodynamics of emotional voice processing in infants and adults by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs. The results revealed that infants distinguish between emotions during an early perceptual processing stage, whereas adults recognize and evaluate the meaning of emotions during later semantic processing stages. While infants do discriminate between emotions, only in adults was genetic variation associated with neurophysiological differences in how positive and negative emotions are processed in the brain. This suggests that genetic association with neurocognitive functions emerges during development, emphasizing the role that variation in serotonin plays in the maturation of brain systems involved in emotion recognition.

The match-mismatch model of emotion processing styles and emotion regulation strategies in fibromyalgia.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Geenen, R.; Ooijen-van der Linden, L. van; Lumley, M.A.; Bijlsma, J.W.J.; Middendorp, H. van

2012-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Individuals differ in their style of processing emotions (e.g., experiencing affects intensely or being alexithymic) and their strategy of regulating emotions (e.g., expressing or reappraising). A match-mismatch model of emotion processing styles and emotion regulation strategies is

Neuropsychology of facial expressions. The role of consciousness in processing emotional faces

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Michela Balconi

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Neuropsychological studies have underlined the significant presence of distinct brain correlates deputed to analyze facial expression of emotion. It was observed that some cerebral circuits were considered as specific for emotional face comprehension as a function of conscious vs. unconscious processing of emotional information. Moreover, the emotional content of faces (i.e. positive vs. negative; more or less arousing may have an effect in activating specific cortical networks. Between the others, recent studies have explained the contribution of hemispheres in comprehending face, as a function of type of emotions (mainly related to the distinction positive vs. negative and of specific tasks (comprehending vs. producing facial expressions. Specifically, ERPs (event-related potentials analysis overview is proposed in order to comprehend how face may be processed by an observer and how he can make face a meaningful construct even in absence of awareness. Finally, brain oscillations is considered in order to explain the synchronization of neural populations in response to emotional faces when a conscious vs. unconscious processing is activated

Impact of personality on the cerebral processing of emotional prosody.

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Brück, Carolin; Kreifelts, Benjamin; Kaza, Evangelia; Lotze, Martin; Wildgruber, Dirk

2011-09-01

While several studies have focused on identifying common brain mechanisms governing the decoding of emotional speech melody, interindividual variations in the cerebral processing of prosodic information, in comparison, have received only little attention to date: Albeit, for instance, differences in personality among individuals have been shown to modulate emotional brain responses, personality influences on the neural basis of prosody decoding have not been investigated systematically yet. Thus, the present study aimed at delineating relationships between interindividual differences in personality and hemodynamic responses evoked by emotional speech melody. To determine personality-dependent modulations of brain reactivity, fMRI activation patterns during the processing of emotional speech cues were acquired from 24 healthy volunteers and subsequently correlated with individual trait measures of extraversion and neuroticism obtained for each participant. Whereas correlation analysis did not indicate any link between brain activation and extraversion, strong positive correlations between measures of neuroticism and hemodynamic responses of the right amygdala, the left postcentral gyrus as well as medial frontal structures including the right anterior cingulate cortex emerged, suggesting that brain mechanisms mediating the decoding of emotional speech melody may vary depending on differences in neuroticism among individuals. Observed trait-specific modulations are discussed in the light of processing biases as well as differences in emotion control or task strategies which may be associated with the personality trait of neuroticism. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Narrative and emotion process in psychotherapy: an empirical test of the Narrative-Emotion Process Coding System (NEPCS).

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Boritz, Tali Z; Bryntwick, Emily; Angus, Lynne; Greenberg, Leslie S; Constantino, Michael J

2014-01-01

While the individual contributions of narrative and emotion processes to psychotherapy outcome have been the focus of recent interest in psychotherapy research literature, the empirical analysis of narrative and emotion integration has rarely been addressed. The Narrative-Emotion Processes Coding System (NEPCS) was developed to provide researchers with a systematic method for identifying specific narrative and emotion process markers, for application to therapy session videos. The present study examined the relationship between NEPCS-derived problem markers (same old storytelling, empty storytelling, unstoried emotion, abstract storytelling) and change markers (competing plotlines storytelling, inchoate storytelling, unexpected outcome storytelling, and discovery storytelling), and treatment outcome (recovered versus unchanged at therapy termination) and stage of therapy (early, middle, late) in brief emotion-focused (EFT), client-centred (CCT), and cognitive (CT) therapies for depression. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses demonstrated a significant Outcome effect for inchoate storytelling (p = .037) and discovery storytelling (p = .002), a Stage × Outcome effect for abstract storytelling (p = .05), and a Stage × Outcome × Treatment effect for competing plotlines storytelling (p = .001). There was also a significant Stage × Outcome effect for NEPCS problem markers (p = .007) and change markers (p = .03). The results provide preliminary support for the importance of assessing the contribution of narrative-emotion processes to efficacious treatment outcomes in EFT, CCT, and CT treatments of depression.

Monetary incentives at retrieval promote recognition of involuntarily learned emotional information.

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Yan, Chunping; Li, Yunyun; Zhang, Qin; Cui, Lixia

2018-03-07

Previous studies have suggested that the effects of reward on memory processes are affected by certain factors, but it remains unclear whether the effects of reward at retrieval on recognition processes are influenced by emotion. The event-related potential was used to investigate the combined effect of reward and emotion on memory retrieval and its neural mechanism. The behavioral results indicated that the reward at retrieval improved recognition performance under positive and negative emotional conditions. The event-related potential results indicated that there were significant interactions between the reward and emotion in the average amplitude during recognition, and the significant reward effects from the frontal to parietal brain areas appeared at 130-800 ms for positive pictures and at 190-800 ms for negative pictures, but there were no significant reward effects of neutral pictures; the reward effect of positive items appeared relatively earlier, starting at 130 ms, and that of negative pictures began at 190 ms. These results indicate that monetary incentives at retrieval promote recognition of involuntarily learned emotional information.

Interactions between facial emotion and identity in face processing: evidence based on redundancy gains.

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Yankouskaya, Alla; Booth, David A; Humphreys, Glyn

2012-11-01

Interactions between the processing of emotion expression and form-based information from faces (facial identity) were investigated using the redundant-target paradigm, in which we specifically tested whether identity and emotional expression are integrated in a superadditive manner (Miller, Cognitive Psychology 14:247-279, 1982). In Experiments 1 and 2, participants performed emotion and face identity judgments on faces with sad or angry emotional expressions. Responses to redundant targets were faster than responses to either single target when a universal emotion was conveyed, and performance violated the predictions from a model assuming independent processing of emotion and face identity. Experiment 4 showed that these effects were not modulated by varying interstimulus and nontarget contingencies, and Experiment 5 demonstrated that the redundancy gains were eliminated when faces were inverted. Taken together, these results suggest that the identification of emotion and facial identity interact in face processing.

Survey the role of emotions in information retrieval

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Hassan Behzadi

2016-03-01

Full Text Available The present study was conducted to identify the users' emotion in various stages of information retrieval based on the information retrieval model in web.From the methodological perspective, the present study is experimental, and the type of study is practical. The society comprised all MA students majoring in different humanistic science branches and studying at Imam Reza international university. The sample society of this research consisted of 30 participants. The sample size was determined through stratified random sampling via G*power software. Data collection was carried out by using: demographic and prior experience of using internet questionnaire, post search questionnaire and recorded videos of users' faces. The findings of the study demonstrated that: 1 during the initial stages of searching, the frequency of emotion of apprehension, and in general during the link tracking stage, the negative emotions with the overall 49/3 percent are more frequent than the other emotions in browsing and differentiation stages, the emotion of happy was more frequent than the other emotions. 2 These variances resulted in significant relations among different emotions of the users throughout the four stages of information retrieval. 3 In simple search, the respondents displayed the emotion of happy most frequently and the emotion of aversion least frequently. On the other hand, in complicated search, apprehension and aversion were the most and the least frequently-cited emotions, respectively. Overall, the negative emotions were reported more frequently in complicated search in comparison with the simple search. This demonstrated that any change in the difficulty level of search undertaking would cause users to exhibit different types of emotions.

Memory-related functional connectivity in visual processing regions varies by prior emotional context.

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Bowen, Holly J; Kensinger, Elizabeth A

2017-09-06

Memory retrieval involves the reactivation of processes that were engaged at encoding. Using a Generalized Linear Model to test for effects of valence, our prior study suggests that memory for information previously encoded in a negative context reengages sensory processing regions at retrieval to a greater extent than positive. Here, we used partial least squares analyses of the same dataset to determine whether this valence-specific processing was one of the dominant patterns in the retrieval data. Trials previously paired with a face revealed a strong pattern of emotion that did not vary by valence, but for trials previously paired with a scene, an extensive network of regions was active during recollection of trials paired with negative content. These same regions were negatively correlated with recollection of trials paired with positive content. These results confirm that, despite no emotional content present during the time of retrieval, strong patterns of emotional study context are present in the data. Moreover, at least for trials paired with scenes at encoding, valence-specific networks are linked to episodic memory recollection, providing further support for recapitulation of sensory processing during recollection of negative emotional information.

Preattentive processing of audio-visual emotional signals

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Föcker, J.; Gondan, Matthias; Röder, B.

2011-01-01

Previous research has shown that redundant information in faces and voices leads to faster emotional categorization compared to incongruent emotional information even when attending to only one modality. The aim of the present study was to test whether these crossmodal effects are predominantly d...

Event-Related Potentials and Emotion Processing in Child Psychopathology

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Georgia eChronaki

2016-04-01

Full Text Available In recent years there has been increasing interest in the neural mechanisms underlying altered emotional processes in children and adolescents with psychopathology. This review provides a brief overview of the most up-to-date findings in the field of Event-Related Potentials (ERPs to facial and vocal emotional expressions in the most common child psychopathological conditions. In regards to externalising behaviour (i.e. ADHD, CD, ERP studies show enhanced early components to anger, reflecting enhanced sensory processing, followed by reductions in later components to anger, reflecting reduced cognitive-evaluative processing. In regards to internalising behaviour, research supports models of increased processing of threat stimuli especially at later more elaborate and effortful stages. Finally, in autism spectrum disorders abnormalities have been observed at early visual-perceptual stages of processing. An affective neuroscience framework for understanding child psychopathology can be valuable in elucidating underlying mechanisms and inform preventive intervention.

The effects of drugs on human models of emotional processing: an account of antidepressant drug treatment.

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Pringle, Abbie; Harmer, Catherine J

2015-12-01

Human models of emotional processing suggest that the direct effect of successful antidepressant drug treatment may be to modify biases in the processing of emotional information. Negative biases in emotional processing are documented in depression, and single or short-term dosing with conventional antidepressant drugs reverses these biases in depressed patients prior to any subjective change in mood. Antidepressant drug treatments also modulate emotional processing in healthy volunteers, which allows the consideration of the psychological effects of these drugs without the confound of changes in mood. As such, human models of emotional processing may prove to be useful for testing the efficacy of novel treatments and for matching treatments to individual patients or subgroups of patients.

Pubertal changes in emotional information processing: pupillary, behavioral, and subjective evidence during emotional word identification.

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Silk, Jennifer S; Siegle, Greg J; Whalen, Diana J; Ostapenko, Laura J; Ladouceur, Cecile D; Dahl, Ronald E

2009-01-01

This study investigated pupillary and behavioral responses to an emotional word valence identification paradigm among 32 pre-/early pubertal and 34 mid-/late pubertal typically developing children and adolescents. Participants were asked to identify the valence of positive, negative, and neutral words while pupil dilation was assessed using an eyetracker. Mid-/late pubertal children showed greater peak pupillary reactivity to words presented during the emotional word identification task than pre-/early pubertal children, regardless of word valence. Mid-/late pubertal children also showed smaller sustained pupil dilation than pre-/early pubertal children after the word was no longer on screen. These findings were replicated controlling for participants' age. In addition, mid-/late pubertal children had faster reaction times to all words, and rated themselves as more emotional during their laboratory visit compared to pre-/early pubertal children. Greater recall of emotional words following the task was associated with mid-/late pubertal status, and greater recall of emotional words was also associated with higher peak pupil dilation. These results provide physiological, behavioral, and subjective evidence consistent with a model of puberty-specific changes in neurobehavioral systems underpinning emotional reactivity.

Fine-grained Emotion Role Detection Based on Retweet Information

OpenAIRE

Yu, Zhiwen; Chen, Liming; Guo, Bin; Ma, Chao; Yi, Fei; Wang, Zhu

2018-01-01

User behaviors in online social networks convey not only literal information but also one’s emotion attitudes towards the information. To compute this attitude, we define the concept of emotion role as the concentrated reflection of a user’s online emotional characteristics. Emotion role detection aims to better understand the structure and sentiments of online social networks and support further analysis, e.g., revealing public opinions, providing personalized recommendations, and detecting ...

Beyond Emotion Regulation: Emotion Utilization and Adaptive Functioning

OpenAIRE

Izard, Carroll; Stark, Kevin; Trentacosta, Christopher; Schultz, David

2008-01-01

Recent research indicates that emotionality, emotion information processing, emotion knowledge, and discrete emotion experiences may influence and interact with emotion utilization, that is, the effective use of the inherently adaptive and motivational functions of emotions. Strategies individuals learn for emotion modulation and emotion utilization become stabilized in emerging affective-cognitive structures, or emotion schemas. In these emotion schemas, the feeling/motivational component of...

Emotional Picture and Word Processing: An fMRI Study on Effects of Stimulus Complexity

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Schlochtermeier, Lorna H.; Kuchinke, Lars; Pehrs, Corinna; Urton, Karolina; Kappelhoff, Hermann; Jacobs, Arthur M.

2013-01-01

Neuroscientific investigations regarding aspects of emotional experiences usually focus on one stimulus modality (e.g., pictorial or verbal). Similarities and differences in the processing between the different modalities have rarely been studied directly. The comparison of verbal and pictorial emotional stimuli often reveals a processing advantage of emotional pictures in terms of larger or more pronounced emotion effects evoked by pictorial stimuli. In this study, we examined whether this picture advantage refers to general processing differences or whether it might partly be attributed to differences in visual complexity between pictures and words. We first developed a new stimulus database comprising valence and arousal ratings for more than 200 concrete objects representable in different modalities including different levels of complexity: words, phrases, pictograms, and photographs. Using fMRI we then studied the neural correlates of the processing of these emotional stimuli in a valence judgment task, in which the stimulus material was controlled for differences in emotional arousal. No superiority for the pictorial stimuli was found in terms of emotional information processing with differences between modalities being revealed mainly in perceptual processing regions. While visual complexity might partly account for previously found differences in emotional stimulus processing, the main existing processing differences are probably due to enhanced processing in modality specific perceptual regions. We would suggest that both pictures and words elicit emotional responses with no general superiority for either stimulus modality, while emotional responses to pictures are modulated by perceptual stimulus features, such as picture complexity. PMID:23409009

Emotion processing in words: a test of the neural re-use hypothesis using surface and intracranial EEG.

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Ponz, Aurélie; Montant, Marie; Liegeois-Chauvel, Catherine; Silva, Catarina; Braun, Mario; Jacobs, Arthur M; Ziegler, Johannes C

2014-05-01

This study investigates the spatiotemporal brain dynamics of emotional information processing during reading using a combination of surface and intracranial electroencephalography (EEG). Two different theoretical views were opposed. According to the standard psycholinguistic perspective, emotional responses to words are generated within the reading network itself subsequent to semantic activation. According to the neural re-use perspective, brain regions that are involved in processing emotional information contained in other stimuli (faces, pictures, smells) might be in charge of the processing of emotional information in words as well. We focused on a specific emotion-disgust-which has a clear locus in the brain, the anterior insula. Surface EEG showed differences between disgust and neutral words as early as 200 ms. Source localization suggested a cortical generator of the emotion effect in the left anterior insula. These findings were corroborated through the intracranial recordings of two epileptic patients with depth electrodes in insular and orbitofrontal areas. Both electrodes showed effects of disgust in reading as early as 200 ms. The early emotion effect in a brain region (insula) that responds to specific emotions in a variety of situations and stimuli clearly challenges classic sequential theories of reading in favor of the neural re-use perspective.

Facial emotion processing in pediatric social anxiety disorder: Relevance of situational context.

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Schwab, Daniela; Schienle, Anne

2017-08-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) typically begins in childhood. Previous research has demonstrated that adult patients respond with elevated late positivity (LP) to negative facial expressions. In the present study on pediatric SAD, we investigated responses to negative facial expressions and the role of social context information. Fifteen children with SAD and 15 non-anxious controls were first presented with images of negative facial expressions with masked backgrounds. Following this, the complete images which included context information, were shown. The negative expressions were either a result of an emotion-relevant (e.g., social exclusion) or emotion-irrelevant elicitor (e.g., weight lifting). Relative to controls, the clinical group showed elevated parietal LP during face processing with and without context information. Both groups differed in their frontal LP depending on the type of context. In SAD patients, frontal LP was lower in emotion-relevant than emotion-irrelevant contexts. We conclude that SAD patients direct more automatic attention towards negative facial expressions (parietal effect) and are less capable in integrating affective context information (frontal effect). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotional words can be embodied or disembodied: the role of superficial vs. deep types of processing

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Ensie eAbbassi

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Emotional words are processed rapidly and automatically in the left hemisphere (LH and slowly, with the involvement of attention, in the right hemisphere (RH. This review aims to find the reason for this difference and suggests that emotional words can be processed superficially or deeply due to the involvement of the linguistic and imagery systems, respectively. During superficial processing, emotional words likely make connections only with semantically associated words in the LH. This part of the process is automatic and may be sufficient for the purpose of language processing. Deep processing, in contrast, seems to involve conceptual information and imagery of a word’s perceptual and emotional properties using autobiographical memory contents. Imagery and the involvement of autobiographical memory likely differentiate between emotional and neutral word processing and explain the salient role of the RH in emotional word processing. It is concluded that the level of emotional word processing in the RH should be deeper than in the LH and, thus, it is conceivable that the slow mode of processing adds certain qualities to the output.

Emotional words can be embodied or disembodied: the role of superficial vs. deep types of processing.

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Abbassi, Ensie; Blanchette, Isabelle; Ansaldo, Ana I; Ghassemzadeh, Habib; Joanette, Yves

2015-01-01

Emotional words are processed rapidly and automatically in the left hemisphere (LH) and slowly, with the involvement of attention, in the right hemisphere (RH). This review aims to find the reason for this difference and suggests that emotional words can be processed superficially or deeply due to the involvement of the linguistic and imagery systems, respectively. During superficial processing, emotional words likely make connections only with semantically associated words in the LH. This part of the process is automatic and may be sufficient for the purpose of language processing. Deep processing, in contrast, seems to involve conceptual information and imagery of a word's perceptual and emotional properties using autobiographical memory contents. Imagery and the involvement of autobiographical memory likely differentiate between emotional and neutral word processing and explain the salient role of the RH in emotional word processing. It is concluded that the level of emotional word processing in the RH should be deeper than in the LH and, thus, it is conceivable that the slow mode of processing adds certain qualities to the output.

Emotional words can be embodied or disembodied: the role of superficial vs. deep types of processing

Science.gov (United States)

Abbassi, Ensie; Blanchette, Isabelle; Ansaldo, Ana I.; Ghassemzadeh, Habib; Joanette, Yves

2015-01-01

Emotional words are processed rapidly and automatically in the left hemisphere (LH) and slowly, with the involvement of attention, in the right hemisphere (RH). This review aims to find the reason for this difference and suggests that emotional words can be processed superficially or deeply due to the involvement of the linguistic and imagery systems, respectively. During superficial processing, emotional words likely make connections only with semantically associated words in the LH. This part of the process is automatic and may be sufficient for the purpose of language processing. Deep processing, in contrast, seems to involve conceptual information and imagery of a word’s perceptual and emotional properties using autobiographical memory contents. Imagery and the involvement of autobiographical memory likely differentiate between emotional and neutral word processing and explain the salient role of the RH in emotional word processing. It is concluded that the level of emotional word processing in the RH should be deeper than in the LH and, thus, it is conceivable that the slow mode of processing adds certain qualities to the output. PMID:26217288

Emotion and Object Processing in Parkinson's Disease

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Cohen, Henri; Gagne, Marie-Helene; Hess, Ursula; Pourcher, Emmanuelle

2010-01-01

The neuropsychological literature on the processing of emotions in Parkinson's disease (PD) reveals conflicting evidence about the role of the basal ganglia in the recognition of facial emotions. Hence, the present study had two objectives. One was to determine the extent to which the visual processing of emotions and objects differs in PD. The…

Where's the emotion? How sport psychology can inform research on emotion in human factors.

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Eccles, David W; Ward, Paul; Woodman, Tim; Janelle, Christopher M; Le Scanff, Christine; Ehrlinger, Joyce; Castanier, Carole; Coombes, Stephen A

2011-04-01

The aim of this study was to demonstrate how research on emotion in sport psychology might inform the field of human factors. Human factors historically has paid little attention to the role of emotion within the research on human-system relations. The theories, methods, and practices related to research on emotion within sport psychology might be informative for human factors because fundamentally, sport psychology and human factors are applied fields concerned with enhancing performance in complex, real-world domains. Reviews of three areas of theory and research on emotion in sport psychology are presented, and the relevancy of each area for human factors is proposed: (a) emotional preparation and regulation for performance, (b) an emotional trait explanation for risk taking in sport, and (c) the link between emotion and motor behavior. Finally, there are suggestions for how to continue cross-talk between human factors and sport psychology about research on emotion and related topics in the future. The relevance of theory and research on emotion in sport psychology for human factors is demonstrated. The human factors field and, in particular, research on human-system relations may benefit from a consideration of theory and research on emotion in sport psychology. Theories, methods, and practices from sport psychology might be applied usefully to human factors.

P2-27: Electrophysiological Correlates of Conscious and Unconscious Processing of Emotional Faces in Individuals with High and Low Autistic Traits

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Svjetlana Vukusic

2012-10-01

Full Text Available LeDoux (1996 The Emotional Brain has suggested that subconsciouss presentation of fearful emotional information is relayed to the amygdala along a rapid subcortical route. Rapid emotion processing is important because it alerts other parts of brain to emotionally salient information. It also produces immediate reflexive responses to threating stimuli in comparison to slower conscious appraisal, which is of important adaptive survival value. Current theoretical models of autism spectrum disorders (ASD have linked impairments in the processing of emotional information to amygdala dysfunction. It can be suggested that impairment in face processing found in autism may be the result of impaired rapid subconscious processing of emotional information which does not make faces socially salient. Previous studies examined subconscious processing of emotional stimuli with backward masking paradigms by using very brief presentation of emotional face stimuli proceeded by a mask. We used an event-related potential (ERP study within a backward masking paradigm with subjects with low and high autistic tendencies as measured by the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ questionnaire. The time course of processing of fearful and happy facial expressions and an emotionally neutral face was investigated during subliminal (16 ms and supraliminal (166 ms stimuli presentation. The task consisted of an explicit categorization of emotional and neutral faces. We looked at ERP components N2, P3a, and also N170 for differences between subjects with low ( 19 AQ.

Processing emotional body expressions: state-of-the-art.

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Enea, Violeta; Iancu, Sorina

2016-10-01

Processing emotional body expressions has become recently an important topic in affective and social neuroscience along with the investigation of facial expressions. The objective of the study is to review the literature on emotional body expressions in order to discuss the current state of knowledge on this topic and identify directions for future research. The following electronic databases were searched: PsychINFO, Ebsco, ERIC, ProQuest, Sagepub, and SCOPUS using terms such as "body," "bodily expression," "body perception," "emotions," "posture," "body recognition" and combinations of them. The synthesis revealed several research questions that were addressed in neuroimaging, electrophysiological and behavioral studies. Among them, one important question targeted the neural mechanisms of emotional processing of body expressions to specific subsections regarding the time course for the integration of emotional signals from face and body, as well as the role of context in the perception of emotional signals. Processing bodily expression of emotion is similar to processing facial expressions, and the holistic processing is extended to the whole person. The current state-of-the-art in processing emotional body expressions may lead to a better understanding of the underlying neural mechanisms of social behavior. At the end of the review, suggestions for future research directions are presented.

The time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing.

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Zhou, Pingyan; Yang, Guochun; Nan, Weizhi; Liu, Xun

2016-01-01

Cognitive conflict resolution is critical to human survival in a rapidly changing environment. However, emotional conflict processing seems to be particularly important for human interactions. This study examined whether the time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing was different from cognitive conflict processing during a flanker task. Results showed that emotional N200 and P300 effects, similar to colour conflict processing, appeared only during the relevant task. However, the emotional N200 effect preceded the colour N200 effect, indicating that emotional conflict can be identified earlier than cognitive conflict. Additionally, a significant emotional N100 effect revealed that emotional valence differences could be perceived during early processing based on rough aspects of input. The present data suggest that emotional conflict processing is modulated by top-down attention, similar to cognitive conflict processing (reflected by N200 and P300 effects). However, emotional conflict processing seems to have more time advantages during two different processing stages.

Links between attachment and social information processing: examination of intergenerational processes.

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Dykas, Matthew J; Ehrlich, Katherine B; Cassidy, Jude

2011-01-01

This chapter describes theory and research on intergenerational connections between parents' attachment and children's social information processing, as well as between parents' social information processing and children's attachment. The chapter begins with a discussion of attachment theorists' early insights into the role that social information processing plays in attachment processes. Next, current theory about the mechanisms through which cross-generational links between attachment and social information processing might emerge is presented. The central proposition is that the quality of attachment and/or the social information processing of the parent contributes to the quality of attachment and/or social information processing in the child, and these links emerge through mediating processes related to social learning, open communication, gate-keeping, emotion regulation, and joint attention. A comprehensive review of the literature is then presented. The chapter ends with the presentation of a current theoretical perspective and suggestions for future empirical and clinical endeavors.

Facing the Problem: Impaired Emotion Recognition During Multimodal Social Information Processing in Borderline Personality Disorder.

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Niedtfeld, Inga; Defiebre, Nadine; Regenbogen, Christina; Mier, Daniela; Fenske, Sabrina; Kirsch, Peter; Lis, Stefanie; Schmahl, Christian

2017-04-01

Previous research has revealed alterations and deficits in facial emotion recognition in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). During interpersonal communication in daily life, social signals such as speech content, variation in prosody, and facial expression need to be considered simultaneously. We hypothesized that deficits in higher level integration of social stimuli contribute to difficulties in emotion recognition in BPD, and heightened arousal might explain this effect. Thirty-one patients with BPD and thirty-one healthy controls were asked to identify emotions in short video clips, which were designed to represent different combinations of the three communication channels: facial expression, speech content, and prosody. Skin conductance was recorded as a measure of sympathetic arousal, while controlling for state dissociation. Patients with BPD showed lower mean accuracy scores than healthy control subjects in all conditions comprising emotional facial expressions. This was true for the condition with facial expression only, and for the combination of all three communication channels. Electrodermal responses were enhanced in BPD only in response to auditory stimuli. In line with the major body of facial emotion recognition studies, we conclude that deficits in the interpretation of facial expressions lead to the difficulties observed in multimodal emotion processing in BPD.

Differentiating emotional processing and attention in psychopathy with functional neuroimaging.

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Anderson, Nathaniel E; Steele, Vaughn R; Maurer, J Michael; Rao, Vikram; Koenigs, Michael R; Decety, Jean; Kosson, David S; Calhoun, Vince D; Kiehl, Kent A

2017-06-01

Individuals with psychopathy are often characterized by emotional processing deficits, and recent research has examined the specific contexts and cognitive mechanisms that underlie these abnormalities. Some evidence suggests that abnormal features of attention are fundamental to emotional deficits in persons with psychopathy, but few studies have demonstrated the neural underpinnings responsible for such effects. Here, we use functional neuroimaging to examine attention-emotion interactions among incarcerated individuals (n = 120) evaluated for psychopathic traits using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Using a task designed to manipulate attention to emotional features of visual stimuli, we demonstrate effects representing implicit emotional processing, explicit emotional processing, attention-facilitated emotional processing, and vigilance for emotional content. Results confirm the importance of considering mechanisms of attention when evaluating emotional processing differences related to psychopathic traits. The affective-interpersonal features of psychopathy (PCL-R Factor 1) were associated with relatively lower emotion-dependent augmentation of activity in visual processing areas during implicit emotional processing, while antisocial-lifestyle features (PCL-R Factor 2) were associated with elevated activity in the amygdala and related salience network regions. During explicit emotional processing, psychopathic traits were associated with upregulation in the medial prefrontal cortex, insula, and superior frontal regions. Isolating the impact of explicit attention to emotional content, only Factor 1 was related to upregulation of activity in the visual processing stream, which was accompanied by increased activity in the angular gyrus. These effects highlight some important mechanisms underlying abnormal features of attention and emotional processing that accompany psychopathic traits.

Neural Correlates of Suspiciousness and Interactions with Anxiety during Emotional and Neutral Word Processing

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Joscelyn E Fisher

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Suspiciousness is usually classified as a symptom of psychosis, but it also occurs in depression and anxiety disorders. Though how suspiciousness overlaps with depression is not obvious, suspiciousness does seem to overlap with anxious apprehension and anxious arousal (e.g., verbal iterative processes and vigilance about environmental threat. However, suspiciousness also has unique characteristics (e.g., concern about harm from others and vigilance about social threat. Given that both anxiety and suspiciousness have been associated with abnormalities in emotion processing, it is unclear whether it is the unique characteristics of suspiciousness or the overlap with anxiety that drive abnormalities in emotion processing.. Event-related brain potentials were obtained during an emotion-word Stroop task. Results indicated that suspiciousness interacts with anxious apprehension to modulate initial stimulus perception processes. Suspiciousness is associated with attention to all stimuli regardless of emotion content. In contrast, anxious arousal is associated with a later response to emotion stimuli only. These results suggest that suspiciousness and anxious apprehension share overlapping processes, but suspiciousness alone is associated with a hyperactive early vigilance response. Depression did not interact with suspiciousness to predict response to emotion stimuli. These findings suggest that it may be informative to assess suspiciousness in conjunction with anxiety in order to better understand how these symptoms interact and contribute to dysfunctional emotion processing.

Estimation of human emotions using thermal facial information

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Nguyen, Hung; Kotani, Kazunori; Chen, Fan; Le, Bac

2014-01-01

In recent years, research on human emotion estimation using thermal infrared (IR) imagery has appealed to many researchers due to its invariance to visible illumination changes. Although infrared imagery is superior to visible imagery in its invariance to illumination changes and appearance differences, it has difficulties in handling transparent glasses in the thermal infrared spectrum. As a result, when using infrared imagery for the analysis of human facial information, the regions of eyeglasses are dark and eyes' thermal information is not given. We propose a temperature space method to correct eyeglasses' effect using the thermal facial information in the neighboring facial regions, and then use Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Eigen-space Method based on class-features (EMC), and PCA-EMC method to classify human emotions from the corrected thermal images. We collected the Kotani Thermal Facial Emotion (KTFE) database and performed the experiments, which show the improved accuracy rate in estimating human emotions.

The effects of glucocorticoids on the inhibition of emotional information: A dose-response study.

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Taylor, Véronique A; Ellenbogen, Mark A; Washburn, Dustin; Joober, Ridha

2011-01-01

There is evidence that cortisol influences cognitive and affective processes such as selective attention and memory for emotional events, yet the effects of glucocorticoids on attentional inhibition in humans remain unknown. Consequently, this double-blind study examined dose-dependent effects of exogenous glucocorticoids on the inhibition of emotional information. Sixty-three university students (14 male, 49 female) ingested either a placebo pill or hydrocortisone (10mg or 40mg), and completed a negative priming task assessing the inhibition of pictures depicting angry, sad, and happy faces. The 10mg, but not the 40mg hydrocortisone dose elicited increased inhibition for angry faces relative to placebo. Thus, moderate glucocorticoid elevations may have adaptive effects on emotional information processing, whereas high glucocorticoid elevations appear to attenuate this effect, consistent with the view that there are dose-dependent effects of glucocorticoids on cognition. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Comparing integral and incidental emotions: Testing insights from emotions as social information theory and attribution theory.

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Hillebrandt, Annika; Barclay, Laurie J

2017-05-01

Studies have indicated that observers can infer information about others' behavioral intentions from others' emotions and use this information in making their own decisions. Integrating emotions as social information (EASI) theory and attribution theory, we argue that the interpersonal effects of emotions are not only influenced by the type of discrete emotion (e.g., anger vs. happiness) but also by the target of the emotion (i.e., how the emotion relates to the situation). We compare the interpersonal effects of emotions that are integral (i.e., related to the situation) versus incidental (i.e., lacking a clear target in the situation) in a negotiation context. Results from 4 studies support our general argument that the target of an opponent's emotion influences the degree to which observers attribute the emotion to their own behavior. These attributions influence observers' inferences regarding the perceived threat of an impasse or cooperativeness of an opponent, which can motivate observers to strategically adjust their behavior. Specifically, emotion target influenced concessions for both anger and happiness (Study 1, N = 254), with perceived threat and cooperativeness mediating the effects of anger and happiness, respectively (Study 2, N = 280). Study 3 (N = 314) demonstrated the mediating role of attributions and moderating role of need for closure. Study 4 (N = 193) outlined how observers' need for cognitive closure influences how they attribute incidental anger. We discuss theoretical implications related to the social influence of emotions as well as practical implications related to the impact of personality on negotiators' biases and behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion Processing by ERP Combined with Development and Plasticity

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Emotions important for survival and social interaction have received wide and deep investigations. The application of the fMRI technique into emotion processing has obtained overwhelming achievements with respect to the localization of emotion processes. The ERP method, which possesses highly temporal resolution compared to fMRI, can be employed to investigate the time course of emotion processing. The emotional modulation of the ERP component has been verified across numerous researches. Emotions, described as dynamically developing along with the growing age, have the possibility to be enhanced through learning (or training) or to be damaged due to disturbances in growth, which is underlain by the neural plasticity of emotion-relevant nervous systems. And mood disorders with typical symptoms of emotion discordance probably have been caused by the dysfunctional neural plasticity. PMID:28831313

An emotional processing writing intervention and heart rate variability: the role of emotional approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Seeley, Saren H; Yanez, Betina; Stanton, Annette L; Hoyt, Michael A

2017-08-01

Expressing and understanding one's own emotional responses to negative events, particularly those that challenge the attainment of important life goals, is thought to confer physiological benefit. Individual preferences and/or abilities in approaching emotions might condition the efficacy of interventions designed to encourage written emotional processing (EP). This study examines the physiological impact (as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV)) of an emotional processing writing (EPW) task as well as the moderating influence of a dispositional preference for coping through emotional approach (EP and emotional expression (EE)), in response to a laboratory stress task designed to challenge an important life goal. Participants (n = 98) were randomly assigned to either EPW or fact control writing (FCW) following the stress task. Regression analyses revealed a significant dispositional EP by condition interaction, such that high EP participants in the EPW condition demonstrated higher HRV after writing compared to low EP participants. No significant main effects of condition or EE coping were observed. These findings suggest that EPW interventions may be best suited for those with preference or ability to process emotions related to a stressor or might require adaptation for those who less often cope through emotional approach.

The Narrative-Emotion Process Coding System 2.0: A multi-methodological approach to identifying and assessing narrative-emotion process markers in psychotherapy.

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Angus, Lynne E; Boritz, Tali; Bryntwick, Emily; Carpenter, Naomi; Macaulay, Christianne; Khattra, Jasmine

2017-05-01

Recent studies suggest that it is not simply the expression of emotion or emotional arousal in session that is important, but rather it is the reflective processing of emergent, adaptive emotions, arising in the context of personal storytelling and/or Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) interventions, that is associated with change. To enhance narrative-emotion integration specifically in EFT, Angus and Greenberg originally identified a set of eight clinically derived narrative-emotion integration markers were originally identified for the implementation of process-guiding therapeutic responses. Further evaluation and testing by the Angus Narrative-Emotion Marker Lab resulted in the identification of 10 empirically validated Narrative-Emotion Process (N-EP) markers that are included in the Narrative-Emotion Process Coding System Version 2.0 (NEPCS 2.0). Based on empirical research findings, individual markers are clustered into Problem (e.g., stuckness in repetitive story patterns, over-controlled or dysregulated emotion, lack of reflectivity), Transition (e.g., reflective, access to adaptive emotions and new emotional plotlines, heightened narrative and emotion integration), and Change (e.g., new story outcomes and self-narrative discovery, and co-construction and re-conceptualization) subgroups. To date, research using the NEPCS 2.0 has investigated the proportion and pattern of narrative-emotion markers in Emotion-Focused, Client-Centered, and Cognitive Therapy for Major Depression, Motivational Interviewing plus Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and EFT for Complex Trauma. Results have consistently identified significantly higher proportions of N-EP Transition and Change markers, and productive shifts, in mid- and late phase sessions, for clients who achieved recovery by treatment termination. Recovery is consistently associated with client storytelling that is emotionally engaged, reflective, and evidencing new story outcomes and self

Neural correlates of processing "self-conscious" vs. "basic" emotions.

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Gilead, Michael; Katzir, Maayan; Eyal, Tal; Liberman, Nira

2016-01-29

Self-conscious emotions are prevalent in our daily lives and play an important role in both normal and pathological behavior. Despite their immense significance, the neural substrates that are involved in the processing of such emotions are surprisingly under-studied. In light of this, we conducted an fMRI study in which participants thought of various personal events which elicited feelings of negative and positive self-conscious (i.e., guilt, pride) or basic (i.e., anger, joy) emotions. We performed a conjunction analysis to investigate the neural correlates associated with processing events that are related to self-conscious vs. basic emotions, irrespective of valence. The results show that processing self-conscious emotions resulted in activation within frontal areas associated with self-processing and self-control, namely, the mPFC extending to the dACC, and within the lateral-dorsal prefrontal cortex. Processing basic emotions resulted in activation throughout relatively phylogenetically-ancient regions of the cortex, namely in visual and tactile processing areas and in the insular cortex. Furthermore, self-conscious emotions differentially activated the mPFC such that the negative self-conscious emotion (guilt) was associated with a more dorsal activation, and the positive self-conscious emotion (pride) was associated with a more ventral activation. We discuss how these results shed light on the nature of mental representations and neural systems involved in self-reflective and affective processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Investigating vulnerability to eating disorders: biases in emotional processing.

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Pringle, A; Harmer, C J; Cooper, M J

2010-04-01

Biases in emotional processing and cognitions about the self are thought to play a role in the maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). However, little is known about whether these difficulties exist pre-morbidly and how they might contribute to risk. Female dieters (n=82) completed a battery of tasks designed to assess the processing of social cues (facial emotion recognition), cognitions about the self [Self-Schema Processing Task (SSPT)] and ED-specific cognitions about eating, weight and shape (emotional Stroop). The 26-item Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26; Garner et al. 1982) was used to assess subclinical ED symptoms; this was used as an index of vulnerability within this at-risk group. Regression analyses showed that biases in the processing of both neutral and angry faces were predictive of our measure of vulnerability (EAT-26). In the self-schema task, biases in the processing of negative self descriptors previously found to be common in EDs predicted vulnerability. Biases in the processing of shape-related words on the Stroop task were also predictive; however, these biases were more important in dieters who also displayed biases in the self-schema task. We were also able to demonstrate that these biases are specific and separable from more general negative biases that could be attributed to depressive symptoms. These results suggest that specific biases in the processing of social cues, cognitions about the self, and also about eating, weight and shape information, may be important in understanding risk and preventing relapse in EDs.

Individual differences in emotion processing: how similar are diffusion model parameters across tasks?

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Mueller, Christina J; White, Corey N; Kuchinke, Lars

2017-11-27

The goal of this study was to replicate findings of diffusion model parameters capturing emotion effects in a lexical decision task and investigating whether these findings extend to other tasks of implicit emotion processing. Additionally, we were interested in the stability of diffusion model parameters across emotional stimuli and tasks for individual subjects. Responses to words in a lexical decision task were compared with responses to faces in a gender categorization task for stimuli of the emotion categories: happy, neutral and fear. Main effects of emotion as well as stability of emerging response style patterns as evident in diffusion model parameters across these tasks were analyzed. Based on earlier findings, drift rates were assumed to be more similar in response to stimuli of the same emotion category compared to stimuli of a different emotion category. Results showed that emotion effects of the tasks differed with a processing advantage for happy followed by neutral and fear-related words in the lexical decision task and a processing advantage for neutral followed by happy and fearful faces in the gender categorization task. Both emotion effects were captured in estimated drift rate parameters-and in case of the lexical decision task also in the non-decision time parameters. A principal component analysis showed that contrary to our hypothesis drift rates were more similar within a specific task context than within a specific emotion category. Individual response patterns of subjects across tasks were evident in significant correlations regarding diffusion model parameters including response styles, non-decision times and information accumulation.

The intensity of emotional feelings: Product of peripheral emotional responses or cognitions?

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Bermond, B.; Frijda, N.H.

1987-01-01

Reviews the function of peripheral feedback for emotions and theories describing emotions as information-processing systems. Cognitive processes are seen as a necessary condition for most human emotional experiences. Coping difficulties and degree of harmful or favorable appraisal have been

Emotion and Cognition Processes in Preschool Children

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Leerkes, Esther M.; Paradise, Matthew; O'Brien, Marion; Calkins, Susan D.; Lange, Garrett

2008-01-01

The core processes of emotion understanding, emotion control, cognitive understanding, and cognitive control and their association with early indicators of social and academic success were examined in a sample of 141 3-year-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesized four-factor model of emotion and cognition in early…

Processing emotion from abstract art in frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

Science.gov (United States)

Cohen, Miriam H; Carton, Amelia M; Hardy, Christopher J; Golden, Hannah L; Clark, Camilla N; Fletcher, Phillip D; Jaisin, Kankamol; Marshall, Charles R; Henley, Susie M D; Rohrer, Jonathan D; Crutch, Sebastian J; Warren, Jason D

2016-01-29

art may signal emotions independently of a biological or social carrier: it might therefore constitute a test case for defining brain mechanisms of generic emotion decoding and the impact of disease states on those mechanisms. This is potentially of particular relevance to diseases in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) spectrum. These diseases are often led by emotional impairment despite retained or enhanced artistic interest in at least some patients. However, the processing of emotion from art has not been studied systematically in FTLD. Here we addressed this issue using a novel emotional valence matching task on abstract paintings in patients representing major syndromes of FTLD (behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, n=11; sematic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), n=7; nonfluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA), n=6) relative to healthy older individuals (n=39). Performance on art emotion valence matching was compared between groups taking account of perceptual matching performance and assessed in relation to facial emotion matching using customised control tasks. Neuroanatomical correlates of art emotion processing were assessed using voxel-based morphometry of patients' brain MR images. All patient groups had a deficit of art emotion processing relative to healthy controls; there were no significant interactions between syndromic group and emotion modality. Poorer art emotion valence matching performance was associated with reduced grey matter volume in right lateral occopitotemporal cortex in proximity to regions previously implicated in the processing of dynamic visual signals. Our findings suggest that abstract art may be a useful model system for investigating mechanisms of generic emotion decoding and aesthetic processing in neurodegenerative diseases. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Neural Activations of Guided Imagery and Music in Negative Emotional Processing: A Functional MRI Study.

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Lee, Sang Eun; Han, Yeji; Park, HyunWook

2016-01-01

The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music uses music and imagery to access and explore personal emotions associated with episodic memories. Understanding the neural mechanism of guided imagery and music (GIM) as combined stimuli for emotional processing informs clinical application. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate neural mechanisms of GIM for negative emotional processing when personal episodic memory is recalled and re-experienced through GIM processes. Twenty-four healthy volunteers participated in the study, which used classical music and verbal instruction stimuli to evoke negative emotions. To analyze the neural mechanism, activated regions associated with negative emotional and episodic memory processing were extracted by conducting volume analyses for the contrast between GIM and guided imagery (GI) or music (M). The GIM stimuli showed increased activation over the M-only stimuli in five neural regions associated with negative emotional and episodic memory processing, including the left amygdala, left anterior cingulate gyrus, left insula, bilateral culmen, and left angular gyrus (AG). Compared with GI alone, GIM showed increased activation in three regions associated with episodic memory processing in the emotional context, including the right posterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, and AG. No neural regions related to negative emotional and episodic memory processing showed more activation for M and GI than for GIM. As a combined multimodal stimulus, GIM may increase neural activations related to negative emotions and episodic memory processing. Findings suggest a neural basis for GIM with personal episodic memories affecting cortical and subcortical structures and functions. © the American Music Therapy Association 2016. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

The Effects of Cassady and Justin's Functional Model for Emotional Information Processing on Improving Social Competence of First Grade Children with ADHD

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Eissa, Mourad Ali

2017-01-01

This study explores whether or not Emotional Information Processing (EIP) model Intervention has positive effects on the Social Competency in first grade children with ADHD. 10 first graders primary who had been identified as having ADHD using Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Test (ADHDT) (Jeong, 2005) and were experiencing social problems…

Evidence of Rapid Modulation by Social Information of Subjective, Physiological, and Neural Responses to Emotional Expressions.

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Mermillod, Martial; Grynberg, Delphine; Pio-Lopez, Léo; Rychlowska, Magdalena; Beffara, Brice; Harquel, Sylvain; Vermeulen, Nicolas; Niedenthal, Paula M; Dutheil, Frédéric; Droit-Volet, Sylvie

2017-01-01

Recent research suggests that conceptual or emotional factors could influence the perceptual processing of stimuli. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the effect of social information (positive, negative, or no information related to the character of the target) on subjective (perceived and felt valence and arousal), physiological (facial mimicry) as well as on neural (P100 and N170) responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions (EFE) that varied from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Across three studies, the results showed reduced ratings of valence and arousal of EFE associated with incongruent social information (Study 1), increased electromyographical responses (Study 2), and significant modulation of P100 and N170 components (Study 3) when EFE were associated with social (positive and negative) information (vs. no information). These studies revealed that positive or negative social information reduces subjective responses to incongruent EFE and produces a similar neural and physiological boost of the early perceptual processing of EFE irrespective of their congruency. In conclusion, the article suggests that the presence of positive or negative social context modulates early physiological and neural activity preceding subsequent behavior.

Evidence of Rapid Modulation by Social Information of Subjective, Physiological, and Neural Responses to Emotional Expressions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martial Mermillod

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Recent research suggests that conceptual or emotional factors could influence the perceptual processing of stimuli. In this article, we aimed to evaluate the effect of social information (positive, negative, or no information related to the character of the target on subjective (perceived and felt valence and arousal, physiological (facial mimicry as well as on neural (P100 and N170 responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions (EFE that varied from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Across three studies, the results showed reduced ratings of valence and arousal of EFE associated with incongruent social information (Study 1, increased electromyographical responses (Study 2, and significant modulation of P100 and N170 components (Study 3 when EFE were associated with social (positive and negative information (vs. no information. These studies revealed that positive or negative social information reduces subjective responses to incongruent EFE and produces a similar neural and physiological boost of the early perceptual processing of EFE irrespective of their congruency. In conclusion, the article suggests that the presence of positive or negative social context modulates early physiological and neural activity preceding subsequent behavior.

Emotion processing deficits in alexithymia and response to a depth of processing intervention.

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Constantinou, Elena; Panayiotou, Georgia; Theodorou, Marios

2014-12-01

Findings on alexithymic emotion difficulties have been inconsistent. We examined potential differences between alexithymic and control participants in general arousal, reactivity, facial and subjective expression, emotion labeling, and covariation between emotion response systems. A depth of processing intervention was introduced. Fifty-four participants (27 alexithymic), selected using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20, completed an imagery experiment (imagining joy, fear and neutral scripts), under instructions for shallow or deep emotion processing. Heart rate, skin conductance, facial electromyography and startle reflex were recorded along with subjective ratings. Results indicated hypo-reactivity to emotion among high alexithymic individuals, smaller and slower startle responses, and low covariation between physiology and self-report. No deficits in facial expression, labeling and emotion ratings were identified. Deep processing was associated with increased physiological reactivity and lower perceived dominance and arousal in high alexithymia. Findings suggest a tendency for avoidance of intense, unpleasant emotions and less defensive action preparation in alexithymia. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Cool and Hot Cognitive Processes: A Systematic Review

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Gutiérrez-Cobo, María José; Cabello, Rosario; Fernández-Berrocal, Pablo

2016-01-01

Although emotion and cognition were considered to be separate aspects of the psyche in the past, researchers today have demonstrated the existence of an interplay between the two processes. Emotional intelligence (EI), or the ability to perceive, use, understand, and regulate emotions, is a relatively young concept that attempts to connect both emotion and cognition. While EI has been demonstrated to be positively related to well-being, mental and physical health, and non-aggressive behaviors, little is known about its underlying cognitive processes. The aim of the present study was to systematically review available evidence about the relationship between EI and cognitive processes as measured through “cool” (i.e., not emotionally laden) and “hot” (i.e., emotionally laden) laboratory tasks. We searched Scopus and Medline to find relevant articles in Spanish and English, and divided the studies following two variables: cognitive processes (hot vs. cool) and EI instruments used (performance-based ability test, self-report ability test, and self-report mixed test). We identified 26 eligible studies. The results provide a fair amount of evidence that performance-based ability EI (but not self-report EI tests) is positively related with efficiency in hot cognitive tasks. EI, however, does not appear to be related with cool cognitive tasks: neither through self-reporting nor through performance-based ability instruments. These findings suggest that performance-based ability EI could improve individuals’ emotional information processing abilities. PMID:27303277

The role of the medial temporal limbic system in processing emotions in voice and music.

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Frühholz, Sascha; Trost, Wiebke; Grandjean, Didier

2014-12-01

Subcortical brain structures of the limbic system, such as the amygdala, are thought to decode the emotional value of sensory information. Recent neuroimaging studies, as well as lesion studies in patients, have shown that the amygdala is sensitive to emotions in voice and music. Similarly, the hippocampus, another part of the temporal limbic system (TLS), is responsive to vocal and musical emotions, but its specific roles in emotional processing from music and especially from voices have been largely neglected. Here we review recent research on vocal and musical emotions, and outline commonalities and differences in the neural processing of emotions in the TLS in terms of emotional valence, emotional intensity and arousal, as well as in terms of acoustic and structural features of voices and music. We summarize the findings in a neural framework including several subcortical and cortical functional pathways between the auditory system and the TLS. This framework proposes that some vocal expressions might already receive a fast emotional evaluation via a subcortical pathway to the amygdala, whereas cortical pathways to the TLS are thought to be equally used for vocal and musical emotions. While the amygdala might be specifically involved in a coarse decoding of the emotional value of voices and music, the hippocampus might process more complex vocal and musical emotions, and might have an important role especially for the decoding of musical emotions by providing memory-based and contextual associations. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Relationship Between Emotional Processing, Drinking Severity and Relapse in Adults Treated for Alcohol Dependence in Poland

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Kopera, Maciej; Jakubczyk, Andrzej; Suszek, Hubert; Glass, Jennifer M.; Klimkiewicz, Anna; Wnorowska, Anna; Brower, Kirk J.; Wojnar, Marcin

2015-01-01

Aims: Growing data reveals deficits in perception, understanding and regulation of emotions in alcohol dependence (AD). The study objective was to explore the relationships between emotional processing, drinking history and relapse in a clinical sample of alcohol-dependent patients. Methods: A group of 80 inpatients entering an alcohol treatment program in Warsaw, Poland was recruited and assessed at baseline and follow-up after 12 months. Baseline information about demographics, psychopathological symptoms, personality and severity of alcohol problems was obtained. The Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) were utilized for emotional processing assessment. Follow-up information contained data on drinking alcohol during the last month. Results: At baseline assessment, the duration of alcohol drinking was associated with lower ability to utilize emotions. Patients reporting more difficulties with describing feelings drank more during their last episode of heavy drinking, and had a longer duration of intensive alcohol use. A longer duration of the last episode of heavy drinking was associated with more problems identifying and regulating emotions. Poor utilization of emotions and high severity of depressive symptoms contributed to higher rates of drinking at follow-up. Conclusions: These results underline the importance of systematic identification of discrete emotional problems and dynamics related to AD. This knowledge has implications for treatment. Psychotherapeutic interventions to improve emotional skills could be utilized in treatment of alcohol-dependent patients. PMID:25543129

The neural fate of neutral information in emotion-enhanced memory.

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Watts, Sarah; Buratto, Luciano G; Brotherhood, Emilie V; Barnacle, Gemma E; Schaefer, Alexandre

2014-07-01

In this study, we report evidence that neural activity reflecting the encoding of emotionally neutral information in memory is reduced when neutral and emotional stimuli are intermixed during encoding. Specifically, participants studied emotional and neutral pictures organized in mixed lists (in which emotional and neutral pictures were intermixed) or in pure lists (only-neutral or only-emotional pictures) and performed a recall test. To estimate encoding efficiency, we used the Dm effect, measured with event-related potentials. Recall for neutral items was lower in mixed compared to pure lists and posterior Dm activity for neutral items was reduced in mixed lists, whereas it remained robust in pure lists. These findings might be caused by an asymmetrical competition for attentional and working memory resources between emotional and neutral information, which could be a major determinant of emotional memory effects. Copyright © 2014 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Intonation processing deficits of emotional words among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: an ERP study.

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Lu, Xuejing; Ho, Hao Tam; Liu, Fang; Wu, Daxing; Thompson, William F

2015-01-01

Congenital amusia is a disorder that is known to affect the processing of musical pitch. Although individuals with amusia rarely show language deficits in daily life, a number of findings point to possible impairments in speech prosody that amusic individuals may compensate for by drawing on linguistic information. Using EEG, we investigated (1) whether the processing of speech prosody is impaired in amusia and (2) whether emotional linguistic information can compensate for this impairment. Twenty Chinese amusics and 22 matched controls were presented pairs of emotional words spoken with either statement or question intonation while their EEG was recorded. Their task was to judge whether the intonations were the same. Amusics exhibited impaired performance on the intonation-matching task for emotional linguistic information, as their performance was significantly worse than that of controls. EEG results showed a reduced N2 response to incongruent intonation pairs in amusics compared with controls, which likely reflects impaired conflict processing in amusia. However, our EEG results also indicated that amusics were intact in early sensory auditory processing, as revealed by a comparable N1 modulation in both groups. We propose that the impairment in discriminating speech intonation observed among amusic individuals may arise from an inability to access information extracted at early processing stages. This, in turn, could reflect a disconnection between low-level and high-level processing.

Intonation Processing Deficits of Emotional Words among Mandarin Chinese Speakers with Congenital Amusia: An ERP Study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

XUEJING eLU

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Background: Amusia is a disorder that is known to affect the processing of musical pitch. Although individuals with amusia rarely show language deficits in daily life, a number of findings point to possible impairments in speech prosody that amusic perceivers may compensate for by drawing on linguistic information. Using EEG, we investigated (1 whether the processing of speech prosody is impaired in amusia and (2 whether emotional linguistic information can ease this process. Method: Twenty Chinese amusics and 22 matched controls were presented pairs of emotional words spoken with either statement or question intonation while their EEG was recorded. Their task was to judge whether the intonations were the same. Results: Emotional linguistic information did not facilitate amusics’ performance on the intonation-matching task, as their performance was significantly worse than that of controls. EEG results showed a reduced N2 response to incongruent intonation pairs in amusics compared with controls, which likely reflects impaired conflict processing in amusia. However, at an earlier processing stage, our EEG results indicate that amusics were intact in early sensory auditory processing, as revealed by a comparable N1 modulation in both groups. Conclusion: We propose that the impairment in discriminating speech intonation observed among amusic individuals may arise from an inability to access information extracted at early processing stages. This, in turn, could reflect a disconnection between low-level and high-level processing.

Functional MRI of music emotion processing in frontotemporal dementia.

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Agustus, Jennifer L; Mahoney, Colin J; Downey, Laura E; Omar, Rohani; Cohen, Miriam; White, Mark J; Scott, Sophie K; Mancini, Laura; Warren, Jason D

2015-03-01

Frontotemporal dementia is an important neurodegenerative disorder of younger life led by profound emotional and social dysfunction. Here we used fMRI to assess brain mechanisms of music emotion processing in a cohort of patients with frontotemporal dementia (n = 15) in relation to healthy age-matched individuals (n = 11). In a passive-listening paradigm, we manipulated levels of emotion processing in simple arpeggio chords (mode versus dissonance) and emotion modality (music versus human emotional vocalizations). A complex profile of disease-associated functional alterations was identified with separable signatures of musical mode, emotion level, and emotion modality within a common, distributed brain network, including posterior and anterior superior temporal and inferior frontal cortices and dorsal brainstem effector nuclei. Separable functional signatures were identified post-hoc in patients with and without abnormal craving for music (musicophilia): a model for specific abnormal emotional behaviors in frontotemporal dementia. Our findings indicate the potential of music to delineate neural mechanisms of altered emotion processing in dementias, with implications for future disease tracking and therapeutic strategies. © 2014 The Authors. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences published by Wiley Periodicals Inc. on behalf of The New York Academy of Sciences.

Emotion processing in preschoolers with autism spectrum disorders

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zantinge, G.M.

2018-01-01

Children spend most of their days interacting with their social environment. Emotions form a large part of these interactions and vice versa social emotions become meaningful when interacting with others. Understanding the emotion processes that underlie successful social functioning is

Information Processing Bias in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

OpenAIRE

Weber, Darren L

2008-01-01

This review considers theory and evidence for abnormal information processing in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Cognitive studies have indicated sensitivity in PTSD for traumatic information, more so than general emotional information. These findings were supported by neuroimaging studies that identify increased brain activity during traumatic cognition, especially in affective networks (including the amygdala, orbitofrontal and anterior cingulate cortex). In theory, it is proposed th...

Relationship between emotional processing, drinking severity and relapse in adults treated for alcohol dependence in Poland.

Science.gov (United States)

Kopera, Maciej; Jakubczyk, Andrzej; Suszek, Hubert; Glass, Jennifer M; Klimkiewicz, Anna; Wnorowska, Anna; Brower, Kirk J; Wojnar, Marcin

2015-03-01

Growing data reveals deficits in perception, understanding and regulation of emotions in alcohol dependence (AD). The study objective was to explore the relationships between emotional processing, drinking history and relapse in a clinical sample of alcohol-dependent patients. A group of 80 inpatients entering an alcohol treatment program in Warsaw, Poland was recruited and assessed at baseline and follow-up after 12 months. Baseline information about demographics, psychopathological symptoms, personality and severity of alcohol problems was obtained. The Schutte Self-Report Emotional Intelligence (EI) Test and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS) were utilized for emotional processing assessment. Follow-up information contained data on drinking alcohol during the last month. At baseline assessment, the duration of alcohol drinking was associated with lower ability to utilize emotions. Patients reporting more difficulties with describing feelings drank more during their last episode of heavy drinking, and had a longer duration of intensive alcohol use. A longer duration of the last episode of heavy drinking was associated with more problems identifying and regulating emotions. Poor utilization of emotions and high severity of depressive symptoms contributed to higher rates of drinking at follow-up. These results underline the importance of systematic identification of discrete emotional problems and dynamics related to AD. This knowledge has implications for treatment. Psychotherapeutic interventions to improve emotional skills could be utilized in treatment of alcohol-dependent patients. © The Author 2014. Medical Council on Alcohol and Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

Acute fluoxetine modulates emotional processing in young adult volunteers.

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Capitão, L P; Murphy, S E; Browning, M; Cowen, P J; Harmer, C J

2015-08-01

Fluoxetine is generally regarded as the first-line pharmacological treatment for young people, as it is believed to show a more favourable benefit:risk ratio than other antidepressants. However, the mechanisms through which fluoxetine influences symptoms in youth have been little investigated. This study examined whether acute administration of fluoxetine in a sample of young healthy adults altered the processing of affective information, including positive, sad and anger cues. A total of 35 male and female volunteers aged between 18 and 21 years old were randomized to receive a single 20 mg dose of fluoxetine or placebo. At 6 h after administration, participants completed a facial expression recognition task, an emotion-potentiated startle task, an attentional dot-probe task and the Rapid Serial Visual Presentation. Subjective ratings of mood, anxiety and side effects were also taken pre- and post-fluoxetine/placebo administration. Relative to placebo-treated participants, participants receiving fluoxetine were less accurate at identifying anger and sadness and did not show the emotion-potentiated startle effect. There were no overall significant effects of fluoxetine on subjective ratings of mood. Fluoxetine can modulate emotional processing after a single dose in young adults. This pattern of effects suggests a potential cognitive mechanism for the greater benefit:risk ratio of fluoxetine in adolescent patients.

Neural correlates of the processing of self-referent emotional information in bulimia nervosa.

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Pringle, A; Ashworth, F; Harmer, C J; Norbury, R; Cooper, M J

2011-10-01

There is increasing interest in understanding the roles of distorted beliefs about the self, ostensibly unrelated to eating, weight and shape, in eating disorders (EDs), but little is known about their neural correlates. We therefore used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the neural correlates of self-referent emotional processing in EDs. During the scan, unmedicated patients with bulimia nervosa (n=11) and healthy controls (n=16) responded to personality words previously found to be related to negative self beliefs in EDs and depression. Rating of the negative personality descriptors resulted in reduced activation in patients compared to controls in parietal, occipital and limbic areas including the amygdala. There was no evidence that reduced activity in patients was secondary to increased cognitive control. Different patterns of neural activation between patients and controls may be the result of either habituation to personally relevant negative self beliefs or of emotional blunting in patients. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Origin of Emotion Effects on ERP Correlates of Emotional Word Processing: The Emotion Duality Approach.

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Imbir, Kamil Konrad; Jarymowicz, Maria Teresa; Spustek, Tomasz; Kuś, Rafał; Żygierewicz, Jarosław

2015-01-01

We distinguish two evaluative systems which evoke automatic and reflective emotions. Automatic emotions are direct reactions to stimuli whereas reflective emotions are always based on verbalized (and often abstract) criteria of evaluation. We conducted an electroencephalography (EEG) study in which 25 women were required to read and respond to emotional words which engaged either the automatic or reflective system. Stimulus words were emotional (positive or negative) and neutral. We found an effect of valence on an early response with dipolar fronto-occipital topography; positive words evoked a higher amplitude response than negative words. We also found that topographically specific differences in the amplitude of the late positive complex were related to the system involved in processing. Emotional stimuli engaging the automatic system were associated with significantly higher amplitudes in the left-parietal region; the response to neutral words was similar regardless of the system engaged. A different pattern of effects was observed in the central region, neutral stimuli engaging the reflective system evoked a higher amplitudes response whereas there was no system effect for emotional stimuli. These differences could not be reduced to effects of differences between the arousing properties and concreteness of the words used as stimuli.

Emotion and Cognition: An Intricately Bound Developmental Process

Science.gov (United States)

Bell, Martha Ann; Wolfe, Christy D.

2004-01-01

Regulatory aspects of development can best be understood by research that conceptualizes relations between cognition and emotion. The neural mechanisms associated with regulatory processes may be the same as those associated with higher order cognitive processes. Thus, from a developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective, emotion and cognition…

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Junghöfer Markus

2007-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (~150–300 ms poststimulus. The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Results Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b. Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. Conclusion The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task

Explicit attention interferes with selective emotion processing in human extrastriate cortex.

Science.gov (United States)

Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2007-02-22

Brain imaging and event-related potential studies provide strong evidence that emotional stimuli guide selective attention in visual processing. A reflection of the emotional attention capture is the increased Early Posterior Negativity (EPN) for pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral images (approximately 150-300 ms poststimulus). The present study explored whether this early emotion discrimination reflects an automatic phenomenon or is subject to interference by competing processing demands. Thus, emotional processing was assessed while participants performed a concurrent feature-based attention task varying in processing demands. Participants successfully performed the primary visual attention task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components (Selection Negativity and P3b). Replicating previous results, emotional modulation of the EPN was observed in a task condition with low processing demands. In contrast, pleasant and unpleasant pictures failed to elicit increased EPN amplitudes compared to neutral images in more difficult explicit attention task conditions. Further analyses determined that even the processing of pleasant and unpleasant pictures high in emotional arousal is subject to interference in experimental conditions with high task demand. Taken together, performing demanding feature-based counting tasks interfered with differential emotion processing indexed by the EPN. The present findings demonstrate that taxing processing resources by a competing primary visual attention task markedly attenuated the early discrimination of emotional from neutral picture contents. Thus, these results provide further empirical support for an interference account of the emotion-attention interaction under conditions of competition. Previous studies revealed the interference of selective emotion processing when attentional resources were directed to locations of explicitly task-relevant stimuli. The present data suggest

Exploring emotions and the shared decision-making process in pediatric primary care

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francesca Dicé

2016-12-01

Full Text Available This paper aims to identify conversational interaction patterns in pediatrics with a focus on the shared decision-making process and dialogue about emotions in doctor–patient relationships. We documented conversations in 163 visits by 168 children in pediatric primary care; we observed, audiorecordered, transcribed and analyzed them with specific instruments of analysis of doctor patient relationship. Our survey was conducted in four pediatric primary care practices and 15 health providers were involved. The data collection period lasted three months and was undertaken twice a week on days. We analyzed visits with Verona Coding Definitions of Emotional Sequences (VR-CoDES and Observing Patient Involvement in Shared Decision Making (OPTION instruments. Frequencies of emotions’ signals (cues/concerns obtained using VR-CoDES were analyzed and compared with the OPTION ratings. We documented 318 cues/concerns for parents and 167 for children. The relationship between cues/concerns and Healthcare Providers responses was strongest in dialogues between parents and pediatricians. The conversational patterns focused on the procedures of the care, with little opportunities of dialogue about emerging emotions. We also observed limited possibilities for participant involvement, especially by children, due to several difficulties integrating dialogue about emotions and concordance processes. The conversations seemed to be characterized by rarity of shared decision making or attention to the informational value of children’s emotions. It could be useful to implement psychological interventions to achieve an enrichment of the dialogue between participants, helping them to incorporate emotions into conversations and to recognize decisional competences, necessary to concordance processes.

Emotion Processes in Knowledge Revision

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Trevors, Gregory J.; Kendeou, Panayiota; Butterfuss, Reese

2017-01-01

In recent years, a number of insights have been gained into the cognitive processes that explain how individuals overcome misconceptions and revise their previously acquired incorrect knowledge. The current study complements this line of research by investigating the moment-by-moment emotion processes that occur during knowledge revision using a…

The Role of Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Intelligence in Cognitive Control Processes

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Checa, Purificación; Fernández-Berrocal, Pablo

2015-01-01

The relationship between intelligence quotient (IQ) and cognitive control processes has been extensively established. Several studies have shown that IQ correlates with cognitive control abilities, such as interference suppression, as measured with experimental tasks like the Stroop and Flanker tasks. By contrast, there is a debate about the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI) in individuals' cognitive control abilities. The aim of this study is to examine the relation between IQ and EI, and cognitive control abilities evaluated by a typical laboratory control cognitive task, the Stroop task. Results show a negative correlation between IQ and the interference suppression index, the ability to inhibit processing of irrelevant information. However, the Managing Emotions dimension of EI measured by the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), but not self-reported of EI, negatively correlates with the impulsivity index, the premature execution of the response. These results suggest that not only is IQ crucial, but also competences related to EI are essential to human cognitive control processes. Limitations and implications of these results are also discussed. PMID:26648901

The role of Intelligence Quotient and Emotional Intelligence in cognitive control processes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Purificación eCheca

2015-12-01

Full Text Available The relationship between intelligence quotient (IQ and cognitive control processes has been extensively established. Several studies have shown that IQ correlates with cognitive control abilities, such as interference suppression, as measured with experimental tasks like the Stroop and Flanker tasks. By contrast, there is a debate about the role of Emotional Intelligence (EI in individuals’ cognitive control abilities. The aim of this study is to examine the relation between IQ and EI, and cognitive control abilities evaluated by a typical laboratory control cognitive task, the Stroop task. Results show a negative correlation between IQ and the interference suppression index, the ability to inhibit processing of irrelevant information. However, the Managing Emotions dimension of EI measured by the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, but not self-reported of EI, negatively correlates with the impulsivity index, the premature execution of the response. These results suggest that not only is IQ crucial, but also competences related to EI are essential to human cognitive control processes. Limitations and implications of these results are also discussed

Schizophrenia and sex differences in emotional processing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Scholten, M.R.M.

2007-01-01

Patients with schizophrenia are known to be impaired in several domains of emotional processing. These deficits have been associated with impaired social functioning. Since female patients show better social skills than male patients and healthy women outperform men in emotion recognition and

Emotion and goal-directed behavior: ERP evidence on cognitive and emotional conflict

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Kanske, Philipp; Obermeier, Christian; Schröger, Erich; Kotz, Sonja A.

2015-01-01

Cognitive control supports goal-directed behavior by resolving conflict among opposing action tendencies. Emotion can trigger cognitive control processes, thus speeding up conflict processing when the target dimension of stimuli is emotional. However, it is unclear what role emotionality of the target dimension plays in the processing of emotional conflict (e.g. in irony). In two EEG experiments, we compared the influence of emotional valence of the target (emotional, neutral) in cognitive and emotional conflict processing. To maximally approximate real-life communication, we used audiovisual stimuli. Participants either categorized spoken vowels (cognitive conflict) or their emotional valence (emotional conflict), while visual information was congruent or incongruent. Emotional target dimension facilitated both cognitive and emotional conflict processing, as shown in a reduced reaction time conflict effect. In contrast, the N100 in the event-related potentials showed a conflict-specific reversal: the conflict effect was larger for emotional compared with neutral trials in cognitive conflict and smaller in emotional conflict. Additionally, domain-general conflict effects were observed in the P200 and N200 responses. The current findings confirm that emotions have a strong influence on cognitive and emotional conflict processing. They also highlight the complexity and heterogeneity of the interaction of emotion with different types of conflict. PMID:25925271

Cholinergic enhancement modulates neural correlates of selective attention and emotional processing.

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Bentley, Paul; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Thiel, Christiane M; Driver, Jon; Dolan, Raymond J

2003-09-01

Neocortical cholinergic afferents are proposed to influence both selective attention and emotional processing. In a study of healthy adults we used event-related fMRI while orthogonally manipulating attention and emotionality to examine regions showing effects of cholinergic modulation by the anticholinesterase physostigmine. Either face or house pictures appeared at task-relevant locations, with the alternative picture type at irrelevant locations. Faces had either neutral or fearful expressions. Physostigmine increased relative activity within the anterior fusiform gyrus for faces at attended, versus unattended, locations, but decreased relative activity within the posterolateral occipital cortex for houses in attended, versus unattended, locations. A similar pattern of regional differences in the effect of physostigmine on cue-evoked responses was also present in the absence of stimuli. Cholinergic enhancement augmented the relative neuronal response within the middle fusiform gyrus to fearful faces, whether at attended or unattended locations. By contrast, physostigmine influenced responses in the orbitofrontal, intraparietal and cingulate cortices to fearful faces when faces occupied task-irrelevant locations. These findings suggest that acetylcholine may modulate both selective attention and emotional processes through independent, region-specific effects within the extrastriate cortex. Furthermore, cholinergic inputs to the frontoparietal cortex may influence the allocation of attention to emotional information.

Investigating uncertainty and emotions in conversations about family health history: a test of the theory of motivated information management.

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Rauscher, Emily A; Hesse, Colin

2014-01-01

Although the importance of being knowledgeable of one's family health history is widely known, very little research has investigated how families communicate about this important topic. This study investigated how young adults seek information from parents about family health history. The authors used the Theory of Motivated Information Management as a framework to understand the process of uncertainty discrepancy and emotion in seeking information about family health history. Results of this study show the Theory of Motivated Information Management to be a good model to explain the process young adults go through in deciding to seek information from parents about family health history. Results also show that emotions other than anxiety can be used with success in the Theory of Motivated Information Management framework.

Effects of Emotion on Writing Processes in Children

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Fartoukh, Michael; Chanquoy, Lucile; Piolat, Annie

2012-01-01

The aim of this study was to analyze the consequences of emotion during narrative writing in accordance with Hayes's model. In this model, motivation and affect have an important role during the writing process. Moreover, according to the emotion-cognition literature, emotions are thought to create interferences in working memory, resulting in an…

Reframing Teachers' Intercultural Learning as an Emotional Process

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Jokikokko, Katri

2016-01-01

The importance of emotions in the process of intercultural learning has been recognised, but the topic has not been extensively theorised. This theoretical review article synthesises the research literature on emotions in the context of teachers' intercultural learning. The article argues that emotions are a vital part of any change, and thus play…

Emotional processing and psychopathic traits in male college students: An event-related potential study.

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Medina, Amy L; Kirilko, Elvira; Grose-Fifer, Jillian

2016-08-01

Emotional processing deficits are often considered a hallmark of psychopathy. However, there are relatively few studies that have investigated how the late positive potential (LPP) elicited by both positive and negative emotional stimuli is modulated by psychopathic traits, especially in undergraduates. Attentional deficits have also been posited to be associated with emotional blunting in psychopathy, consequently, results from previous studies may have been influenced by task demands. Therefore, we investigated the relationship between the neural correlates of emotional processing and psychopathic traits by measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) during a task with a relatively low cognitive load. A group of male undergraduates were classified as having either high or low levels of psychopathic traits according to their total scores on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory - Revised (PPI-R). A subgroup of these participants then passively viewed complex emotional and neutral images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) while their EEGs were recorded. As hypothesized, in general the late LPP elicited by emotional pictures was found to be significantly reduced for participants with high Total PPI-R scores relative to those with low scores, especially for pictures that were rated as less emotionally arousing. Our data suggest that male undergraduates with high, but subclinical levels of psychopathic traits did not maintain continued higher-order processing of affective information, especially when it was perceived to be less arousing in nature. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Linking children's neuropsychological processing of emotion with their knowledge of emotion expression regulation.

OpenAIRE

Watling, Dawn; Bourne, Victoria

2007-01-01

Understanding of emotions has been shown to develop between the ages of 4 and 10 years; however, individual differences exist in this development. While previous research has typically examined these differences in terms of developmental and/or social factors, little research has considered the possible impact of neuropsychological development on the behavioural understanding of emotions. Emotion processing tends to be lateralised to the right hemisphere of the brain in adults, yet this patt...

The Role of Emotion in Informal Science Learning: Testing an Exploratory Model

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Staus, Nancy L.; Falk, John H.

2017-01-01

Although there is substantial research on the effect of emotions on educational outcomes in the classroom, relatively little is known about how emotion affects learning in informal science contexts. We examined the role of emotion in the context of an informal science learning experience by utilizing a path model to investigate the relationships…

Is Accessing of Words Affected by Affective Valence Only? A Discrete Emotion View on the Emotional Congruency Effect.

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Chen, Xuqian; Liu, Bo; Lin, Shouwen

2016-01-01

This paper advances the discussion on which emotion information affects word accessing. Emotion information, which is formed as a result of repeated experiences, is primary and necessary in learning and representing word meanings. Previous findings suggested that valence (i.e., positive or negative) denoted by words can be automatically activated and plays a role in many significant cognitive processes. However, there has been a lack of discussion about whether discrete emotion information (i.e., happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) is also involved in these processes. According to the hierarchy model, emotions are considered organized within an abstract-to-concrete hierarchy, in which emotion prototypes are organized following affective valence. By controlling different congruencies of emotion relations (i.e., matches or mismatches between valences and prototypes of emotion), the present study showed both an evaluative congruency effect (Experiment 1) and a discrete emotional congruency effect (Experiment 2). These findings indicate that not only affective valences but also discrete emotions can be activated under the present priming lexical decision task. However, the present findings also suggest that discrete emotions might be activated at the later priming stage as compared to valences. The present work provides evidence that information about discrete emotion could be involved in word processing. This might be a result of subjects' embodied experiences.

No strong evidence for abnormal levels of dysfunctional attitudes, automatic thoughts, and emotional information-processing biases in remitted bipolar I affective disorder.

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Lex, Claudia; Meyer, Thomas D; Marquart, Barbara; Thau, Kenneth

2008-03-01

Beck extended his original cognitive theory of depression by suggesting that mania was a mirror image of depression characterized by extreme positive cognition about the self, the world, and the future. However, there were no suggestions what might be special regarding cognitive features in bipolar patients (Mansell & Scott, 2006). We therefore used different indicators to evaluate cognitive processes in bipolar patients and healthy controls. We compared 19 remitted bipolar I patients (BPs) without any Axis I comorbidity with 19 healthy individuals (CG). All participants completed the Beck Depression Inventory, the Dysfunctional Attitude Scale, the Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire, the Emotional Stroop Test, and an incidental recall task. No significant group differences were found in automatic thinking and the information-processing styles (Emotional Stroop Test, incidental recall task). Regarding dysfunctional attitudes, we obtained ambiguous results. It appears that individuals with remitted bipolar affective disorder do not show cognitive vulnerability as proposed in Beck's theory of depression if they only report subthreshold levels of depressive symptoms. Perhaps, the cognitive vulnerability might only be observable if mood induction procedures are used.

Emotion and goal-directed behavior: ERP evidence on cognitive and emotional conflict.

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Zinchenko, Artyom; Kanske, Philipp; Obermeier, Christian; Schröger, Erich; Kotz, Sonja A

2015-11-01

Cognitive control supports goal-directed behavior by resolving conflict among opposing action tendencies. Emotion can trigger cognitive control processes, thus speeding up conflict processing when the target dimension of stimuli is emotional. However, it is unclear what role emotionality of the target dimension plays in the processing of emotional conflict (e.g. in irony). In two EEG experiments, we compared the influence of emotional valence of the target (emotional, neutral) in cognitive and emotional conflict processing. To maximally approximate real-life communication, we used audiovisual stimuli. Participants either categorized spoken vowels (cognitive conflict) or their emotional valence (emotional conflict), while visual information was congruent or incongruent. Emotional target dimension facilitated both cognitive and emotional conflict processing, as shown in a reduced reaction time conflict effect. In contrast, the N100 in the event-related potentials showed a conflict-specific reversal: the conflict effect was larger for emotional compared with neutral trials in cognitive conflict and smaller in emotional conflict. Additionally, domain-general conflict effects were observed in the P200 and N200 responses. The current findings confirm that emotions have a strong influence on cognitive and emotional conflict processing. They also highlight the complexity and heterogeneity of the interaction of emotion with different types of conflict. © The Author (2015). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Emotional language processing in autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review

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Lartseva, Alina; Dijkstra, Ton; Buitelaar, Jan K.

2015-01-01

In his first description of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Kanner emphasized emotional impairments by characterizing children with ASD as indifferent to other people, self-absorbed, emotionally cold, distanced, and retracted. Thereafter, emotional impairments became regarded as part of the social impairments of ASD, and research mostly focused on understanding how individuals with ASD recognize visual expressions of emotions from faces and body postures. However, it still remains unclear how emotions are processed outside of the visual domain. This systematic review aims to fill this gap by focusing on impairments of emotional language processing in ASD. We systematically searched PubMed for papers published between 1990 and 2013 using standardized search terms. Studies show that people with ASD are able to correctly classify emotional language stimuli as emotionally positive or negative. However, processing of emotional language stimuli in ASD is associated with atypical patterns of attention and memory performance, as well as abnormal physiological and neural activity. Particularly, younger children with ASD have difficulties in acquiring and developing emotional concepts, and avoid using these in discourse. These emotional language impairments were not consistently associated with age, IQ, or level of development of language skills. We discuss how emotional language impairments fit with existing cognitive theories of ASD, such as central coherence, executive dysfunction, and weak Theory of Mind. We conclude that emotional impairments in ASD may be broader than just a mere consequence of social impairments, and should receive more attention in future research. PMID:25610383

Emotional language processing in autism spectrum disorders: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Lartseva, Alina; Dijkstra, Ton; Buitelaar, Jan K

2014-01-01

In his first description of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), Kanner emphasized emotional impairments by characterizing children with ASD as indifferent to other people, self-absorbed, emotionally cold, distanced, and retracted. Thereafter, emotional impairments became regarded as part of the social impairments of ASD, and research mostly focused on understanding how individuals with ASD recognize visual expressions of emotions from faces and body postures. However, it still remains unclear how emotions are processed outside of the visual domain. This systematic review aims to fill this gap by focusing on impairments of emotional language processing in ASD. We systematically searched PubMed for papers published between 1990 and 2013 using standardized search terms. Studies show that people with ASD are able to correctly classify emotional language stimuli as emotionally positive or negative. However, processing of emotional language stimuli in ASD is associated with atypical patterns of attention and memory performance, as well as abnormal physiological and neural activity. Particularly, younger children with ASD have difficulties in acquiring and developing emotional concepts, and avoid using these in discourse. These emotional language impairments were not consistently associated with age, IQ, or level of development of language skills. We discuss how emotional language impairments fit with existing cognitive theories of ASD, such as central coherence, executive dysfunction, and weak Theory of Mind. We conclude that emotional impairments in ASD may be broader than just a mere consequence of social impairments, and should receive more attention in future research.

Emotional language processing in Autism Spectrum Disorders: A systematic review

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Alina eLartseva

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In his first description of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD, Kanner emphasized emotional impairments by characterizing children with ASD as indifferent to other people, self-absorbed, emotionally cold, distanced, and retracted. Thereafter, emotional impairments became regarded as part of the social impairments of ASD, and research mostly focused on understanding how individuals with ASD recognize visual expressions of emotions from faces and body postures. However, it still remains unclear how emotions are processed outside of the visual domain. This systematic review aims to fill this gap by focusing on impairments of emotional language processing in ASD.We systematically searched PubMed for papers published between 1990 and 2013 using standardized search terms. Studies show that people with ASD are able to correctly classify emotional language stimuli as emotionally positive or negative. However, processing of emotional language stimuli in ASD is associated with atypical patterns of attention and memory performance, as well as abnormal physiological and neural activity. Particularly, younger children with ASD have difficulties in acquiring and developing emotional concepts, and avoid using these in discourse. These emotional language impairments were not consistently associated with age, IQ, or level of development of language skills.We discuss how emotional language impairments fit with existing cognitive theories of ASD, such as central coherence, executive dysfunction, and weak Theory of Mind. We conclude that emotional impairments in ASD may be broader than just a mere consequence of social impairments, and should receive more attention in future research.

Emotional processing in patients with mild cognitive impairment: the influence of the valence and intensity of emotional stimuli: the valence and intensity of emotional stimuli influence emotional processing in patients with mild cognitive impairment.

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Sarabia-Cobo, Carmen M; García-Rodríguez, Beatriz; Navas, M José; Ellgring, Heiner

2015-10-15

We studied the ability of individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to process emotional facial expressions (EFEs). To date, no systematic study has addressed how variation in intensity affects recognition of the different type of EFEs in such subjects. Two groups of 50 elderly subjects, 50 healthy individuals and 50 with MCI, completed a task that involved identifying 180 EFEs prepared using virtual models. Two features of the EFEs were contemplated, their valence (operationalized in six basic emotions) and five levels of intensity. At all levels of intensity, elderly individuals with MCI were significantly worse at identifying each EFE than healthy subjects. Some emotions were easier to identify than others, with happiness proving to be the easiest to identify and disgust the hardest, and intensity influenced the identification of the EFEs (the stronger the intensity, the greater the number of correct identifications). Overall, elderly individuals with MCI had a poorer capacity to process EFEs, suggesting that cognitive ability modulates the processing of emotions, where features of such stimuli also seem to play a prominent role (e.g., valence and intensity). Thus, the neurological substrates involved in emotional processing appear to be affected by MCI. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotion processing in the visual brain: a MEG analysis.

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Peyk, Peter; Schupp, Harald T; Elbert, Thomas; Junghöfer, Markus

2008-06-01

Recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related brain potential (ERP) studies provide empirical support for the notion that emotional cues guide selective attention. Extending this line of research, whole head magneto-encephalogram (MEG) was measured while participants viewed in separate experimental blocks a continuous stream of either pleasant and neutral or unpleasant and neutral pictures, presented for 330 ms each. Event-related magnetic fields (ERF) were analyzed after intersubject sensor coregistration, complemented by minimum norm estimates (MNE) to explore neural generator sources. Both streams of analysis converge by demonstrating the selective emotion processing in an early (120-170 ms) and a late time interval (220-310 ms). ERF analysis revealed that the polarity of the emotion difference fields was reversed across early and late intervals suggesting distinct patterns of activation in the visual processing stream. Source analysis revealed the amplified processing of emotional pictures in visual processing areas with more pronounced occipito-parieto-temporal activation in the early time interval, and a stronger engagement of more anterior, temporal, regions in the later interval. Confirming previous ERP studies showing facilitated emotion processing, the present data suggest that MEG provides a complementary look at the spread of activation in the visual processing stream.

Dimensional Information-Theoretic Measurement of Facial Emotion Expressions in Schizophrenia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jihun Hamm

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Altered facial expressions of emotions are characteristic impairments in schizophrenia. Ratings of affect have traditionally been limited to clinical rating scales and facial muscle movement analysis, which require extensive training and have limitations based on methodology and ecological validity. To improve reliable assessment of dynamic facial expression changes, we have developed automated measurements of facial emotion expressions based on information-theoretic measures of expressivity of ambiguity and distinctiveness of facial expressions. These measures were examined in matched groups of persons with schizophrenia (n=28 and healthy controls (n=26 who underwent video acquisition to assess expressivity of basic emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust in evoked conditions. Persons with schizophrenia scored higher on ambiguity, the measure of conditional entropy within the expression of a single emotion, and they scored lower on distinctiveness, the measure of mutual information across expressions of different emotions. The automated measures compared favorably with observer-based ratings. This method can be applied for delineating dynamic emotional expressivity in healthy and clinical populations.

ERP evidence on the interaction between information structure and emotional salience of words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, L.; Bastiaansen, M.C.M.; Yang, Y.; Hagoort, P.

2013-01-01

Both emotional words and words focused by information structure can capture attention. This study examined the interplay between emotional salience and information structure in modulating attentional resources in the service of integrating emotional words into sentence context. Event-related

Emotions and Emotion Regulation in Economic Decision Making

OpenAIRE

Astor, Philipp J.

2013-01-01

By employing the methodology of experimental economics, the thesis examines the influence of emotions on decision making in electronic auction markets. Subjects' emotional processes are measured by psychophysiological indicators, helping to decipher the coherence of information, emotion (regulation) and decision making. Four chapters build the main body of the thesis and all are constructed similarly: introduction, design, method, results, limitations, theoretical and managerial implications.

Alexithymia, emotion processing and social anxiety in adults with ADHD.

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Edel, M-A; Rudel, A; Hubert, C; Scheele, D; Brüne, M; Juckel, G; Assion, Hans-Jörg

2010-09-24

given sparse research on the issue, this study sought to shed light upon the interactions of alexithymia, emotion processing, and social anxiety in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 73 German adults with ADHD according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria participated. We used the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) to assess alexithymia, the Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) to assess different features of social anxiety, and we applied the German "Experience of Emotions Scalerdquor; (SEE) to measure emotion processing. 40% of the sample were found to meet the DSM-IV criteria of social anxiety disorder, and about 22% were highly alexithymic according to a TAS-20 total score ≥ 61; however, the mean TAS-20 total score of 50.94 ± 9.3 was not much higher than in community samples. Alexithymic traits emerged to be closely linked to emotion processing problems, particularly 'difficulty accepting own emotions', and to social anxiety features. our findings suggest interactions of alexithymia, emotion processing dysfunction, and social anxiety in adults with ADHD, which may entail the therapeutic implication to thoroughly instruct these patients to identify, accept, communicate, and regulate their emotions to aid reducing interaction anxiety.

Explicit versus implicit neural processing of musical emotions

OpenAIRE

Bogert, Brigitte; Numminen-Kontti, Taru; Gold, Benjamin; Sams, Mikko; Numminen, Jussi; Burunat, Iballa; Lampinen, Jouko; Brattico, Elvira

2016-01-01

Music is often used to regulate emotions and mood. Typically, music conveys and induces emotions even when one does not attend to them. Studies on the neural substrates of musical emotions have, however, only examined brain activity when subjects have focused on the emotional content of the music. Here we address with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the neural processing of happy, sad, and fearful music with a paradigm in which 56 subjects were instructed to either classify the e...

Talk as a Metacognitive Strategy during the Information Search Process of Adolescents

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Bowler, Leanne

2010-01-01

Introduction: This paper describes a metacognitive strategy related to the social dimension of the information search process of adolescents. Method: A case study that used naturalistic methods to explore the metacognitive thinking nd associated emotions of ten adolescents. The study was framed by Kuhlthau's Information Search Process model and…

Are there cross-cultural differences in emotional processing and social problem-solving?

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Kwaśniewska Aneta

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Emotional processing and social problem-solving are important for mental well-being. For example, impaired emotional processing is linked with depression and psychosomatic problems. However, little is known about crosscultural differences in emotional processing and social problem-solving and whether these constructs are linked. This study examines whether emotional processing and social problem-solving differs between Western (British and Eastern European (Polish cultures. Participants (N = 172 completed questionnaires assessing both constructs. Emotional processing did not differ according to culture, but Polish participants reported more effective social problem-solving abilities than British participants. Poorer emotional processing was also found to relate to poorer social problem-solving. Possible societal reasons for the findings and the implications of the findings for culture and clinical practice are discussed.

Emotional Processing, Interaction Process, and Outcome in Clarification-Oriented Psychotherapy for Personality Disorders: A Process-Outcome Analysis.

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Kramer, Ueli; Pascual-Leone, Antonio; Rohde, Kristina B; Sachse, Rainer

2016-06-01

It is important to understand the change processes involved in psychotherapies for patients with personality disorders (PDs). One patient process that promises to be useful in relation to the outcome of psychotherapy is emotional processing. In the present process-outcome analysis, we examine this question by using a sequential model of emotional processing and by additionally taking into account a therapist's appropriate responsiveness to a patient's presentation in clarification-oriented psychotherapy (COP), a humanistic-experiential form of therapy. The present study involved 39 patients with a range of PDs undergoing COP. Session 25 was assessed as part of the working phase of each therapy by external raters in terms of emotional processing using the Classification of Affective-Meaning States (CAMS) and in terms of the overall quality of therapist-patient interaction using the Process-Content-Relationship Scale (BIBS). Treatment outcome was assessed pre- and post-therapy using the Global Severity Index (GSI) of the SCL-90-R and the BDI. Results indicate that the good outcome cases showed more self-compassion, more rejecting anger, and a higher quality of therapist-patient interaction compared to poorer outcome cases. For good outcome cases, emotional processing predicted 18% of symptom change at the end of treatment, which was not found for poor outcome cases. These results are discussed within the framework of an integrative understanding of emotional processing as an underlying mechanism of change in COP, and perhaps in other effective therapy approaches for PDs.

Controlling the integration of emotion and cognition - The role of frontal cortex in distinguishing helpful from hurtful emotional information

OpenAIRE

Beer, Jennifer S; Knight, Robert T; D'Esposito, Mark

2006-01-01

Emotion has been both lauded and vilified for its role in decision making. How are people able to ensure that helpful emotions guide decision making and irrelevant emotions are kept out of decision making? The orbitofrontal cortex has been identified as a neural area involved in incorporating emotion into decision making. Is this area's function specific to the integration of emotion and cognition, or does it more broadly govern whether emotional information should be integrated into cognitio...

Electrodermal Reactivity to Emotion Processing in Adults with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

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Hubert, B. E.; Wicker, B.; Monfardini, E.; Deruelle, C.

2009-01-01

Although alterations of emotion processing are recognized as a core component of autism, the level at which alterations occur is still debated. Discrepant results suggest that overt assessment of emotion processing is not appropriate. In this study, skin conductance response (SCR) was used to examine covert emotional processes. Both behavioural…

Age-related perspectives and emotion processing.

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Lynchard, Nicholas A; Radvansky, Gabriel A

2012-12-01

Emotion is processed differently in younger and older adults. Older adults show a positivity effect, whereas younger adults show a negativity effect. Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests that these effects can be elicited in any age group when age-related perspectives are manipulated. To examine this, younger and older adults were oriented to actual and age-contrasting possible selves. Emotion activations were assessed using lexical decision. In line with socioemotional selectivity theory, shifts in emotion orientation varied according to perspective, with both younger and older adults showing a negativity effect when a younger adult perspective was taken and a positivity effect when an older adult perspective was taken. 2013 APA, all rights reserved

The relationship between puberty and social emotion processing

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Goddings, Anne-Lise; Burnett Heyes, Stephanie; Bird, Geoffrey; Viner, Russell M; Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne

2012-01-01

The social brain undergoes developmental change during adolescence, and pubertal hormones are hypothesized to contribute to this development. We used fMRI to explore how pubertal indicators (salivary concentrations of testosterone, oestradiol and DHEA; pubertal stage; menarcheal status) relate to brain activity during a social emotion task. Forty-two females aged 11.1 to 13.7 years underwent fMRI scanning while reading scenarios pertaining either to social emotions, which require the representation of another person’s mental states, or to basic emotions, which do not. Pubertal stage and menarcheal status were used to assign girls to early or late puberty groups. Across the entire sample, the contrast between social versus basic emotion resulted in activity within the social brain network, including dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC), the posterior superior temporal sulcus, and the anterior temporal cortex (ATC) in both hemispheres. Increased hormone levels (independent of age) were associated with higher left ATC activity during social emotion processing. More advanced age (independent of hormone levels) was associated with lower DMPFC activity during social emotion processing. Our results suggest functionally dissociable effects of pubertal hormones and age on the adolescent social brain. PMID:23106734

Socio-emotionally Significant Experience and Children’s Processing of Irrelevant Auditory Stimuli

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Schermerhorn, Alice C.; Bates, John E.; Puce, Aina; Molfese, Dennis L.

2017-01-01

Theory and research indicate considerable influence of socio-emotionally significant experiences on children’s functioning and adaptation. In the current study, we examined neurophysiological correlates of children’s allocation of information processing resources to socio-emotionally significant events, specifically, simulated marital interactions. We presented 9- to 11-year-old children (n = 24; 11 females) with 15 videos of interactions between two actors posing as a married couple. Task-irrelevant brief auditory probes were presented during the videos, and event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited to the auditory probes were measured. As hypothesized, exposure to higher levels of interparental conflict was associated with smaller P1, P2, and N2 ERPs to the probes. This finding is consistent with the idea that children who had been exposed to more interparental conflict attended more to the videos and diverted fewer cognitive resources to processing the probes, thereby producing smaller ERPs to the probes. In addition, smaller N2s were associated with more child behavior problems, suggesting that allocating fewer processing resources to the probes was associated with more problem behavior. Results are discussed in terms of implications of socio-emotionally significant experiences for children’s processing of interpersonal interactions. PMID:27993611

[Emotion Regulation and Emotional Vulnerability in Adolescents with Anxiety Disorders].

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Zimmermann, Peter; Iwanski, Alexandra; Çelik, Fatma

2015-01-01

From an attachment perspective, insecure attachment patterns in both infancy and adolescence are risk factors for the development of anxiety disorders in adolescence. Dysfunctional emotion regulation and biased social information processing are possible mediating processes. This study examines differences in emotion regulation, emotional vulnerability, and behaviour inhibition in adolescents with clinical diagnosis of anxiety disorder and healthy controls. Adolescents with anxiety disorder reported more maladaptive emotion regulation depending on the specific emotion and a higher incidence of reporting hurt feelings in social interactions. In contrast, behaviour inhibition did not explain additional variance. The results suggest that adolescents with anxiety disorders show a bias in the interpretation of social interactions as frequently emotionally hurting, and the use of dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies that minimize the possibility for effective social emotion regulation by close others or therapists. The results are interpreted within attachment framework.

Emotion and persuasion: cognitive and meta-cognitive processes impact attitudes.

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Petty, Richard E; Briñol, Pablo

2015-01-01

This article addresses the multiple ways in which emotions can influence attitudes and persuasion via primary and secondary (meta-) cognition. Using the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion as a guide, we review evidence for five fundamental processes that occur at different points along the elaboration continuum. When the extent of thinking is constrained to be low, emotions influence attitudes by relatively simple processes that lead them to change in a manner consistent with the valence of the emotion. When thinking is constrained to be high, emotions can serve as arguments in favour of a proposal if they are relevant to the merits of the advocacy or they can bias thinking if the emotion precedes the message. If thinking is high and emotions become salient after thinking, they can lead people to rely or not rely on the thoughts generated either because the emotion leads people to like or dislike their thoughts (affective validation) or feel more confident or doubtful in their thoughts (cognitive validation). When thinking is unconstrained, emotions influence the extent of thinking about the persuasive communication. Although prior theories have addressed one or more of these fundamental processes, no other approach has integrated them into one framework.

The way you say it, the way I feel it: emotional word processing in accented speech

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Hatzidaki, Anna; Baus, Cristina; Costa, Albert

2015-01-01

The present study examined whether processing words with affective connotations in a listener's native language may be modulated by accented speech. To address this question, we used the Event Related Potential (ERP) technique and recorded the cerebral activity of Spanish native listeners, who performed a semantic categorization task, while listening to positive, negative and neutral words produced in standard Spanish or in four foreign accents. The behavioral results yielded longer latencies for emotional than for neutral words in both native and foreign-accented speech, with no difference between positive and negative words. The electrophysiological results replicated previous findings from the emotional language literature, with the amplitude of the Late Positive Complex (LPC), associated with emotional language processing, being larger (more positive) for emotional than for neutral words at posterior scalp sites. Interestingly, foreign-accented speech was found to interfere with the processing of positive valence and go along with a negativity bias, possibly suggesting heightened attention to negative words. The manipulation employed in the present study provides an interesting perspective on the effects of accented speech on processing affective-laden information. It shows that higher order semantic processes that involve emotion-related aspects are sensitive to a speaker's accent. PMID:25870577

Biases in emotional processing are associated with vulnerability to eating disorders over time.

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Pringle, A; Harmer, C J; Cooper, M J

2011-01-01

Biases in emotional processing are thought to play a role in the maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). In a previous study (Pringle et al., 2010), we were able to demonstrate that biases in the processing of negative self beliefs (a self-schema processing task), facial expressions of emotion (a facial expression recognition task) and information relating to eating, shape and weight (an emotional Stroop) were all predictive of the level of subclinical ED symptoms (used here as a measure of risk) cross-sectionally in a vulnerable sample of dieters. The present study was a 12-month follow up of the participants from Pringle et al. (2010). Longitudinally, greater endorsement of ED relevant and depression relevant negative self beliefs in the self-schema processing task at time 1 was related to subclinical ED systems (level of risk) 12 months later at time 2. Compared to the cross-sectional study, there was no clear relationship between performance on the facial expression recognition task, emotional Stroop task and level of risk 12 months later. Although these findings are preliminary, one tentative interpretation may be that whilst biases in the processing of ED specific stimuli are predictive of level of risk at a given moment, over time less specific stimuli relating to beliefs about the self, including mood related variables, are more closely related to level of risk. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Grounding Context in Face Processing: Color, Emotion and Gender

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Sandrine eGil

2015-03-01

Full Text Available In recent years, researchers have become interested in the way that the affective quality of contextual information transfers to a perceived target. We therefore examined the effect of a red (versus green, mixed red/green and achromatic background–known to be valenced−on the processing of stimuli that play a key role in human interactions, namely facial expressions. We also examined whether the valenced-color effect can be modulated by gender, which is also known to be valenced. Female and male adult participants performed a categorization task of facial expressions of emotion in which the faces of female and male posers expressing two ambiguous emotions (i.e., neutral and surprise were presented against the four different colored backgrounds. Additionally, this task was completed by collecting subjective ratings for each colored background in the form of five semantic differential scales corresponding to both discrete and dimensional perspectives of emotion. We found that the red background resulted in more negative face perception than the green background, whether the poser was female or male. However, whereas this valenced-color effect was the only effect for female posers, for male posers, the effect was modulated by both the nature of the ambiguous emotion and the decoder’s gender. Overall, our findings offer evidence that color and gender have a common valence-based dimension.

Breaking the Emotional Barrier through the Bibliotherapeutic Process.

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Ouzts, Dan T.

1984-01-01

Reviews literature concerning bibliotherapy and concludes that it can be of value to a child's overall emotional development and may help in breaking emotional barriers to learning. Discusses the role of the reading teacher in the bibliotherapeutic process. (FL)

Alexithymia, emotion processing and social anxiety in adults with ADHD

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Edel M-A

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Objective Given sparse research on the issue, this study sought to shed light upon the interactions of alexithymia, emotion processing, and social anxiety in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD. Subjects and methods 73 German adults with ADHD according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria participated. We used the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20 to assess alexithymia, the Social Phobia Scale (SPS and the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS to assess different features of social anxiety, and we applied the German 'Experience of Emotions Scale' (SEE to measure emotion processing. Results 40% of the sample were found to meet the DSM-IV criteria of social anxiety disorder, and about 22% were highly alexithymic according to a TAS-20 total score ≥ 61; however, the mean TAS-20 total score of 50.94 ± 9.3 was not much higher than in community samples. Alexithymic traits emerged to be closely linked to emotion processing problems, particularly 'difficulty accepting own emotions', and to social anxiety features. Discussion/conclusion Our findings suggest interactions of alexithymia, emotion processing dysfunction, and social anxiety in adults with ADHD, which may entail the therapeutic implication to thoroughly instruct these patients to identify, accept, communicate, and regulate their emotions to aid reducing interaction anxiety.

Service with a smile: do emotional intelligence, gender, and autonomy moderate the emotional labor process?

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Johnson, Hazel-Anne M; Spector, Paul E

2007-10-01

This survey study of 176 participants from eight customer service organizations investigated how individual factors moderate the impact of emotional labor strategies on employee well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that gender and autonomy were significant moderators of the relationships between emotional labor strategies and the personal outcomes of emotional exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction. Females were more likely to experience negative consequences when engaging in surface acting. Autonomy served to alleviate negative outcomes for individuals who used emotional labor strategies often. Contrary to our hypotheses, emotional intelligence did not moderate the relationship between the emotional labor strategies and personal outcomes. Results demonstrated how the emotional labor process can influence employee well-being. (c) 2007 APA, all rights reserved.

Priming the Secure Attachment Schema Affects the Emotional Face Processing Bias in Attachment Anxiety: An fMRI Research

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Xu Chen

2017-04-01

Full Text Available Our study explored how priming with a secure base schema affects the processing of emotional facial stimuli in individuals with attachment anxiety. We enrolled 42 undergraduate students between 18 and 27 years of age, and divided them into two groups: attachment anxiety and attachment secure. All participants were primed under two conditions, the secure priming using references to the partner, and neutral priming using neutral references. We performed repeated attachment security priming combined with a dual-task paradigm and functional magnetic resonance imaging. Participants’ reaction times in terms of responding to the facial stimuli were also measured. Attachment security priming can facilitate an individual’s processing of positive emotional faces; for instance, the presentation of the partner’s name was associated with stronger activities in a wide range of brain regions and faster reaction times for positive facial expressions in the subjects. The current finding of higher activity in the left-hemisphere regions for secure priming rather than neutral priming is consistent with the prediction that attachment security priming triggers the spread of the activation of a positive emotional state. However, the difference in brain activity during processing of both, positive and negative emotional facial stimuli between the two priming conditions appeared in the attachment anxiety group alone. This study indicates that the effect of attachment secure priming on the processing of emotional facial stimuli could be mediated by chronic attachment anxiety. In addition, it highlights the association between higher-order processes of the attachment system (secure attachment schema priming and early-stage information processing system (attention, given the increased attention toward the effects of secure base schema on the processing of emotion- and attachment-related information among the insecure population. Thus, the following study has

Attention bias to emotional information in children as a function of maternal emotional disorders and maternal attention biases.

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Waters, Allison M; Forrest, Kylee; Peters, Rosie-Mae; Bradley, Brendan P; Mogg, Karin

2015-03-01

Children of parents with emotional disorders have an increased risk for developing anxiety and depressive disorders. Yet the mechanisms that contribute to this increased risk are poorly understood. The present study aimed to examine attention biases in children as a function of maternal lifetime emotional disorders and maternal attention biases. There were 134 participants, including 38 high-risk children, and their mothers who had lifetime emotional disorders; and 29 low-risk children, and their mothers without lifetime emotional disorders. Mothers and children completed a visual probe task with emotional face pairs presented for 500 ms. Attention bias in children did not significantly differ solely as a function of whether or not their mothers had lifetime emotional disorders. However, attention bias in high-risk children was significantly related to their mothers' attention bias. Specifically, children of mothers with lifetime emotional disorders showed a greater negative attention bias if their mothers had a greater tendency to direct attention away from positive information. This study was cross-sectional in nature, and therefore unable to assess long-term predictive effects. Also, just one exposure duration of 500 ms was utilised. Attention bias for negative information is greater in offspring of mothers who have lifetime emotional disorders and a reduced positive bias, which could be a risk marker for the development of emotional disorders in children.

Epistemic motivation affects the processing of negative emotional stimuli in interpersonal decisions

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Zhenyu eWei

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The present electrophysiological study investigated the role of the need for cognitive closure (NFC in emotional processing. The NFC is conceptualized as an epistemic motive that is related to how and why people seek out information in social environments. Event-related potentials were recorded while individuals with high NFC (i.e., low epistemic motivation or low NFC (i.e., high epistemic motivation performed a modified Ultimatum Game, in which the emotions of happy or angry game agents were employed to predict their most likely offer. High-NFC participants more closely adhered to the decisions rules of the game than low-NFC individuals did. The electrophysiological results showed that the dispositional NFC modified early perceptual components (N170, N200, and P200. The potentials showed that high-NFC subjects had a processing bias to angry faces, whereas low-NFC individuals exhibited no such effects. These findings indicated that high-NFC individuals were more sensitive to negative emotional stimuli than low-NFC individuals in an interpersonal decision-making task.

The impact of emotion on perception: bias or enhanced processing?

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Zeelenberg, René; Wagenmakers, Eric-Jan; Rotteveel, Mark

2006-04-01

Recent studies have shown that emotionally significant stimuli are often better identified than neutral stimuli. It is not clear, however, whether these results are due to enhanced perceptual processing or to a bias favoring the identification of emotionally significant stimuli over neutral stimuli. The present study used a two-alternative forced-choice perceptual identification task to disentangle the effects of bias and enhanced processing. We found that emotionally significant targets were better identified than neutral targets. In contrast, the emotional significance of the foil alternative had no effect on performance. The present results support the hypothesis that perceptual encoding of emotionally significant stimuli is enhanced.

Dealing with emotions when the ability to cry is hampered: emotion processing and regulation in patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome.

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van Leeuwen, Ninke; Bossema, Ercolie R; van Middendorp, Henriët; Kruize, Aike A; Bootsma, Hendrika; Bijlsma, Johannes W J; Geenen, Rinie

2012-01-01

The hampered ability to cry in patients with Sjögren's syndrome may affect their ways of dealing with emotions. The aim of this study was to examine differences in emotion processing and regulation between people with and without Sjögren's syndrome and correlations of emotion processing and regulation with mental well-being. In 300 patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome and 100 demographically matched control participants (mean age 56.8 years, 93% female), emotion processing (affect intensity and alexithymia, i.e. difficulty identifying and describing feelings), emotion regulation (cognitive reappraisal, suppression and expression of emotions), and mental well-being were assessed. Criteria for clinical alexithymia applied to 22% of the patients and 12% of the control participants; patients had significantly more difficulty identifying feelings than control participants. No other significant differences in emotion processing and emotion regulation were found. In patients, the emotion processing styles affect intensity and alexithymia (0.32emotion regulation strategy suppression of emotions (r=0.13) significantly correlated with worse mental well-being, which is about similar to control participants. Processing and regulating emotions in patients with Sjögren's syndrome does not deviate from normal with one exception: a relatively large number of patients is alexithymic. As in the general population, in patients with Sjögren's syndrome the more intense and deficient processing and regulation of emotions is associated with worse mental well-being. This study indicates that, except for selected patients, processing and regulation of emotions is not a key therapeutic issue for the majority of patients with Sjögren's syndrome.

Following your heart or your head: focusing on emotions versus information differentially influences the decisions of younger and older adults.

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Mikels, Joseph A; Löckenhoff, Corinna E; Maglio, Sam J; Goldstein, Mary K; Garber, Alan; Carstensen, Laura L

2010-03-01

Research on aging has indicated that whereas deliberative cognitive processes decline with age, emotional processes are relatively spared. To examine the implications of these divergent trajectories in the context of health care choices, we investigated whether instructional manipulations emphasizing a focus on feelings or details would have differential effects on decision quality among younger and older adults. We presented 60 younger and 60 older adults with health care choices that required them to hold in mind and consider multiple pieces of information. Instructional manipulations in the emotion-focus condition asked participants to focus on their emotional reactions to the options, report their feelings about the options, and then make a choice. In the information-focus condition, participants were instructed to focus on the specific attributes, report the details about the options, and then make a choice. In a control condition, no directives were given. Manipulation checks indicated that the instructions were successful in eliciting different modes of processing. Decision quality data indicate that younger adults performed better in the information-focus than in the control condition whereas older adults performed better in the emotion-focus and control conditions than in the information-focus condition. Findings support and extend extant theorizing on aging and decision making as well as suggest that interventions to improve decision-making quality should take the age of the decision maker into account.

Seeing emotion with your ears: emotional prosody implicitly guides visual attention to faces.

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Simon Rigoulot

Full Text Available Interpersonal communication involves the processing of multimodal emotional cues, particularly facial expressions (visual modality and emotional speech prosody (auditory modality which can interact during information processing. Here, we investigated whether the implicit processing of emotional prosody systematically influences gaze behavior to facial expressions of emotion. We analyzed the eye movements of 31 participants as they scanned a visual array of four emotional faces portraying fear, anger, happiness, and neutrality, while listening to an emotionally-inflected pseudo-utterance (Someone migged the pazing uttered in a congruent or incongruent tone. Participants heard the emotional utterance during the first 1250 milliseconds of a five-second visual array and then performed an immediate recall decision about the face they had just seen. The frequency and duration of first saccades and of total looks in three temporal windows ([0-1250 ms], [1250-2500 ms], [2500-5000 ms] were analyzed according to the emotional content of faces and voices. Results showed that participants looked longer and more frequently at faces that matched the prosody in all three time windows (emotion congruency effect, although this effect was often emotion-specific (with greatest effects for fear. Effects of prosody on visual attention to faces persisted over time and could be detected long after the auditory information was no longer present. These data imply that emotional prosody is processed automatically during communication and that these cues play a critical role in how humans respond to related visual cues in the environment, such as facial expressions.

Seeing Emotion with Your Ears: Emotional Prosody Implicitly Guides Visual Attention to Faces

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Rigoulot, Simon; Pell, Marc D.

2012-01-01

Interpersonal communication involves the processing of multimodal emotional cues, particularly facial expressions (visual modality) and emotional speech prosody (auditory modality) which can interact during information processing. Here, we investigated whether the implicit processing of emotional prosody systematically influences gaze behavior to facial expressions of emotion. We analyzed the eye movements of 31 participants as they scanned a visual array of four emotional faces portraying fear, anger, happiness, and neutrality, while listening to an emotionally-inflected pseudo-utterance (Someone migged the pazing) uttered in a congruent or incongruent tone. Participants heard the emotional utterance during the first 1250 milliseconds of a five-second visual array and then performed an immediate recall decision about the face they had just seen. The frequency and duration of first saccades and of total looks in three temporal windows ([0–1250 ms], [1250–2500 ms], [2500–5000 ms]) were analyzed according to the emotional content of faces and voices. Results showed that participants looked longer and more frequently at faces that matched the prosody in all three time windows (emotion congruency effect), although this effect was often emotion-specific (with greatest effects for fear). Effects of prosody on visual attention to faces persisted over time and could be detected long after the auditory information was no longer present. These data imply that emotional prosody is processed automatically during communication and that these cues play a critical role in how humans respond to related visual cues in the environment, such as facial expressions. PMID:22303454

Disrupted neural processing of emotional faces in psychopathy.

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Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren; Pujol, Jesus; Batalla, Iolanda; Harrison, Ben J; Bosque, Javier; Ibern-Regàs, Immaculada; Hernández-Ribas, Rosa; Soriano-Mas, Carles; Deus, Joan; López-Solà, Marina; Pifarré, Josep; Menchón, José M; Cardoner, Narcís

2014-04-01

Psychopaths show a reduced ability to recognize emotion facial expressions, which may disturb the interpersonal relationship development and successful social adaptation. Behavioral hypotheses point toward an association between emotion recognition deficits in psychopathy and amygdala dysfunction. Our prediction was that amygdala dysfunction would combine deficient activation with disturbances in functional connectivity with cortical regions of the face-processing network. Twenty-two psychopaths and 22 control subjects were assessed and functional magnetic resonance maps were generated to identify both brain activation and task-induced functional connectivity using psychophysiological interaction analysis during an emotional face-matching task. Results showed significant amygdala activation in control subjects only, but differences between study groups did not reach statistical significance. In contrast, psychopaths showed significantly increased activation in visual and prefrontal areas, with this latest activation being associated with psychopaths' affective-interpersonal disturbances. Psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed a reciprocal reduction in functional connectivity between the left amygdala and visual and prefrontal cortices. Our results suggest that emotional stimulation may evoke a relevant cortical response in psychopaths, but a disruption in the processing of emotional faces exists involving the reciprocal functional interaction between the amygdala and neocortex, consistent with the notion of a failure to integrate emotion into cognition in psychopathic individuals.

Neural Systems Underlying Emotional and Non-emotional Interference Processing: An ALE Meta-Analysis of Functional Neuroimaging Studies

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Xu, Min; Xu, Guiping; Yang, Yang

2016-01-01

Understanding how the nature of interference might influence the recruitments of the neural systems is considered as the key to understanding cognitive control. Although, interference processing in the emotional domain has recently attracted great interest, the question of whether there are separable neural patterns for emotional and non-emotional interference processing remains open. Here, we performed an activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of 78 neuroimaging experiments, and exam...

Decoding auditory spatial and emotional information encoding using multivariate versus univariate techniques.

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Kryklywy, James H; Macpherson, Ewan A; Mitchell, Derek G V

2018-04-01

Emotion can have diverse effects on behaviour and perception, modulating function in some circumstances, and sometimes having little effect. Recently, it was identified that part of the heterogeneity of emotional effects could be due to a dissociable representation of emotion in dual pathway models of sensory processing. Our previous fMRI experiment using traditional univariate analyses showed that emotion modulated processing in the auditory 'what' but not 'where' processing pathway. The current study aims to further investigate this dissociation using a more recently emerging multi-voxel pattern analysis searchlight approach. While undergoing fMRI, participants localized sounds of varying emotional content. A searchlight multi-voxel pattern analysis was conducted to identify activity patterns predictive of sound location and/or emotion. Relative to the prior univariate analysis, MVPA indicated larger overlapping spatial and emotional representations of sound within early secondary regions associated with auditory localization. However, consistent with the univariate analysis, these two dimensions were increasingly segregated in late secondary and tertiary regions of the auditory processing streams. These results, while complimentary to our original univariate analyses, highlight the utility of multiple analytic approaches for neuroimaging, particularly for neural processes with known representations dependent on population coding.

Level of processing modulates the neural correlates of emotional memory formation

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Ritchey, Maureen; LaBar, Kevin S.; Cabeza, Roberto

2010-01-01

Emotion is known to influence multiple aspects of memory formation, including the initial encoding of the memory trace and its consolidation over time. However, the neural mechanisms whereby emotion impacts memory encoding remain largely unexplored. The present study employed a levels-of-processing manipulation to characterize the impact of emotion on encoding with and without the influence of elaborative processes. Participants viewed emotionally negative, neutral, and positive scenes under ...

Scenes for Social Information Processing in Adolescence: Item and factor analytic procedures for psychometric appraisal.

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Vagos, Paula; Rijo, Daniel; Santos, Isabel M

2016-04-01

Relatively little is known about measures used to investigate the validity and applications of social information processing theory. The Scenes for Social Information Processing in Adolescence includes items built using a participatory approach to evaluate the attribution of intent, emotion intensity, response evaluation, and response decision steps of social information processing. We evaluated a sample of 802 Portuguese adolescents (61.5% female; mean age = 16.44 years old) using this instrument. Item analysis and exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic procedures were used for psychometric examination. Two measures for attribution of intent were produced, including hostile and neutral; along with 3 emotion measures, focused on negative emotional states; 8 response evaluation measures; and 4 response decision measures, including prosocial and impaired social behavior. All of these measures achieved good internal consistency values and fit indicators. Boys seemed to favor and choose overt and relational aggression behaviors more often; girls conveyed higher levels of neutral attribution, sadness, and assertiveness and passiveness. The Scenes for Social Information Processing in Adolescence achieved adequate psychometric results and seems a valuable alternative for evaluating social information processing, even if it is essential to continue investigation into its internal and external validity. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved.

Emotional processing during psychotherapy among women newly diagnosed with a gynecological cancer.

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Manne, Sharon L; Myers-Virtue, Shannon; Darabos, Katie; Ozga, Melissa; Heckman, Carolyn; Kissane, David; Rotter, David

2017-08-01

Our aim was to compare changes in emotional processing by women newly diagnosed with gynecological cancer enrolled in either a coping and communication skills intervention (CCI) or a supportive counseling (SC) intervention. We examined the association between in-session emotional processing and patient-rated therapeutic progress. Three therapy sessions with 201 patients were rated for the depth of emotional processing (peak and mode) during emotion episodes (EEs) using the Experiencing Rating Scale (EXP). Participants completed measures of dispositional emotional expressivity, depressive symptoms, and cancer-related distress before treatment began, as well as ratings of perceived progress in therapy after each session. Peak EXP ratings averaged between 2.7 and 3.1, indicating that women discussed events, their emotional reactions, and their private experiences in sessions. A small proportion of patients had high levels of processing, indicating deeper exploration of the meaning of their feelings and experiences. Women in SC were able to achieve a higher level of emotional processing during the middle and later sessions, and during cancer-related EEs in the later session. However, emotional processing was not significantly associated with a patient's perceived therapeutic progress with SC. In the CCI group, higher levels of emotional processing were associated with greater session progress, suggesting that it may play an important role in patient-rated treatment outcomes. Newly diagnosed gynecological cancer patients are able to attend to their emotions and personal experiences, particularly when discussing cancer-related issues during both short-term SC and prescriptive coping skills interventions.

Epistasis between 5-HTTLPR and ADRA2B polymorphisms influences attentional bias for emotional information in healthy volunteers.

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Naudts, Kris H; Azevedo, Ruben T; David, Anthony S; van Heeringen, Kees; Gibbs, Ayana A

2012-09-01

Individual differences in emotional processing are likely to contribute to vulnerability and resilience to emotional disorders such as depression and anxiety. Genetic variation is known to contribute to these differences but they remain incompletely understood. The serotonin transporter (5-HTTLPR) and α2B-adrenergic autoreceptor (ADRA2B) insertion/deletion polymorphisms impact on two separate but interacting monaminergic signalling mechanisms that have been implicated in both emotional processing and emotional disorders. Recent studies suggest that the 5-HTTLPR s allele is associated with a negative attentional bias and an increased risk of emotional disorders. However, such complex behavioural traits are likely to exhibit polygenicity, including epistasis. This study examined the contribution of the 5-HTTLPR and ADRA2B insertion/deletion polymorphisms to attentional biases for aversive information in 94 healthy male volunteers and found evidence of a significant epistatic effect (pbias for aversive information was attenuated by possession of the ADRA2B deletion variant whereas in the absence of the s allele, the bias was enhanced. These data identify a cognitive mechanism linking genotype-dependent serotonergic and noradrenergic signalling that is likely to have implications for the development of cognitive markers for depression/anxiety as well as therapeutic drug effects and personalized approaches to treatment.

Age-Dependent Positivity-Bias in Children’s Processing of Emotion Terms

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Bahn, Daniela; Vesker, Michael; García Alanis, José C.; Schwarzer, Gudrun; Kauschke, Christina

2017-01-01

Emotions play an important role in human communication, and the daily-life interactions of young children often include situations that require the verbalization of emotional states with verbal means, e.g., with emotion terms. Through them, one can express own emotional states and those of others. Thus, the acquisition of emotion terms allows children to participate more intensively in social contexts – a basic requirement for learning new words and for elaborating socio-emotional skills. However, little is known about how children acquire and process this specific word category, which is positioned between concrete and abstract words. In particular, the influence of valence on emotion word processing during childhood has not been sufficiently investigated. Previous research points to an advantage of positive words over negative and neutral words in word processing. While previous studies found valence effects to be influenced by factors such as arousal, frequency, concreteness, and task, it is still unclear if and how valence effects are also modified by age. The present study compares the performance of children aged from 5 to 12 years and adults in two experimental tasks: lexical decision (word or pseudoword) and emotional categorization (positive or negative). Stimuli consisted of 48 German emotion terms (24 positive and 24 negative) matched for arousal, concreteness, age of acquisition, word class, word length, morphological complexity, frequency, and neighborhood density. Results from both tasks reveal two developmental trends: First, with increasing age children responded faster and more correctly, suggesting that emotion vocabulary gradually becomes more stable and differentiated during middle childhood. Second, the influence of valence varied with age: younger children (5- and 6-year-olds) showed significantly higher performance levels for positive emotion terms compared to negative emotion terms, whereas older children and adults did not. This age

Emotions and memory in borderline personality disorder.

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Winter, Dorina; Elzinga, Bernet; Schmahl, Christian

2014-01-01

Memory processes such as encoding, storage, and retrieval of information are influenced by emotional content. Because patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD) are particularly susceptible to emotional information, it is relevant to understand whether such memory processes are altered in this patient group. This systematic literature review collects current evidence on this issue. Research suggests that emotional information interferes more strongly with information processing and learning in BPD patients than in healthy controls. In general, BPD patients do not seem to differ from healthy control subjects in their ability to memorize emotional information, but they tend to have specific difficulties forgetting negative information. Also, BPD patients seem to recall autobiographical, particularly negative events with stronger arousal than healthy controls, while BPD patients also show specific temporo-prefrontal alterations in neural correlates. No substantial evidence was found that the current affective state influences learning and memory in BPD patients any differently than in healthy control subjects. In general, a depressive mood seems to both deteriorate and negatively bias information processing and memories, while there is evidence that dissociative symptoms impair learning and memory independently of stimulus valence. This review discusses methodological challenges of studies on memory and emotions in BPD and makes suggestions for future research and clinical implications. © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

The Role of the Medical Students’ Emotional Mood in Information Retrieval from the Web

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Marzieh Yari Zanganeh

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Background: Online information retrieval is a process the result of which is influenced by the changes in the emotional moods of the user. It seems reasonable to include emotional aspects in developing information retrieval systems in order to optimize the experience of the users. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the role of positive and negative affects in the information seeking process on the web among students of medical sciences. Methods: From the methodological perspective, the present study was an experimental and applied research. According to the nature of the experimental method, observation and questionnaire were used. The participants were the students of various fields of Medical Sciences. The research sample included 50 students of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences selected through purposeful sampling method; they regularly used World Wide Web and google engine for information retrieval in educational, Research, personal, or managerial activities. In order to collect the data, search tasks were characterized by the topic, sequence in a search process, difficulty level, and searcher’s interest (simple in a task. Face and content validity of the questionnaire were confirmed by the experts. Reliability of the questionnaire was tested by Alpha Cronbach. Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (PA=0.777, NA=0.754 showed a high rate of reliability in a PANAS questionnaire. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS, version 20.0; also, to test the research hypothesis, T-Test and pair Samples T-Test were used. The P0.05. Conclusion: Information retrieval systems in the Web should identify positive and negative affects in the information seeking process in a set of perceiving signs in human interaction with the computer. The automatic identification of the users’ affect opens new dimensions into users moderators and information retrieval systems for successful retrieval from the Web.

Processing advantage for emotional words in bilingual speakers.

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Ponari, Marta; Rodríguez-Cuadrado, Sara; Vinson, David; Fox, Neil; Costa, Albert; Vigliocco, Gabriella

2015-10-01

Effects of emotion on word processing are well established in monolingual speakers. However, studies that have assessed whether affective features of words undergo the same processing in a native and nonnative language have provided mixed results: Studies that have found differences between native language (L1) and second language (L2) processing attributed the difference to the fact that L2 learned late in life would not be processed affectively, because affective associations are established during childhood. Other studies suggest that adult learners show similar effects of emotional features in L1 and L2. Differences in affective processing of L2 words can be linked to age and context of learning, proficiency, language dominance, and degree of similarity between L2 and L1. Here, in a lexical decision task on tightly matched negative, positive, and neutral words, highly proficient English speakers from typologically different L1s showed the same facilitation in processing emotionally valenced words as native English speakers, regardless of their L1, the age of English acquisition, or the frequency and context of English use. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Music, memory and emotion.

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Jäncke, Lutz

2008-08-08

Because emotions enhance memory processes and music evokes strong emotions, music could be involved in forming memories, either about pieces of music or about episodes and information associated with particular music. A recent study in BMC Neuroscience has given new insights into the role of emotion in musical memory.

The Influence of Negative Emotion on Cognitive and Emotional Control Remains Intact in Aging

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Artyom Zinchenko

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Healthy aging is characterized by a gradual decline in cognitive control and inhibition of interferences, while emotional control is either preserved or facilitated. Emotional control regulates the processing of emotional conflicts such as in irony in speech, and cognitive control resolves conflict between non-affective tendencies. While negative emotion can trigger control processes and speed up resolution of both cognitive and emotional conflicts, we know little about how aging affects the interaction of emotion and control. In two EEG experiments, we compared the influence of negative emotion on cognitive and emotional conflict processing in groups of younger adults (mean age = 25.2 years and older adults (69.4 years. Participants viewed short video clips and either categorized spoken vowels (cognitive conflict or their emotional valence (emotional conflict, while the visual facial information was congruent or incongruent. Results show that negative emotion modulates both cognitive and emotional conflict processing in younger and older adults as indicated in reduced response times and/or enhanced event-related potentials (ERPs. In emotional conflict processing, we observed a valence-specific N100 ERP component in both age groups. In cognitive conflict processing, we observed an interaction of emotion by congruence in the N100 responses in both age groups, and a main effect of congruence in the P200 and N200. Thus, the influence of emotion on conflict processing remains intact in aging, despite a marked decline in cognitive control. Older adults may prioritize emotional wellbeing and preserve the role of emotion in cognitive and emotional control.

Relationship Between Emotional Processing, Drinking Severity and Relapse in Adults Treated for Alcohol Dependence in Poland

OpenAIRE

Kopera, Maciej; Jakubczyk, Andrzej; Suszek, Hubert; Glass, Jennifer M.; Klimkiewicz, Anna; Wnorowska, Anna; Brower, Kirk J.; Wojnar, Marcin

2014-01-01

Aims: Growing data reveals deficits in perception, understanding and regulation of emotions in alcohol dependence (AD). The study objective was to explore the relationships between emotional processing, drinking history and relapse in a clinical sample of alcohol-dependent patients. Methods: A group of 80 inpatients entering an alcohol treatment program in Warsaw, Poland was recruited and assessed at baseline and follow-up after 12 months. Baseline information about demographics, psychopathol...

Gender-specific disruptions in emotion processing in younger adults with depression.

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Wright, Sara L; Langenecker, Scott A; Deldin, Patricia J; Rapport, Lisa J; Nielson, Kristy A; Kade, Allison M; Own, Lawrence S; Akil, Huda; Young, Elizabeth A; Zubieta, Jon-Kar

2009-01-01

One of the principal theories regarding the biological basis of major depressive disorder (MDD) implicates a dysregulation of emotion-processing circuitry. Gender differences in how emotions are processed and relative experience with emotion processing might help to explain some of the disparities in the prevalence of MDD between women and men. This study sought to explore how gender and depression status relate to emotion processing. This study employed a 2 (MDD status) x 2 (gender) factorial design to explore differences in classifications of posed facial emotional expressions (N=151). For errors, there was an interaction between gender and depression status. Women with MDD made more errors than did nondepressed women and men with MDD, particularly for fearful and sad stimuli (Ps women with MDD compared to nondepressed women (P=.01). Men with MDD, conversely, performed similarly to control men (P=.61). These results provide novel and intriguing evidence that depression in younger adults (emotion processing in women as compared to men. This interaction could be driven by neurobiological and social learning mechanisms, or interactions between them, and may underlie differences in the prevalence of depression in women and men. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Emotion Recognition from EEG Signals Using Multidimensional Information in EMD Domain.

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Zhuang, Ning; Zeng, Ying; Tong, Li; Zhang, Chi; Zhang, Hanming; Yan, Bin

2017-01-01

This paper introduces a method for feature extraction and emotion recognition based on empirical mode decomposition (EMD). By using EMD, EEG signals are decomposed into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) automatically. Multidimensional information of IMF is utilized as features, the first difference of time series, the first difference of phase, and the normalized energy. The performance of the proposed method is verified on a publicly available emotional database. The results show that the three features are effective for emotion recognition. The role of each IMF is inquired and we find that high frequency component IMF1 has significant effect on different emotional states detection. The informative electrodes based on EMD strategy are analyzed. In addition, the classification accuracy of the proposed method is compared with several classical techniques, including fractal dimension (FD), sample entropy, differential entropy, and discrete wavelet transform (DWT). Experiment results on DEAP datasets demonstrate that our method can improve emotion recognition performance.

Music, memory and emotion

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Jäncke, Lutz

2008-01-01

Because emotions enhance memory processes and music evokes strong emotions, music could be involved in forming memories, either about pieces of music or about episodes and information associated with particular music. A recent study in BMC Neuroscience has given new insights into the role of emotion in musical memory. PMID:18710596

Emotion word processing: does mood make a difference?

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Sereno, Sara C.; Scott, Graham G.; Yao, Bo; Thaden, Elske J.; O'Donnell, Patrick J.

2015-01-01

Visual emotion word processing has been in the focus of recent psycholinguistic research. In general, emotion words provoke differential responses in comparison to neutral words. However, words are typically processed within a context rather than in isolation. For instance, how does one's inner emotional state influence the comprehension of emotion words? To address this question, the current study examined lexical decision responses to emotionally positive, negative, and neutral words as a function of induced mood as well as their word frequency. Mood was manipulated by exposing participants to different types of music. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions—no music, positive music, and negative music. Participants' moods were assessed during the experiment to confirm the mood induction manipulation. Reaction time results confirmed prior demonstrations of an interaction between a word's emotionality and its frequency. Results also showed a significant interaction between participant mood and word emotionality. However, the pattern of results was not consistent with mood-congruency effects. Although positive and negative mood facilitated responses overall in comparison to the control group, neither positive nor negative mood appeared to additionally facilitate responses to mood-congruent words. Instead, the pattern of findings seemed to be the consequence of attentional effects arising from induced mood. Positive mood broadens attention to a global level, eliminating the category distinction of positive-negative valence but leaving the high-low arousal dimension intact. In contrast, negative mood narrows attention to a local level, enhancing within-category distinctions, in particular, for negative words, resulting in less effective facilitation. PMID:26379570

The neural basis of emotions varies over time: different regions go with onset- and offset-bound processes underlying emotion intensity.

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Résibois, Maxime; Verduyn, Philippe; Delaveau, Pauline; Rotgé, Jean-Yves; Kuppens, Peter; Van Mechelen, Iven; Fossati, Philippe

2017-08-01

According to theories of emotion dynamics, emotions unfold across two phases in which different types of processes come to the fore: emotion onset and emotion offset. Differences in onset-bound processes are reflected by the degree of explosiveness or steepness of the response at onset, and differences in offset-bound processes by the degree of accumulation or intensification of the subsequent response. Whether onset- and offset-bound processes have distinctive neural correlates and, hence, whether the neural basis of emotions varies over time, still remains unknown. In the present fMRI study, we address this question using a recently developed paradigm that allows to disentangle explosiveness and accumulation. Thirty-one participants were exposed to neutral and negative social feedback, and asked to reflect on its contents. Emotional intensity while reading and thinking about the feedback was measured with an intensity profile tracking approach. Using non-negative matrix factorization, the resulting profile data were decomposed in explosiveness and accumulation components, which were subsequently entered as continuous regressors of the BOLD response. It was found that the neural basis of emotion intensity shifts as emotions unfold over time with emotion explosiveness and accumulation having distinctive neural correlates. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

A comparison of facial emotion processing in neurological and psychiatric conditions

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Benoit eBediou

2012-04-01

Full Text Available Investigating the relative severity of emotion recognition deficit across different clinical and high-risk populations has potential implications not only for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of these diseases, but also for our understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms of emotion perception itself. We reanalyzed data from 4 studies in which we examined facial expression and gender recognition using the same tasks and stimuli. We used a standardized and bias-corrected measure of effect size (Cohen’s D to assess the extent of impairments in frontotemporal dementia (FTD, Parkinson’s disease treated by L-DOPA (PD-ON or not (PD-OFF, amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment (aMCI, Alzheimer’s disease at mild dementia stage (AD, major depressive disorder (MDD, remitted schizophrenia (SCZ-rem, first-episode schizophrenia before (SCZ-OFF and after (SCZ-ON medication, as well as unaffected siblings of partients with schizophrenia (SIB. Analyses revealed a pattern of differential impairment of emotion (but not gender recognition, consistent with the extent of impairment of the fronto-temporal neural networks involved in the processing of faces and facial expressions. Our transnosographic approach combining clinical and high-risk populations with the impact of medication brings new information on the trajectory of impaired emotion perception in neuropsychiatric conditions, and on the neural networks and neurotransmitter systems subserving emotion perception.

Citizen-Centric Urban Planning through Extracting Emotion Information from Twitter in an Interdisciplinary Space-Time-Linguistics Algorithm

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Bernd Resch

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Traditional urban planning processes typically happen in offices and behind desks. Modern types of civic participation can enhance those processes by acquiring citizens’ ideas and feedback in participatory sensing approaches like “People as Sensors”. As such, citizen-centric planning can be achieved by analysing Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI data such as Twitter tweets and posts from other social media channels. These user-generated data comprise several information dimensions, such as spatial and temporal information, and textual content. However, in previous research, these dimensions were generally examined separately in single-disciplinary approaches, which does not allow for holistic conclusions in urban planning. This paper introduces TwEmLab, an interdisciplinary approach towards extracting citizens’ emotions in different locations within a city. More concretely, we analyse tweets in three dimensions (space, time, and linguistics, based on similarities between each pair of tweets as defined by a specific set of functional relationships in each dimension. We use a graph-based semi-supervised learning algorithm to classify the data into discrete emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger/disgust, none. Our proposed solution allows tweets to be classified into emotion classes in a multi-parametric approach. Additionally, we created a manually annotated gold standard that can be used to evaluate TwEmLab’s performance. Our experimental results show that we are able to identify tweets carrying emotions and that our approach bears extensive potential to reveal new insights into citizens’ perceptions of the city.

Behavioural and neurophysiological evidence for face identity and face emotion processing in animals

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Tate, Andrew J; Fischer, Hanno; Leigh, Andrea E; Kendrick, Keith M

2006-01-01

Visual cues from faces provide important social information relating to individual identity, sexual attraction and emotional state. Behavioural and neurophysiological studies on both monkeys and sheep have shown that specialized skills and neural systems for processing these complex cues to guide behaviour have evolved in a number of mammals and are not present exclusively in humans. Indeed, there are remarkable similarities in the ways that faces are processed by the brain in humans and other mammalian species. While human studies with brain imaging and gross neurophysiological recording approaches have revealed global aspects of the face-processing network, they cannot investigate how information is encoded by specific neural networks. Single neuron electrophysiological recording approaches in both monkeys and sheep have, however, provided some insights into the neural encoding principles involved and, particularly, the presence of a remarkable degree of high-level encoding even at the level of a specific face. Recent developments that allow simultaneous recordings to be made from many hundreds of individual neurons are also beginning to reveal evidence for global aspects of a population-based code. This review will summarize what we have learned so far from these animal-based studies about the way the mammalian brain processes the faces and the emotions they can communicate, as well as associated capacities such as how identity and emotion cues are dissociated and how face imagery might be generated. It will also try to highlight what questions and advances in knowledge still challenge us in order to provide a complete understanding of just how brain networks perform this complex and important social recognition task. PMID:17118930

Abnormal emotion processing, but intact fairness and intentionality considerations during social decision-making in schizophrenia.

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de la Asuncion, Javier; Docx, Lise; Sabbe, Bernard; Morrens, Manuel; de Bruijn, Ellen R A

2015-01-01

Schizophrenia is a severe mental disorder that is highly characterized by social cognitive impairments. Most studies investigating these impairments focus on one specific social domain such as emotion recognition. However, in daily life, processing complex social situations relies on the combination of several social cognitive and affective processes simultaneously rather than one process alone. A modified version of the economically based Ultimatum Game was used to measure the interplay between fairness, intentionality, and emotion considerations during social decision-making. In this task, participants accept or reject fair and unfair monetary offers proposed intentionally or unintentionally by either angry, happy, neutral, or sad proposers. Behavioral data was collected from a group of schizophrenia patients (N = 35) and a group of healthy individuals (N = 30). Like healthy participants, schizophrenia patients differentiated between fair and unfair offers by rejecting unfair offers more compared to fair offers. However, overall patients did reject more fair offers, indicating that their construct of fairness operates within different margins. In both groups, intentional unfair offers were rejected more compared to unintentional ones, indicating a normal integration of intentionality considerations in schizophrenia. Importantly, healthy subjects also differentiated between proposers' emotion when rejecting unfair offers (more rejections from proposers depicting angry faces compared to proposers depicting, happy, neutral, or sad faces). Schizophrenia patients' decision behavior on the other hand, was not affected by the proposers' emotions. The current study thus shows that schizophrenia patients have specific problems with processing and integrating emotional information. Importantly, the finding that patients display normal fairness and intentionality considerations emphasizes preservation of central social cognitive processes in schizophrenia.

Differential emotional processing in concrete and abstract words.

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Yao, Bo; Keitel, Anne; Bruce, Gillian; Scott, Graham G; O'Donnell, Patrick J; Sereno, Sara C

2018-02-12

Emotion (positive and negative) words are typically recognized faster than neutral words. Recent research suggests that emotional valence, while often treated as a unitary semantic property, may be differentially represented in concrete and abstract words. Studies that have explicitly examined the interaction of emotion and concreteness, however, have demonstrated inconsistent patterns of results. Moreover, these findings may be limited as certain key lexical variables (e.g., familiarity, age of acquisition) were not taken into account. We investigated the emotion-concreteness interaction in a large-scale, highly controlled lexical decision experiment. A 3 (Emotion: negative, neutral, positive) × 2 (Concreteness: abstract, concrete) design was used, with 45 items per condition and 127 participants. We found a significant interaction between emotion and concreteness. Although positive and negative valenced words were recognized faster than neutral words, this emotion advantage was significantly larger in concrete than in abstract words. We explored potential contributions of participant alexithymia level and item imageability to this interactive pattern. We found that only word imageability significantly modulated the emotion-concreteness interaction. While both concrete and abstract emotion words are advantageously processed relative to comparable neutral words, the mechanisms of this facilitation are paradoxically more dependent on imageability in abstract words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Dealing with emotions when the ability to cry is hampered: emotion processing and regulation in patients with primary Sjogren's syndrome

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leeuwen, N. van; Bossema, E.R.; Middendorp, H. van; Kruize, A.A.; Bootsma, H.; Bijlsma, J.W.J.; Geenen, R.

2012-01-01

OBJECTIVES: The hampered ability to cry in patients with Sjogren's syndrome may affect their ways of dealing with emotions. The aim of this study was to examine differences in emotion processing and regulation between people with and without Sjogren's syndrome and correlations of emotion processing

Better cognitive control of emotional information is associated with reduced pro-inflammatory cytokine reactivity to emotional stress.

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Shields, Grant S; Kuchenbecker, Shari Young; Pressman, Sarah D; Sumida, Ken D; Slavich, George M

2016-01-01

Stress is strongly associated with several mental and physical health problems that involve inflammation, including asthma, cardiovascular disease, certain types of cancer, and depression. It has been hypothesized that better cognitive control of emotional information may lead to reduced inflammatory reactivity to stress and thus better health, but to date no studies have examined whether differences in cognitive control predict pro-inflammatory cytokine responses to stress. To address this issue, we conducted a laboratory-based experimental study in which we randomly assigned healthy young-adult females to either an acute emotional stress (emotionally evocative video) or no-stress (control video) condition. Salivary levels of the key pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-8 were measured before and after the experimental manipulation, and following the last cytokine sample, we assessed participants' cognitive control of emotional information using an emotional Stroop task. We also assessed participants' cortisol levels before and after the manipulation to verify that documented effects were specific to cytokines and not simply due to increased nonwater salivary output. As hypothesized, the emotional stressor triggered significant increases in IL-1β, IL-6, and IL-8. Moreover, even in fully adjusted models, better cognitive control following the emotional (but not control) video predicted less pronounced cytokine responses to that stressor. In contrast, no effects were observed for cortisol. These data thus indicate that better cognitive control specifically following an emotional stressor is uniquely associated with less pronounced pro-inflammatory cytokine reactivity to such stress. These findings may therefore help explain why superior cognitive control portends better health over the lifespan.

The persuasive power of emotions: Effects of emotional expressions on attitude formation and change.

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Van Kleef, Gerben A; van den Berg, Helma; Heerdink, Marc W

2015-07-01

Despite a long-standing interest in the intrapersonal role of affect in persuasion, the interpersonal effects of emotions on persuasion remain poorly understood-how do one person's emotional expressions shape others' attitudes? Drawing on emotions as social information (EASI) theory (Van Kleef, 2009), we hypothesized that people use the emotional expressions of others to inform their own attitudes, but only when they are sufficiently motivated and able to process those expressions. Five experiments support these ideas. Participants reported more positive attitudes about various topics after seeing a source's sad (rather than happy) expressions when topics were negatively framed (e.g., abandoning bobsleighing from the Olympics). Conversely, participants reported more positive attitudes after seeing happy (rather than sad) expressions when topics were positively framed (e.g., introducing kite surfing at the Olympics). This suggests that participants used the source's emotional expressions as information when forming their own attitudes. Supporting this interpretation, effects were mitigated when participants' information processing was undermined by cognitive load or was chronically low. Moreover, a source's anger expressions engendered negative attitude change when directed at the attitude object and positive change when directed at the recipient's attitude. Effects occurred regardless of whether emotional expressions were manipulated through written words, pictures of facial expressions, film clips containing both facial and vocal emotional expressions, or emoticons. The findings support EASI theory and indicate that emotional expressions are a powerful source of social influence. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional pedagogy and the gendering of social and emotional learning

OpenAIRE

Evans, Rhiannon Emily

2017-01-01

Social and emotional learning (SEL) has predominantly been conceptualised as a neurological process, which has precluded understanding of how social, cultural and material discourses inform the expression of emotional experiences. Gender remains a notable omission. This article explores the micro-practices through which gender structures the development of young people’s emotional subjectivities within the context of a school-based SEL intervention. Particular emphasis is placed on the gender...

The auditory cortex hosts network nodes influential for emotion processing: An fMRI study on music-evoked fear and joy.

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Koelsch, Stefan; Skouras, Stavros; Lohmann, Gabriele

2018-01-01

Sound is a potent elicitor of emotions. Auditory core, belt and parabelt regions have anatomical connections to a large array of limbic and paralimbic structures which are involved in the generation of affective activity. However, little is known about the functional role of auditory cortical regions in emotion processing. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and music stimuli that evoke joy or fear, our study reveals that anterior and posterior regions of auditory association cortex have emotion-characteristic functional connectivity with limbic/paralimbic (insula, cingulate cortex, and striatum), somatosensory, visual, motor-related, and attentional structures. We found that these regions have remarkably high emotion-characteristic eigenvector centrality, revealing that they have influential positions within emotion-processing brain networks with "small-world" properties. By contrast, primary auditory fields showed surprisingly strong emotion-characteristic functional connectivity with intra-auditory regions. Our findings demonstrate that the auditory cortex hosts regions that are influential within networks underlying the affective processing of auditory information. We anticipate our results to incite research specifying the role of the auditory cortex-and sensory systems in general-in emotion processing, beyond the traditional view that sensory cortices have merely perceptual functions.

The effect of personality on daily life emotional processes.

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Komulainen, Emma; Meskanen, Katarina; Lipsanen, Jari; Lahti, Jari Marko; Jylhä, Pekka; Melartin, Tarja; Wichers, Marieke; Isometsä, Erkki; Ekelund, Jesper

2014-01-01

Personality features are associated with individual differences in daily emotional life, such as negative and positive affectivity, affect variability and affect reactivity. The existing literature is somewhat mixed and inconclusive about the nature of these associations. The aim of this study was to shed light on what personality features represent in daily life by investigating the effect of the Five Factor traits on different daily emotional processes using an ecologically valid method. The Experience Sampling Method was used to collect repeated reports of daily affect and experiences from 104 healthy university students during one week of their normal lives. Personality traits of the Five Factor model were assessed using NEO Five Factor Inventory. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the effect of the personality traits on daily emotional processes. Neuroticism predicted higher negative and lower positive affect, higher affect variability, more negative subjective evaluations of daily incidents, and higher reactivity to stressors. Conscientiousness, by contrast, predicted lower average level, variability, and reactivity of negative affect. Agreeableness was associated with higher positive and lower negative affect, lower variability of sadness, and more positive subjective evaluations of daily incidents. Extraversion predicted higher positive affect and more positive subjective evaluations of daily activities. Openness had no effect on average level of affect, but predicted higher reactivity to daily stressors. The results show that the personality features independently predict different aspects of daily emotional processes. Neuroticism was associated with all of the processes. Identifying these processes can help us to better understand individual differences in daily emotional life.

Age-Dependent Positivity-Bias in Children’s Processing of Emotion Terms

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Daniela Bahn

2017-07-01

Full Text Available Emotions play an important role in human communication, and the daily-life interactions of young children often include situations that require the verbalization of emotional states with verbal means, e.g., with emotion terms. Through them, one can express own emotional states and those of others. Thus, the acquisition of emotion terms allows children to participate more intensively in social contexts – a basic requirement for learning new words and for elaborating socio-emotional skills. However, little is known about how children acquire and process this specific word category, which is positioned between concrete and abstract words. In particular, the influence of valence on emotion word processing during childhood has not been sufficiently investigated. Previous research points to an advantage of positive words over negative and neutral words in word processing. While previous studies found valence effects to be influenced by factors such as arousal, frequency, concreteness, and task, it is still unclear if and how valence effects are also modified by age. The present study compares the performance of children aged from 5 to 12 years and adults in two experimental tasks: lexical decision (word or pseudoword and emotional categorization (positive or negative. Stimuli consisted of 48 German emotion terms (24 positive and 24 negative matched for arousal, concreteness, age of acquisition, word class, word length, morphological complexity, frequency, and neighborhood density. Results from both tasks reveal two developmental trends: First, with increasing age children responded faster and more correctly, suggesting that emotion vocabulary gradually becomes more stable and differentiated during middle childhood. Second, the influence of valence varied with age: younger children (5- and 6-year-olds showed significantly higher performance levels for positive emotion terms compared to negative emotion terms, whereas older children and adults did not

Interference among the Processing of Facial Emotion, Face Race, and Face Gender

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Li, Yongna; Tse, Chi-Shing

2016-01-01

People can process multiple dimensions of facial properties simultaneously. Facial processing models are based on the processing of facial properties. The current study examined the processing of facial emotion, face race, and face gender using categorization tasks. The same set of Chinese, White and Black faces, each posing a neutral, happy or angry expression, was used in three experiments. Facial emotion interacted with face race in all the tasks. The interaction of face race and face gender was found in the race and gender categorization tasks, whereas the interaction of facial emotion and face gender was significant in the emotion and gender categorization tasks. These results provided evidence for a symmetric interaction between variant facial properties (emotion) and invariant facial properties (race and gender). PMID:27840621

Interference among the Processing of Facial Emotion, Face Race, and Face Gender.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yongna; Tse, Chi-Shing

2016-01-01

People can process multiple dimensions of facial properties simultaneously. Facial processing models are based on the processing of facial properties. The current study examined the processing of facial emotion, face race, and face gender using categorization tasks. The same set of Chinese, White and Black faces, each posing a neutral, happy or angry expression, was used in three experiments. Facial emotion interacted with face race in all the tasks. The interaction of face race and face gender was found in the race and gender categorization tasks, whereas the interaction of facial emotion and face gender was significant in the emotion and gender categorization tasks. These results provided evidence for a symmetric interaction between variant facial properties (emotion) and invariant facial properties (race and gender).

Attentional Capture by Emotional Stimuli Is Modulated by Semantic Processing

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Huang, Yang-Ming; Baddeley, Alan; Young, Andrew W.

2008-01-01

The attentional blink paradigm was used to examine whether emotional stimuli always capture attention. The processing requirement for emotional stimuli in a rapid sequential visual presentation stream was manipulated to investigate the circumstances under which emotional distractors capture attention, as reflected in an enhanced attentional blink…

Influence of different positive emotions on persuasion processing: a functional evolutionary approach.

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Griskevicius, Vladas; Shiota, Michelle N; Neufeld, Samantha L

2010-04-01

Much research has found that positive affect facilitates increased reliance on heuristics in cognition. However, theories proposing distinct evolutionary fitness-enhancing functions for specific positive emotions also predict important differences among the consequences of different positive emotion states. Two experiments investigated how six positive emotions influenced the processing of persuasive messages. Using different methods to induce emotions and assess processing, we showed that the positive emotions of anticipatory enthusiasm, amusement, and attachment love tended to facilitate greater acceptance of weak persuasive messages (consistent with previous research), whereas the positive emotions of awe and nurturant love reduced persuasion by weak messages. In addition, a series of mediation analyses suggested that the effects distinguishing different positive emotions from a neutral control condition were best accounted for by different mediators rather than by one common mediator. These findings build upon approaches that link affective valence to certain types of processing, documenting emotion-specific effects on cognition that are consistent with functional evolutionary accounts of discrete positive emotions. Copyright 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Neuroelectric Correlates of Pragmatic Emotional Incongruence Processing: Empathy Matters.

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Dorian Dozolme

Full Text Available The emotions people feel can be simulated internally based on emotional situational contexts. In the present study, we assessed the behavioral and neuroelectric effects of seeing an unexpected emotional facial expression. We investigated the correct answer rate, response times and Event-Related Potential (ERP effects during an incongruence paradigm between emotional faces and sentential contexts allowing emotional inferences. Most of the 36 healthy participants were recruited from a larger population (1 463 subjects, based on their scores on the Empathy Questionnaire (EQ. Regression analyses were conducted on these ratings using EQ factors as predictors (cognitive empathy, emotional reactivity and social skills. Recognition of pragmatic emotional incongruence was less accurate (P < .05 and slower (P < .05 than recognition of congruence. The incongruence effect on response times was inversely predicted by social skills. A significant N400 incongruence effect was found at the centro-parietal (P < .001 and centro-posterior midline (P < .01 electrodes. Cognitive empathy predicted the incongruence effect in the left occipital region, in the N400 time window. Finally, incongruence effects were also found on the LPP wave, in frontal midline and dorso-frontal regions, (P < .05, with no modulation by empathy. Processing pragmatic emotional incongruence is more cognitively demanding than congruence (as reflected by both behavioral and ERP data. This processing shows modulation by personality factors at the behavioral (through self-reported social skills and neuroelectric levels (through self-reported cognitive empathy.

Risky family processes prospectively forecast shorter telomere length mediated through negative emotions.

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Brody, Gene H; Yu, Tianyi; Shalev, Idan

2017-05-01

This study was designed to examine prospective associations of risky family environments with subsequent levels of negative emotions and peripheral blood mononuclear cell telomere length (TL), a marker of cellular aging. A second purpose was to determine whether negative emotions mediate the hypothesized link between risky family processes and diminished telomere length. Participants were 293 adolescents (age 17 years at the first assessment) and their primary caregivers. Caregivers provided data on risky family processes when the youths were age 17 years, youths reported their negative emotions at age 18 years, and youths' TL was assayed from a blood sample at age 22 years. The results revealed that (a) risky family processes forecast heightened negative emotions (β = .316, p emotions forecast shorter TL (β = -.187, p = .012), and (c) negative emotions served as a mediator connecting risky family processes with diminished TL (indirect effect = -0.012, 95% CI [-0.036, -0.002]). These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that risky family processes presage premature cellular aging through effects on negative emotions, with potential implications for lifelong health. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Deeper than skin deep - The effect of botulinum toxin-A on emotion processing.

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Baumeister, J-C; Papa, G; Foroni, F

2016-08-01

The effect of facial botulinum Toxin-A (BTX) injections on the processing of emotional stimuli was investigated. The hypothesis, that BTX would interfere with processing of slightly emotional stimuli and less with very emotional or neutral stimuli, was largely confirmed. BTX-users rated slightly emotional sentences and facial expressions, but not very emotional or neutral ones, as less emotional after the treatment. Furthermore, they became slower at categorizing slightly emotional facial expressions under time pressure. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Intonation processing deficits of emotional words among Mandarin Chinese speakers with congenital amusia: an ERP study

OpenAIRE

Lu, Xuejing; Ho, Hao Tam; Liu, Fang; Wu, Daxing; Thompson, William F.

2015-01-01

Background: Congenital amusia is a disorder that is known to affect the processing of musical pitch. Although individuals with amusia rarely show language deficits in daily life, a number of findings point to possible impairments in speech prosody that amusic individuals may compensate for by drawing on linguistic information. Using EEG, we investigated (1) whether the processing of speech prosody is impaired in amusia and (2) whether emotional linguistic information can compensate for this i...

Interaction between behavioral inhibition and emotional processing in borderline personality disorder using a pictorial emotional go/no-go paradigm.

Science.gov (United States)

Sinke, Christopher; Wollmer, M Axel; Kneer, Jonas; Kahl, Kai G; Kruger, Tillmann H C

2017-10-01

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by difficulties in emotional regulation and impulse control. In this study, we presented a novel picture-based emotional go/no-go task with distracting emotional faces in the background, which was administered to 16 patients with BPD and 16 age-matched healthy controls. The faces displayed different emotional content (angry, neutral, or happy). Results showed differences in sensitivity between patients and the control group, with patients exhibiting less sensitivity in the task, and also showed influences of emotional content represented in the distracting faces in both groups. Specifically, happy faces decreased sensitivity compared to angry faces. It seemed as though processing of a positive emotional stimulus led to a more relaxed state and thereby to decreased sensitivity, while a negative emotional stimulus induced more alertness and tension, leading to higher sensitivity. Thus, this paradigm is suitable to investigate the interplay between emotion processing and impulse control in patients with BPD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Journaling about stressful events: effects of cognitive processing and emotional expression.

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Ullrich, Philip M; Lutgendorf, Susan K

2002-01-01

The effects of two journaling interventions, one focusing on emotional expression and the other on both cognitive processing and emotional expression, were compared during 1 month of journaling about a stressful or traumatic event. One hundred twenty-two students were randomly assigned to one of three writing conditions: (a) focusing on emotions related to a trauma or stressor, (b) focusing on cognitions and emotions related to a trauma or stressor, or (c) writing factually about media events. Writers focusing on cognitions and emotions developed greater awareness of the positive benefits of the stressful event than the other two groups. This effect was apparently mediated by greater cognitive processing during writing. Writers focusing on emotions alone reported more severe illness symptoms during the study than those in other conditions. This effect appeared to be mediated by a greater focus on negative emotional expression during writing.

Differences in emotion processing in patients with essential and secondary hypertension.

Science.gov (United States)

Consoli, Silla M; Lemogne, Cédric; Roch, Bernard; Laurent, Stéphane; Plouin, Pierre-François; Lane, Richard D

2010-05-01

An impaired ability to experience and express emotions, known as alexithymia, has previously been associated with hypertension. Alexithymia and related emotion-processing variables, however, have never been examined as a function of the type of hypertension, essential (EH) or secondary (SH). Our working hypothesis was that if dysregulated emotional processes play a key neurobiological role in EH, they would be less present in hypertension due to specific medical causes or SH. A total of 98 consecutive hypertensive patients (73 EH, 25 SH) with similar blood pressure levels completed two complementary measures of emotion processing: the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS). After controlling for confounding variables, LEAS score was lower in EH than SH (estimated means: 46.4 vs. 52.0; P = 0.028; effect size 0.52). TAS-20 scores did not differentiate EH from SH, but the differences were in the expected direction, with an effect size of 0.34 for TAS-20 total score. Neither psychometric measure was associated with the duration of hypertension or the presence of cardiovascular (CV) complications. These results are consistent with a contribution of an emotional or psychosomatic component in EH and may have practical implications for the nonpharmacological management of hypertension. They also demonstrate the utility of complementary measures of emotion processing in medically ill patients.

Processing Distracting Non-face Emotional Images: No Evidence of an Age-Related Positivity Effect.

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Madill, Mark; Murray, Janice E

2017-01-01

Cognitive aging may be accompanied by increased prioritization of social and emotional goals that enhance positive experiences and emotional states. The socioemotional selectivity theory suggests this may be achieved by giving preference to positive information and avoiding or suppressing negative information. Although there is some evidence of a positivity bias in controlled attention tasks, it remains unclear whether a positivity bias extends to the processing of affective stimuli presented outside focused attention. In two experiments, we investigated age-related differences in the effects of to-be-ignored non-face affective images on target processing. In Experiment 1, 27 older (64-90 years) and 25 young adults (19-29 years) made speeded valence judgments about centrally presented positive or negative target images taken from the International Affective Picture System. To-be-ignored distractor images were presented above and below the target image and were either positive, negative, or neutral in valence. The distractors were considered task relevant because they shared emotional characteristics with the target stimuli. Both older and young adults responded slower to targets when distractor valence was incongruent with target valence relative to when distractors were neutral. Older adults responded faster to positive than to negative targets but did not show increased interference effects from positive distractors. In Experiment 2, affective distractors were task irrelevant as the target was a three-digit array and did not share emotional characteristics with the distractors. Twenty-six older (63-84 years) and 30 young adults (18-30 years) gave speeded responses on a digit disparity task while ignoring the affective distractors positioned in the periphery. Task performance in either age group was not influenced by the task-irrelevant affective images. In keeping with the socioemotional selectivity theory, these findings suggest that older adults preferentially

Approach and withdrawal tendencies during written word processing: effects of task, emotional valence and emotional arousal

OpenAIRE

Citron, Francesca Maria Marina; Abugaber, David; Herbert, Cornelia

2016-01-01

The affective dimensions of emotional valence and emotional arousal affect processing of verbal and pictorial stimuli. Traditional emotional theories assume a linear relationship between these dimensions, with valence determining the direction of a behaviour (approach vs. withdrawal) and arousal its intensity or strength. In contrast, according to the valence-arousal conflict theory, both dimensions are interactively related: positive valence and low arousal (PL) are associated with an implic...

Long-term effects of child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in adulthood.

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Young, Joanna Cahall; Widom, Cathy Spatz

2014-08-01

To determine whether child maltreatment has a long-term impact on emotion processing abilities in adulthood and whether IQ, psychopathology, or psychopathy mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotion processing in adulthood. Using a prospective cohort design, children (ages 0-11) with documented cases of abuse and neglect during 1967-1971 were matched with non-maltreated children and followed up into adulthood. Potential mediators (IQ, Post-Traumatic Stress [PTSD], Generalized Anxiety [GAD], Dysthymia, and Major Depressive [MDD] Disorders, and psychopathy) were assessed in young adulthood with standardized assessment techniques. In middle adulthood (Mage=47), the International Affective Picture System was used to measure emotion processing. Structural equation modeling was used to test mediation models. Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment were less accurate in emotion processing overall and in processing positive and neutral pictures than matched controls. Childhood physical abuse predicted less accuracy in neutral pictures and childhood sexual abuse and neglect predicted less accuracy in recognizing positive pictures. MDD, GAD, and IQ predicted overall picture recognition accuracy. However, of the mediators examined, only IQ acted to mediate the relationship between child maltreatment and emotion processing deficits. Although research has focused on emotion processing in maltreated children, these new findings show an impact child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in middle adulthood. Research and interventions aimed at improving emotional processing deficiencies in abused and neglected children should consider the role of IQ. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Recognition memory for low- and high-frequency-filtered emotional faces: Low spatial frequencies drive emotional memory enhancement, whereas high spatial frequencies drive the emotion-induced recognition bias.

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Rohr, Michaela; Tröger, Johannes; Michely, Nils; Uhde, Alarith; Wentura, Dirk

2017-07-01

This article deals with two well-documented phenomena regarding emotional stimuli: emotional memory enhancement-that is, better long-term memory for emotional than for neutral stimuli-and the emotion-induced recognition bias-that is, a more liberal response criterion for emotional than for neutral stimuli. Studies on visual emotion perception and attention suggest that emotion-related processes can be modulated by means of spatial-frequency filtering of the presented emotional stimuli. Specifically, low spatial frequencies are assumed to play a primary role for the influence of emotion on attention and judgment. Given this theoretical background, we investigated whether spatial-frequency filtering also impacts (1) the memory advantage for emotional faces and (2) the emotion-induced recognition bias, in a series of old/new recognition experiments. Participants completed incidental-learning tasks with high- (HSF) and low- (LSF) spatial-frequency-filtered emotional and neutral faces. The results of the surprise recognition tests showed a clear memory advantage for emotional stimuli. Most importantly, the emotional memory enhancement was significantly larger for face images containing only low-frequency information (LSF faces) than for HSF faces across all experiments, suggesting that LSF information plays a critical role in this effect, whereas the emotion-induced recognition bias was found only for HSF stimuli. We discuss our findings in terms of both the traditional account of different processing pathways for HSF and LSF information and a stimulus features account. The double dissociation in the results favors the latter account-that is, an explanation in terms of differences in the characteristics of HSF and LSF stimuli.

The Preponderance of Negative Emotion Words in the Emotion Lexicon: A Cross-Generational and Cross-Linguistic Study

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Schrauf, Robert W.; Sanchez, Julia

2004-01-01

The "working emotion vocabulary" typically shows a preponderance of words for negative emotions (50%) over positive (30%) and neutral (20%) emotions. The theory of affect-as-information suggests that negative emotions signal problems or threat in the environment and are accompanied by detailed and systematic cognitive processing, while…

Processing emotion from abstract art in frontotemporal lobar degeneration

OpenAIRE

Cohen, Miriam H.; Carton, Amelia M.; Hardy, Christopher J.; Golden, Hannah L.; Clark, Camilla N.; Fletcher, Phillip D.; Jaisin, Kankamol; Marshall, Charles R.; Henley, Susie M.D.; Rohrer, Jonathan D.; Crutch, Sebastian J.; Warren, Jason D.

2016-01-01

Abstract art may signal emotions independently of a biological or social carrier: it might therefore constitute a test case for defining brain mechanisms of generic emotion decoding and the impact of disease states on those mechanisms. This is potentially of particular relevance to diseases in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) spectrum. These diseases are often led by emotional impairment despite retained or enhanced artistic interest in at least some patients. However, the process...

Judging emotional congruency: Explicit attention to situational context modulates processing of facial expressions of emotion.

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Diéguez-Risco, Teresa; Aguado, Luis; Albert, Jacobo; Hinojosa, José Antonio

2015-12-01

The influence of explicit evaluative processes on the contextual integration of facial expressions of emotion was studied in a procedure that required the participants to judge the congruency of happy and angry faces with preceding sentences describing emotion-inducing situations. Judgments were faster on congruent trials in the case of happy faces and on incongruent trials in the case of angry faces. At the electrophysiological level, a congruency effect was observed in the face-sensitive N170 component that showed larger amplitudes on incongruent trials. An interactive effect of congruency and emotion appeared on the LPP (late positive potential), with larger amplitudes in response to happy faces that followed anger-inducing situations. These results show that the deliberate intention to judge the contextual congruency of facial expressions influences not only processes involved in affective evaluation such as those indexed by the LPP but also earlier processing stages that are involved in face perception. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Consciousness and arousal effects on emotional face processing as revealed by brain oscillations. A gamma band analysis.

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Balconi, Michela; Lucchiari, Claudio

2008-01-01

It remains an open question whether it is possible to assign a single brain operation or psychological function for facial emotion decoding to a certain type of oscillatory activity. Gamma band activity (GBA) offers an adequate tool for studying cortical activation patterns during emotional face information processing. In the present study brain oscillations were analyzed in response to facial expression of emotions. Specifically, GBA modulation was measured when twenty subjects looked at emotional (angry, fearful, happy, and sad faces) or neutral faces in two different conditions: supraliminal (10 ms) vs subliminal (150 ms) stimulation (100 target-mask pairs for each condition). The results showed that both consciousness and significance of the stimulus in terms of arousal can modulate the power synchronization (ERD decrease) during 150-350 time range: an early oscillatory event showed its peak at about 200 ms post-stimulus. GBA was enhanced by supraliminal more than subliminal elaboration, as well as more by high arousal (anger and fear) than low arousal (happiness and sadness) emotions. Finally a left-posterior dominance for conscious elaboration was found, whereas right hemisphere was discriminant in emotional processing of face in comparison with neutral face.

Emotional Decision-Makers and Anomalous Attitudes towards Information

OpenAIRE

Francesca Barigozzi; Rosella Levaggi

2008-01-01

We use a simple version of the Psychological Expected Utility Model (Caplin and Leahy, QJE, 2001) to analyze the optimal choice of information accuracy by an individual who is concerned with anticipatory feeling. The individual faces the following trade-off: on the one hand information may lead to emotional costs, on the other the higher the information accuracy, the higher the efficiency of decision-making. We completely and explicitly characterize how anticipatory utility depends on informa...

Anticipatory Emotions in Decision Tasks: Covert Markers of Value or Attentional Processes?

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Davis, Tyler; Love, Bradley C.; Maddox, W. Todd

2009-01-01

Anticipatory emotions precede behavioral outcomes and provide a means to infer interactions between emotional and cognitive processes. A number of theories hold that anticipatory emotions serve as inputs to the decision process and code the value or risk associated with a stimulus. We argue that current data do not unequivocally support this…

Expressing emotions in blogs

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Rodriguez-Hidalgo, Carmina Rodriguez-Hidalgo; Tan, Ed S.; Verlegh, Peeter

2017-01-01

Textual paralanguage cues (TPC) have been signaled as effective emotion transmitters online. Though several studies have investigated their properties and occurrence, there remains a gap concerning their communicative impact within specific psychological processes, such as the social sharing...... of emotion (SSE, Rimé, 2009). This study content-analyzed Live Journal blogposts for the occurrence of TPC in three phases of online SSE: initiation, feedback and repost. We compared these to TPC on a second type of emotional expression, emotional venting. Based on Social Information processing theory (SIP......, Walther, 1992), and on the Emotional Mimicry in Context (EMC, Hess & Fischer, 2013) framework, we study predictive relationships in TPC usage in our phased model of online SSE. Results showed that TPC prevailed in SSE blogposts and strongly dominated in emotional venting posts. TPC was more common...

The emotional impact of being myself: Emotions and foreign-language processing.

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Ivaz, Lela; Costa, Albert; Duñabeitia, Jon Andoni

2016-03-01

Native languages are acquired in emotionally rich contexts, whereas foreign languages are typically acquired in emotionally neutral academic environments. As a consequence of this difference, it has been suggested that bilinguals' emotional reactivity in foreign-language contexts is reduced as compared with native language contexts. In the current study, we investigated whether this emotional distance associated with foreign languages could modulate automatic responses to self-related linguistic stimuli. Self-related stimuli enhance performance by boosting memory, speed, and accuracy as compared with stimuli unrelated to the self (the so-called self-bias effect). We explored whether this effect depends on the language context by comparing self-biases in a native and a foreign language. Two experiments were conducted with native Spanish speakers with a high level of English proficiency in which they were asked to complete a perceptual matching task during which they associated simple geometric shapes (circles, squares, and triangles) with the labels "you," "friend," and "other" either in their native or foreign language. Results showed a robust asymmetry in the self-bias in the native- and foreign-language contexts: A larger self-bias was found in the native than in the foreign language. An additional control experiment demonstrated that the same materials administered to a group of native English speakers yielded robust self-bias effects that were comparable in magnitude to the ones obtained with the Spanish speakers when tested in their native language (but not in their foreign language). We suggest that the emotional distance evoked by the foreign-language contexts caused these differential effects across language contexts. These results demonstrate that the foreign-language effects are pervasive enough to affect automatic stages of emotional processing. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Neural pathways in 'emotional approach' as experiential emotion regulation strategy.

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Vandekerckhove, M; Van Hecke, W; Quirin, M; De Mey, J

2018-02-15

Current research on emotion shows an increasing interest in the neuronal correlates of emotion regulation (ER). While previous research on ER has focused on gray matter correlates, this study represents the first exploratory study on white matter integrity and brain networks of ER. Responding to the gap between cognitive and affective approaches of ER, pertaining to some of the daily emotional stressors, the present study investigates a complementary experiential approach such as 'Emotional approach' or the tendency to affectively acknowledge, understand and express emotional experience (cf. Stanton et al., 2000). Diffusion tensor magnetic resonance imaging (DTI-MRI) measures of fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) evaluated dispositional ER in a group of 21 women with (1) a 'high emotional approach' (HEA) (N = 11) and (2) a 'low emotional approach' (LEA) (N= 10). HEA exhibited more FA of the cingulum supporting emotion processing and regulation, whereas LEA showed a higher FA in the right corticospinal tracts supporting automatic action tendencies and, together with a higher FA in the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), cognitive control tasks and monitoring of emotion. LEA also correlated with a significant increase in MD in the body (p. = 0.05) and in the splenium of the corpus callosum (CC). A higher FA in the inferior longitudinal fasciculus (IFL) may indicate higher visual- affective integration within emotion processing, whereas more MD in the body and splenium of the CC may decrease the interhemispheric integration of emotional information within emotion processing and regulation. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Role of emotion in public information on environmental risk and pre-environmental behaviour

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Meijnders, A.L.; Midden, C.J.H.; Wilke, H.A.M.

1996-01-01

What role does emotion play in the provision of public information about· the risks of environmental pollution? This is a question that is asked in the research project on the 'Role of emotion in public information on environmental risks and pro-environmental behaviour'. This article describes the

Social anhedonia is associated with neural abnormalities during face emotion processing.

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Germine, Laura T; Garrido, Lucia; Bruce, Lori; Hooker, Christine

2011-10-01

Human beings are social organisms with an intrinsic desire to seek and participate in social interactions. Social anhedonia is a personality trait characterized by a reduced desire for social affiliation and reduced pleasure derived from interpersonal interactions. Abnormally high levels of social anhedonia prospectively predict the development of schizophrenia and contribute to poorer outcomes for schizophrenia patients. Despite the strong association between social anhedonia and schizophrenia, the neural mechanisms that underlie individual differences in social anhedonia have not been studied and are thus poorly understood. Deficits in face emotion recognition are related to poorer social outcomes in schizophrenia, and it has been suggested that face emotion recognition deficits may be a behavioral marker for schizophrenia liability. In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to see whether there are differences in the brain networks underlying basic face emotion processing in a community sample of individuals low vs. high in social anhedonia. We isolated the neural mechanisms related to face emotion processing by comparing face emotion discrimination with four other baseline conditions (identity discrimination of emotional faces, identity discrimination of neutral faces, object discrimination, and pattern discrimination). Results showed a group (high/low social anhedonia) × condition (emotion discrimination/control condition) interaction in the anterior portion of the rostral medial prefrontal cortex, right superior temporal gyrus, and left somatosensory cortex. As predicted, high (relative to low) social anhedonia participants showed less neural activity in face emotion processing regions during emotion discrimination as compared to each control condition. The findings suggest that social anhedonia is associated with abnormalities in networks responsible for basic processes associated with social cognition, and provide a

Is Accessing of Words Affected by Affective Valence Only? A Discrete Emotion View on the Emotional Congruency Effect

OpenAIRE

Chen, Xuqian; Liu, Bo; Lin, Shouwen

2016-01-01

This paper advances the discussion on which emotion information affects word accessing. Emotion information, which is formed as a result of repeated experiences, is primary and necessary in learning and representing word meanings. Previous findings suggested that valence (i.e., positive or negative) denoted by words can be automatically activated and plays a role in many significant cognitive processes. However, there has been a lack of discussion about whether discrete emotion information (i...

The perception of emotion in body expressions.

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de Gelder, B; de Borst, A W; Watson, R

2015-01-01

During communication, we perceive and express emotional information through many different channels, including facial expressions, prosody, body motion, and posture. Although historically the human body has been perceived primarily as a tool for actions, there is now increased understanding that the body is also an important medium for emotional expression. Indeed, research on emotional body language is rapidly emerging as a new field in cognitive and affective neuroscience. This article reviews how whole-body signals are processed and understood, at the behavioral and neural levels, with specific reference to their role in emotional communication. The first part of this review outlines brain regions and spectrotemporal dynamics underlying perception of isolated neutral and affective bodies, the second part details the contextual effects on body emotion recognition, and final part discusses body processing on a subconscious level. More specifically, research has shown that body expressions as compared with neutral bodies draw upon a larger network of regions responsible for action observation and preparation, emotion processing, body processing, and integrative processes. Results from neurotypical populations and masking paradigms suggest that subconscious processing of affective bodies relies on a specific subset of these regions. Moreover, recent evidence has shown that emotional information from the face, voice, and body all interact, with body motion and posture often highlighting and intensifying the emotion expressed in the face and voice. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Emotion Decoding and Incidental Processing Fluency as Antecedents of Attitude Certainty.

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Petrocelli, John V; Whitmire, Melanie B

2017-07-01

Previous research demonstrates that attitude certainty influences the degree to which an attitude changes in response to persuasive appeals. In the current research, decoding emotions from facial expressions and incidental processing fluency, during attitude formation, are examined as antecedents of both attitude certainty and attitude change. In Experiment 1, participants who decoded anger or happiness during attitude formation expressed their greater attitude certainty, and showed more resistance to persuasion than participants who decoded sadness. By manipulating the emotion decoded, the diagnosticity of processing fluency experienced during emotion decoding, and the gaze direction of the social targets, Experiment 2 suggests that the link between emotion decoding and attitude certainty results from incidental processing fluency. Experiment 3 demonstrated that fluency in processing irrelevant stimuli influences attitude certainty, which in turn influences resistance to persuasion. Implications for appraisal-based accounts of attitude formation and attitude change are discussed.

Beyond Reason: Emotion

Science.gov (United States)

Suárez Araujo, Carmen Paz; Barahona da Fonseca, Isabel; Barahona da Fonseca, José; Simões da Fonseca, J.

2004-08-01

A theoretical approach that aims to the identification of information processing that may be responsible for emotional dimensions of subjective experience is studied as an initial step in the construction of a neural net model of affective dimensions of psychological experiences. In this paper it is suggested that a way of orientated recombination of attributes can be present not only in the perceptive processing but also in cognitive ones. We will present an analysis of the most important emotion theories, we show their neural organization and we propose the neural computation approach as an appropriate framework for generating knowledge about the neural base of emotional experience. Finally, in this study we present a scheme corresponding to framework to design a computational neural multi-system for Emotion (CONEMSE).

The Effect of Self-Referential Expectation on Emotional Face Processing.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mel McKendrick

Full Text Available The role of self-relevance has been somewhat neglected in static face processing paradigms but may be important in understanding how emotional faces impact on attention, cognition and affect. The aim of the current study was to investigate the effect of self-relevant primes on processing emotional composite faces. Sentence primes created an expectation of the emotion of the face before sad, happy, neutral or composite face photos were viewed. Eye movements were recorded and subsequent responses measured the cognitive and affective impact of the emotion expressed. Results indicated that primes did not guide attention, but impacted on judgments of valence intensity and self-esteem ratings. Negative self-relevant primes led to the most negative self-esteem ratings, although the effect of the prime was qualified by salient facial features. Self-relevant expectations about the emotion of a face and subsequent attention to a face that is congruent with these expectations strengthened the affective impact of viewing the face.

Shaping internal working models : parental love withdrawal, oxytocin, and asymmetric frontal brain activity affect socio-emotional information processing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Huffmeijer, Renske

2011-01-01

The aim of this thesis is to gain insight into the associations between experiences of parental love withdrawal, oxytocin, and asymmetric frontal brain activity (reflecting basic motivational tendencies) on the one hand, and (neural) processing of and responses to socio-emotional stimuli on the

Emotion perception and executive control interact in the salience network during emotionally charged working memory processing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Luo, Y.; Qin, S.; Fernandez, G.S.E.; Zhang, Y.; Klumpers, F.; Li, H.

2014-01-01

Processing of emotional stimuli can either hinder or facilitate ongoing working memory (WM); however, the neural basis of these effects remains largely unknown. Here we examined the neural mechanisms of these paradoxical effects by implementing a novel emotional WM task in an fMRI study. Twenty-five

The ethics of managing affective and emotional states to improve informed consent: autonomy, comprehension, and voluntariness.

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Braude, Hillel; Kimmelman, Jonathan

2012-03-01

Over the past several decades the 'affective revolution' in cognitive psychology has emphasized the critical role affect and emotion play in human decision-making. Drawing on this affective literature, various commentators have recently proposed strategies for managing therapeutic expectation that use contextual, symbolic, or emotive interventions in the consent process to convey information or enhance comprehension. In this paper, we examine whether affective consent interventions that target affect and emotion can be reconciled with widely accepted standards for autonomous action. More specifically, the ethics of affective consent interventions is assessed in terms of key elements of autonomy, comprehension and voluntariness. While there may appear to be a moral obligation to manage the affective environment to ensure valid informed consent, in circumstances where volunteers may be prone to problematic therapeutic expectancy, this moral obligation needs to be weighed against the potential risks of human instrumentalization. At this point in time we do not have enough information to be able to justify clearly the programmatic manipulation of human subjects' affective states. The lack of knowledge about affective interventions requires corresponding caution in its ethical justification. © 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Destination Memory for Emotional Information in Older Adults

NARCIS (Netherlands)

El Haj, M.; Fasotti, L.; Allain, P.

2015-01-01

Background/Study Context: Destination memory, remembering the destination of the information that one tells, shows significant age-related decline. In the present paper, the authors sought to determine whether destination memory can be improved in older adults using emotional stimuli. This aim was

Asymmetric Engagement of Amygdala and Its Gamma Connectivity in Early Emotional Face Processing

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Liu, Tai-Ying; Chen, Yong-Sheng; Hsieh, Jen-Chuen; Chen, Li-Fen

2015-01-01

The amygdala has been regarded as a key substrate for emotion processing. However, the engagement of the left and right amygdala during the early perceptual processing of different emotional faces remains unclear. We investigated the temporal profiles of oscillatory gamma activity in the amygdala and effective connectivity of the amygdala with the thalamus and cortical areas during implicit emotion-perceptual tasks using event-related magnetoencephalography (MEG). We found that within 100 ms after stimulus onset the right amygdala habituated to emotional faces rapidly (with duration around 20–30 ms), whereas activity in the left amygdala (with duration around 50–60 ms) sustained longer than that in the right. Our data suggest that the right amygdala could be linked to autonomic arousal generated by facial emotions and the left amygdala might be involved in decoding or evaluating expressive faces in the early perceptual emotion processing. The results of effective connectivity provide evidence that only negative emotional processing engages both cortical and subcortical pathways connected to the right amygdala, representing its evolutional significance (survival). These findings demonstrate the asymmetric engagement of bilateral amygdala in emotional face processing as well as the capability of MEG for assessing thalamo-cortico-limbic circuitry. PMID:25629899

Judgment of emotional information expressed by prosody and semantics in patients with unipolar depression

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah eSchlipf

2013-07-01

Full Text Available It was the aim of this study to investigate the impact of major depressive disorder (MDD on judgment of emotions expressed at the verbal (semantic content and non-verbal (prosody level and to assess whether evaluation of verbal content correlate with self-ratings of depression-related symptoms as assessed by Beck Depression Inventory (BDI. We presented positive, neutral, and negative words spoken in happy, neutral, and angry prosody to 23 MDD patients and 22 healthy controls (HC matched for age, sex, and education. Participants rated the valence of semantic content or prosody on a 9-point scale. MDD patients attributed significantly less intense ratings to positive words and happy prosody than HC. For judgment of words, this difference correlated significantly with BDI scores. No such correlation was found for prosody perception. MDD patients exhibited attenuated processing of positive information which generalized across verbal and non-verbal channels. These findings indicate that MDD is characterized by impairments of positive rather than negative emotional processing, a finding which could influence future psychotherapeutic strategies as well as provide straightforward hypotheses for neuroimaging studies investigating the neurobiological correlates of impaired emotional perception in MDD.

The Effects of Emotional Visual Context on the Encoding and Retrieval of Body Odor Information.

Science.gov (United States)

Parma, Valentina; Macedo, Stephanie; Rocha, Marta; Alho, Laura; Ferreira, Jacqueline; Soares, Sandra C

2018-04-01

Conditions during information encoding and retrieval are known to influence the sensory material stored and its recapitulation. However, little is known about such processes in olfaction. Here, we capitalized on the uniqueness of body odors (BOs) which, similar to fingerprints, allow for the identification of a specific person, by associating their presentation to a negative or a neutral emotional context. One hundred twenty-five receivers (68 F) were exposed to a male BO while watching either criminal or neutral videos (encoding phase) and were subsequently asked to recognize the target BO within either a congruent or an incongruent visual context (retrieval phase). The results showed that criminal videos were rated as more vivid, unpleasant, and arousing than neutral videos both at encoding and retrieval. Moreover, in terms of BO ratings, we found that odor intensity and arousal allow to distinguish the target from the foils when congruent criminal information is presented at encoding and retrieval. Finally, the accuracy performance was not significantly different from chance level for either condition. These findings provide insights on how olfactory memories are processed in emotional situations.

Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder exhibit altered emotional processing and attentional control during an emotional Stroop task.

Science.gov (United States)

Khanna, M M; Badura-Brack, A S; McDermott, T J; Embury, C M; Wiesman, A I; Shepherd, A; Ryan, T J; Heinrichs-Graham, E; Wilson, T W

2017-08-01

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often associated with attention allocation and emotional regulation difficulties, but the brain dynamics underlying these deficits are unknown. The emotional Stroop task (EST) is an ideal means to monitor these difficulties, because participants are asked to attend to non-emotional aspects of the stimuli. In this study, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) and the EST to monitor attention allocation and emotional regulation during the processing of emotionally charged stimuli in combat veterans with and without PTSD. A total of 31 veterans with PTSD and 20 without PTSD performed the EST during MEG. Three categories of stimuli were used, including combat-related, generally threatening and neutral words. MEG data were imaged in the time-frequency domain and the network dynamics were probed for differences in processing threatening and non-threatening words. Behaviorally, veterans with PTSD were significantly slower in responding to combat-related relative to neutral and generally threatening words. Veterans without PTSD exhibited no significant differences in responding to the three different word types. Neurophysiologically, we found a significant three-way interaction between group, word type and time period across multiple brain regions. Follow-up testing indicated stronger theta-frequency (4-8 Hz) responses in the right ventral prefrontal (0.4-0.8 s) and superior temporal cortices (0.6-0.8 s) of veterans without PTSD compared with those with PTSD during the processing of combat-related words. Our data indicated that veterans with PTSD exhibited deficits in attention allocation and emotional regulation when processing trauma cues, while those without PTSD were able to regulate emotion by directing attention away from threat.

Nonlinear Dynamics of Emotion-Cognition Interaction: When Emotion Does not Destroy Cognition?

OpenAIRE

Afraimovich, Valentin; Young, Todd; Muezzinoglu, Mehmet K.; Rabinovich, Mikhail I.

2010-01-01

Emotion (i.e., spontaneous motivation and subsequent implementation of a behavior) and cognition (i.e., problem solving by information processing) are essential to how we, as humans, respond to changes in our environment. Recent studies in cognitive science suggest that emotion and cognition are subserved by different, although heavily integrated, neural systems. Understanding the time-varying relationship of emotion and cognition is a challenging goal with important implications for neurosci...

Can Maltreated Children Inhibit True and False Memories for Emotional Information?

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Howe, Mark L.; Toth, Sheree L.; Cicchetti, Dante

2011-01-01

The authors examined 284 maltreated and nonmaltreated children's (6- to 12-year-olds) ability to inhibit true and false memories for neutral and emotional information using the Deese/Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Children studied either emotional or neutral DRM lists in a control condition or were given directed-remembering or…

Age-related differences in event-related potentials for early visual processing of emotional faces.

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Hilimire, Matthew R; Mienaltowski, Andrew; Blanchard-Fields, Fredda; Corballis, Paul M

2014-07-01

With advancing age, processing resources are shifted away from negative emotional stimuli and toward positive ones. Here, we explored this 'positivity effect' using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants identified the presence or absence of a visual probe that appeared over photographs of emotional faces. The ERPs elicited by the onsets of angry, sad, happy and neutral faces were recorded. We examined the frontocentral emotional positivity (FcEP), which is defined as a positive deflection in the waveforms elicited by emotional expressions relative to neutral faces early on in the time course of the ERP. The FcEP is thought to reflect enhanced early processing of emotional expressions. The results show that within the first 130 ms young adults show an FcEP to negative emotional expressions, whereas older adults show an FcEP to positive emotional expressions. These findings provide additional evidence that the age-related positivity effect in emotion processing can be traced to automatic processes that are evident very early in the processing of emotional facial expressions. © The Author (2013). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Emotional noun processing: an ERP study with rapid serial visual presentation.

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Yi, Shengnan; He, Weiqi; Zhan, Lei; Qi, Zhengyang; Zhu, Chuanlin; Luo, Wenbo; Li, Hong

2015-01-01

Reading is an important part of our daily life, and rapid responses to emotional words have received a great deal of research interest. Our study employed rapid serial visual presentation to detect the time course of emotional noun processing using event-related potentials. We performed a dual-task experiment, where subjects were required to judge whether a given number was odd or even, and the category into which each emotional noun fit. In terms of P1, we found that there was no negativity bias for emotional nouns. However, emotional nouns elicited larger amplitudes in the N170 component in the left hemisphere than did neutral nouns. This finding indicated that in later processing stages, emotional words can be discriminated from neutral words. Furthermore, positive, negative, and neutral words were different from each other in the late positive complex, indicating that in the third stage, even different emotions can be discerned. Thus, our results indicate that in a three-stage model the latter two stages are more stable and universal.

Emotional noun processing: an ERP study with rapid serial visual presentation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shengnan Yi

Full Text Available Reading is an important part of our daily life, and rapid responses to emotional words have received a great deal of research interest. Our study employed rapid serial visual presentation to detect the time course of emotional noun processing using event-related potentials. We performed a dual-task experiment, where subjects were required to judge whether a given number was odd or even, and the category into which each emotional noun fit. In terms of P1, we found that there was no negativity bias for emotional nouns. However, emotional nouns elicited larger amplitudes in the N170 component in the left hemisphere than did neutral nouns. This finding indicated that in later processing stages, emotional words can be discriminated from neutral words. Furthermore, positive, negative, and neutral words were different from each other in the late positive complex, indicating that in the third stage, even different emotions can be discerned. Thus, our results indicate that in a three-stage model the latter two stages are more stable and universal.

The sound of the crowd: auditory information modulates the perceived emotion of a crowd based on bodily expressions.

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McHugh, Joanna E; Kearney, Gavin; Rice, Henry; Newell, Fiona N

2012-02-01

Although both auditory and visual information can influence the perceived emotion of an individual, how these modalities contribute to the perceived emotion of a crowd of characters was hitherto unknown. Here, we manipulated the ambiguity of the emotion of either a visual or auditory crowd of characters by varying the proportions of characters expressing one of two emotional states. Using an intersensory bias paradigm, unambiguous emotional information from an unattended modality was presented while participants determined the emotion of a crowd in an attended, but different, modality. We found that emotional information in an unattended modality can disambiguate the perceived emotion of a crowd. Moreover, the size of the crowd had little effect on these crossmodal influences. The role of audiovisual information appears to be similar in perceiving emotion from individuals or crowds. Our findings provide novel insights into the role of multisensory influences on the perception of social information from crowds of individuals. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved

Neural correlates of emotional intelligence in a visual emotional oddball task: an ERP study.

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Raz, Sivan; Dan, Orrie; Zysberg, Leehu

2014-11-01

The present study was aimed at identifying potential behavioral and neural correlates of Emotional Intelligence (EI) by using scalp-recorded Event-Related Potentials (ERPs). EI levels were defined according to both self-report questionnaire and a performance-based ability test. We identified ERP correlates of emotional processing by using a visual-emotional oddball paradigm, in which subjects were confronted with one frequent standard stimulus (a neutral face) and two deviant stimuli (a happy and an angry face). The effects of these faces were then compared across groups with low and high EI levels. The ERP results indicate that participants with high EI exhibited significantly greater mean amplitudes of the P1, P2, N2, and P3 ERP components in response to emotional and neutral faces, at frontal, posterior-parietal and occipital scalp locations. P1, P2 and N2 are considered indexes of attention-related processes and have been associated with early attention to emotional stimuli. The later P3 component has been thought to reflect more elaborative, top-down, emotional information processing including emotional evaluation and memory encoding and formation. These results may suggest greater recruitment of resources to process all emotional and non-emotional faces at early and late processing stages among individuals with higher EI. The present study underscores the usefulness of ERP methodology as a sensitive measure for the study of emotional stimuli processing in the research field of EI. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Emotional pictures and sounds: A review of multimodal interactions of emotion cues in multiple domains

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Antje B M Gerdes

2014-12-01

Full Text Available In everyday life, multiple sensory channels jointly trigger emotional experiences and one channel may alter processing in another channel. For example, seeing an emotional facial expression and hearing the voice’s emotional tone will jointly create the emotional experience. This example, where auditory and visual input is related to social communication, has gained considerable attention by researchers. However, interactions of visual and auditory emotional information are not limited to social communication but can extend to much broader contexts including human, animal, and environmental cues. In this article, we review current research on audiovisual emotion processing beyond face-voice stimuli to develop a broader perspective on multimodal interactions in emotion processing. We argue that current concepts of multimodality should be extended in considering an ecologically valid variety of stimuli in audiovisual emotion processing. Therefore, we provide an overview of studies in which emotional sounds and interactions with complex pictures of scenes were investigated. In addition to behavioral studies, we focus on neuroimaging, electro- and peripher-physiological findings. Furthermore, we integrate these findings and identify similarities or differences. We conclude with suggestions for future research.

Emotions in Risk Assessment and Decision Making Processes During Craft Practice

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Camilla Groth

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Traditionally subjective experiences and emotions have been overlooked in the practice of scientific research. In the field of design and craft research too, feelings and emotions have been considered as interfering with the rigour of research. However, as a result of findings in neuroscience, a new understanding has emerged, providing emotions a central role in risk assessment and decision making processes. This has implications also for how we understand craft practice. In this practice-led research, a craft practitioner analysed five video-recordings of herself while throwing clay blindfolded. The researcher-practitioner specifically studied critical incidents in the throwing process and made a detailed analysis of how sensory experiences and emotions guided her in risk assessment, decision making, and problem solving during the clay-throwing sessions. She found that her tactile experience gave her important clues on the condition of the material and its consequent possibilities at different stages. These experiences in turn affected her emotions in either positive or negative ways, affecting her risk assessment, decision making, and problem solving activities. This research has shown that sensory experiences and emotions influence the craft making process and are thus important elements in the expertise of the craftsperson. The role of such emotions remains to be studied further in the expertise of researchers in general.

Patient information and emotional needs across the hip osteoarthritis continuum: a qualitative study.

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Brembo, Espen Andreas; Kapstad, Heidi; Eide, Tom; Månsson, Lukas; Van Dulmen, Sandra; Eide, Hilde

2016-03-12

Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis worldwide, affecting a growing number of people in the ageing populations. Currently, it affects about 50 % of all people over 65 years of age. There are no disease-modifying treatments for OA; hence preference-sensitive treatment options include symptom reduction, self-management and surgical joint replacement for suitable individuals. People have both ethical and legal rights to be informed about treatment choices and to actively participate in decision-making. Individuals have different needs; they differ in their ability to understand and make use of the provided information and to sustain behaviour change-dependent treatments over time. As a part of a larger research project that aims to develop and test a web-based support tool for patients with hip OA, this paper is a qualitative in-depth study to investigate patients' need for information and their personal emotional needs. We invited 13 patients to participate in individual interviews, which were audiotaped. The audio-tapes were transcribed verbatim and analysed using an inductive thematic analysis approach. The thematic analysis revealed a pattern of patients' information and emotional needs, captured in several key questions relevant to the different stages of the disease experience. Based on these results and research literature, we developed a model illustrating the patients' disease experience and treatment continuum. Six phases with accompanying key questions were identified, displaying how patients information and emotional needs arise and change in line with the progression of the disease experience, the clinical encounters and the decision-making process. We also identified and included in the model an alternative route that bypasses the surgical treatment option. Patients with hip OA are in great need of information both at the time of diagnosis and further throughout the disease development and care continuum. Lack of information may

Role of the lateral habenula in memory through online processing of information.

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Mathis, Victor; Lecourtier, Lucas

2017-11-01

Our memory abilities, whether they involve short-term working memory or long-term episodic or procedural memories, are essential for our well-being, our capacity to adapt to constraints of our environment and survival. Therefore, several key brain regions and neurotransmitter systems are engaged in the processing of sensory information to either maintain such information in working memory so that it will quickly be used, and/or participate in the elaboration and storage of enduring traces useful for longer periods of time. Animal research has recently attracted attention on the lateral habenula which, as shown in rodents and non-human primates, seems to process information stemming in the main regions involved in memory processing, e.g., the medial prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the amygdala, the septal region, the basal ganglia, and participates in the control of key memory-related neurotransmitters systems, i.e., dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine. Recently, the lateral habenula has been involved in working and spatial reference memories, in rodents, likely by participating in online processing of contextual information. In addition, several behavioral studies strongly suggest that it is also involved in the processing of the emotional valance of incoming information in order to adapt to particularly stressful situations. Therefore, the lateral habenula appears like a key region at the interface between cognition and emotion to participate in the selection of appropriate behaviors. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The role of emotion and attention in semantic processing: Evidence from N400

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chwilla, D.J.; Tromp, J.

2013-01-01

Does emotional state affect language processing? Little yet is known about the interface between language and emotion. With regard to semantic processing we have shown that emotional state modulates the standard N400 effect. In particular, the N400 cloze probability effect was strongly reduced in a

Testing the effects of expression, intensity and age on emotional face processing in ASD.

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Luyster, Rhiannon J; Bick, Johanna; Westerlund, Alissa; Nelson, Charles A

2017-06-21

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly show global deficits in the processing of facial emotion, including impairments in emotion recognition and slowed processing of emotional faces. Growing evidence has suggested that these challenges may increase with age, perhaps due to minimal improvement with age in individuals with ASD. In the present study, we explored the role of age, emotion type and emotion intensity in face processing for individuals with and without ASD. Twelve- and 18-22- year-old children with and without ASD participated. No significant diagnostic group differences were observed on behavioral measures of emotion processing for younger versus older individuals with and without ASD. However, there were significant group differences in neural responses to emotional faces. Relative to TD, at 12 years of age and during adulthood, individuals with ASD showed slower N170 to emotional faces. While the TD groups' P1 latency was significantly shorter in adults when compared to 12 year olds, there was no significant age-related difference in P1 latency among individuals with ASD. Findings point to potential differences in the maturation of cortical networks that support visual processing (whether of faces or stimuli more broadly), among individuals with and without ASD between late childhood and adulthood. Finally, associations between ERP amplitudes and behavioral responses on emotion processing tasks suggest possible neural markers for emotional and behavioral deficits among individuals with ASD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Process research on Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples: linking theory to practice.

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Greenman, Paul S; Johnson, Susan M

2013-03-01

The focus of this article is on the link among theory, process, and outcome in the practice of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) for couples. We describe the EFT model of change and the EFT perspective on adult love as the reflection of underlying attachment processes. We outline the manner in which theory and research inform EFT interventions. This leads into a detailed review of the literature on the processes of change in EFT. We highlight the client responses and therapist operations that have emerged from process research and their relation to treatment outcomes. We discuss the implications of this body of research for clinical practice and training. © FPI, Inc.

General emotion processing in social anxiety disorder: neural issues of cognitive control.

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Brühl, Annette Beatrix; Herwig, Uwe; Delsignore, Aba; Jäncke, Lutz; Rufer, Michael

2013-05-30

Anxiety disorders are characterized by deficient emotion regulation prior to and in anxiety-evoking situations. Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have increased brain activation also during the anticipation and perception of non-specific emotional stimuli pointing to biased general emotion processing. In the current study we addressed the neural correlates of emotion regulation by cognitive control during the anticipation and perception of non-specific emotional stimuli in patients with SAD. Thirty-two patients with SAD underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging during the announced anticipation and perception of emotional stimuli. Half of them were trained and instructed to apply reality-checking as a control strategy, the others anticipated and perceived the stimuli. Reality checking significantly (pperception of negative emotional stimuli. The medial prefrontal cortex was comparably active in both groups (p>0.50). The results suggest that cognitive control in patients with SAD influences emotion processing structures, supporting the usefulness of emotion regulation training in the psychotherapy of SAD. In contrast to studies in healthy subjects, cognitive control was not associated with increased activation of prefrontal regions in SAD. This points to possibly disturbed general emotion regulating circuits in SAD. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotion response coherence: A dual-process perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Evers, C.; Hopp, H.; Gross, J.J.; Fischer, A.H.; Manstead, A.S.R.; Mauss, I.B.

2014-01-01

Emotions are widely thought to involve coordinated responses across multiple responses (e.g., experiential, behavioral, and physiological). However, empirical support for this general "response coherence" postulate is inconsistent. The present research takes a dual-process perspective, suggesting

Emotion response coherence : a dual-process perspective

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Evers, Catharine; Hopp, Henrik; Gross, James J; Fischer, Agneta H; Manstead, Antony S R; Mauss, Iris B

Emotions are widely thought to involve coordinated responses across multiple responses (e.g., experiential, behavioral, and physiological). However, empirical support for this general "response coherence" postulate is inconsistent. The present research takes a dual-process perspective, suggesting

Level of Processing Modulates the Neural Correlates of Emotional Memory Formation

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Ritchey, Maureen; LaBar, Kevin S.; Cabeza, Roberto

2011-01-01

Emotion is known to influence multiple aspects of memory formation, including the initial encoding of the memory trace and its consolidation over time. However, the neural mechanisms whereby emotion impacts memory encoding remain largely unexplored. The present study used a levels-of-processing manipulation to characterize the impact of emotion on…

"I Am Really Good at It" or "I Am Just Feeling Lucky": The Effects of Emotions on Information Problem-Solving

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Zhou, Mingming

2013-01-01

The ability to search, process, extract, evaluate and integrate information for learning purposes has clearly become the basic skills of the twenty first century. Although this process is often taken as a cognitive process, research has shown a strong connection between emotion and cognition. Recent research has suggested that positive emotions…

Emotional response to advertising

OpenAIRE

Bogdan ANASTASIEI; Raluca CHIOSA

2014-01-01

Emotions can transcend cultural, linguistic, demographic, and social boundaries. Emotions affect information processing and create a positive attitude toward the ad, which becomes associated with the brand. Objectives. This study investigates the role of pleasure (P), arousal (A) and domination (D) emotions in mobile’s photo camera advertisement and how each of them is influencing consumer attitude towards the advertisement and brand. Prior Work. Holbrook and Batra (1987) develope...

Effects of methylphenidate during emotional processing in amphetamine users: preliminary findings.

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Bottelier, M A; Schouw, M L J; de Ruiter, M B; Ruhe, H G; Lindauer, R J L; Reneman, L

2015-12-01

D-amphetamine (dAMPH) and methylphenidate (MPH) are stimulants used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Preclinical studies have shown that in healthy animals, dAMPH induces dopamine (DA) dysfunction, as evidenced for instance by loss of DA levels and its transporters. It has also been suggested that DA plays an important role in emotional processing, and that altered DA-ergic intervention may modulate amygdala function. To explore the role of the DA system in emotional processing we examined emotional processing using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in eight male recreational users of dAMPH and eight male healthy controls. We compared brain activation between both groups during an emotional face-processing task with and without an oral MPH challenge. All subjects were abstinent for at least 2 weeks during the baseline scan. The second scan was performed on the same day 1½ hours after receiving an oral dose of 35 mg MPH. A significant Valence*Group interaction (p = .037) indicated amygdala hyperreactivity to fearful facial expressions in dAMPH users that was robust against adjustment for age (p = .015). Furthermore, duration of amphetamine use in years was positively correlated with amygdala reactivity in dAMPH users (r = .76; p = .029). These exploratory findings are in line with previous findings suggesting that DA plays a role in emotional processing.

Neural Signaling of Food Healthiness Associated with Emotion Processing.

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Herwig, Uwe; Dhum, Matthias; Hittmeyer, Anna; Opialla, Sarah; Scherpiet, Sigrid; Keller, Carmen; Brühl, Annette B; Siegrist, Michael

2016-01-01

The ability to differentiate healthy from unhealthy foods is important in order to promote good health. Food, however, may have an emotional connotation, which could be inversely related to healthiness. The neurobiological background of differentiating healthy and unhealthy food and its relations to emotion processing are not yet well understood. We addressed the neural activations, particularly considering the single subject level, when one evaluates a food item to be of a higher, compared to a lower grade of healthiness with a particular view on emotion processing brain regions. Thirty-seven healthy subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while evaluating the healthiness of food presented as photographs with a subsequent rating on a visual analog scale. We compared individual evaluations of high and low healthiness of food items and also considered gender differences. We found increased activation when food was evaluated to be healthy in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and precuneus in whole brain analyses. In ROI analyses, perceived and rated higher healthiness was associated with lower amygdala activity and higher ventral striatal and orbitofrontal cortex activity. Females exerted a higher activation in midbrain areas when rating food items as being healthy. Our results underline the close relationship between food and emotion processing, which makes sense considering evolutionary aspects. Actively evaluating and deciding whether food is healthy is accompanied by neural signaling associated with reward and self-relevance, which could promote salutary nutrition behavior. The involved brain regions may be amenable to mechanisms of emotion regulation in the context of psychotherapeutic regulation of food intake.

Neural correlates of top-down processing in emotion perception: an ERP study of emotional faces in white noise versus noise-alone stimuli.

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Lee, Kyu-Yong; Lee, Tae-Ho; Yoon, So-Jeong; Cho, Yang Seok; Choi, June-Seek; Kim, Hyun Taek

2010-06-14

In the present study, we investigated the neural correlates underlying the perception of emotion in response to facial stimuli in order to elucidate the extent to which emotional perception is affected by the top-down process. Subjects performed a forced, two-choice emotion discrimination task towards ambiguous visual stimuli consisted of emotional faces embedded in different levels of visual white noise, including white noise-alone stimuli. ERP recordings and behavioral responses were analyzed according to the four response categories: hit, miss, false alarm and correct rejection. We observed enlarged EPN and LPP amplitudes when subjects reported seeing fearful faces and a typical emotional EPN response in the white noise-alone conditions when fearful faces were not presented. The two components of the ERP data which imply the characteristic modulation reflecting emotional processing showed the type of emotion each individual subjectively perceived. The results suggest that top-down modulations might be indispensable for emotional perception, which consists of two distinct stages of stimulus processing in the brain. (c) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias.

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Invitto, Sara; Calcagnì, Antonio; Mignozzi, Arianna; Scardino, Rosanna; Piraino, Giulia; Turchi, Daniele; De Feudis, Irio; Brunetti, Antonio; Bevilacqua, Vitoantonio; de Tommaso, Marina

2017-01-01

Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emotional face recognition and how potential modulation of this processing induced by music could be influenced by the subject's musical competence. We investigated how emotional face recognition processing could be modulated by listening to music and how this modulation varies according to the subjective emotional salience of the music and the listener's musical competence. The sample consisted of 24 participants: 12 professional musicians and 12 university students (non-musicians). Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task whilst listening to music by Albeniz, Chopin, or Mozart. The target stimuli were emotionally neutral facial expressions. We examined the N170 Event-Related Potential (ERP) and behavioral responses (i.e., motor reaction time to target recognition and musical emotional judgment). A linear mixed-effects model and a decision-tree learning technique were applied to N170 amplitudes and latencies. The main findings of the study were that musicians' behavioral responses and N170 is more affected by the emotional value of music administered in the emotional go/no-go task and this bias is also apparent in responses to the non-target emotional face. This suggests that emotional information, coming from multiple sensory channels, activates a crossmodal integration process that depends upon the stimuli emotional salience and the listener's appraisal.

Children's Representations of Family Relationships, Peer Information Processing, and School Adjustment

Science.gov (United States)

Bascoe, Sonnette M.; Davies, Patrick T.; Sturge-Apple, Melissa L.; Cummings, E. Mark

2009-01-01

This study examined children's peer information processing as an explanatory mechanism underlying the association between their insecure representations of interparental and parent-child relationships and school adjustment in a sample of 210 first graders. Consistent with emotional security theory (P. T. Davies & E. M. Cummings, 1994), results…

Informational and emotional elements in online support groups: a Bayesian approach to large-scale content analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Deetjen, Ulrike; Powell, John A

2016-05-01

This research examines the extent to which informational and emotional elements are employed in online support forums for 14 purposively sampled chronic medical conditions and the factors that influence whether posts are of a more informational or emotional nature. Large-scale qualitative data were obtained from Dailystrength.org. Based on a hand-coded training dataset, all posts were classified into informational or emotional using a Bayesian classification algorithm to generalize the findings. Posts that could not be classified with a probability of at least 75% were excluded. The overall tendency toward emotional posts differs by condition: mental health (depression, schizophrenia) and Alzheimer's disease consist of more emotional posts, while informational posts relate more to nonterminal physical conditions (irritable bowel syndrome, diabetes, asthma). There is no gender difference across conditions, although prostate cancer forums are oriented toward informational support, whereas breast cancer forums rather feature emotional support. Across diseases, the best predictors for emotional content are lower age and a higher number of overall posts by the support group member. The results are in line with previous empirical research and unify empirical findings from single/2-condition research. Limitations include the analytical restriction to predefined categories (informational, emotional) through the chosen machine-learning approach. Our findings provide an empirical foundation for building theory on informational versus emotional support across conditions, give insights for practitioners to better understand the role of online support groups for different patients, and show the usefulness of machine-learning approaches to analyze large-scale qualitative health data from online settings. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Medical Informatics Association. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

More than words (and faces): evidence for a Stroop effect of prosody in emotion word processing.

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Filippi, Piera; Ocklenburg, Sebastian; Bowling, Daniel L; Heege, Larissa; Güntürkün, Onur; Newen, Albert; de Boer, Bart

2017-08-01

Humans typically combine linguistic and nonlinguistic information to comprehend emotions. We adopted an emotion identification Stroop task to investigate how different channels interact in emotion communication. In experiment 1, synonyms of "happy" and "sad" were spoken with happy and sad prosody. Participants had more difficulty ignoring prosody than ignoring verbal content. In experiment 2, synonyms of "happy" and "sad" were spoken with happy and sad prosody, while happy or sad faces were displayed. Accuracy was lower when two channels expressed an emotion that was incongruent with the channel participants had to focus on, compared with the cross-channel congruence condition. When participants were required to focus on verbal content, accuracy was significantly lower also when prosody was incongruent with verbal content and face. This suggests that prosody biases emotional verbal content processing, even when conflicting with verbal content and face simultaneously. Implications for multimodal communication and language evolution studies are discussed.

The selective processing of emotional visual stimuli while detecting auditory targets: an ERP analysis.

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Schupp, Harald T; Stockburger, Jessica; Bublatzky, Florian; Junghöfer, Markus; Weike, Almut I; Hamm, Alfons O

2008-09-16

Event-related potential studies revealed an early posterior negativity (EPN) for emotional compared to neutral pictures. Exploring the emotion-attention relationship, a previous study observed that a primary visual discrimination task interfered with the emotional modulation of the EPN component. To specify the locus of interference, the present study assessed the fate of selective visual emotion processing while attention is directed towards the auditory modality. While simply viewing a rapid and continuous stream of pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant pictures in one experimental condition, processing demands of a concurrent auditory target discrimination task were systematically varied in three further experimental conditions. Participants successfully performed the auditory task as revealed by behavioral performance and selected event-related potential components. Replicating previous results, emotional pictures were associated with a larger posterior negativity compared to neutral pictures. Of main interest, increasing demands of the auditory task did not modulate the selective processing of emotional visual stimuli. With regard to the locus of interference, selective emotion processing as indexed by the EPN does not seem to reflect shared processing resources of visual and auditory modality.

Self-affirmation increases defensiveness toward health risk information among those experiencing negative emotions: Results from two national samples.

Science.gov (United States)

Ferrer, Rebecca A; Klein, William M P; Graff, Kaitlin A

2017-04-01

Self-affirmation can promote health behavior change and yield long-term improvements in health via its effect on receptiveness to risk information in behavior change interventions. Across 2 studies, we examined whether the emotional state of the person presented with health risk information moderates self-affirmation effectiveness. Data were collected from 2 U.S. national samples (n = 652, n = 448) via GfK, an Internet-based survey company. Female alcohol consumers completed an emotion induction (fear, anger, or neutral). They then completed a standard self-affirmation (or no-affirmation) essay-writing task, and subsequently received a health message linking alcohol to breast cancer. There was a significant interaction between emotion and self-affirmation conditions, such that self-affirmation reduced the specificity of health behavior change plans among those experiencing negative emotion (Study 1: B = -0.55, p emotion (or anger). Mediation analyses limited to the self-affirmation condition revealed an indirect effect of negative emotion condition on health behavior change plan specificity via self-affirmation ratings of essay content in Study 1: β = 0.04, p = .041. The salutary effect of self-affirmation on plan specificity was reversed with negative emotion. These findings may be attributed to disruption of the self-affirmation process. Individuals who enter interventions using self-affirmation in a negative emotion state may be less prepared to benefit from other intervention content, and may even be less likely to change health behaviors as a result of the intervention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Processing of Facial Emotion in Bipolar Depression and Euthymia.

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Robinson, Lucy J; Gray, John M; Burt, Mike; Ferrier, I Nicol; Gallagher, Peter

2015-10-01

Previous studies of facial emotion processing in bipolar disorder (BD) have reported conflicting findings. In independently conducted studies, we investigate facial emotion labeling in euthymic and depressed BD patients using tasks with static and dynamically morphed images of different emotions displayed at different intensities. Study 1 included 38 euthymic BD patients and 28 controls. Participants completed two tasks: labeling of static images of basic facial emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happy, sad) shown at different expression intensities; the Eyes Test (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001), which involves recognition of complex emotions using only the eye region of the face. Study 2 included 53 depressed BD patients and 47 controls. Participants completed two tasks: labeling of "dynamic" facial expressions of the same five basic emotions; the Emotional Hexagon test (Young, Perret, Calder, Sprengelmeyer, & Ekman, 2002). There were no significant group differences on any measures of emotion perception/labeling, compared to controls. A significant group by intensity interaction was observed in both emotion labeling tasks (euthymia and depression), although this effect did not survive the addition of measures of executive function/psychomotor speed as covariates. Only 2.6-15.8% of euthymic patients and 7.8-13.7% of depressed patients scored below the 10th percentile of the controls for total emotion recognition accuracy. There was no evidence of specific deficits in facial emotion labeling in euthymic or depressed BD patients. Methodological variations-including mood state, sample size, and the cognitive demands of the tasks-may contribute significantly to the variability in findings between studies.

How group-based emotions are shaped by collective emotions: evidence for emotional transfer and emotional burden.

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Goldenberg, Amit; Saguy, Tamar; Halperin, Eran

2014-10-01

Extensive research has established the pivotal role that group-based emotions play in shaping intergroup processes. The underlying implicit assumption in previous work has been that these emotions reflect what the rest of the group feels (i.e., collective emotions). However, one can experience an emotion in the name of her or his group, which is inconsistent with what the collective feels. The current research investigated this phenomenon of emotional nonconformity. Particularly, we proposed that when a certain emotional reaction is perceived as appropriate, but the collective is perceived as not experiencing this emotion, people would experience stronger levels of group-based emotion, placing their emotional experience farther away from that of the collective. We provided evidence for this process across 2 different emotions: group-based guilt and group-based anger (Studies 1 and 2) and across different intergroup contexts (Israeli-Palestinian relations in Israel, and Black-White relations in the United States). In Studies 3 and 4, we demonstrate that this process is moderated by the perceived appropriateness of the collective emotional response. Studies 4 and 5 further provided evidence for the mechanisms underlying this effect, pointing to a process of emotional burden (i.e., feeling responsible for carrying the emotion in the name of the group) and of emotional transfer (i.e., transferring negative feelings one has toward the ingroup, toward the event itself). This work brings to light processes that were yet to be studied regarding the relationship between group members, their perception of their group, and the emotional processes that connect them. 2014 APA, all rights reserved

Segregation of information about emotional arousal and valence in horse whinnies.

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Briefer, Elodie F; Maigrot, Anne-Laure; Mandel, Roi; Freymond, Sabrina Briefer; Bachmann, Iris; Hillmann, Edna

2015-04-21

Studying vocal correlates of emotions is important to provide a better understanding of the evolution of emotion expression through cross-species comparisons. Emotions are composed of two main dimensions: emotional arousal (calm versus excited) and valence (negative versus positive). These two dimensions could be encoded in different vocal parameters (segregation of information) or in the same parameters, inducing a trade-off between cues indicating emotional arousal and valence. We investigated these two hypotheses in horses. We placed horses in five situations eliciting several arousal levels and positive as well as negative valence. Physiological and behavioral measures collected during the tests suggested the presence of different underlying emotions. First, using detailed vocal analyses, we discovered that all whinnies contained two fundamental frequencies ("F0" and "G0"), which were not harmonically related, suggesting biphonation. Second, we found that F0 and the energy spectrum encoded arousal, while G0 and whinny duration encoded valence. Our results show that cues to emotional arousal and valence are segregated in different, relatively independent parameters of horse whinnies. Most of the emotion-related changes to vocalizations that we observed are similar to those observed in humans and other species, suggesting that vocal expression of emotions has been conserved throughout evolution.

Effects of emotional content on working memory capacity.

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Garrison, Katie E; Schmeichel, Brandon J

2018-02-13

Emotional events tend to be remembered better than neutral events, but emotional states and stimuli may also interfere with cognitive processes that underlie memory performance. The current study investigated the effects of emotional content on working memory capacity (WMC), which involves both short term storage and executive attention control. We tested competing hypotheses in a preregistered experiment (N = 297). The emotional enhancement hypothesis predicts that emotional stimuli attract attention and additional processing resources relative to neutral stimuli, thereby making it easier to encode and store emotional information in WMC. The emotional impairment hypothesis, by contrast, predicts that emotional stimuli interfere with attention control and the active maintenance of information in working memory. Participants completed a common measure of WMC (the operation span task; Turner, M. L., & Engle, R. W. [1989]. Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 127-154) that included either emotional or neutral words. Results revealed that WMC was reduced for emotional words relative to neutral words, consistent with the emotional impairment hypothesis.

Interactions among emotional attention, encoding, and retrieval of ambiguous information: an eye-tracking study

OpenAIRE

Everaert, Jonas; Koster, Ernst

2015-01-01

Emotional biases in attention modulate encoding of emotional material into long-term memory, but little is known about the role of such attentional biases during emotional memory retrieval. The present study investigated how emotional biases in memory are related to attentional allocation during retrieval. Forty-nine individuals encoded emotionally positive and negative meanings derived from ambiguous information and then searched their memory for encoded meanings in response to a set of retr...

Sex differences in effective fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing.

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Lungu, Ovidiu; Potvin, Stéphane; Tikàsz, Andràs; Mendrek, Adrianna

2015-12-01

In view of the greater prevalence of depression and anxiety disorders in women than in men, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have examined sex-differences in brain activations during emotion processing. Comparatively, sex-differences in brain connectivity received little attention, despite evidence for important fronto-limbic connections during emotion processing across sexes. Here, we investigated sex-differences in fronto-limbic connectivity during negative emotion processing. Forty-six healthy individuals (25 women, 21 men) viewed negative, positive and neutral images during an fMRI session. Effective connectivity between significantly activated regions was examined using Granger causality and psychophysical interaction analyses. Sex steroid hormones and feminine-masculine traits were also measured. Subjective ratings of negative emotional images were higher in women than in men. Across sexes, significant activations were observed in the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) and the right amygdala. Granger connectivity from right amygdala was significantly greater than that from dmPFC during the 'high negative' condition, an effect driven by men. Magnitude of this effect correlated negatively with highly negative image ratings and feminine traits and positively with testosterone levels. These results highlight critical sex differences in brain connectivity during negative emotion processing and point to the fact that both biological (sex steroid hormones) and psychosocial (gender role and identity) variables contribute to them. As the dmPFC is involved in social cognition and action planning, and the amygdala-in threat detection, the connectivity results suggest that compared to women, men have a more evaluative, rather than purely affective, brain response during negative emotion processing. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Independent component processes underlying emotions during natural music listening.

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Rogenmoser, Lars; Zollinger, Nina; Elmer, Stefan; Jäncke, Lutz

2016-09-01

The aim of this study was to investigate the brain processes underlying emotions during natural music listening. To address this, we recorded high-density electroencephalography (EEG) from 22 subjects while presenting a set of individually matched whole musical excerpts varying in valence and arousal. Independent component analysis was applied to decompose the EEG data into functionally distinct brain processes. A k-means cluster analysis calculated on the basis of a combination of spatial (scalp topography and dipole location mapped onto the Montreal Neurological Institute brain template) and functional (spectra) characteristics revealed 10 clusters referring to brain areas typically involved in music and emotion processing, namely in the proximity of thalamic-limbic and orbitofrontal regions as well as at frontal, fronto-parietal, parietal, parieto-occipital, temporo-occipital and occipital areas. This analysis revealed that arousal was associated with a suppression of power in the alpha frequency range. On the other hand, valence was associated with an increase in theta frequency power in response to excerpts inducing happiness compared to sadness. These findings are partly compatible with the model proposed by Heller, arguing that the frontal lobe is involved in modulating valenced experiences (the left frontal hemisphere for positive emotions) whereas the right parieto-temporal region contributes to the emotional arousal. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Oscillatory brain dynamics associated with the automatic processing of emotion in words.

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Wang, Lin; Bastiaansen, Marcel

2014-10-01

This study examines the automaticity of processing the emotional aspects of words, and characterizes the oscillatory brain dynamics that accompany this automatic processing. Participants read emotionally negative, neutral and positive nouns while performing a color detection task in which only perceptual-level analysis was required. Event-related potentials and time frequency representations were computed from the concurrently measured EEG. Negative words elicited a larger P2 and a larger late positivity than positive and neutral words, indicating deeper semantic/evaluative processing of negative words. In addition, sustained alpha power suppressions were found for the emotional compared to neutral words, in the time range from 500 to 1000ms post-stimulus. These results suggest that sustained attention was allocated to the emotional words, whereas the attention allocated to the neutral words was released after an initial analysis. This seems to hold even when the emotional content of the words is task-irrelevant. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

MDMA alters emotional processing and facilitates positive social interaction.

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Wardle, Margaret C; de Wit, Harriet

2014-10-01

±3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy") produces "prosocial" effects, such as feelings of empathy and closeness, thought to be important to its abuse and its value in psychotherapy. However, it is not fully understood how MDMA alters basic emotional processes to produce these effects, or whether it produces corresponding changes in actual social behavior. Here, we examined how MDMA affects perceptions of and responses to emotional expressions, and tested its effects on behavior during a social interaction. We also examined whether MDMA's prosocial effects related to a measure of abuse liability. Over three sessions, 36 healthy volunteers with previous ecstasy use received MDMA (0.75, 1.5 mg/kg) and placebo under double-blind conditions. We measured (i) mood and cardiovascular effects, (ii) perception of and psychophysiological responses to emotional expressions, (iii) use of positive and negative words in a social interaction, and (iv) perceptions of an interaction partner. We then tested whether these effects predicted desire to take the drug again. MDMA slowed perception of angry expressions, increased psychophysiological responses to happy expressions, and increased positive word use and perceptions of partner empathy and regard in a social interaction. These effects were not strongly related to desire to take the drug again. MDMA alters basic emotional processes by slowing identification of negative emotions and increasing responses to positive emotions in others. Further, it positively affects behavior and perceptions during actual social interaction. These effects may contribute to the efficacy of MDMA in psychotherapy, but appear less closely related to its abuse potential.

Quantitative Study of Emotional Intelligence and Communication Levels in Information Technology Professionals

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Hendon, Michalina

2016-01-01

This quantitative non-experimental correlational research analyzes the relationship between emotional intelligence and communication due to the lack of this research on information technology professionals in the U.S. One hundred and eleven (111) participants completed a survey that measures both the emotional intelligence and communication…

Altered Medial Frontal and Superior Temporal Response to Implicit Processing of Emotions in Autism.

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Kana, Rajesh K; Patriquin, Michelle A; Black, Briley S; Channell, Marie M; Wicker, Bruno

2016-01-01

Interpreting emotional expressions appropriately poses a challenge for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In particular, difficulties with emotional processing in ASD are more pronounced in contexts where emotional expressions are subtle, automatic, and reflexive-that is, implicit. In contrast, explicit emotional processing, which requires the cognitive evaluation of an emotional experience, appears to be relatively intact in individuals with ASD. In the present study, we examined the brain activation and functional connectivity differences underlying explicit and implicit emotional processing in age- and IQ-matched adults with (n = 17) and without (n = 15) ASD. Results indicated: (1) significantly reduced levels of brain activation in participants with ASD in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and superior temporal gyrus (STG) during implicit emotion processing; (2) significantly weaker functional connectivity in the ASD group in connections of the MPFC with the amygdala, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, and fusiform gyrus; (3) No group difference in performance accuracy or reaction time; and (4) Significant positive relationship between empathizing ability and STG activity in ASD but not in typically developing participants. These findings suggest that the neural mechanisms underlying implicit, but not explicit, emotion processing may be altered at multiple levels in individuals with ASD. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

[Neurobiological aspects of personality disorders and emotional instability].

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Petrovic, Predrag

2016-12-06

Neurobiological aspects of personality disorders and emotional instability ADHD and mental disorders encompassing emotional instability such as emotionally unstable personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder can potentially be explained by a suboptimal regulation of information processing in the brain. ADHD involves suboptimal function of non-emotional attentional regulatory processes and emotional instability involves suboptimal emotional regulation. A network including prefrontal areas, anterior cingulate cortex, basal ganglia and specific neuromodulatory systems such as the dopamine system are dysfunctional in both ADHD and emotional instability. One might suggest that a dimensional view better describes these mental states than categorical diagnoses.

Who cares? Offering emotion work as a 'gift' in the nursing labour process.

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Bolton, S C

2000-09-01

Who cares? Offering emotion work as a 'gift' in the nursing labour process The emotional elements of the nursing labour process are being recognized increasingly. Many commentators stress that nurses' 'emotional labour' is hard and productive work and should be valued in the same way as physical or technical labour. However, the term 'emotional labour' fails to conceptualize the many occasions when nurses not only work hard on their emotions in order to present the detached face of a professional carer, but also to offer authentic caring behaviour to patients in their care. Using qualitative data collected from a group of gynaecology nurses in an English National Health Service (NHS) Trust hospital, this paper argues that nursing work is emotionally complex and may be better understood by utilizing a combination of Hochschild's concepts: emotion work as a 'gift' in addition to 'emotional labour'. The gynaecology nurses in this study describe their work as 'emotionful' and therefore it could be said that this particular group of nurses represent a distinct example. Nevertheless, though it is impossible to generalize from limited data, the research presented in this paper does highlight the emotional complexity of the nursing labour process, expands the current conceptual analysis, and offers a path for future research. The examination further emphasizes the need to understand and value the motivations behind nurses' emotion work and their wish to maintain caring as a central value in professional nursing.

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias

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Sara Invitto

2017-08-01

Full Text Available Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emotional face recognition and how potential modulation of this processing induced by music could be influenced by the subject's musical competence. We investigated how emotional face recognition processing could be modulated by listening to music and how this modulation varies according to the subjective emotional salience of the music and the listener's musical competence. The sample consisted of 24 participants: 12 professional musicians and 12 university students (non-musicians. Participants performed an emotional go/no-go task whilst listening to music by Albeniz, Chopin, or Mozart. The target stimuli were emotionally neutral facial expressions. We examined the N170 Event-Related Potential (ERP and behavioral responses (i.e., motor reaction time to target recognition and musical emotional judgment. A linear mixed-effects model and a decision-tree learning technique were applied to N170 amplitudes and latencies. The main findings of the study were that musicians' behavioral responses and N170 is more affected by the emotional value of music administered in the emotional go/no-go task and this bias is also apparent in responses to the non-target emotional face. This suggests that emotional information, coming from multiple sensory channels, activates a crossmodal integration process that depends upon the stimuli emotional salience and the listener's appraisal.

Functional connectivity of emotional processing in depression.

LENUS (Irish Health Repository)

Carballedo, Angela

2012-02-01

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study is to map a neural network of emotion processing and to identify differences in major depression compared to healthy controls. It is hypothesized that intentional perception of emotional faces activates connections between amygdala (Demir et al.), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and prefrontal cortex (PFC) and that frontal-amygdala connections are altered in major depressive disorder (MDD). METHODS: Fifteen medication-free patients with MDD and fifteen healthy controls were enrolled. All subjects were assessed using the same face-matching functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) task, known to involve those areas. Brain activations were obtained using Statistical Parametric Mapping version 5 (SPM5) for data analysis and MARSBAR for extracting of fMRI time series. Then data was analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). RESULTS: A valid model was established for the left and the right hemispheres showing a circuit involving ACC, OFC, PFC and AMY. The left hemisphere shows significant lower connectivity strengths in patients than controls, for the pathway that goes from AMY to the OF11, and a trend of higher connectivity in patients for the path that goes from the PF9 to the OF11. In the right hemisphere, patients show lower connectivity coefficients in the paths from the AMY to OF11, from the AMY to ACC, and from the ACC to PF9. By the contrary, controls show lower connectivity strengths for the path that goes from ACC to AMY. CONCLUSIONS: Functional disconnection between limbic and frontal brain regions could be demonstrated using structural equation modeling. The interpretation of these findings could be that there is an emotional processing bias with disconnection bilaterally between amygdala to orbitofrontal cortices and in addition a right disconnection between amygdala and ACC as well as between ACC and prefrontal cortex possibly in line with a more prominent role for the right hemisphere

Oxytocin and social pretreatment have similar effects on processing of negative emotional faces in healthy adult males

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Anna eKis

2013-08-01

Full Text Available Oxytocin has been shown to affect several aspects of human social cognition, including facial emotion processing. There is also evidence that social stimuli (such as eye-contact can effectively modulate endogenous oxytocin levels.In the present study we directly tested whether intranasal oxytocin administration and pre-treatment with social stimuli had similar effects on face processing at the behavioural level. Subjects (N=52 healthy adult males were presented with a set of faces with expressions of different valence (negative, neutral, positive following different types of pretreatment (oxytocin – OT or placebo – PL and social interaction – Soc or no social interaction – NSoc, N=13 in each and were asked to rate all faces for perceived emotion and trustworthiness. On the next day subjects’ recognition memory was tested on a set of neutral faces and additionally they had to again rate each face for trustworthiness and emotion.Subjects in both the OT and the Soc pretreatment group (as compared to the PL and to the NSoc groups gave higher emotion and trustworthiness scores for faces with negative emotional expression. Moreover, 24 h later, subjects in the OT and Soc groups (unlike in control groups gave lower trustworthiness scores for previously negative faces, than for faces previously seen as emotionally neutral or positive.In sum these results provide the first direct evidence of the similar effects of intranasal oxytocin administration and social stimulation on the perception of negative facial emotions as well as on the delayed recall of negative emotional information.

Emotional Granularity Effects on Event-Related Brain Potentials during Affective Picture Processing.

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Lee, Ja Y; Lindquist, Kristen A; Nam, Chang S

2017-01-01

There is debate about whether emotional granularity , the tendency to label emotions in a nuanced and specific manner, is merely a product of labeling abilities, or a systematic difference in the experience of emotion during emotionally evocative events. According to the Conceptual Act Theory of Emotion (CAT) (Barrett, 2006), emotional granularity is due to the latter and is a product of on-going temporal differences in how individuals categorize and thus make meaning of their affective states. To address this question, the present study investigated the effects of individual differences in emotional granularity on electroencephalography-based brain activity during the experience of emotion in response to affective images. Event-related potentials (ERP) and event-related desynchronization and synchronization (ERD/ERS) analysis techniques were used. We found that ERP responses during the very early (60-90 ms), middle (270-300 ms), and later (540-570 ms) moments of stimulus presentation were associated with individuals' level of granularity. We also observed that highly granular individuals, compared to lowly granular individuals, exhibited relatively stable desynchronization of alpha power (8-12 Hz) and synchronization of gamma power (30-50 Hz) during the 3 s of stimulus presentation. Overall, our results suggest that emotional granularity is related to differences in neural processing throughout emotional experiences and that high granularity could be associated with access to executive control resources and a more habitual processing of affective stimuli, or a kind of "emotional complexity." Implications for models of emotion are also discussed.

The effects of acute inflammation on cognitive functioning and emotional processing in humans: A systematic review of experimental studies.

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Bollen, Jessica; Trick, Leanne; Llewellyn, David; Dickens, Chris

2017-03-01

The cognitive neuropsychological model of depression proposes that negative biases in the processing of emotionally salient information have a central role in the development and maintenance of depression. We have conducted a systematic review to determine whether acute experimental inflammation is associated with changes to cognitive and emotional processing that are thought to cause and maintain depression. We identified experimental studies in which healthy individuals were administered an acute inflammatory challenge (bacterial endotoxin/vaccination) and standardised tests of cognitive function were performed. Fourteen references were identified, reporting findings from 12 independent studies on 345 participants. Methodological quality was rated strong or moderate for 11 studies. Acute experimental inflammation was triggered using a variety of agents (including endotoxin from E. coli, S. typhi, S. abortus Equi and Hepatitis B vaccine) and cognition was assessed over hours to months, using cognitive tests of i) attention/executive functioning, ii) memory and iii) social/emotional processing. Studies found mixed evidence that acute experimental inflammation caused changes to attention/executive functioning (2 of 6 studies showed improvements in attention executive function compared to control), changes in memory (3 of 5 studies; improved reaction time: reduced memory for object proximity: poorer immediate and delayed memory) and changes to social/emotional processing (4 of 5 studies; reduced perception of emotions, increased avoidance of punishment/loss experiences, and increased social disconnectedness). Acute experimental inflammation causes negative biases in social and emotional processing that could explain observed associations between inflammation and depression. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Interactions of attention, emotion and motivation.

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Raymond, Jane

2009-01-01

Although successful visually guided action begins with sensory processes and ends with motor control, the intervening processes related to the appropriate selection of information for processing are especially critical because of the brain's limited capacity to handle information. Three important mechanisms--attention, emotion and motivation--contribute to the prioritization and selection of information. In this chapter, the interplay between these systems is discussed with emphasis placed on interactions between attention (or immediate task relevance of stimuli) and emotion (or affective evaluation of stimuli), and between attention and motivation (or the predicted value of stimuli). Although numerous studies have shown that emotional stimuli modulate mechanisms of selective attention in humans, little work has been directed at exploring whether such interactions can be reciprocal, that is, whether attention can influence emotional response. Recent work on this question (showing that distracting information is typically devalued upon later encounters) is reviewed in the first half of the chapter. In the second half, some recent experiments exploring how prior value-prediction learning (i.e., learning to associate potential outcomes, good or bad, with specific stimuli) plays a role in visual selection and conscious perception. The results indicate that some aspects of motivation act on selection independently of traditionally defined attention and other aspects interact with it.

An Age-Related Mechanism of Emotion Regulation: Regulating Sadness Promotes Children's Learning by Broadening Information Processing

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Davis, Elizabeth L.

2016-01-01

Emotion regulation predicts positive academic outcomes like learning, but little is known about "why". Effective emotion regulation likely promotes learning by broadening the scope of what may be attended to after an emotional event. One hundred twenty-six 6- to 13-year-olds' (54% boys) regulation of sadness was examined for changes in…

Facial Emotion and Identity Processing Development in 5- to 15-Year-Old Children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Patrick eJohnston

2011-02-01

Full Text Available Most developmental studies of emotional face processing to date have focussed on infants and very young children. Additionally, studies that examine emotional face processing in older children do not distinguish development in emotion and identity face processing from more generic age-related cognitive improvement. In this study, we developed a paradigm that measures processing of facial expression in comparison to facial identity and complex visual stimuli. The three matching tasks were developed (i.e., facial emotion matching, facial identity matching and butterfly wing matching to include stimuli of similar level of discriminability and to be equated for task difficulty in earlier samples of young adults. Ninety two children aged 5 to 15 years and a new group of 24 young adults completed these three matching tasks. Young children were highly adept at the butterfly wing task relative to their performance on both face-related tasks. More importantly, in older children, development of facial emotion discrimination ability lagged behind that of facial identity discrimination.

An Event-Related Potential Study on the Effects of Cannabis on Emotion Processing

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Troup, Lucy J.; Bastidas, Stephanie; Nguyen, Maia T.; Andrzejewski, Jeremy A.; Bowers, Matthew; Nomi, Jason S.

2016-01-01

The effect of cannabis on emotional processing was investigated using event-related potential paradigms (ERPs). ERPs associated with emotional processing of cannabis users, and non-using controls, were recorded and compared during an implicit and explicit emotional expression recognition and empathy task. Comparisons in P3 component mean amplitudes were made between cannabis users and controls. Results showed a significant decrease in the P3 amplitude in cannabis users compared to controls. Specifically, cannabis users showed reduced P3 amplitudes for implicit compared to explicit processing over centro-parietal sites which reversed, and was enhanced, at fronto-central sites. Cannabis users also showed a decreased P3 to happy faces, with an increase to angry faces, compared to controls. These effects appear to increase with those participants that self-reported the highest levels of cannabis consumption. Those cannabis users with the greatest consumption rates showed the largest P3 deficits for explicit processing and negative emotions. These data suggest that there is a complex relationship between cannabis consumption and emotion processing that appears to be modulated by attention. PMID:26926868

Face Recognition, Musical Appraisal, and Emotional Crossmodal Bias

OpenAIRE

Invitto, Sara; Calcagn?, Antonio; Mignozzi, Arianna; Scardino, Rosanna; Piraino, Giulia; Turchi, Daniele; De Feudis, Irio; Brunetti, Antonio; Bevilacqua, Vitoantonio; de Tommaso, Marina

2017-01-01

Recent research on the crossmodal integration of visual and auditory perception suggests that evaluations of emotional information in one sensory modality may tend toward the emotional value generated in another sensory modality. This implies that the emotions elicited by musical stimuli can influence the perception of emotional stimuli presented in other sensory modalities, through a top-down process. The aim of this work was to investigate how crossmodal perceptual processing influences emo...

Emotional facial expressions reduce neural adaptation to face identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Gerlicher, Anna M V; van Loon, Anouk M; Scholte, H Steven; Lamme, Victor A F; van der Leij, Andries R