The neural basis of attaining conscious awareness of sad mood.

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Smith, Ryan; Braden, B Blair; Chen, Kewei; Ponce, Francisco A; Lane, Richard D; Baxter, Leslie C

2015-09-01

The neural processes associated with becoming aware of sad mood are not fully understood. We examined the dynamic process of becoming aware of sad mood and recovery from sad mood. Sixteen healthy subjects underwent fMRI while participating in a sadness induction task designed to allow for variable mood induction times. Individualized regressors linearly modeled the time periods during the attainment of self-reported sad and baseline "neutral" mood states, and the validity of the linearity assumption was further tested using independent component analysis. During sadness induction the dorsomedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and anterior insula exhibited a linear increase in the blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal until subjects became aware of a sad mood and then a subsequent linear decrease as subjects transitioned from sadness back to the non-sadness baseline condition. These findings extend understanding of the neural basis of conscious emotional experience.

Congruence of happy and sad emotion in music and faces modifies cortical audiovisual activation.

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Jeong, Jeong-Won; Diwadkar, Vaibhav A; Chugani, Carla D; Sinsoongsud, Piti; Muzik, Otto; Behen, Michael E; Chugani, Harry T; Chugani, Diane C

2011-02-14

The powerful emotion inducing properties of music are well-known, yet music may convey differing emotional responses depending on environmental factors. We hypothesized that neural mechanisms involved in listening to music may differ when presented together with visual stimuli that conveyed the same emotion as the music when compared to visual stimuli with incongruent emotional content. We designed this study to determine the effect of auditory (happy and sad instrumental music) and visual stimuli (happy and sad faces) congruent or incongruent for emotional content on audiovisual processing using fMRI blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal contrast. The experiment was conducted in the context of a conventional block-design experiment. A block consisted of three emotional ON periods, music alone (happy or sad music), face alone (happy or sad faces), and music combined with faces where the music excerpt was played while presenting either congruent emotional faces or incongruent emotional faces. We found activity in the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and fusiform gyrus (FG) to be differentially modulated by music and faces depending on the congruence of emotional content. There was a greater BOLD response in STG when the emotion signaled by the music and faces was congruent. Furthermore, the magnitude of these changes differed for happy congruence and sad congruence, i.e., the activation of STG when happy music was presented with happy faces was greater than the activation seen when sad music was presented with sad faces. In contrast, incongruent stimuli diminished the BOLD response in STG and elicited greater signal change in bilateral FG. Behavioral testing supplemented these findings by showing that subject ratings of emotion in faces were influenced by emotion in music. When presented with happy music, happy faces were rated as more happy (p=0.051) and sad faces were rated as less sad (p=0.030). When presented with sad music, happy faces were rated as less

Anxiety, Sadness, and Emotion Specificity: The Role of Music in Consumer Emotion and Advertisement Evaluation

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Felix Septianto

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Although music could diversely influence consumer judgment process and behavior, it is still unclear whether music can evoke discrete emotions on consumers and influence consumer evaluation toward certain advertisements. This research proposes that music could evoke sad and anxious emotion on consumers; subsequently, consumers would regulate their negative emotions in accordance to their emotion orientations: Consumers who feel sad would show high evaluation toward happy-themed advertisement, while consumers who feel anxious would show high evaluation toward calm-themed advertisement. This paper concludes with the discussion of theoretical and practical implications and conclusion of this study.

Beyond Sadness : The Multi-Emotional Trajectory of Melodrama

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Hanich, Julian; Menninghaus, Winfried

In this article we investigate the astonishing variety of emotions that a brief scene in a film melodrama can evoke. We thus take issue with the reductive view of melodrama that limits this genre’s emotional effects to sadness, pity, and tear-jerking potential. Through a close analysis of a

Impact of civil war on emotion recognition: the denial of sadness in Sierra Leone.

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Umiltà, Maria Allessandra; Wood, Rachel; Loffredo, Francesca; Ravera, Roberto; Gallese, Vittorio

2013-01-01

Studies of children with atypical emotional experience demonstrate that childhood exposure to high levels of hostility and threat biases emotion perception. This study investigates emotion processing, in former child soldiers and non-combatant civilians. All participants have experienced prolonged violence exposure during childhood. The study, carried out in Sierra Leone, aimed to examine the effects of exposure to and forced participation in acts of extreme violence on the emotion processing of young adults war survivors. A total of 76 young, male adults (38 former child soldier survivors and 38 civilian survivors) were tested in order to assess participants' ability to identify four different facial emotion expressions from photographs and movies. Both groups were able to recognize facial expressions of emotion. However, despite their general ability to correctly identify facial emotions, participants showed a significant response bias in their recognition of sadness. Both former soldiers and civilians made more errors in identifying expressions of sadness than in the other three emotions and when mislabeling sadness participants most often described it as anger. Conversely, when making erroneous identifications of other emotions, participants were most likely to label the expressed emotion as sadness. In addition, while for three of the four emotions participants were better able to make a correct identification the greater the intensity of the expression, this pattern was not observed for sadness. During movies presentation the recognition of sadness was significantly worse for soldiers. While both former child soldiers and civilians were found to be able to identify facial emotions, a significant response bias in their attribution of negative emotions was observed. Such bias was particularly pronounced in former child soldiers. These findings point to a pervasive long-lasting effect of childhood exposure to violence on emotion processing in later life.

Impact of civil war on emotion recognition: the denial of sadness in Sierra Leone.

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Maria Alessandra eUmilta'

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Studies of children with atypical emotional experience demonstrate that childhood exposure to high levels of hostility and threat biases emotion perception. This study investigates emotion processing, in former child soldiers and non-combatant civilians. All participants have experienced prolonged violence exposure during childhood. The study, carried out in Sierra Leone, aimed to examine the effects of exposure to and forced participation in acts of extreme violence on the emotion processing of young adults war survivors. A total of 76 young, male adults (38 former child soldier survivors and 38 civilian survivors were tested in order to assess participants’ ability to identify four different facial emotion expressions from photographs and movies. Both groups were able to recognize facial expressions of emotion. However, despite their general ability to correctly identify facial emotions, participants showed a significant response bias in their recognition of sadness. Both former soldiers and civilians made more errors in identifying expressions of sadness than in the other three emotions and when mislabeling sadness participants most often described it as anger. Conversely, when making erroneous identifications of other emotions, participants were most likely to label the expressed emotion as sadness. In addition, while for three of the four emotions participants were better able to make a correct identification the greater the intensity of the expression, this pattern was not observed for sadness. During movies presentation the recognition of sadness was significantly worse for soldiers. While both former child soldiers and civilians were found to be able to identify facial emotions, a significant response bias in their attribution of negative emotions was observed. Such bias was particularly pronounced in former child soldiers. These findings point to a pervasive long-lasting effect of childhood exposure to violence on emotion processing

Influence of trait empathy on the emotion evoked by sad music and on the preference for it.

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Kawakami, Ai; Katahira, Kenji

2015-01-01

Some people experience pleasant emotion when listening to sad music. Therefore, they can enjoy listening to it. In the current study, we aimed to investigate such apparently paradoxical emotional mechanisms and focused on the influence of individuals' trait empathy, which has been reported to associate with emotional responses to sad music and a preference for it. Eighty-four elementary school children (42 males and 42 females, mean age 11.9 years) listened to two kinds of sad music and rated their emotional state and liking toward them. In addition, trait empathy was assessed using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index scale, which comprises four sub-components: Empathic Concern, Personal Distress, Perspective Taking, and Fantasy (FS). We conducted a path analysis and tested our proposed model that hypothesized that trait empathy and its sub-components would affect the preference for sad music directly or indirectly, mediated by the emotional response to the sad music. Our findings indicated that FS, a sub-component of trait empathy, was directly associated with liking sad music. Additionally, perspective taking ability, another sub-component of trait empathy, was correlated with the emotional response to sad music. Furthermore, the experience of pleasant emotions contributed to liking sad music.

Influence of Trait Empathy on the Emotion Evoked by Sad Music and on the Preference for it

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Ai eKawakami

2015-10-01

Full Text Available Some people experience pleasant emotion when listening to sad music. Therefore, they can enjoy listening to it. In the current study, we aimed to investigate such apparently paradoxical emotional mechanisms and focused on the influence of individuals’ trait empathy, which has been reported to associate with emotional responses to sad music and a preference for it. Eighty-four elementary school children (42 males and 42 females, mean age 11.9 years listened to two kinds of sad music and rated their emotional state and liking towards them. In addition, trait empathy was assessed using the IRI scale, which comprises four sub-components: Empathic Concern, Personal Distress, Perspective Taking, and Fantasy. We conducted a path analysis and tested our proposed model that hypothesized that trait empathy and its sub-components would affect the preference for sad music directly or indirectly, mediated by the emotional response to the sad music. Our findings indicated that fantasy, a sub-component of trait empathy, was directly associated with liking sad music. Additionally, perspective taking ability, another sub-component of trait empathy, was correlated with the emotional response to sad music. Furthermore, the experience of pleasant emotions contributed to liking sad music.

The effects of happiness and sadness on Children's snack consumption.

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Tan, Cin Cin; Holub, Shayla C

2018-04-01

Children appear to engage in emotional eating (i.e., eating in response to negative and positive emotions), but existing research has predominantly relied on parent-report and child-report, which may not necessarily reflect children's actual emotional eating behaviors. This study examined the effects of happiness and sadness on children's observed snack consumption and examined whether child characteristics (i.e., weight, gender, and age) interact with mood to predict snack consumption. To elicit mood, children (N = 91; M ages  = 6.8 years; 48 boys) were randomly assigned to one of the three mood induction conditions (happy, sad, or neutral); children's snack consumption was observed and measured after mood induction. Findings showed that children in the sad condition consumed more energy from chocolate, followed by children in the happy condition, and then the neutral condition. However, the reverse pattern was observed for goldfish crackers: children in the neutral condition consumed more energy from this savory snack than children in the happy condition, followed by children in sad condition. Child weight status and gender did not interact with mood to predict snack consumption. Child age did interact with mood: older children consumed more chocolates in the sad condition compared to younger children. Child age was not related to snack consumption in the happy and neutral conditions. This study suggests that emotional eating in response to positive and negative emotions is evident during early childhood, but that this is behavior is developing during this period. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of sadness on global-local processing.

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von Mühlenen, Adrian; Bellaera, Lauren; Singh, Amrendra; Srinivasan, Narayanan

2018-05-04

Gable and Harmon-Jones (Psychological Science, 21(2), 211-215, 2010) reported that sadness broadens attention in a global-local letter task. This finding provided the key test for their motivational intensity account, which states that the level of spatial processing is not determined by emotional valence, but by motivational intensity. However, their finding is at odds with several other studies, showing no effect, or even a narrowing effect of sadness on attention. This paper reports two attempts to replicate the broadening effect of sadness on attention. Both experiments used a global-local letter task, but differed in terms of emotion induction: Experiment 1 used the same pictures as Gable and Harmon-Jones, taken from the IAPS dataset; Experiment 2 used a sad video underlaid with sad music. Results showed a sadness-specific global advantage in the error rates, but not in the reaction times. The same null results were also found in a South-Asian sample in both experiments, showing that effects on global/local processing were not influenced by a culturally related processing bias.

On the validity of the autobiographical emotional memory task for emotion induction.

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Caitlin Mills

Full Text Available The Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task (AEMT, which involves recalling and writing about intense emotional experiences, is a widely used method to experimentally induce emotions. The validity of this method depends upon the extent to which it can induce specific desired emotions (intended emotions, while not inducing any other (incidental emotions at different levels across one (or more conditions. A review of recent studies that used this method indicated that most studies exclusively monitor post-writing ratings of the intended emotions, without assessing the possibility that the method may have differentially induced other incidental emotions as well. We investigated the extent of this issue by collecting both pre- and post-writing ratings of incidental emotions in addition to the intended emotions. Using methods largely adapted from previous studies, participants were assigned to write about a profound experience of anger or fear (Experiment 1 or happiness or sadness (Experiment 2. In line with previous research, results indicated that intended emotions (anger and fear were successfully induced in the respective conditions in Experiment 1. However, disgust and sadness were also induced while writing about an angry experience compared to a fearful experience. Similarly, although happiness and sadness were induced in the appropriate conditions, Experiment 2 indicated that writing about a sad experience also induced disgust, fear, and anger, compared to writing about a happy experience. Possible resolutions to avoid the limitations of the AEMT to induce specific discrete emotions are discussed.

On the Validity of the Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task for Emotion Induction

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Mills, Caitlin; D'Mello, Sidney

2014-01-01

The Autobiographical Emotional Memory Task (AEMT), which involves recalling and writing about intense emotional experiences, is a widely used method to experimentally induce emotions. The validity of this method depends upon the extent to which it can induce specific desired emotions (intended emotions), while not inducing any other (incidental) emotions at different levels across one (or more) conditions. A review of recent studies that used this method indicated that most studies exclusively monitor post-writing ratings of the intended emotions, without assessing the possibility that the method may have differentially induced other incidental emotions as well. We investigated the extent of this issue by collecting both pre- and post-writing ratings of incidental emotions in addition to the intended emotions. Using methods largely adapted from previous studies, participants were assigned to write about a profound experience of anger or fear (Experiment 1) or happiness or sadness (Experiment 2). In line with previous research, results indicated that intended emotions (anger and fear) were successfully induced in the respective conditions in Experiment 1. However, disgust and sadness were also induced while writing about an angry experience compared to a fearful experience. Similarly, although happiness and sadness were induced in the appropriate conditions, Experiment 2 indicated that writing about a sad experience also induced disgust, fear, and anger, compared to writing about a happy experience. Possible resolutions to avoid the limitations of the AEMT to induce specific discrete emotions are discussed. PMID:24776697

On the interaction between sad mood and cognitive control: the effect of induced sadness on electrophysiological modulations underlying Stroop conflict processing.

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Nixon, Elena; Liddle, Peter F; Nixon, Neil L; Liotti, Mario

2013-03-01

The present study employed high-density ERPs to examine the effect of induced sad mood on the spatiotemporal correlates of conflict monitoring and resolution in a colour-word Stroop interference task. Neuroimaging evidence and dipole modelling implicates the involvement of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) regions in conflict-laden interference control. On the basis that these structures have been found to mediate emotion-cognition interactions in negative mood states, it was predicted that Stroop-related cognitive control, which relies heavily on anterior neural sources, would be affected by effective sad mood provocation. Healthy participants (N=14) were induced into transient sadness via use of autobiographical sad scripts, a well-validated mood induction technique (Liotti et al., 2000a, 2002). In accord with previous research, interference effects were shown at both baseline and sad states while Stroop conflict was associated with early (N450) and late (Late Positive Component; LPC) electrophysiological modulations at both states. Sad mood induction attenuated the N450 effect in line with our expectation that it would be susceptible to modulation by mood, given its purported anterior limbic source. The LPC effect was displayed at the typical posterior lateral sites but, as predicted, was not affected by sad mood. However, frontocentral LPC activity-presumably generated from an additional anterior limbic source-was affected at sad state, hinting a role in conflict monitoring. Although the neurophysiological underpinnings of interference control are yet to be clarified, this study provided further insight into emotion-cognition interactions as indexed by Stroop conflict-laden processing. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Beyond simple pessimism: effects of sadness and anger on social perception.

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Keltner, D; Ellsworth, P C; Edwards, K

1993-05-01

In keeping with cognitive appraisal models of emotion, it was hypothesized that sadness and anger would exert different influences on causal judgments. Two experiments provided initial support for this hypothesis. Sad Ss perceived situationally caused events as more likely (Experiment 1) and situational forces more responsible for an ambiguous event (Experiment 2) than angry Ss, who, in contrast, perceived events caused by humans as more likely and other people as more responsible. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 showed that the experience of these emotions, rather than their cognitive constituents, mediates these effects. The nonemotional exposure to situational or human agency information did not influence causal judgments (Experiment 3), whereas the induction of sadness and anger without explicit agency information did (Experiments 4 and 5). Discussion is focused on the influence of emotion on social judgment.

Sad benefit in face working memory: an emotional bias of melancholic depression.

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Linden, Stefanie C; Jackson, Margaret C; Subramanian, Leena; Healy, David; Linden, David E J

2011-12-01

Emotion biases feature prominently in cognitive theories of depression and are a focus of psychological interventions. However, there is presently no stable neurocognitive marker of altered emotion-cognition interactions in depression. One reason may be the heterogeneity of major depressive disorder. Our aim in the present study was to find an emotional bias that differentiates patients with melancholic depression from controls, and patients with melancholic from those with non-melancholic depression. We used a working memory paradigm for emotional faces, where two faces with angry, happy, neutral, sad or fearful expression had to be retained over one second. Twenty patients with melancholic depression, 20 age-, education- and gender-matched control participants and 20 patients with non-melancholic depression participated in the study. We analysed performance on the working memory task using signal detection measures. We found an interaction between group and emotion on working memory performance that was driven by the higher performance for sad faces compared to other categories in the melancholic group. We computed a measure of "sad benefit", which distinguished melancholic and non-melancholic patients with good sensitivity and specificity. However, replication studies and formal discriminant analysis will be needed in order to assess whether emotion bias in working memory may become a useful diagnostic tool to distinguish these two syndromes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A Functional MRI Study of Happy and Sad Emotions in Music with and without Lyrics

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Brattico, Elvira; Alluri, Vinoo; Bogert, Brigitte; Jacobsen, Thomas; Vartiainen, Nuutti; Nieminen, Sirke; Tervaniemi, Mari

2011-01-01

Musical emotions, such as happiness and sadness, have been investigated using instrumental music devoid of linguistic content. However, pop and rock, the most common musical genres, utilize lyrics for conveying emotions. Using participants’ self-selected musical excerpts, we studied their behavior and brain responses to elucidate how lyrics interact with musical emotion processing, as reflected by emotion recognition and activation of limbic areas involved in affective experience. We extracted samples from subjects’ selections of sad and happy pieces and sorted them according to the presence of lyrics. Acoustic feature analysis showed that music with lyrics differed from music without lyrics in spectral centroid, a feature related to perceptual brightness, whereas sad music with lyrics did not diverge from happy music without lyrics, indicating the role of other factors in emotion classification. Behavioral ratings revealed that happy music without lyrics induced stronger positive emotions than happy music with lyrics. We also acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging data while subjects performed affective tasks regarding the music. First, using ecological and acoustically variable stimuli, we broadened previous findings about the brain processing of musical emotions and of songs versus instrumental music. Additionally, contrasts between sad music with versus without lyrics recruited the parahippocampal gyrus, the amygdala, the claustrum, the putamen, the precentral gyrus, the medial and inferior frontal gyri (including Broca’s area), and the auditory cortex, while the reverse contrast produced no activations. Happy music without lyrics activated structures of the limbic system and the right pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, whereas auditory regions alone responded to happy music with lyrics. These findings point to the role of acoustic cues for the experience of happiness in music and to the importance of lyrics for sad musical emotions

A Functional MRI Study of Happy and Sad Emotions in Music with and without Lyrics.

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Brattico, Elvira; Alluri, Vinoo; Bogert, Brigitte; Jacobsen, Thomas; Vartiainen, Nuutti; Nieminen, Sirke; Tervaniemi, Mari

2011-01-01

Musical emotions, such as happiness and sadness, have been investigated using instrumental music devoid of linguistic content. However, pop and rock, the most common musical genres, utilize lyrics for conveying emotions. Using participants' self-selected musical excerpts, we studied their behavior and brain responses to elucidate how lyrics interact with musical emotion processing, as reflected by emotion recognition and activation of limbic areas involved in affective experience. We extracted samples from subjects' selections of sad and happy pieces and sorted them according to the presence of lyrics. Acoustic feature analysis showed that music with lyrics differed from music without lyrics in spectral centroid, a feature related to perceptual brightness, whereas sad music with lyrics did not diverge from happy music without lyrics, indicating the role of other factors in emotion classification. Behavioral ratings revealed that happy music without lyrics induced stronger positive emotions than happy music with lyrics. We also acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging data while subjects performed affective tasks regarding the music. First, using ecological and acoustically variable stimuli, we broadened previous findings about the brain processing of musical emotions and of songs versus instrumental music. Additionally, contrasts between sad music with versus without lyrics recruited the parahippocampal gyrus, the amygdala, the claustrum, the putamen, the precentral gyrus, the medial and inferior frontal gyri (including Broca's area), and the auditory cortex, while the reverse contrast produced no activations. Happy music without lyrics activated structures of the limbic system and the right pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, whereas auditory regions alone responded to happy music with lyrics. These findings point to the role of acoustic cues for the experience of happiness in music and to the importance of lyrics for sad musical emotions.

A functional MRI study of happy and sad emotions in music with and without lyrics

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Elvira eBrattico

2011-12-01

Full Text Available Musical emotions, such as happiness and sadness, have been investigated using instrumental music devoid of linguistic content. However, pop and rock, the most common musical genres, utilize lyrics for conveying emotions. Using participants’ self-selected musical excerpts, we studied their behavior and brain responses to elucidate how lyrics interact with musical emotion processing, as reflected by emotion recognition and activation of limbic areas involved in affective experience. We extracted samples from subjects’ selections of sad and happy pieces and sorted them according to the presence of lyrics. Acoustic feature analysis showed that music with lyrics differed from music without lyrics in spectral centroid, a feature related to perceptual brightness, whereas sad music with lyrics did not diverge from happy music without lyrics, indicating the role of other factors in emotion classification. Behavioral ratings revealed that happy music without lyrics induced stronger positive emotions than happy music with lyrics. We also acquired functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI data while subjects performed affective tasks regarding the music. First, using ecological and acoustically variable stimuli, we broadened previous findings about the brain processing of musical emotions and of songs versus instrumental music. Additionally, contrasts between sad music with versus without lyrics recruited the parahippocampal gyrus, the amygdala, the claustrum, the putamen, the precentral gyrus, the medial and inferior frontal gyri (including Broca’s area, and the auditory cortex, while the reverse contrast produced no activations. Happy music without lyrics activated structures of the limbic system and the right pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus, whereas auditory regions alone responded to happy music with lyrics. These findings point to the role of acoustic cues for the experience of happiness in music and to the importance of lyrics

Why is happy-sad more difficult? Focal emotional information impairs inhibitory control in children and adults.

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Kramer, Hannah J; Lagattuta, Kristin Hansen; Sayfan, Liat

2015-02-01

This study compared the relative difficulty of the happy-sad inhibitory control task (say "happy" for the sad face and "sad" for the happy face) against other card tasks that varied by the presence and type (focal vs. peripheral; negative vs. positive) of emotional information in a sample of 4- to 11-year-olds and adults (N = 264). Participants also completed parallel "name games" (direct labeling). All age groups made more errors and took longer to respond to happy-sad compared to other versions, and the relative difficulty of happy-sad increased with age. The happy-sad name game even posed a greater challenge than some opposite games. These data provide insight into the impact of emotions on cognitive processing across a wide age range. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

Distinctive mood induction effects of fear or sadness on anger and aggressive behavior

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Jun eZhan

2015-06-01

Full Text Available A recent study has reported that the successful implementation of cognitive regulation of emotion depends on higher-level cognitive functions, such as top-down control, which may be impaired in stressful situations. This calls for a need of cognition free self-regulatory strategies that do not require top-down control. In contrast to the cognitive regulation of emotion that emphasizes the role of cognition, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views the relationship among different types of emotions as promoting or counteracting each other, without the involvement of cognition, which provides an insightful perspective for developing cognition free regulatory strategies. In this study, we examined two hypotheses regarding the modulation of anger and aggressive behavior: sadness counteracts anger or aggressive behavior, whereas fear promotes anger or aggressive behavior. Participants were first provoked by reading the extremely negative feedback on their viewpoints (Study 1 or by watching anger-inducing movie clips (Study 2; then, these angry participants were assigned to three equivalent groups and view sad, fear, or neutral materials respectively to evoke the corresponding emotions. The results found participants yielded a lower level of aggressive behavior when sadness was induced afterward, and a higher level of anger when fear was induced afterward. These results provided evidence supporting the hypothesis of mutual promotion or counteraction relationships among these types of emotion and implied a cognition free approach for regulating anger and aggressive behavior.

Sad or fearful? The influence of body posture on adults' and children's perception of facial displays of emotion.

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Mondloch, Catherine J

2012-02-01

The current research investigated the influence of body posture on adults' and children's perception of facial displays of emotion. In each of two experiments, participants categorized facial expressions that were presented on a body posture that was congruent (e.g., a sad face on a body posing sadness) or incongruent (e.g., a sad face on a body posing fear). Adults and 8-year-olds made more errors and had longer reaction times on incongruent trials than on congruent trials when judging sad versus fearful facial expressions, an effect that was larger in 8-year-olds. The congruency effect was reduced when faces and bodies were misaligned, providing some evidence for holistic processing. Neither adults nor 8-year-olds were affected by congruency when judging sad versus happy expressions. Evidence that congruency effects vary with age and with similarity of emotional expressions is consistent with dimensional theories and "emotional seed" models of emotion perception. 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sadness is unique: Neural processing of emotions in speech prosody in musicians and non-musicians

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Mona ePark

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Musical training has been shown to have positive effects on several aspects of speech processing, however, the effects of musical training on the neural processing of speech prosody conveying distinct emotions are yet to be better understood. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI to investigate whether the neural responses to speech prosody conveying happiness, sadness, and fear differ between musicians and non-musicians. Differences in processing of emotional speech prosody between the two groups were only observed when sadness was expressed. Musicians showed increased activation in the middle frontal gyrus, the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate cortex and the retrosplenial cortex. Our results suggest an increased sensitivity of emotional processing in musicians with respect to sadness expressed in speech, possibly reflecting empathic processes.

Sad mood induction has an opposite effect on amygdala response to emotional stimuli in euthymic patients with bipolar disorder and healthy controls.

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Horacek, Jiri; Mikolas, Pavol; Tintera, Jaroslav; Novak, Tomas; Palenicek, Tomas; Brunovsky, Martin; Höschl, Cyril; Alda, Martin

2015-03-01

Aberrant amygdala reactivity to affective stimuli represents a candidate factor predisposing patients with bipolar disorder (BD) to relapse, but it is unclear to what extent amygdala reactivity is state-dependent. We evaluated the modulatory influence of mood on amygdala reactivity and functional connectivity in patients with remitted BD and healthy controls. Amygdala response to sad versus neutral faces was investigated using fMRI during periods of normal and sad mood induced by autobiographical scripts. We assessed the functional connectivity of the amygdala to characterize the influence of mood state on the network responsible for the amygdala response. We included 20 patients with remitted BD and 20 controls in our study. The sad and normal mood exerted opposite effects on the amygdala response to emotional faces in patients compared with controls (F1,38 = 5.85, p = 0.020). Sad mood amplified the amygdala response to sad facial stimuli in controls but attenuated the amygdala response in patients. The groups differed in functional connectivity between the amygdala and the inferior prefrontal gyrus (p ≤ 0.05, family-wise error-corrected) of ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) corresponding to Brodmann area 47. The sad mood challenge increased connectivity during the period of processing sad faces in patients but decreased connectivity in controls. Limitations to our study included long-term medication use in the patient group and the fact that we mapped only depressive (not manic) reactivity. Our results support the role of the amygdala-vlPFC as the system of dysfunctional contextual affective processing in patients with BD. Opposite amygdala reactivity unmasked by the mood challenge paradigm could represent a trait marker of altered mood regulation in patients with BD.

Sad and happy emotion discrimination in music by children with cochlear implants.

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Hopyan, Talar; Manno, Francis A M; Papsin, Blake C; Gordon, Karen A

2016-01-01

Children using cochlear implants (CIs) develop speech perception but have difficulty perceiving complex acoustic signals. Mode and tempo are the two components used to recognize emotion in music. Based on CI limitations, we hypothesized children using CIs would have impaired perception of mode cues relative to their normal hearing peers and would rely more heavily on tempo cues to distinguish happy from sad music. Study participants were children with 13 right CIs and 3 left CIs (M = 12.7, SD = 2.6 years) and 16 normal hearing peers. Participants judged 96 brief piano excerpts from the classical genre as happy or sad in a forced-choice task. Music was randomly presented with alterations of transposed mode, tempo, or both. When music was presented in original form, children using CIs discriminated between happy and sad music with accuracy well above chance levels (87.5%) but significantly below those with normal hearing (98%). The CI group primarily used tempo cues, whereas normal hearing children relied more on mode cues. Transposing both mode and tempo cues in the same musical excerpt obliterated cues to emotion for both groups. Children using CIs showed significantly slower response times across all conditions. Children using CIs use tempo cues to discriminate happy versus sad music reflecting a very different hearing strategy than their normal hearing peers. Slower reaction times by children using CIs indicate that they found the task more difficult and support the possibility that they require different strategies to process emotion in music than normal.

Emotional tears facilitate the recognition of sadness and the perceived need for social support.

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Balsters, Martijn J H; Krahmer, Emiel J; Swerts, Marc G J; Vingerhoets, Ad J J M

2013-02-12

The tearing effect refers to the relevance of tears as an important visual cue adding meaning to human facial expression. However, little is known about how people process these visual cues and their mediating role in terms of emotion perception and person judgment. We therefore conducted two experiments in which we measured the influence of tears on the identification of sadness and the perceived need for social support at an early perceptional level. In two experiments (1 and 2), participants were exposed to sad and neutral faces. In both experiments, the face stimuli were presented for 50 milliseconds. In experiment 1, tears were digitally added to sad faces in one condition. Participants demonstrated a significant faster recognition of sad faces with tears compared to those without tears. In experiment 2, tears were added to neutral faces as well. Participants had to indicate to what extent the displayed individuals were in need of social support. Study participants reported a greater perceived need for social support to both sad and neutral faces with tears than to those without tears. This study thus demonstrated that emotional tears serve as important visual cues at an early (pre-attentive) level.

Verbal and facial-emotional Stroop tasks reveal specific attentional interferences in sad mood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Isaac, L.; Vrijsen, J.N.; Eling, P.A.T.M.; Oostrom, I.I.H. van; Speckens, A.E.M.; Becker, E.S.

2012-01-01

Mood congruence refers to the tendency of individuals to attend to information more readily when it has the same emotional content as their current mood state. The aim of the present study was to ascertain whether attentional interference occurred for participants in sad mood states for emotionally

It's Sad but I Like It: The Neural Dissociation Between Musical Emotions and Liking in Experts and Laypersons.

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Brattico, Elvira; Bogert, Brigitte; Alluri, Vinoo; Tervaniemi, Mari; Eerola, Tuomas; Jacobsen, Thomas

2015-01-01

Emotion-related areas of the brain, such as the medial frontal cortices, amygdala, and striatum, are activated during listening to sad or happy music as well as during listening to pleasurable music. Indeed, in music, like in other arts, sad and happy emotions might co-exist and be distinct from emotions of pleasure or enjoyment. Here we aimed at discerning the neural correlates of sadness or happiness in music as opposed those related to musical enjoyment. We further investigated whether musical expertise modulates the neural activity during affective listening of music. To these aims, 13 musicians and 16 non-musicians brought to the lab their most liked and disliked musical pieces with a happy and sad connotation. Based on a listening test, we selected the most representative 18 sec excerpts of the emotions of interest for each individual participant. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings were obtained while subjects listened to and rated the excerpts. The cortico-thalamo-striatal reward circuit and motor areas were more active during liked than disliked music, whereas only the auditory cortex and the right amygdala were more active for disliked over liked music. These results discern the brain structures responsible for the perception of sad and happy emotions in music from those related to musical enjoyment. We also obtained novel evidence for functional differences in the limbic system associated with musical expertise, by showing enhanced liking-related activity in fronto-insular and cingulate areas in musicians.

It's Sad but I Like It: The Neural Dissociation Between Musical Emotions and Liking in Experts and Laypersons

Science.gov (United States)

Brattico, Elvira; Bogert, Brigitte; Alluri, Vinoo; Tervaniemi, Mari; Eerola, Tuomas; Jacobsen, Thomas

2016-01-01

Emotion-related areas of the brain, such as the medial frontal cortices, amygdala, and striatum, are activated during listening to sad or happy music as well as during listening to pleasurable music. Indeed, in music, like in other arts, sad and happy emotions might co-exist and be distinct from emotions of pleasure or enjoyment. Here we aimed at discerning the neural correlates of sadness or happiness in music as opposed those related to musical enjoyment. We further investigated whether musical expertise modulates the neural activity during affective listening of music. To these aims, 13 musicians and 16 non-musicians brought to the lab their most liked and disliked musical pieces with a happy and sad connotation. Based on a listening test, we selected the most representative 18 sec excerpts of the emotions of interest for each individual participant. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) recordings were obtained while subjects listened to and rated the excerpts. The cortico-thalamo-striatal reward circuit and motor areas were more active during liked than disliked music, whereas only the auditory cortex and the right amygdala were more active for disliked over liked music. These results discern the brain structures responsible for the perception of sad and happy emotions in music from those related to musical enjoyment. We also obtained novel evidence for functional differences in the limbic system associated with musical expertise, by showing enhanced liking-related activity in fronto-insular and cingulate areas in musicians. PMID:26778996

Sustained experience of emotion after loss of memory in patients with amnesia.

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Feinstein, Justin S; Duff, Melissa C; Tranel, Daniel

2010-04-27

Can the experience of an emotion persist once the memory for what induced the emotion has been forgotten? We capitalized on a rare opportunity to study this question directly using a select group of patients with severe amnesia following circumscribed bilateral damage to the hippocampus. The amnesic patients underwent a sadness induction procedure (using affectively-laden film clips) to ascertain whether their experience of sadness would persist beyond their memory for the sadness-inducing films. The experiment showed that the patients continued to experience elevated levels of sadness well beyond the point in time at which they had lost factual memory for the film clips. A second experiment using a happiness induction procedure yielded similar results, suggesting that both positive and negative emotional experiences can persist independent of explicit memory for the inducing event. These findings provide direct evidence that a feeling of emotion can endure beyond the conscious recollection for the events that initially triggered the emotion.

The Paradox of Music-Evoked Sadness: An Online Survey

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Taruffi, Liila; Koelsch, Stefan

2014-01-01

This study explores listeners’ experience of music-evoked sadness. Sadness is typically assumed to be undesirable and is therefore usually avoided in everyday life. Yet the question remains: Why do people seek and appreciate sadness in music? We present findings from an online survey with both Western and Eastern participants (N = 772). The survey investigates the rewarding aspects of music-evoked sadness, as well as the relative contribution of listener characteristics and situational factors to the appreciation of sad music. The survey also examines the different principles through which sadness is evoked by music, and their interaction with personality traits. Results show 4 different rewards of music-evoked sadness: reward of imagination, emotion regulation, empathy, and no “real-life” implications. Moreover, appreciation of sad music follows a mood-congruent fashion and is greater among individuals with high empathy and low emotional stability. Surprisingly, nostalgia rather than sadness is the most frequent emotion evoked by sad music. Correspondingly, memory was rated as the most important principle through which sadness is evoked. Finally, the trait empathy contributes to the evocation of sadness via contagion, appraisal, and by engaging social functions. The present findings indicate that emotional responses to sad music are multifaceted, are modulated by empathy, and are linked with a multidimensional experience of pleasure. These results were corroborated by a follow-up survey on happy music, which indicated differences between the emotional experiences resulting from listening to sad versus happy music. This is the first comprehensive survey of music-evoked sadness, revealing that listening to sad music can lead to beneficial emotional effects such as regulation of negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Such beneficial emotional effects constitute the prime motivations for engaging with sad music in everyday life. PMID:25330315

The paradox of music-evoked sadness: an online survey.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liila Taruffi

Full Text Available This study explores listeners' experience of music-evoked sadness. Sadness is typically assumed to be undesirable and is therefore usually avoided in everyday life. Yet the question remains: Why do people seek and appreciate sadness in music? We present findings from an online survey with both Western and Eastern participants (N = 772. The survey investigates the rewarding aspects of music-evoked sadness, as well as the relative contribution of listener characteristics and situational factors to the appreciation of sad music. The survey also examines the different principles through which sadness is evoked by music, and their interaction with personality traits. Results show 4 different rewards of music-evoked sadness: reward of imagination, emotion regulation, empathy, and no "real-life" implications. Moreover, appreciation of sad music follows a mood-congruent fashion and is greater among individuals with high empathy and low emotional stability. Surprisingly, nostalgia rather than sadness is the most frequent emotion evoked by sad music. Correspondingly, memory was rated as the most important principle through which sadness is evoked. Finally, the trait empathy contributes to the evocation of sadness via contagion, appraisal, and by engaging social functions. The present findings indicate that emotional responses to sad music are multifaceted, are modulated by empathy, and are linked with a multidimensional experience of pleasure. These results were corroborated by a follow-up survey on happy music, which indicated differences between the emotional experiences resulting from listening to sad versus happy music. This is the first comprehensive survey of music-evoked sadness, revealing that listening to sad music can lead to beneficial emotional effects such as regulation of negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Such beneficial emotional effects constitute the prime motivations for engaging with sad music in everyday life.

The paradox of music-evoked sadness: an online survey.

Science.gov (United States)

Taruffi, Liila; Koelsch, Stefan

2014-01-01

This study explores listeners' experience of music-evoked sadness. Sadness is typically assumed to be undesirable and is therefore usually avoided in everyday life. Yet the question remains: Why do people seek and appreciate sadness in music? We present findings from an online survey with both Western and Eastern participants (N = 772). The survey investigates the rewarding aspects of music-evoked sadness, as well as the relative contribution of listener characteristics and situational factors to the appreciation of sad music. The survey also examines the different principles through which sadness is evoked by music, and their interaction with personality traits. Results show 4 different rewards of music-evoked sadness: reward of imagination, emotion regulation, empathy, and no "real-life" implications. Moreover, appreciation of sad music follows a mood-congruent fashion and is greater among individuals with high empathy and low emotional stability. Surprisingly, nostalgia rather than sadness is the most frequent emotion evoked by sad music. Correspondingly, memory was rated as the most important principle through which sadness is evoked. Finally, the trait empathy contributes to the evocation of sadness via contagion, appraisal, and by engaging social functions. The present findings indicate that emotional responses to sad music are multifaceted, are modulated by empathy, and are linked with a multidimensional experience of pleasure. These results were corroborated by a follow-up survey on happy music, which indicated differences between the emotional experiences resulting from listening to sad versus happy music. This is the first comprehensive survey of music-evoked sadness, revealing that listening to sad music can lead to beneficial emotional effects such as regulation of negative emotion and mood as well as consolation. Such beneficial emotional effects constitute the prime motivations for engaging with sad music in everyday life.

A comprehensive examination of delayed emotional recovery in borderline personality disorder.

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Fitzpatrick, Skye; Kuo, Janice R

2015-06-01

Despite growing attention to emotion processes in borderline personality disorder (BPD), little research has examined delayed emotional recovery (i.e., long-lasting emotions after the termination of an emotionally evocative stimulus) in this population. The extant data on delayed emotional recovery in BPD are limited by a lack of assessment across a range of indices and emotions. The present study addresses these gaps by comparing emotional recovery between individuals with BPD, social anxiety disorder (SAD), and healthy controls (HCs) using a multi-modal assessment approach. Participants underwent fear, anger, and sadness inductions followed by a 5-min "washout" phase wherein emotional recovery was assessed via self-report, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), and skin conductance responses (SCR). After controlling for state dissociation, the BPD and SAD group exhibited decreases in RSA, while the HC group showed no changes in RSA after the anger induction only. Groups did not differ in rate of emotional recovery across self-report, RSA, or SCR after fear and sadness inductions. The present study is limited by a solely female and small sample, and the short time frame in which emotional recovery was assessed. Findings indicate that individuals with BPD generally do not exhibit delayed emotional recovery, but may show decreases in parasympathetic activity during the recovery period after experiencing anger. However, this pattern may not be specific to this disorder. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Regulating sadness and fear from outside and within: mothers' emotion socialization and adolescents' parasympathetic regulation predict the development of internalizing difficulties.

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Hastings, Paul D; Klimes-Dougan, Bonnie; Kendziora, Kimberly T; Brand, Ann; Zahn-Waxler, Carolyn

2014-11-01

Multilevel models of developmental psychopathology implicate both characteristics of the individual and their rearing environment in the etiology of internalizing problems and disorders. Maladaptive regulation of fear and sadness, the core of anxiety and depression, arises from the conjoint influences of ineffective parasympathetic regulation of emotion and ineffective emotion socialization experiences. In 171 youths (84 female, M = 13.69 years, SD = 1.84), we measured changes of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in response to sadness- and fear-inducing film clips and maternal supportive and punitive responses to youths' internalizing emotions. Youths and mothers reported on youths' internalizing problems and anxiety and depression symptoms concurrently and 2 years later at Time 2. Maternal supportive emotion socialization predicted fewer, and punitive socialization predicted more, mother-reported internalizing problems at Time 2 only for youths who showed RSA suppression to fear-inducing films. More RSA suppression to sadness-inducing films predicted more youth-reported internalizing problems at Time 2 in girls only. In addition, less supportive emotion socialization predicted more youth-reported depression symptoms at Time 2 only for girls who showed more RSA suppression to sadness. RSA suppression to sadness versus fear might reflect different patterns of atypical parasympathetic regulation of emotional arousal, both of which increase the risk for internalizing difficulties in youths, and especially girls, who lack maternal support for regulating emotions.

Sad or Fearful? The Influence of Body Posture on Adults' and Children's Perception of Facial Displays of Emotion

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Mondloch, Catherine J.

2012-01-01

The current research investigated the influence of body posture on adults' and children's perception of facial displays of emotion. In each of two experiments, participants categorized facial expressions that were presented on a body posture that was congruent (e.g., a sad face on a body posing sadness) or incongruent (e.g., a sad face on a body…

Anticipated Coping with Interpersonal Stressors: Links with the Emotional Reactions of Sadness, Anger, and Fear

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Zimmer-Gembeck, Melanie J.; Skinner, Ellen A.; Morris, Helen; Thomas, Rae

2013-01-01

The same stressor can evoke different emotions across individuals, and emotions can prompt certain coping responses. Responding to four videotaped interpersonal stressors, adolescents ("N" = 230, the average values of "X"[subscript age] = 10 years) reported their sadness, fear "and" anger, and 12 coping strategies.…

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…

A sad mood increases attention to unhealthy food images in women with food addiction.

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Frayn, Mallory; Sears, Christopher R; von Ranson, Kristin M

2016-05-01

Food addiction and emotional eating both influence eating and weight, but little is known of how negative mood affects the attentional processes that may contribute to food addiction. The purpose of this study was to compare attention to food images in adult women (N = 66) with versus without food addiction, before and after a sad mood induction (MI). Participants' eye fixations were tracked and recorded throughout 8-s presentations of displays with healthy food, unhealthy food, and non-food images. Food addiction was self-reported using the Yale Food Addiction Scale. The sad MI involved watching an 8-min video about a young child who passed away from cancer. It was predicted that: (1) participants in the food addiction group would attend to unhealthy food significantly more than participants in the control group, and (2) participants in the food addiction group would increase their attention to unhealthy food images following the sad MI, due to increased emotional reactivity and poorer emotional regulation. As predicted, the sad MI had a different effect for those with versus without food addiction: for participants with food addiction, attention to unhealthy images increased following the sad MI and attention to healthy images decreased, whereas for participants without food addiction the sad MI did not alter attention to food. These findings contribute to researchers' understanding of the cognitive factors underlying food addiction. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural activation associated with the cognitive emotion regulation of sadness in healthy children

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andy C. Belden

2014-07-01

Full Text Available When used effectively, cognitive reappraisal of distressing events is a highly adaptive cognitive emotion regulation (CER strategy, with impairments in cognitive reappraisal associated with greater risk for psychopathology. Despite extensive literature examining the neural correlates of cognitive reappraisal in healthy and psychiatrically ill adults, there is a dearth of data to inform the neural bases of CER in children, a key gap in the literature necessary to map the developmental trajectory of cognitive reappraisal. In this fMRI study, psychiatrically healthy schoolchildren were instructed to use cognitive reappraisal to modulate their emotional reactions and responses of negative affect after viewing sad photos. Consistent with the adult literature, when actively engaged in reappraisal compared to passively viewing sad photos, children showed increased activation in the vlPFC, dlPFC, and dmPFC as well as in parietal and temporal lobe regions. When children used cognitive reappraisal to minimize their experience of negative affect after viewing sad stimuli they exhibited dampened amygdala responses. Results are discussed in relation to the importance of identifying and characterizing neural processes underlying adaptive CER strategies in typically developing children in order to understand how these systems go awry and relate to the risk and occurrence of affective disorders.

Fear, Sadness and Hope: Which Emotions Maximize Impact of Anti-Tobacco Mass Media Advertisements among Lower and Higher SES Groups?

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Durkin, Sarah; Bayly, Megan; Brennan, Emily; Biener, Lois; Wakefield, Melanie

2018-01-01

Emotive anti-tobacco advertisements can increase quitting. Discrete emotion theories suggest evoking fear may be more effective than sadness; less research has focused on hope. A weekly cross-sectional survey of smokers and recent quitters (N = 7683) measured past-month quit attempts. The main predictor was level of exposure to four different types of anti-tobacco advertisements broadcast in the two months prior to quit attempts: advertisements predominantly evoking fear, sadness, hope, or evoking multiple negative emotions (i.e., fear, guilt, and/or sadness). Greater exposure to fear-evoking advertisements (OR = 2.16, p < .01) increased odds of making a quit attempt and showed similar effectiveness among those in lower and higher SES areas. Greater exposure to advertisements evoking multiple negative emotions increased quit attempts (OR = 1.70, p < .01), but interactions indicated this was driven by those in lower SES, but not higher SES areas. Greater exposure to hope-evoking advertisements enhanced effects of fear-evoking advertisements among those in higher SES, but not lower SES areas. Findings suggest to be maximally effective across the whole population avoid messages evoking sadness and use messages eliciting fear. If the aim is to specifically motivate those living in lower SES areas where smoking rates are higher, multiple negative emotion messages, but not hope-evoking messages, may also be effective.

Being Moved by Unfamiliar Sad Music Is Associated with High Empathy

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Eerola, Tuomas; Vuoskoski, Jonna K.; Kautiainen, Hannu

2016-01-01

The paradox of enjoying listening to music that evokes sadness is yet to be fully understood. Unlike prior studies that have explored potential explanations related to lyrics, memories, and mood regulation, we investigated the types of emotions induced by unfamiliar, instrumental sad music, and whether these responses are consistently associated with certain individual difference variables. One hundred and two participants were drawn from a representative sample to minimize self-selection bias. The results suggest that the emotional responses induced by unfamiliar sad music could be characterized in terms of three underlying factors: Relaxing sadness, Moving sadness, and Nervous sadness. Relaxing sadness was characterized by felt and perceived peacefulness and positive valence. Moving sadness captured an intense experience that involved feelings of sadness and being moved. Nervous sadness was associated with felt anxiety, perceived scariness and negative valence. These interpretations were supported by indirect measures of felt emotion. Experiences of Moving sadness were strongly associated with high trait empathy and emotional contagion, but not with other previously suggested traits such as absorption or nostalgia-proneness. Relaxing sadness and Nervous sadness were not significantly predicted by any of the individual difference variables. The findings are interpreted within a theoretical framework of embodied emotions. PMID:27695424

Neural correlates of sad feelings in healthy girls.

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Lévesque, J; Joanette, Y; Mensour, B; Beaudoin, G; Leroux, J-M; Bourgouin, P; Beauregard, M

2003-01-01

Emotional development is indisputably one of the cornerstones of personality development during infancy. According to the differential emotions theory (DET), primary emotions are constituted of three distinct components: the neural-evaluative, the expressive, and the experiential. The DET further assumes that these three components are biologically based and functional nearly from birth. Such a view entails that the neural substrate of primary emotions must be similar in children and adults. Guided by this assumption of the DET, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study was conducted to identify the neural correlates of sad feelings in healthy children. Fourteen healthy girls (aged 8-10) were scanned while they watched sad film excerpts aimed at externally inducing a transient state of sadness (activation task). Emotionally neutral film excerpts were also presented to the subjects (reference task). The subtraction of the brain activity measured during the viewing of the emotionally neutral film excerpts from that noted during the viewing of the sad film excerpts revealed that sad feelings were associated with significant bilateral activations of the midbrain, the medial prefrontal cortex (Brodmann area [BA] 10), and the anterior temporal pole (BA 21). A significant locus of activation was also noted in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (BA 47). These results are compatible with those of previous functional neuroimaging studies of sadness in adults. They suggest that the neural substrate underlying the subjective experience of sadness is comparable in children and adults. Such a similitude provides empirical support to the DET assumption that the neural substrate of primary emotions is biologically based.

Hidden sources of joy, fear, and sadness: Explicit versus implicit neural processing of musical emotions.

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

2016-08-01

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 emotions (explicit condition) or pay attention to the number of instruments playing (implicit condition) in 4-s music clips. In the implicit vs. explicit condition, stimuli activated bilaterally the inferior parietal lobule, premotor cortex, caudate, and ventromedial frontal areas. The cortical dorsomedial prefrontal and occipital areas activated during explicit processing were those previously shown to be associated with the cognitive processing of music and emotion recognition and regulation. Moreover, happiness in music was associated with activity in the bilateral auditory cortex, left parahippocampal gyrus, and supplementary motor area, whereas the negative emotions of sadness and fear corresponded with activation of the left anterior cingulate and middle frontal gyrus and down-regulation of the orbitofrontal cortex. Our study demonstrates for the first time in healthy subjects the neural underpinnings of the implicit processing of brief musical emotions, particularly in frontoparietal, dorsolateral prefrontal, and striatal areas of the brain. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Hundred-Year Emotion War: Are Emotions Natural Kinds or Psychological Constructions? Comment on Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011)

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Lindquist, Kristen A.; Siegel, Erika H.; Quigley, Karen S.; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

2013-01-01

For the last century, there has been a continuing debate about the nature of emotion. In the most recent offering in this scientific dialogue, Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011) reported a meta-analysis of emotion induction research and claimed support for the natural kind hypothesis that discrete emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, and…

The minor third communicates sadness in speech, mirroring its use in music.

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Curtis, Meagan E; Bharucha, Jamshed J

2010-06-01

There is a long history of attempts to explain why music is perceived as expressing emotion. The relationship between pitches serves as an important cue for conveying emotion in music. The musical interval referred to as the minor third is generally thought to convey sadness. We reveal that the minor third also occurs in the pitch contour of speech conveying sadness. Bisyllabic speech samples conveying four emotions were recorded by 9 actresses. Acoustic analyses revealed that the relationship between the 2 salient pitches of the sad speech samples tended to approximate a minor third. Participants rated the speech samples for perceived emotion, and the use of numerous acoustic parameters as cues for emotional identification was modeled using regression analysis. The minor third was the most reliable cue for identifying sadness. Additional participants rated musical intervals for emotion, and their ratings verified the historical association between the musical minor third and sadness. These findings support the theory that human vocal expressions and music share an acoustic code for communicating sadness.

The Experience of Anger and Sadness in Everyday Problems Impacts Age Differences in Emotion Regulation

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Blanchard-Fields, Fredda; Coats, Abby Heckman

2008-01-01

The authors examined regulation of the discrete emotions anger and sadness in adolescents through older adults in the context of describing everyday problem situations. The results support previous work; in comparison to younger age groups, older adults reported that they experienced less anger and reported that they used more passive and fewer…

Pain, Sadness, Aggression and Joy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Grodal, Torben Kragh

2007-01-01

Based on film examples and evolutionary psychology, the article discusses why viewers are fascinated not only with funny and pleasure-evoking films, but also with sad and disgust-evoking ones. The article argues that a series of adaptations modify simple pleasure-unpleasure-mechanisms. Besides...... discussing how action-oriented films convert negative experiences to challenges, the article especially analyse how sad films are rituals of bonding (kinbonding, bonding to brothers in arms, tribal bonding etc. and the sadness is a way to express the importance of bonding in the negative. Keywords......: attachment, cognitive film theory, coping and emotions, evolutionary psychology, hedonic valence, melodrama, sadness, tragedy....

Recalling happy memories in remitted depression: a neuroimaging investigation of the repair of sad mood.

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Foland-Ross, Lara C; Cooney, Rebecca E; Joormann, Jutta; Henry, Melissa L; Gotlib, Ian H

2014-06-01

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a recurrent mood disorder. The high rate of recurrence of MDD suggests the presence of stable vulnerability factors that place individuals with a history of major depression at an increased risk for the onset of another episode. Previous research has linked the remitted state, and therefore increased vulnerability for depressive relapse, with difficulties in the use of pleasant autobiographical memories to repair sad mood. In the present study, we examined the neural correlates of these difficulties. Groups of 16 currently euthymic, remitted depressed individuals and 16 healthy (control) women underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during sad mood induction and during recovery from a sad mood state through recall of mood-incongruent positive autobiographical memories. Sad mood was induced in participants by using film clips; participants then recalled positive autobiographical memories, a procedure previously shown to repair negative affect. During both the sad mood induction and automatic mood regulation, control participants exhibited activation in the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC) and cuneus; in contrast, remitted participants exhibited a decrease in activation in these regions. Furthermore, exploratory analyses revealed that reduced activation levels during mood regulation predicted a worsening of depressive symptoms at a 20-month follow-up assessment. These findings highlight a dynamic role of the vlPFC and cuneus in the experience and modulation of emotional states and suggest that functional anomalies of these brain regions are associated with a history of, and vulnerability to, depression.

Enhancement of subjective pain experience and changes of brain function on sadness

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yoshino, Atsuo; Takahashi, Terumichi; Okamoto, Yasumasa; Yoshimura, Shinpei; Kunisato, Yoshihiko; Okada, Go; Yamawaki, Shigeto; Onoda, Keiichi

2012-01-01

Pain is a multidimensional experience. Previous psychological studies have shown that a person's subjective pain threshold can change when certain emotions are recognized. We examined this association by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) (15 healthy subjects) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) (19 healthy subjects). Subjects experienced pain stimuli in different emotional contexts induced by the presentation of sad, happy or neutral facial stimuli. They also rated their subjective pain intensity. We found: The intensity of subjective pain ratings increased in the sad emotional context, pain-related activation in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was more pronounced in the sad context, and we demonstrated amygdala to ACC connections during the experience of pain in the sad context, and event-related desynchronization (ERD) of lower beta bands in the right hemisphere after pain stimuli was larger in the sad emotional condition. These results show that emotional stimuli can modulate neural responses to pain stimuli, and that it may be relevant to understanding the broader relationship between somatic complaints and negative emotion. (author)

Not just fear and sadness: meta-analytic evidence of pervasive emotion recognition deficits for facial and vocal expressions in psychopathy.

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Dawel, Amy; O'Kearney, Richard; McKone, Elinor; Palermo, Romina

2012-11-01

The present meta-analysis aimed to clarify whether deficits in emotion recognition in psychopathy are restricted to certain emotions and modalities or whether they are more pervasive. We also attempted to assess the influence of other important variables: age, and the affective factor of psychopathy. A systematic search of electronic databases and a subsequent manual search identified 26 studies that included 29 experiments (N = 1376) involving six emotion categories (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, surprise) across three modalities (facial, vocal, postural). Meta-analyses found evidence of pervasive impairments across modalities (facial and vocal) with significant deficits evident for several emotions (i.e., not only fear and sadness) in both adults and children/adolescents. These results are consistent with recent theorizing that the amygdala, which is believed to be dysfunctional in psychopathy, has a broad role in emotion processing. We discuss limitations of the available data that restrict the ability of meta-analysis to consider the influence of age and separate the sub-factors of psychopathy, highlighting important directions for future research. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Further evidence of emotional allodynia in unmedicated young adults with major depressive disorder.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander Ushinsky

Full Text Available Recent evidence suggests that sensitivity to the emotional sequela of experimental thermal pain(measured by emotional unpleasantness is heightened in individuals with major depressive disorder(MDD, a phenomenon we termed "emotional allodynia". The aim of this study was to examine whether acute happy and sad mood induction alters emotional allodynia in MDD. We hypothesized that emotional allodynia will be a robust characteristic of individuals with MDD compared to healthy controls. Thus, it would remain following acute mood induction, independent of valence.Twenty-one subjects with current MDD and 21 well-matched healthy subjects(HC received graded brief temperature stimuli following happy and sad mood inductions procedures(MIP. All subjects rated the intensity and affect(pleasantness/unpleasantness of each stimulus. Sensory(pain intensity and affective(pain unpleasantness thresholds were determined by methods of constant stimuli.The MIPs reliably induced happy and sad mood and the resulting induced mood and subjective arousal were not different between the groups at the time of temperature stimulation. Compared to HC, MDD individuals demonstrated emotional allodynia. We found significantly decreased affective pain thresholds whereby significantly lower temperatures became unpleasant in the MDD compared to the HC group. This was not observed for the sensory pain thresholds. Within the MDD, the affective pain thresholds were significantly lower than the corresponding pain intensity thresholds, whereby non-painful temperatures were already unpleasant for the MDD irrespective of the induced mood. This was not observed for the HC groups where the affective and pain intensity thresholds were comparable.These findings suggest that emotional allodynia may be a chronic characteristic of current MDD. Future studies should determine if emotional allodynia persists after psychological or pharmacological interventions. Finally, longitudinal work should

Sharing experienced sadness : Negotiating meanings of self-defined sad music within a group interview session

OpenAIRE

Peltola, Henna-Riikka

2017-01-01

Sadness induced by music listening has been a popular research focus in music and emotion research. Despite the wide consensus in affective sciences that emotional experiences are social processes, previous studies have only concentrated on individuals. Thus, the intersubjective dimension of musical experience – how music and music-related emotions are experienced between individuals – has not been investigated. In order to tap into shared emotional experiences, group discussions about experi...

Associations between Sadness and Anger Regulation Coping, Emotional Expression, and Physical and Relational Aggression among Urban Adolescents

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Sullivan, Terri N.; Helms, Sarah W.; Kliewer, Wendy; Goodman, Kimberly L.

2010-01-01

This study examined associations between self-reports of sadness and anger regulation coping, reluctance to express emotion, and physical and relational aggression between two cohorts of predominantly African-American fifth (N = 191; 93 boys and 98 girls) and eighth (N = 167; 73 boys and 94 girls) graders. Multiple regression analyses indicated…

"I felt sad and did not enjoy life": Cultural context and the associations between anhedonia, depressed mood, and momentary emotions.

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Chentsova-Dutton, Yulia E; Choi, Eunsoo; Ryder, Andrew G; Reyes, Jenny

2015-10-01

The meanings of "anhedonia" and "depressed mood," the cardinal emotional symptoms of major depression, may be shaped by cultural norms regarding pleasure and sadness. Thirty-two European Americans, 26 Hispanic Americans, 33 Asian Americans, and 20 Russian Americans provided reports of (a) depressive symptoms, (b) momentary emotions and pleasure, and (c) global subjective well-being. Momentary reports were collected over 10 days using handheld personal digital assistants. Reports of anhedonia were associated with heightened levels of momentary low arousal negative emotions (e.g., sadness), whereas reports of depressed mood were associated with dampened levels of momentary positive emotions (e.g., happiness). Symptoms of anhedonia and depressed mood interacted in their associations with momentary pleasure. In addition, the associations of anhedonia and depressed mood with positive emotions and life satisfaction differed across cultural groups. Specifically, these symptoms were associated with dampened positive emotions in the Asian American group only. Additionally, anhedonia was associated with dampened global life satisfaction in the European American group only. These results suggest that reports of anhedonia and depressed mood cannot be interpreted at face value as specific and culture-free indicators of emotional deficits. Instead, they appear to signal changes in the balance of positive and negative emotions, with the exact nature of these signals shaped at least in part by cultural context. This conclusion has important consequences for the clinical interpretation of depressive symptoms in multicultural societies. © The Author(s) 2015.

Time course of brain activation elicited by basic emotions.

Science.gov (United States)

Hot, Pascal; Sequeira, Henrique

2013-11-13

Whereas facial emotion recognition protocols have shown that each discrete emotion has a specific time course of brain activation, there is no electrophysiological evidence to support these findings for emotional induction by complex pictures. Our objective was to specify the differences between the time courses of brain activation elicited by feelings of happiness and, with unpleasant pictures, by feelings of disgust and sadness. We compared event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by the watching of high-arousing pictures from the International Affective Picture System, selected to induce specific emotions. In addition to a classical arousal effect on late positive components, we found specific ERP patterns for each emotion in early temporal windows (emotion to be associated with different brain processing after 140 ms, whereas happiness and sadness differed in ERPs elicited at the frontal and central sites after 160 ms. Our findings highlight the limits of the classical averaging of ERPs elicited by different emotions inside the same valence and suggest that each emotion could elicit a specific temporal pattern of brain activation, similar to those observed with emotional face recognition.

Music evokes vicarious emotions in listeners.

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Kawakami, Ai; Furukawa, Kiyoshi; Okanoya, Kazuo

2014-01-01

Why do we listen to sad music? We seek to answer this question using a psychological approach. It is possible to distinguish perceived emotions from those that are experienced. Therefore, we hypothesized that, although sad music is perceived as sad, listeners actually feel (experience) pleasant emotions concurrent with sadness. This hypothesis was supported, which led us to question whether sadness in the context of art is truly an unpleasant emotion. While experiencing sadness may be unpleasant, it may also be somewhat pleasant when experienced in the context of art, for example, when listening to sad music. We consider musically evoked emotion vicarious, as we are not threatened when we experience it, in the way that we can be during the course of experiencing emotion in daily life. When we listen to sad music, we experience vicarious sadness. In this review, we propose two sides to sadness by suggesting vicarious emotion.

Specificity of Cognitive Vulnerability in Fear and Sad Affect: Anxiety Sensitivity, Looming Cognitive Style and Hopelessness in Emotion Reactivity and Recovery

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

del Palacio Gonzalez, Adriana; Clark, David A.

2015-01-01

Cognitive models of the pathogenesis of anxiety and depressive disorders identify looming cognitive style (LCS) and anxiety sensitivity (AS) as vulnerability factors specifically related to anxiety disorders, whereas hopelessness (HS) is considered more applicable to depression. Given...... their dimensional perspective most cognitive models of psychopathology may also be extended to explain normal emotional responses. To investigate the effect of cognitive vulnerability on the reactivity and regulation of negative emotion, 183 undergraduates were assigned to watch a sad or fearful movie clip. Then......, all participants retrieved positive memories in an expressive writing task. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that LCS was uniquely associated with greater fear reactivity. AS and HS were significant predictors of greater fear and sadness after a down-regulation task, respectively...

The pleasures of sad music: a systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Sachs, Matthew E; Damasio, Antonio; Habibi, Assal

2015-01-01

Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion, a response to distressing and adverse situations. In an aesthetic context, however, sadness is often associated with some degree of pleasure, as suggested by the ubiquity and popularity, throughout history, of music, plays, films and paintings with a sad content. Here, we focus on the fact that music regarded as sad is often experienced as pleasurable. Compared to other art forms, music has an exceptional ability to evoke a wide-range of feelings and is especially beguiling when it deals with grief and sorrow. Why is it, then, that while human survival depends on preventing painful experiences, mental pain often turns out to be explicitly sought through music? In this article we consider why and how sad music can become pleasurable. We offer a framework to account for how listening to sad music can lead to positive feelings, contending that this effect hinges on correcting an ongoing homeostatic imbalance. Sadness evoked by music is found pleasurable: (1) when it is perceived as non-threatening; (2) when it is aesthetically pleasing; and (3) when it produces psychological benefits such as mood regulation, and empathic feelings, caused, for example, by recollection of and reflection on past events. We also review neuroimaging studies related to music and emotion and focus on those that deal with sadness. Further exploration of the neural mechanisms through which stimuli that usually produce sadness can induce a positive affective state could help the development of effective therapies for disorders such as depression, in which the ability to experience pleasure is attenuated.

This mood is familiar and I don't deserve to feel better anyway: mechanisms underlying self-esteem differences in motivation to repair sad moods.

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Wood, Joanne V; Heimpel, Sara A; Manwell, Laurie A; Whittington, Elizabeth J

2009-02-01

Why are people with low self-esteem (LSE) less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to improve sad moods? The present research examined whether feelings of personal deservingness contribute to this difference. Four experiments with undergraduate participants involved a sad mood induction, a manipulation of personal deservingness, or both. Results suggested that (a) LSEs feel less deserving of positive outcomes and of positive moods than do HSEs, (b) feelings of personal deservingness can vary with the situation, and be lowered through reminders of social rejection and personal flaws, and (c) feeling relatively undeserving dampens LSEs', but not HSEs', motivation to repair sad moods. These results have implications for the emotion regulation, self-esteem, and social justice literatures.

Role of tempo entrainment in psychophysiological differentiation of happy and sad music?

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Khalfa, Stéphanie; Roy, Mathieu; Rainville, Pierre; Dalla Bella, Simone; Peretz, Isabelle

2008-04-01

Respiration rate allows to differentiate between happy and sad excerpts which may be attributable to entrainment of respiration to the rhythm or the tempo rather than to emotions [Etzel, J.A., Johnsen, E.L., Dickerson, J., Tranel, D., Adolphs, R., 2006. Cardiovascular and respiratory responses during musical mood induction. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 61(1), 57-69]. In order to test for this hypothesis, this study intended to verify whether fast and slow rhythm, and/or tempo alone are sufficient to induce differential physiological effects. Psychophysiological responses (electrodermal responses, facial muscles activity, blood pressure, heart and respiration rate) were then measured in fifty young adults listening to fast/happy and slow/sad music, and to two control versions of these excerpts created by removing pitch variations (rhythmic version) and both pitch and temporal variations (beat-alone). The results indicate that happy and sad music are significantly differentiated (happy>sad) by diastolic blood pressure, electrodermal activity, and zygomatic activity, while the fast and slow rhythmic and tempo control versions did not elicit such differentiations. In contrast, respiration rate was faster with stimuli presented at fast tempi relative to slow stimuli in the beat-alone condition. It was thus demonstrated that the psychophysiological happy/sad distinction requires the tonal variations and cannot be explained solely by entrainment to tempo and rhythm. The tempo entrainment exists in the tempo alone condition but our results suggest this effect may disappear when embedded in music or with rhythm.

Functional magnetic resonances imaging of psychological functions with experimentally induced emotion

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grodd, W.; Schneider, F.; Klose, U.; Naegele, T.

1995-01-01

In this study a T 2 * FLASH sequence (TR 240 ms, TE 60 ms, slice thickness 4 mm, α=40 , matrix 64x128) was used to investigate changes in signal intensity within the temporal lobe and the amygdala during experimentally induced emotions. Visual stimuli of happy [sad] facial portraits were presented to volunteers to induce changes in the subjects' mood while lying in the tomograph. In agreement with a previous PET study, a significant increase in signal intensity in the left amygdala was found during induction of a sad mood, while no comparable effect was visible during induction of a happy mood. (orig.) [de

The effects of distraction and reappraisal on children's parasympathetic regulation of sadness and fear.

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Davis, Elizabeth L; Quiñones-Camacho, Laura E; Buss, Kristin A

2016-02-01

Children commonly experience negative emotions like sadness and fear, and much recent empirical attention has been devoted to understanding the factors supporting and predicting effective emotion regulation. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a cardiac index of parasympathetic function, has emerged as a key physiological correlate of children's self-regulation. But little is known about how children's use of specific cognitive emotion regulation strategies corresponds to concurrent parasympathetic regulation (i.e., RSA reactivity while watching an emotion-eliciting video). The current study describes an experimental paradigm in which 101 5- and 6-year-olds were randomly assigned to one of three different emotion regulation conditions: Control, Distraction, or Reappraisal. All children watched a sad film and a scary film (order counterbalanced), and children in the Distraction and Reappraisal conditions received instructions to deploy the target strategy to manage sadness/fear while they watched. Consistent with predictions, children assigned to use either emotion regulation strategy showed greater RSA augmentation from baseline than children in the Control condition (all children showed an overall increase in RSA levels from baseline), suggesting enhanced parasympathetic calming when children used distraction or reappraisal to regulate sadness and fear. But this pattern was found only among children who viewed the sad film before the scary film. Among children who viewed the scary film first, reappraisal promoted marginally better parasympathetic regulation of fear (no condition differences emerged for parasympathetic regulation of sadness when the sad film was viewed second). Results are discussed in terms of their implications for our understanding of children's emotion regulation and affective physiology. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Skin reactions to histamine of healthy subjects after hypnotically induced emotions of sadness, anger, and happiness.

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Zachariae, R; Jørgensen, M M; Egekvist, H; Bjerring, P

2001-08-01

The severity of symptoms in asthma and other hypersensitivity-related disorders has been associated with changes in mood but little is known about the mechanisms possibly mediating such a relationship. The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of mood on skin reactivity to histamine by comparing the effects of hypnotically induced emotions on flare and wheal reactions to cutaneous histamine prick tests. Fifteen highly hypnotically susceptible volunteers had their cutaneous reactivity to histamine measured before hypnosis at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 15 min after the histamine prick. These measurements were repeated under three hypnotically induced emotions of sadness, anger, and happiness presented in a counterbalanced order. Skin reactions were measured as change in histamine flare and wheal area in mm2 per minute. The increase in flare reaction in the time interval from 1 to 3 min during happiness and anger was significantly smaller than flare reactions during sadness (P<0.05). No effect of emotion was found for wheal reactions. Hypnotic susceptibility scores were associated with increased flare reactions at baseline (r=0.56; P<0.05) and during the condition of happiness (r=0.56; P<0.05). Our results agree with previous studies showing mood to be a predictor of cutaneous immediate-type hypersensitivity and histamine skin reactions. The results are also in concordance with earlier findings of an association between hypnotic susceptibility and increased reactivity to an allergen.

Norms for 10,491 Spanish words for five discrete emotions: Happiness, disgust, anger, fear, and sadness.

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Stadthagen-González, Hans; Ferré, Pilar; Pérez-Sánchez, Miguel A; Imbault, Constance; Hinojosa, José Antonio

2017-09-18

The discrete emotion theory proposes that affective experiences can be reduced to a limited set of universal "basic" emotions, most commonly identified as happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. Here we present norms for 10,491 Spanish words for those five discrete emotions collected from a total of 2,010 native speakers, making it the largest set of norms for discrete emotions in any language to date. When used in conjunction with the norms from Hinojosa, Martínez-García et al. (Behavior Research Methods, 48, 272-284, 2016) and Ferré, Guasch, Martínez-García, Fraga, & Hinojosa (Behavior Research Methods, 49, 1082-1094, 2017), researchers now have access to ratings of discrete emotions for 13,633 Spanish words. Our norms show a high degree of inter-rater reliability and correlate highly with those from Ferré et al. (2017). Our exploration of the relationship between the five discrete emotions and relevant lexical and emotional variables confirmed findings of previous studies conducted with smaller datasets. The availability of such large set of norms will greatly facilitate the study of emotion, language and related fields. The norms are available as supplementary materials to this article.

The Pleasures of Sad Music: A Systematic Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew eSachs

2015-07-01

Full Text Available Sadness is generally seen as a negative emotion, a response to distressing and adverse situations. In an aesthetic context, however, sadness is often associated with some degree of pleasure, as suggested by the ubiquity and popularity, throughout history, of music, plays, films and paintings with a sad content. Here, we focus on the fact that music regarded as sad is often experienced as pleasurable. Compared to other art forms, music has an exceptional ability to evoke a wide-range of feelings and is especially beguiling when it deals with grief and sorrow. Why is it, then, that while human survival depends on preventing painful experiences, mental pain often turns out to be explicitly sought through music? In this article we consider why and how sad music can become pleasurable. We offer a framework to account for how listening to sad music can lead to positive feelings, contending that this effect hinges on correcting an ongoing homeostatic imbalance. Sadness evoked by music is found pleasurable (1 when it is perceived as non-threatening; (2 when it is aesthetically pleasing; and (3 when it produces psychological benefits such as mood regulation, and empathic feelings, caused, for example, by recollection of and reflection on past events. We also review neuroimaging studies related to music and emotion and focus on those that deal with sadness. Further exploration of the neural mechanisms through which stimuli that usually produce sadness can induce a positive affective state could help the development of effective therapies for disorders such as depression, in which the ability to experience pleasure is attenuated.

Mismatch negativity of sad syllables is absent in patients with major depressive disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Pang, Xiaomei; Xu, Jing; Chang, Yi; Tang, Di; Zheng, Ya; Liu, Yanhua; Sun, Yiming

2014-01-01

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is an important and highly prevalent mental disorder characterized by anhedonia and a lack of interest in everyday activities. Additionally, patients with MDD appear to have deficits in various cognitive abilities. Although a number of studies investigating the central auditory processing of low-level sound features in patients with MDD have demonstrated that this population exhibits impairments in automatic processing, the influence of emotional voice processing has yet to be addressed. To explore the automatic processing of emotional prosodies in patients with MDD, we analyzed the ability to detect automatic changes using event-related potentials (ERPs). This study included 18 patients with MDD and 22 age- and sex-matched healthy controls. Subjects were instructed to watch a silent movie but to ignore the afferent acoustic emotional prosodies presented to both ears while continuous electroencephalographic activity was synchronously recorded. Prosodies included meaningless syllables, such as "dada" spoken with happy, angry, sad, or neutral tones. The mean amplitudes of the ERPs elicited by emotional stimuli and the peak latency of the emotional differential waveforms were analyzed. The sad MMN was absent in patients with MDD, whereas the happy and angry MMN components were similar across groups. The abnormal sad emotional MMN component was not significantly correlated with the HRSD-17 and HAMA scores, respectively. The data indicate that patients with MDD are impaired in their ability to automatically process sad prosody, whereas their ability to process happy and angry prosodies remains normal. The dysfunctional sad emotion-related MMN in patients with MDD were not correlated with depression symptoms. The blunted MMN of sad prosodies could be considered a trait of MDD.

The Effect of Sad Facial Expressions on Weight Judgment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Trent D Weston

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Although the body weight evaluation (e.g., normal or overweight of others relies on perceptual impressions, it also can be influenced by other psychosocial factors. In this study, we explored the effect of task-irrelevant emotional facial expressions on judgments of body weight and the relationship between emotion-induced weight judgment bias and other psychosocial variables including attitudes towards obese person. Forty-four participants were asked to quickly make binary body weight decisions for 960 randomized sad and neutral faces of varying weight levels presented on a computer screen. The results showed that sad facial expressions systematically decreased the decision threshold of overweight judgments for male faces. This perceptual decision bias by emotional expressions was positively correlated with the belief that being overweight is not under the control of obese persons. Our results provide experimental evidence that task-irrelevant emotional expressions can systematically change the decision threshold for weight judgments, demonstrating that sad expressions can make faces appear more overweight than they would otherwise be judged.

Effect of regulating anger and sadness on decision-making.

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Szasz, Paul Lucian; Hofmann, Stefan G; Heilman, Renata M; Curtiss, Joshua

2016-11-01

The aim of the current study was to investigate the effects of reappraisal, acceptance, and rumination for regulating anger and sadness on decision-making. Participants (N = 165) were asked to recall two autobiographical events in which they felt intense anger and sadness, respectively. Participants were then instructed to reappraise, accept, ruminate, or not use any strategies to regulate their feelings of anger and sadness. Following this manipulation, risk aversion, and decision-making strategies were measured using a computer-based measure of risk-taking and a simulated real-life decision-making task. Participants who were instructed to reappraise their emotions showed the least anger and sadness, the most adaptive decision-making strategies, but the least risk aversion as compared to the participants in the other conditions. These findings suggest that emotion regulation strategies of negative affective states have an immediate effect on decision-making and risk-taking behaviors.

Sad facial cues inhibit temporal attention: evidence from an event-related potential study.

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Kong, Xianxian; Chen, Xiaoqiang; Tan, Bo; Zhao, Dandan; Jin, Zhenlan; Li, Ling

2013-06-19

We examined the influence of different emotional cues (happy or sad) on temporal attention (short or long interval) using behavioral as well as event-related potential recordings during a Stroop task. Emotional stimuli cued short and long time intervals, inducing 'sad-short', 'sad-long', 'happy-short', and 'happy-long' conditions. Following the intervals, participants performed a numeric Stroop task. Behavioral results showed the temporal attention effects in the sad-long, happy-long, and happy-short conditions, in which valid cues quickened the reaction times, but not in the sad-short condition. N2 event-related potential components showed sad cues to have decreased activity for short intervals compared with long intervals, whereas happy cues did not. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for different modulation of sad and happy facial cues on temporal attention. Furthermore, sad cues inhibit temporal attention, resulting in longer reaction time and decreased neural activity in the short interval by diverting more attentional resources.

Happy faces are preferred regardless of familiarity--sad faces are preferred only when familiar.

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Liao, Hsin-I; Shimojo, Shinsuke; Yeh, Su-Ling

2013-06-01

Familiarity leads to preference (e.g., the mere exposure effect), yet it remains unknown whether it is objective familiarity, that is, repetitive exposure, or subjective familiarity that contributes to preference. In addition, it is unexplored whether and how different emotions influence familiarity-related preference. The authors investigated whether happy or sad faces are preferred or perceived as more familiar and whether this subjective familiarity judgment correlates with preference for different emotional faces. An emotional face--happy or sad--was paired with a neutral face, and participants rated the relative preference and familiarity of each of the paired faces. For preference judgment, happy faces were preferred and sad faces were less preferred, compared with neutral faces. For familiarity judgment, happy faces did not show any bias, but sad faces were perceived as less familiar than neutral faces. Item-by-item correlational analyses show preference for sad faces--but not happy faces--positively correlate with familiarity. These results suggest a direct link between positive emotion and preference, and argue at least partly against a common cause for familiarity and preference. Instead, facial expression of different emotional valence modulates the link between familiarity and preference.

Effects of worry on physiological and subjective reactivity to emotional stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder and nonanxious control participants.

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Llera, Sandra J; Newman, Michelle G

2010-10-01

The present study examined the effect of worry versus relaxation and neutral thought activity on both physiological and subjective responding to positive and negative emotional stimuli. Thirty-eight participants with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and 35 nonanxious control participants were randomly assigned to engage in worry, relaxation, or neutral inductions prior to sequential exposure to each of four emotion-inducing film clips. The clips were designed to elicit fear, sadness, happiness, and calm emotions. Self reported negative and positive affect was assessed following each induction and exposure, and vagal activity was measured throughout. Results indicate that worry (vs. relaxation) led to reduced vagal tone for the GAD group, as well as higher negative affect levels for both groups. Additionally, prior worry resulted in less physiological and subjective responding to the fearful film clip, and reduced negative affect in response to the sad clip. This suggests that worry may facilitate avoidance of processing negative emotions by way of preventing a negative emotional contrast. Implications for the role of worry in emotion avoidance are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional Temperament in Food-Related Metaphors: A Cross-Cultural Account of the Conceptualizations of SADNESS

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Zahra Khajeh

2013-11-01

Full Text Available What people in a society and culture eat or the way they consume their food may become a source domain for emotional temperament and therefore an implication for portrayal of their specific cultural models. Adopting the basic assumptions of the Lakoffian School on ‘experiential realism’ and ‘universal embodiment’ this study is an attempt to delve into the conceptual system of Persian in order to explore its specific socio-cultural motivations for the construction and semantic changes in the use of metaphorical concepts of sadness. The metaphorical uses of food-related concepts in Persian manifest that, in spite of some correspondences to those in English, sadness metaphorical concepts are distinctive in Persian. The conceptual metaphor variations reveal many vestiges of Hippocratic notions of humoral doctrine and Avicennian Traditional Medicine, suggesting that the cultural models of humoralism and dietetics have left their traces deeply in the Persians’ belief systems. The effects, therefore, have been extended into Persian metaphoric language.

Explaining the enjoyment of negative emotions evoked by the arts: The need to consider empathy and other underlying mechanisms of emotion induction.

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Vuoskoski, Jonna K; Eerola, Tuomas

2017-01-01

Any model aiming to explain the enjoyment of negative emotions in the context of the arts should consider how works of art are able to induce emotional responses in the first place. For instance, research on empathy and the arts suggests that the psychological processes that mediate the enjoyment of sadness and horror may be fundamentally different.

Anger, Sadness and Fear in Response to Breaking Crime and Accident News Stories: How Emotions Influence Support for Alcohol-Control Public Policies via Concern about Risks

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Solloway, Tyler; Slater, Michael D.; Chung, Adrienne; Goodall, Catherine

2015-01-01

Prior research shows that discrete emotions, notably anger and fear, can explain effects of news articles on health and alcohol-control policy support. This study advances prior work by coding expressed emotional responses to messages (as opposed to directly manipulated emotions or forced responses), incorporating and controlling for central thoughts, including sadness (a particularly relevant response to tragic stories), and examining concern’s mediating role between emotion and policy support. An experiment with a national online adult panel had participants read one of 60 violent crime or accident news stories, each manipulated to mention or withhold alcohol’s causal contribution. Multi-group structural equation models suggest that stories not mentioning alcohol had a direct effect on policy support via fear and central thoughts, unmediated by concern. When alcohol was mentioned, sadness and anger affects alcohol-control support through concern. Findings help confirm that emotional responses are key in determining news story effects on public support of health policies. PMID:26491487

Together we cry: Social motives and preferences for group-based sadness.

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Porat, Roni; Halperin, Eran; Mannheim, Ittay; Tamir, Maya

2016-01-01

Group-based emotions play an important role in helping people feel that they belong to their group. People are motivated to belong, but does this mean that they actively try to experience group-based emotions to increase their sense of belonging? In this investigation, we propose that people may be motivated to experience even group-based emotions that are typically considered unpleasant to satisfy their need to belong. To test this hypothesis, we examined people's preferences for group-based sadness in the context of the Israeli National Memorial Day. In two correlational (Studies 1a and 1b) and two experimental (Studies 2 and 3) studies, we demonstrate that people with a stronger need to belong have a stronger preference to experience group-based sadness. This effect was mediated by the expectation that experiencing sadness would be socially beneficial (Studies 1 and 2). We discuss the implications of our findings for understanding motivated emotion regulation and intergroup relations.

Influence of sad mood induction on implicit self-esteem and its relationship with symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Science.gov (United States)

van Tuijl, Lonneke A; Verwoerd, Johan R L; de Jong, Peter J

2018-02-13

Implicit self-esteem (ISE) refers to the valence of triggered associations when the self is activated. Despite theories, previous studies often fail to observe low ISE in depression and anxiety. It is feasible that sad mood is required to activate dysfunctional self-associations. The present study tested the following hypotheses: i) ISE is lower following a sad mood induction (SMI); ii) the relationship between ISE and level of depression/anxiety symptoms is relatively strong when ISE is measured during sad mood; iii) individuals with higher levels of depression/anxiety symptoms will show a relatively large decrease in ISE following a SMI. In this mixed-designed study, university students completed the self-esteem implicit association test (IAT) either at baseline (control condition; n = 46) or following a SMI (experimental condition; n = 49). To test the third hypothesis, a SMI and IAT were also given in the control condition. Both conditions completed self-report measures of explicit self-esteem (ESE), and symptoms of depression and anxiety. There was no support for the first two hypotheses, but some support that symptoms of anxiety correlated with larger decreases in ISE following a SMI which partly supported the third hypothesis. This disappeared when controlling for multiple testing. Results are limited to non-clinical participants. While ISE was robust against increases in sad mood, there was some tentative support that symptoms of anxiety were related to larger decreases in ISE following a SMI. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The effects of experimentally-induced sad and happy mood on sexual arousal in sexually healthy women.

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ter Kuile, Moniek M; Both, Stephanie; van Uden, Janneke

2010-03-01

In depressed women, common sexual difficulties include decreased sexual desire, sexual arousal and orgasmic difficulties, reduced sexual satisfaction, and reduced sexual pleasure. Experimental research on the influence of depressed mood on genital and subjective sexual arousal in women is scarce. To investigate the effects of sad mood on genital and subjective sexual arousal in sexually healthy women, using a mood induction procedure. Thirty-two subjects received a sad mood and a happy mood induction, on two different days, using a within subjects design. The mood induction procedure was a combination of the Velten procedure and music. In the Velten procedure, the subject is asked to read sad or happy self-referent sentences and to experience the mood suggested by these sentences. Immediately following mood induction, the subjects were exposed to an erotic film clip. Genital arousal was assessed using vaginal photoplethysmography. Self-report ratings of sad and happy mood, subjective sexual arousal and affective reactions were collected before and after the erotic clip. The sad and happy mood ratings indicated that the mood inductions affected mood as intended. No difference in genital sexual arousal was found between the sad and happy mood conditions. Subjects reported significantly less subjective sexual arousal and positive affect and marginally significant fewer genital sensations and more negative affect in the sad mood condition than in the happy mood condition. The results provide empirical support for the idea that mood can impact on subjective sexual arousal in women.

Disgust, Sadness, and Appraisal: Disgusted Consumers Dislike Food More Than Sad Ones

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Motoki, Kosuke; Sugiura, Motoaki

2018-01-01

According to the affect-as-information framework, consumers base judgments on their feelings. Disgust is associated with two kinds of appraisal: one in which the consumer avoids and distances him/herself immediately from the object concerned, and another in which the consumer is disgusted due to contamination and impurities within the environment. The first instance indicates that disgust can decrease a consumer’s preference for a product, regardless of its category. In contrast, the second case suggests that a product’s degree of depreciation is greater in products vulnerable to contamination, such as foods. However, it remains largely unknown how incidental disgust affects product preferences in accordance with the two appraisal-related goals. The present research investigates how incidental disgust (as opposed to sadness, an equally valenced but distinct emotion of appraisal) influences consumer preferences for products with or without a risk of contamination. Twenty-four participants repeatedly judged foods or household products after seeing an emotional image (conveying disgust, sadness, or neutrality). Foods and household products are the two representative product categories in grocery stores, but only foods are associated with a risk of contamination. The results showed that incidental disgust led to negative evaluations of both types of products; however, compared to sadness, incidental disgust demonstrated a stronger negative effect on preference for foods than household products. These findings elucidate that disgust and the appraisal of contamination specifically devalue foods, and broaden the application of the appraisal-information framework in consumer settings. PMID:29467697

Disgust, Sadness, and Appraisal: Disgusted Consumers Dislike Food More Than Sad Ones

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kosuke Motoki

2018-02-01

Full Text Available According to the affect-as-information framework, consumers base judgments on their feelings. Disgust is associated with two kinds of appraisal: one in which the consumer avoids and distances him/herself immediately from the object concerned, and another in which the consumer is disgusted due to contamination and impurities within the environment. The first instance indicates that disgust can decrease a consumer’s preference for a product, regardless of its category. In contrast, the second case suggests that a product’s degree of depreciation is greater in products vulnerable to contamination, such as foods. However, it remains largely unknown how incidental disgust affects product preferences in accordance with the two appraisal-related goals. The present research investigates how incidental disgust (as opposed to sadness, an equally valenced but distinct emotion of appraisal influences consumer preferences for products with or without a risk of contamination. Twenty-four participants repeatedly judged foods or household products after seeing an emotional image (conveying disgust, sadness, or neutrality. Foods and household products are the two representative product categories in grocery stores, but only foods are associated with a risk of contamination. The results showed that incidental disgust led to negative evaluations of both types of products; however, compared to sadness, incidental disgust demonstrated a stronger negative effect on preference for foods than household products. These findings elucidate that disgust and the appraisal of contamination specifically devalue foods, and broaden the application of the appraisal-information framework in consumer settings.

Disgust, Sadness, and Appraisal: Disgusted Consumers Dislike Food More Than Sad Ones.

Science.gov (United States)

Motoki, Kosuke; Sugiura, Motoaki

2018-01-01

According to the affect-as-information framework, consumers base judgments on their feelings. Disgust is associated with two kinds of appraisal: one in which the consumer avoids and distances him/herself immediately from the object concerned, and another in which the consumer is disgusted due to contamination and impurities within the environment. The first instance indicates that disgust can decrease a consumer's preference for a product, regardless of its category. In contrast, the second case suggests that a product's degree of depreciation is greater in products vulnerable to contamination, such as foods. However, it remains largely unknown how incidental disgust affects product preferences in accordance with the two appraisal-related goals. The present research investigates how incidental disgust (as opposed to sadness, an equally valenced but distinct emotion of appraisal) influences consumer preferences for products with or without a risk of contamination. Twenty-four participants repeatedly judged foods or household products after seeing an emotional image (conveying disgust, sadness, or neutrality). Foods and household products are the two representative product categories in grocery stores, but only foods are associated with a risk of contamination. The results showed that incidental disgust led to negative evaluations of both types of products; however, compared to sadness, incidental disgust demonstrated a stronger negative effect on preference for foods than household products. These findings elucidate that disgust and the appraisal of contamination specifically devalue foods, and broaden the application of the appraisal-information framework in consumer settings.

The Feeling of the Story: Narrating to Regulate Anger and Sadness

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Pasupathi, Monisha; Wainryb, Cecilia; Mansfield, Cade D.; Bourne, Stacia

2017-01-01

Admonitions to tell one’s story in order to feel better reflect the belief that narrative is an effective emotion regulation tool. The present studies evaluate the effectiveness of narrative for regulating sadness and anger, and provide quantitative comparisons of narrative with distraction, reappraisal, and reexposure. The results for sadness (n = 93) and anger (n = 89) reveal that narrative is effective at down-regulating negative emotions, particularly when narratives place events in the past tense and include positive emotions. The results suggest that if people tell the “right” kind of story about their experiences, narrative reduces emotional distress linked to those experiences. PMID:26745208

Perinatal sadness among Shuar women: support for an evolutionary theory of psychic pain.

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Hagen, Edward H; Barrett, H Clark

2007-03-01

Psychiatry faces an internal contradiction in that it regards mild sadness and low mood as normal emotions, yet when these emotions are directed toward a new infant, it regards them as abnormal. We apply parental investment theory, a widely used framework from evolutionary biology, to maternal perinatal emotions, arguing that negative emotions directed toward a new infant could serve an important evolved function. If so, then under some definitions of psychiatric disorder, these emotions are not disorders. We investigate the applicability of parental investment theory to maternal postpartum emotions among Shuar mothers. Shuar mothers' conceptions of perinatal sadness closely match predictions of parental investment theory.

Depressive Symptoms, Rumination, and Emotion Reactivity Among Youth: Moderation by Gender.

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Somers, Jennifer A; Borelli, Jessica L; Hilt, Lori M

2018-06-07

The emotion context-insensitivity hypothesis (ECI; Rottenberg et al., 2005) posits that depressive symptoms are associated with blunted emotional reactivity and is supported by the results of a meta-analysis (Bylsma et al., 2008). Yet it remains unclear how strongly ECI holds across emotional response domains, whether ECI operates similarly in male and female individuals, and whether this pattern of underreactivity is observed in youth. In contrast, rumination, a cognitive style strongly associated with depressive symptoms, may be associated with heightened reactivity. We assessed the effects of youth's depressive symptoms and rumination on subjective and physiological emotion reactivity (N = 160; M age  = 12.67, SD age  = 1.12; 48% female; 94% non-Hispanic). State sadness and respiratory sinus arrhythmia were assessed during a baseline activity (nature video) and a sad mood induction. As hypothesized, depressive symptoms predicted less subjective emotional reactivity, whereas rumination predicted more subjective reactivity. Exploratory analyses revealed that associations for physiological reactivity differed by child gender. ECI may be stronger in terms of subjective rather than physiological emotional reactivity.

Lower body weight is associated with less negative emotions in sad autobiographical memories of patients with anorexia nervosa.

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Brockmeyer, Timo; Grosse Holtforth, Martin; Bents, Hinrich; Herzog, Wolfgang; Friederich, Hans-Christoph

2013-12-15

Food restriction and weight-loss have been proposed to represent pathogenic mechanisms of emotion regulation in anorexia nervosa (AN). However, there is a lack of studies empirically examining this hypothesis. Therefore, the present study compared 25 women with AN and 25 healthy control women (HC) regarding spontaneous emotional processing of autobiographic memories. Participants' idiographic memories of sad autobiographic events were analyzed using computerized, quantitative text analysis as an unobtrusive approach of nonreactive assessment. Compared to HC, AN patients retrieved more negative but a comparable number of positive emotions. Moreover, the lesser the body weight in AN patients, the lesser negative emotions they retrieved, irrespective of current levels of depressive symptoms and duration of illness. No such association was found in HC. These preliminary findings are in line with models of AN proposing that food restriction and weight-loss may be negatively reinforced by the alleviation of aversive emotional responses. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Display rules for anger, sadness, and pain: it depends on who is watching.

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Zeman, J; Garber, J

1996-06-01

This study examined factors that may influence children's decisions to control or express their emotions including type of emotion (anger, sadness, physical pain), type of audience (mother, father, peer, alone), age, and sex. Children's reported use of display rules, reasons for their decisions, and reported method of expression were examined. Subjects were 32 boys and 32 girls in each of the first (M = 7.25 years old), third (M = 9.33 years old), and fifth grades (M = 11.75 years old). Regardless of the type of emotion experienced, children reported controlling their expression of emotion significantly more in the presence of peers than when they were with either their mother or father or when they were alone. Younger children reported expressing sadness and anger significantly more often than did older children, and girls were more likely than boys to report expressing sadness and pain. Children's primary reason for controlling their emotional expressions was the expectation of a negative interpersonal interaction following disclosure.

Emotional Expressivity and Emotion Regulation: Relation to Academic Functioning among Elementary School Children

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Kwon, Kyongboon; Hanrahan, Amanda R.; Kupzyk, Kevin A.

2017-01-01

We examined emotional expressivity (i.e., happiness, sadness, and anger) and emotion regulation (regulation of exuberance, sadness, and anger) as they relate to academic functioning (motivation, engagement, and achievement). Also, we tested the premise that emotional expressivity and emotion regulation are indirectly associated with achievement…

Aberrant default-mode network-hippocampus connectivity after sad memory-recall in remitted-depression.

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Figueroa, Caroline A; Mocking, Roel J T; van Wingen, Guido; Martens, Suzanne; Ruhé, Henricus G; Schene, Aart H

2017-11-01

Rumination and cognitive reactivity (dysfunctional cognitions after sad mood-induction) remain high in remitted Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and can contribute to new episodes. These factors have been linked to increased fMRI resting-state functional-connectivity within the Default-Mode Network (DMN). It remains unclear whether (I) increased DMN-connectivity persists during MDD-remission, and (II) whether sad mood-induction differentially affects DMN-connectivity in remitted-MDD vs controls. Moreover, DMN-connectivity studies in remitted-MDD were previously confounded by antidepressant-use. Sixty-two MDD-patients remitted from ≥2 episodes, psychotropic-medication free, and 41 controls, participated in two 5-min neutral and sad mood-inductions by autobiographical-recall and neutral/sad music, each followed by 8-min resting-state fMRI-scanning. We identified DMN-components using Independent Component Analysis and entered subject- and sessions-specific components into a repeated measures analysis of variance. Connectivity-differences were extracted and correlated with baseline cognitive reactivity and rumination as measures of vulnerability for recurrence. After sad vs neutral mood-induction, controls, but not remitted-MDD, showed an increase in connectivity between the posterior-DMN and a cluster consisting mostly of the hippocampus (P = 0.006). Less posterior-DMN-hippocampal connectivity was associated with higher cognitive reactivity (r = -0.21, P = 0.046) and rumination (r = -0.27, P = 0.017). After recalling sad autobiographical-memories, aberrant posterior-DMN-hippocampal connectivity, associated with cognitive reactivity and rumination, remains a neural vulnerability in MDD-remission. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

He throws like a girl (but only when he's sad): emotion affects sex-decoding of biological motion displays.

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Johnson, Kerri L; McKay, Lawrie S; Pollick, Frank E

2011-05-01

Gender stereotypes have been implicated in sex-typed perceptions of facial emotion. Such interpretations were recently called into question because facial cues of emotion are confounded with sexually dimorphic facial cues. Here we examine the role of visual cues and gender stereotypes in perceptions of biological motion displays, thus overcoming the morphological confounding inherent in facial displays. In four studies, participants' judgments revealed gender stereotyping. Observers accurately perceived emotion from biological motion displays (Study 1), and this affected sex categorizations. Angry displays were overwhelmingly judged to be men; sad displays were judged to be women (Studies 2-4). Moreover, this pattern remained strong when stimuli were equated for velocity (Study 3). We argue that these results were obtained because perceivers applied gender stereotypes of emotion to infer sex category (Study 4). Implications for both vision sciences and social psychology are discussed. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Unconsciously Triggered Emotional Conflict by Emotional Facial Expressions

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Chen, Antao; Cui, Qian; Zhang, Qinglin

2013-01-01

The present study investigated whether emotional conflict and emotional conflict adaptation could be triggered by unconscious emotional information as assessed in a backward-masked affective priming task. Participants were instructed to identify the valence of a face (e.g., happy or sad) preceded by a masked happy or sad face. The results of two experiments revealed the emotional conflict effect but no emotional conflict adaptation effect. This demonstrates that emotional conflict can be triggered by unconsciously presented emotional information, but participants may not adjust their subsequent performance trial-by trial to reduce this conflict. PMID:23409084

Latent negative self-schema and high emotionality in well adolescents at risk for psychopathology.

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Kelvin, R G; Goodyer, I M; Teasdale, J D; Brechin, D

1999-09-01

Teasdale's (1988) differential activation hypothesis proposes that a tendency for negative mood to activate latent negative self-schemas characterises people at risk for depression. The current study tested predictions from this hypothesis in a community sample of 102 adolescents who were free from history of psychiatric illness, and who were subdivided according to level of emotionality, a temperamental style as assessed by parental questionnaire. A musical mood induction task was used to induce temporary mild dysphoria, and the effect of mood induction on self-schemas was assessed. There was no difference between high and low emotionality groups in the liability to sad mood induction. However, adolescents with high emotionality endorsed significantly more negative self-descriptors after dysphoric, but not after neutral, mood induction. This was not accounted for by level of self-reported depressive symptoms over the previous week. This suggests that a " dysphoric mood induction challenge" may provide important information about vulnerability to depression that is not identified by routine self-report of mood or cognitions.

Facial and prosodic emotion recognition in social anxiety disorder.

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Tseng, Huai-Hsuan; Huang, Yu-Lien; Chen, Jian-Ting; Liang, Kuei-Yu; Lin, Chao-Cheng; Chen, Sue-Huei

2017-07-01

Patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have a cognitive preference to negatively evaluate emotional information. In particular, the preferential biases in prosodic emotion recognition in SAD have been much less explored. The present study aims to investigate whether SAD patients retain negative evaluation biases across visual and auditory modalities when given sufficient response time to recognise emotions. Thirty-one SAD patients and 31 age- and gender-matched healthy participants completed a culturally suitable non-verbal emotion recognition task and received clinical assessments for social anxiety and depressive symptoms. A repeated measures analysis of variance was conducted to examine group differences in emotion recognition. Compared to healthy participants, SAD patients were significantly less accurate at recognising facial and prosodic emotions, and spent more time on emotion recognition. The differences were mainly driven by the lower accuracy and longer reaction times for recognising fearful emotions in SAD patients. Within the SAD patients, lower accuracy of sad face recognition was associated with higher severity of depressive and social anxiety symptoms, particularly with avoidance symptoms. These findings may represent a cross-modality pattern of avoidance in the later stage of identifying negative emotions in SAD. This pattern may be linked to clinical symptom severity.

Aberrant default-mode network-hippocampus connectivity after sad memory-recall in remitted-depression

OpenAIRE

Figueroa, C.A.; Mocking, R.J.T.; Wingen, G.A. van; Martens, S.J.; Ruhe, H.G.; Schene, A.H.

2017-01-01

Abstract Rumination and cognitive reactivity (dysfunctional cognitions after sad mood-induction) remain high in remitted Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and can contribute to new episodes. These factors have been linked to increased fMRI resting-state functional-connectivity within the Default-Mode Network (DMN). It remains unclear whether (I) increased DMN-connectivity persists during MDD-remission, and (II) whether sad mood-induction differentially affects DMN-connectivity in remitted-MDD v...

Emotions, Mood and Decision Making

OpenAIRE

Agnes Virlics

2014-01-01

Decisions are made according to a complex cognitive and emotional evaluation of the situation. The aim of the paper is to examine the effect of mood on risky investment decision making by using a mood induction procedure. The paper investigates how happy and sad mood affects risky investment decision making and whether there is a difference between the perception of fix investments and monetary investments. The analysis has been conducted focusing on individual investment decisions. Data for ...

Regulating Rumination by Anger: Evidence for the Mutual Promotion and Counteraction (MPMC Theory of Emotionality

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Jun Zhan

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Unlike the strategy of cognitive regulation that relies heavily on the top-down control function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC, which was recently found may be critically impaired in stressful situations, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views different types of emotionality as having mutual promotion and counteraction (MPMC relationships, implying a novel approach that requires less cognition to emotional regulation. Actually, our previous studies have indicated that anger responses could be successfully regulated via the induction of sadness, and this efficiency could not be influenced by stress, thus providing evidences for the hypothesis of “sadness counteracts anger” (SCA proposed by the MPMC theory of emotionality (Zhan et al., 2015, 2017. In this study, we experimentally examined the MPMC hypothesis that “anger counteracts rumination” (ACR which postulates that rumination may be alleviated by the anger emotion. In Study 1, all participants were initially caused state rumination and then induced anger, joy or neutral mood, the results showed that the rumination-related affect was alleviated after anger induction relative to that after joy or neutral mood induction. In Study 2, female participants with high trait rumination were recruited and divided into two groups for exposure to an anger or neutral emotion intervention, the result indicated that the anger intervention group exhibited a greater decline in trait rumination than the neutral emotion intervention group. These findings provided preliminary evidence supporting the hypothesis of ACR, which suggested a new strategy that employs less cognitive resources to regulating state and trait rumination by inducing anger.

Regulating Rumination by Anger: Evidence for the Mutual Promotion and Counteraction (MPMC) Theory of Emotionality

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Zhan, Jun; Tang, Fan; He, Mei; Fan, Jin; Xiao, Jing; Liu, Chang; Luo, Jing

2017-01-01

Unlike the strategy of cognitive regulation that relies heavily on the top-down control function of the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which was recently found may be critically impaired in stressful situations, traditional Chinese philosophy and medicine views different types of emotionality as having mutual promotion and counteraction (MPMC) relationships, implying a novel approach that requires less cognition to emotional regulation. Actually, our previous studies have indicated that anger responses could be successfully regulated via the induction of sadness, and this efficiency could not be influenced by stress, thus providing evidences for the hypothesis of “sadness counteracts anger” (SCA) proposed by the MPMC theory of emotionality (Zhan et al., 2015, 2017). In this study, we experimentally examined the MPMC hypothesis that “anger counteracts rumination” (ACR) which postulates that rumination may be alleviated by the anger emotion. In Study 1, all participants were initially caused state rumination and then induced anger, joy or neutral mood, the results showed that the rumination-related affect was alleviated after anger induction relative to that after joy or neutral mood induction. In Study 2, female participants with high trait rumination were recruited and divided into two groups for exposure to an anger or neutral emotion intervention, the result indicated that the anger intervention group exhibited a greater decline in trait rumination than the neutral emotion intervention group. These findings provided preliminary evidence supporting the hypothesis of ACR, which suggested a new strategy that employs less cognitive resources to regulating state and trait rumination by inducing anger. PMID:29249998

Subthalamic Nucleus Deep Brain Stimulation Alters Prefrontal Correlates of Emotion Induction.

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Bick, Sarah K B; Folley, Bradley S; Mayer, Jutta S; Park, Sohee; Charles, P David; Camalier, Corrie R; Pallavaram, Srivatsan; Konrad, Peter E; Neimat, Joseph S

2017-04-01

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) improves motor symptoms in advanced Parkinson's disease. STN DBS may also affect emotion, possibly by impacting a parallel limbic cortico-striatal circuit. The objective of this study was to investigate changes in prefrontal cortical activity related to DBS during an emotion induction task. We used near infrared spectroscopy to monitor prefrontal cortex hemodynamic changes during an emotion induction task. Seven DBS patients were tested sequentially in the stimulation-on and stimulation-off states while on dopaminergic medication. Patients watched a series of positive, negative, and neutral videos. The general linear model was used to compare prefrontal oxygenated hemoglobin concentration between DBS states. Deep brain stimulation was correlated with prefrontal oxygenated hemoglobin changes relative to the stimulation off state in response to both positive and negative videos. These changes were specific to emotional stimuli and were not seen during neutral stimuli. These results suggest that STN stimulation influences the prefrontal cortical representation of positive and negative emotion induction. © 2016 International Neuromodulation Society.

Intact brain processing of musical emotions in autism spectrum disorder, but more cognitive load and arousal in happy versus sad music

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Line eGebauer

2014-07-01

Full Text Available Music is a potent source for eliciting emotions, but not everybody experience emotions in the same way. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD show difficulties with social and emotional cognition. Impairments in emotion recognition are widely studied in ASD, and have been associated with atypical brain activation in response to emotional expressions in faces and speech. Whether these impairments and atypical brain responses generalize to other domains, such as emotional processing of music, is less clear. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated neural correlates of emotion recognition in music in high-functioning adults with ASD and neurotypical adults. Both groups engaged similar neural networks during processing of emotional music, and individuals with ASD rated emotional music comparable to the group of neurotypical individuals. However, in the ASD group, increased activity in response to happy compared to sad music was observed in dorsolateral prefrontal regions and in the rolandic operculum/insula, and we propose that this reflects increased cognitive processing in response to emotional musical stimuli in this group.

Emotional Variability and Clarity in Depression and Social Anxiety

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Thompson, Renee J.; Boden, Matthew Tyler; Gotlib, Ian H.

2016-01-01

Recent research has underscored the importance of elucidating specific patterns of emotion that characterize mental disorders. We examined two emotion traits, emotional variability and emotional clarity, in relation to both categorical (diagnostic interview) and dimensional (self-report) measures of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) in women diagnosed with MDD only (n=35), SAD only (n=31), MDD and SAD (n=26), or no psychiatric disorder (n=38). Results of the categorical analyses suggest that elevated emotional variability and diminished emotional clarity are transdiagnostic of MDD and SAD. More specifically, emotional variability was elevated for MDD and SAD diagnoses compared to no diagnosis, showing an additive effect for co-occurring MDD and SAD. Similarly diminished levels of emotional clarity characterized all three clinical groups compared to the healthy control group. Dimensional findings suggest that whereas emotional variability is associated more consistently with depression than with social anxiety, emotional clarity is associated more consistently with social anxiety than with depression. Results are interpreted using a threshold- and dose-response framework. PMID:26371579

How sadness and happiness influence ethnic stereotyping

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Žeželj Iris

2012-01-01

Full Text Available Incidental affective states tend to influence stereotyping in counterintuitive way: experimentally induced happiness leads to more stereotyping while experimentally induced sadness leads to less stereotyping. It was therefore predicted that happy subjects would a. would make more stereotype-consistent errors in memory task; b. attribute more stereotypical features to a specific ethnic group, and c. be less sensitive to ethnic discrimination in comparison to sad subjects. In a sample of 90 high school students from Belgrade, Serbia, differently valenced affects were successfully induced using 'autobiographic recollection' procedure. Experiment 1 showed that happy and sad subjects did not differ in the number of stereotype consistent errors in memory task. In experiment 2, however, happy subjects in comparison to sad subjects attributed more stereotypic traits to a non-stereotypical exemplar of a national category and expected him to behave more stereotypically in the future. Additionally, in thought listing task, happy subjects recorded more irrelevant and less story-focused thoughts in comparison to sad subjects. Finally, in Experiment 3 (N=66 sad subjects demonstrated more sensitivity to ethnic discrimination in comparison to happy subjects. These findings are discussed in terms of the impact of emotional experience on social information-processing strategies.

Emotional competence and extrinsic emotion regulation directed toward an ostracized person.

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Nozaki, Yuki

2015-12-01

Positive interpersonal relationships hinge on individuals' competence in regulating others' emotions as well as their own. Nevertheless, little is known about the relationship between emotional competence and specific interpersonal behaviors. In particular, it is unclear which situations require emotional competence for extrinsic emotion regulation and whether emotionally competent individuals actually attempt to regulate others' emotions. To clarify these issues, the current investigation examined the relationship between emotional competence and extrinsic emotion regulation directed toward an ostracized person. The results of Study 1 (N = 39) indicated that interpersonal emotional competence (competence related to others' emotions) was positively associated with participants' efforts to relieve the ostracized person's sadness. In Study 2 (N = 120), this relationship was moderated by the ostracized person's emotional expression. In particular, participants with high interpersonal emotional competence were more likely to attempt to regulate the sadness of ostracized individuals who expressed neutral affect. In contrast, when the ostracized person expressed sadness, there were no significant relationships between high or low interpersonal emotional competence and extrinsic emotion regulation behavior. These results offer novel insight into how emotionally competent individuals use their competence to benefit others. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of acute systemic inflammation on the interplay between sad mood and affective cognition.

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Benson, Sven; Brinkhoff, Alexandra; Lueg, Larissa; Roderigo, Till; Kribben, Andreas; Wilde, Benjamin; Witzke, Oliver; Engler, Harald; Schedlowski, Manfred; Elsenbruch, Sigrid

2017-12-11

Experimental endotoxemia is a translational model to study inflammatory mechanisms involved in the pathophysiology of mood disorders including depression. Disturbed affective cognition constitutes a core aspect in depression, but has never been studied in the context of inflammation. We combined experimental endotoxemia with an established experimental mood induction procedure to assess the interaction between acute inflammation and sad mood and their effects on affective cognition. In this randomized cross-over study, N = 15 healthy males received endotoxin (0.8 ng/kg lipopolysaccharide iv) on one study day and placebo an otherwise identical study day. The affective Go/Nogo task was conducted after experimental induction of neutral and sad mood. Inflammatory markers were assessed hourly. Endotoxin application induced a transient systemic inflammation, characterized by increased leukocyte counts, TNF-alpha and interleukin-6 plasma concentrations (all p sadness ratings, with highest ratings when sad mood was induced during inflammation (p sad vs. neutral mood) × 2 (sad vs. happy Go/Nogo target words) factorial design, we observed a significant target × endotoxin condition interaction (p sad targets during endotoxemia. Additionally, we found a valence × mood interaction (p sad targets in sad mood. In summary, acute inflammation and sad mood are risk factors for disturbed affective cognition. The results may reflect a mood-congruency effect, with prolonged and sustained processing of mood-congruent information during acute inflammation, which may contribute to depression risk.

Induction of depressed and elated mood by music influences the perception of facial emotional expressions in healthy subjects.

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Bouhuys, A L; Bloem, G M; Groothuis, T G

1995-04-04

The judgement of healthy subject rating the emotional expressions of a set of schematic drawn faces is validated (study 1) to examine the relationship between mood (depressed/elated) and judgement of emotional expressions of these faces (study 2). Study 1: 30 healthy subjects judged 12 faces with respect to the emotions they express (fear, happiness, anger, sadness, disgust, surprise, rejection and invitation). It was found that a particular face could reflect various emotions. All eight emotions were reflected in the set of faces and the emotions were consensually judged. Moreover, gender differences in judgement could be established. Study 2: In a cross-over design, 24 healthy subjects judged the faces after listening to depressing or elating music. The faces were subdivided in six 'ambiguous' faces (i.e., expressing similar amounts of positive and negative emotions) and six 'clear' faces (i.e., faces showing a preponderance of positive or negative emotions). In addition, these two types of faces were distinguished with respect to the intensity of emotions they express. 11 subjects who showed substantial differences in experienced depression after listening to the music were selected for further analysis. It was found that, when feeling more depressed, the subjects perceived more rejection/sadness in ambiguous faces (displaying less intensive emotions) and less invitation/happiness in clear faces. In addition, subjects saw more fear in clear faces that express less intensive emotions. Hence, results show a depression-related negative bias in the perception of facial displays.

Inside-out: comparing internally generated and externally generated basic emotions.

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Salas, Christian E; Radovic, Darinka; Turnbull, Oliver H

2012-06-01

A considerable number of mood induction (MI) procedures have been developed to elicit emotion in normal and clinical populations. Although external procedures (e.g., film clips, pictures) are widely used, a number of experiments elicit emotion by using self-generated procedures (e.g., recalling an emotional personal episode). However, no study has directly compared the effectiveness of two types of internal versus external MI across multiple discrete emotions. In the present experiment, 40 undergraduate students watched film clips (external procedure) and recalled personal events (internal procedure) inducing 4 basic emotions (fear, anger, joy, sadness) and later completed a self-report questionnaire. Remarkably, both internal and external procedures elicited target emotions selectively, compared with nontarget emotions. When contrasting the intensity of target emotions, both techniques showed no significant differences, with the exception of Joy, which was more intensely elicited by the internal procedure. Importantly, when considering the overall level of intensity, it was always greater in the internal procedure, for each stimulus. A more detailed investigation of the data suggest that recalling personal events (a type of internal procedure) generates more negative and mixed blends of emotions, which might account for the overall higher intensity of the internal mood induction.

Laughter exaggerates happy and sad faces depending on visual context.

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Sherman, Aleksandra; Sweeny, Timothy D; Grabowecky, Marcia; Suzuki, Satoru

2012-04-01

Laughter is an auditory stimulus that powerfully conveys positive emotion. We investigated how laughter influenced the visual perception of facial expressions. We presented a sound clip of laughter simultaneously with a happy, a neutral, or a sad schematic face. The emotional face was briefly presented either alone or among a crowd of neutral faces. We used a matching method to determine how laughter influenced the perceived intensity of the happy, neutral, and sad expressions. For a single face, laughter increased the perceived intensity of a happy expression. Surprisingly, for a crowd of faces, laughter produced an opposite effect, increasing the perceived intensity of a sad expression in a crowd. A follow-up experiment revealed that this contrast effect may have occurred because laughter made the neutral distractor faces appear slightly happy, thereby making the deviant sad expression stand out in contrast. A control experiment ruled out semantic mediation of the laughter effects. Our demonstration of the strong context dependence of laughter effects on facial expression perception encourages a reexamination of the previously demonstrated effects of prosody, speech content, and mood on face perception, as they may be similarly context dependent.

Emotional clarity and attention to emotions in cognitive behavioral group therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction for social anxiety disorder.

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Butler, Rachel M; Boden, Matthew T; Olino, Thomas M; Morrison, Amanda S; Goldin, Philippe R; Gross, James J; Heimberg, Richard G

2018-04-01

We examined (1) differences between controls and patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) in emotional clarity and attention to emotions; (2) changes in emotional clarity and attention to emotions associated with cognitive-behavioral group therapy (CBGT), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), or a waitlist (WL) condition; and (3) whether emotional clarity and attention to emotions moderated changes in social anxiety across treatment. Participants were healthy controls (n = 37) and patients with SAD (n = 108) who were assigned to CBGT, MBSR, or WL in a randomized controlled trial. At pretreatment, posttreatment, and 12-month follow-up, patients with SAD completed measures of social anxiety, emotional clarity, and attention to emotions. Controls completed measures at baseline only. At pretreatment, patients with SAD had lower levels of emotional clarity than controls. Emotional clarity increased significantly among patients receiving CBGT, and changes were maintained at 12-month follow-up. Emotional clarity at posttreatment did not differ between CBGT and MBSR or between MBSR and WL. Changes in emotional clarity predicted changes in social anxiety, but emotional clarity did not moderate treatment outcome. Analyses of attention to emotions were not significant. Implications for the role of emotional clarity in the treatment of SAD are discussed. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neural Substrates for Processing Task-Irrelevant Sad Images in Adolescents

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Wang, Lihong; Huettel, Scott; De Bellis, Michael D.

2008-01-01

Neural systems related to cognitive and emotional processing were examined in adolescents using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Ten healthy adolescents performed an emotional oddball task. Subjects detected infrequent circles (targets) within a continual stream of phase-scrambled images (standards). Sad and neutral…

Identifying Emotions on the Basis of Neural Activation.

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Kassam, Karim S; Markey, Amanda R; Cherkassky, Vladimir L; Loewenstein, George; Just, Marcel Adam

2013-01-01

We attempt to determine the discriminability and organization of neural activation corresponding to the experience of specific emotions. Method actors were asked to self-induce nine emotional states (anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, pride, sadness, and shame) while in an fMRI scanner. Using a Gaussian Naïve Bayes pooled variance classifier, we demonstrate the ability to identify specific emotions experienced by an individual at well over chance accuracy on the basis of: 1) neural activation of the same individual in other trials, 2) neural activation of other individuals who experienced similar trials, and 3) neural activation of the same individual to a qualitatively different type of emotion induction. Factor analysis identified valence, arousal, sociality, and lust as dimensions underlying the activation patterns. These results suggest a structure for neural representations of emotion and inform theories of emotional processing.

The effects of sad mood on memory in older adults: a test of the mood congruence effect.

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Knight, Bob G; Maines, Michele L; Robinson, Gia S

2002-12-01

Mood congruence effects have long been studied in younger adults, but not in older adults. Socioemotional selectivity theory (SST) suggests that mood congruence could operate differently in older adults. One hundred and nineteen younger and 78 older adults were randomly assigned to sad or neutral mood inductions, using combined Velten and music induction procedures. Results indicated that during sad mood induction both older and younger adults showed enhanced recall of sad words on delayed word list recall task and in autobiographical memory. However, only older adults displayed mood congruence effects on lexical ambiguity and lower recall of positive words in the word list task. Results provided partial support for developmental effects on mood congruence derived from SST.

Discrete Neural Signatures of Basic Emotions.

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Saarimäki, Heini; Gotsopoulos, Athanasios; Jääskeläinen, Iiro P; Lampinen, Jouko; Vuilleumier, Patrik; Hari, Riitta; Sams, Mikko; Nummenmaa, Lauri

2016-06-01

Categorical models of emotions posit neurally and physiologically distinct human basic emotions. We tested this assumption by using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) to classify brain activity patterns of 6 basic emotions (disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, anger, and surprise) in 3 experiments. Emotions were induced with short movies or mental imagery during functional magnetic resonance imaging. MVPA accurately classified emotions induced by both methods, and the classification generalized from one induction condition to another and across individuals. Brain regions contributing most to the classification accuracy included medial and inferior lateral prefrontal cortices, frontal pole, precentral and postcentral gyri, precuneus, and posterior cingulate cortex. Thus, specific neural signatures across these regions hold representations of different emotional states in multimodal fashion, independently of how the emotions are induced. Similarity of subjective experiences between emotions was associated with similarity of neural patterns for the same emotions, suggesting a direct link between activity in these brain regions and the subjective emotional experience. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

[The expression of sadness in a working class bairro in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil].

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Costa, L A; Pereira, A M

1995-01-01

This paper examines the peculiarities of the expression of emotion in a poor neighborhood from Northeastern Brazil, the bairro of Nordeste de Amaralina, in Salvador, Bahia. Focusing on the expression of sadness, we built a scheme in which to understand how the informants perceive, identify, and deal with this emotion in the course of their daily lives. We attempted to reach an understanding of the wavs people in the bairro interpret sadness. In order to accomplish this goal. we built a semantic network which revealed three main clusters of emotional expression: the inner set, the bodily set, and the interactional set. We came to realize the various superpositions benween the universe of emotional expression and the local concept of person.

Memorable Experiences with Sad Music—Reasons, Reactions and Mechanisms of Three Types of Experiences

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Peltola, Henna-Riikka

2016-01-01

Reactions to memorable experiences of sad music were studied by means of a survey administered to a convenience (N = 1577), representative (N = 445), and quota sample (N = 414). The survey explored the reasons, mechanisms, and emotions of such experiences. Memorable experiences linked with sad music typically occurred in relation to extremely familiar music, caused intense and pleasurable experiences, which were accompanied by physiological reactions and positive mood changes in about a third of the participants. A consistent structure of reasons and emotions for these experiences was identified through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses across the samples. Three types of sadness experiences were established, one that was genuinely negative (Grief-Stricken Sorrow) and two that were positive (Comforting Sorrow and Sweet Sorrow). Each type of emotion exhibited certain individual differences and had distinct profiles in terms of the underlying reasons, mechanisms, and elicited reactions. The prevalence of these broad types of emotional experiences suggested that positive experiences are the most frequent, but negative experiences were not uncommon in any of the samples. The findings have implications for measuring emotions induced by music and fiction in general, and call attention to the non-pleasurable aspects of these experiences. PMID:27300268

Emotion categorization of body expressions in narrative scenarios.

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Volkova, Ekaterina P; Mohler, Betty J; Dodds, Trevor J; Tesch, Joachim; Bülthoff, Heinrich H

2014-01-01

Humans can recognize emotions expressed through body motion with high accuracy even when the stimuli are impoverished. However, most of the research on body motion has relied on exaggerated displays of emotions. In this paper we present two experiments where we investigated whether emotional body expressions could be recognized when they were recorded during natural narration. Our actors were free to use their entire body, face, and voice to express emotions, but our resulting visual stimuli used only the upper body motion trajectories in the form of animated stick figures. Observers were asked to perform an emotion recognition task on short motion sequences using a large and balanced set of emotions (amusement, joy, pride, relief, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, shame, and neutral). Even with only upper body motion available, our results show recognition accuracy significantly above chance level and high consistency rates among observers. In our first experiment, that used more classic emotion induction setup, all emotions were well recognized. In the second study that employed narrations, four basic emotion categories (joy, anger, fear, and sadness), three non-basic emotion categories (amusement, pride, and shame) and the "neutral" category were recognized above chance. Interestingly, especially in the second experiment, observers showed a bias toward anger when recognizing the motion sequences for emotions. We discovered that similarities between motion sequences across the emotions along such properties as mean motion speed, number of peaks in the motion trajectory and mean motion span can explain a large percent of the variation in observers' responses. Overall, our results show that upper body motion is informative for emotion recognition in narrative scenarios.

Emotion Categorisation of Body Expressions in Narrative Scenarios

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Ekaterina P. Volkova

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Humans can recognise emotions expressed through body motion with high accuracy even when the stimuli are impoverished. However, most of the research on body motion has relied on exaggerated displays of emotions. In this paper we present two experiments where we investigated whether emotional body expressions could be recognised when they were recorded during natural narration. Our actors were free to use their entire body, face and voice to express emotions, but our resulting visual stimuli used only the upper body motion trajectories in the form of animated stick figures. Observers were asked to perform an emotion recognition task on short motion sequences using a large and balanced set of emotions (amusement, joy, pride, relief, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, shame and neutral. Even with only upper body motion available, our results show recognition accuracy significantly above chance level and high consistency rates among observers. In our first experiment, that used more classic emotion induction setup, all emotions were well recognised. In the second study that employed narrations, four basic emotion categories (joy, anger, fear and sadness, three non-basic emotion categories (amusement, pride and shame and the neutral category were recognised above chance. Interestingly, especially in the second experiment, observers showed a bias towards anger when recognising the motion sequences for emotions. We discovered that similarities between motion sequences across the emotions along such properties as mean motion speed, number of peaks in the motion trajectory and mean motion span can explain a large percent of the variation in observers' responses. Overall, our results show that upper body motion is informative for emotion recognition in narrative scenarios.

Emotion socialization in the context of risk and psychopathology: Mother and father socialization of anger and sadness in adolescents with depressive disorder.

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Shortt, Joann Wu; Katz, Lynn Fainsilber; Allen, Nicholas; Leve, Craig; Davis, Betsy; Sheeber, Lisa

2016-02-01

This study examined parental emotion socialization processes associated with adolescent unipolar depressive disorder. Adolescent participants (N=107; 42 boys) were selected either to meet criteria for current unipolar depressive disorder or to be psychologically healthy as defined by no lifetime history of psychopathology or mental health treatment and low levels of current depressive symptomatology. A multisource/method measurement strategy was used to assess mothers' and fathers' responses to adolescent sad and angry emotion. Each parent and the adolescents completed questionnaire measures of parental emotion socialization behavior, and participated in meta-emotion interviews and parent-adolescent interactions. As hypothesized, parents of adolescents with depressive disorder engaged in fewer supportive responses and more unsupportive responses overall relative to parents of nondepressed adolescents. Between group differences were more pronounced for families of boys, and for fathers relative to mothers. The findings indicate that parent emotion socialization is associated with adolescent depression and highlight the importance of including fathers in studies of emotion socialization, especially as it relates to depression.

Effects of Sad and Happy Music on Mind-Wandering and the Default Mode Network.

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Taruffi, Liila; Pehrs, Corinna; Skouras, Stavros; Koelsch, Stefan

2017-10-31

Music is a ubiquitous phenomenon in human cultures, mostly due to its power to evoke and regulate emotions. However, effects of music evoking different emotional experiences such as sadness and happiness on cognition, and in particular on self-generated thought, are unknown. Here we use probe-caught thought sampling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate the influence of sad and happy music on mind-wandering and its underlying neuronal mechanisms. In three experiments we found that sad music, compared with happy music, is associated with stronger mind-wandering (Experiments 1A and 1B) and greater centrality of the nodes of the Default Mode Network (DMN) (Experiment 2). Thus, our results demonstrate that, when listening to sad vs. happy music, people withdraw their attention inwards and engage in spontaneous, self-referential cognitive processes. Importantly, our results also underscore that DMN activity can be modulated as a function of sad and happy music. These findings call for a systematic investigation of the relation between music and thought, having broad implications for the use of music in education and clinical settings.

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.

Identifying Emotions on the Basis of Neural Activation.

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Karim S Kassam

Full Text Available We attempt to determine the discriminability and organization of neural activation corresponding to the experience of specific emotions. Method actors were asked to self-induce nine emotional states (anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, pride, sadness, and shame while in an fMRI scanner. Using a Gaussian Naïve Bayes pooled variance classifier, we demonstrate the ability to identify specific emotions experienced by an individual at well over chance accuracy on the basis of: 1 neural activation of the same individual in other trials, 2 neural activation of other individuals who experienced similar trials, and 3 neural activation of the same individual to a qualitatively different type of emotion induction. Factor analysis identified valence, arousal, sociality, and lust as dimensions underlying the activation patterns. These results suggest a structure for neural representations of emotion and inform theories of emotional processing.

Quantification of vascular function changes under different emotion states: A pilot study.

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Xia, Yirong; Yang, Licai; Mao, Xueqin; Zheng, Dingchang; Liu, Chengyu

2017-01-01

Recent studies have indicated that physiological parameters change with different emotion states. This study aimed to quantify the changes of vascular function at different emotion and sub-emotion states. Twenty young subjects were studied with their finger photoplethysmographic (PPG) pulses recorded at three distinct emotion states: natural (1 minute), happiness and sadness (10 minutes for each). Within the period of happiness and sadness emotion states, two sub-emotion states (calmness and outburst) were identified with the synchronously recorded videos. Reflection index (RI) and stiffness index (SI), two widely used indices of vascular function, were derived from the PPG pulses to quantify their differences between three emotion states, as well as between two sub-emotion states. The results showed that, when compared with the natural emotion, RI and SI decreased in both happiness and sadness emotions. The decreases in RI were significant for both happiness and sadness emotions (both Pemotion (Pemotions, there was significant difference in RI (Pemotion in comparison with the calmness one for both happiness and sadness emotions (both Pemotion only in sadness emotion (Pemotion measurements. This pilot study confirmed that vascular function changes with diffenrt emotion states could be quantified by the simple PPG measurement.

Misery loves company: when sadness increases the desire for social connectedness.

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Gray, Heather M; Ishii, Keiko; Ambady, Nalini

2011-11-01

In three experiments, the authors investigated the effects of sadness on the desire for social connectedness. They hypothesized that sadness serves an adaptive function by motivating people to reach out to others and preferentially attend to information related to one's current level of social connectedness, but only when it is instigated by social loss. Consistent with this hypothesis, the authors observed that sadness induced by an emotional depiction of social loss enhanced (a) attention to nonverbal cues, an important source of information concerning an individual's current level of social connectedness (Experiment 1), and (b) the desire to engage in social behaviors (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3 the authors found that sadness that results from imagined social loss uniquely produced this pattern of effects. Sadness that resulted from imagined failure had different effects on motivation and no effect on sensitivity to nonverbal cues. These results support and refine functional explanations for the universality of sadness.

The cognitive costs of the counter-stereotypic: gender, emotion, and social presence.

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McCarty, Megan K; Kelly, Janice R; Williams, Kipling D

2014-01-01

We explored the concurrent and subsequent cognitive consequences of the experience of gender counter-stereotypic emotions. Participants experiencing gender counter-stereotypic emotions were expected to display less emotional expression and demonstrate poorer cognitive performance when in the public condition than when in the private condition. Seventy-one women and 66 men completed an anger- or sadness-inducing task privately or publicly. Participants completed two cognitive tasks: one during and one after the emotion-induction task. Participants exhibited poorer performance during and following gender counter-stereotypic emotions only in the public condition. Direct evidence for greater suppression of gender counter-stereotypic emotions in the public conditions was not obtained. These results suggest that the same public emotional events may be differentially cognitively depleting depending on one's gender, potentially contributing to the perpetuation of stereotypes.

Parental Personality and Its Relationship to Socialization of Sadness in Children.

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Race, Eleanor; Brand, Ann E.

The relationship between parental personality traits and how parents socialize their children's emotions is largely unexplored. This study examined the association of personality traits such as Neuroticism and Agreeableness, and emotion traits such as Anxiety and Trait Depression to the strategies parents use to socialize their children's sadness,…

Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders

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Marsh, Penny; Beauchaine, Theodore P.; Williams, Bailey

2007-01-01

Although deficiencies in emotional responding have been linked to externalizing behaviors in children, little is known about how discrete response systems (e.g., expressive, physiological) are coordinated during emotional challenge among these youth. We examined time-linked correspondence of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity during an empathy-eliciting task among boys with disruptive behavior disorders (n = 31) and controls (n = 23). For controls, sad facial expressions were ass...

"Cycling around an emotional core of sadness": emotion regulation in a couple after the loss of a child.

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Hooghe, An; Neimeyer, Robert A; Rober, Peter

2012-09-01

In contrast to the traditional view of working through grief by confronting it, recent theories have emphasized an oscillating process of confronting and avoiding the pain of loss. In this qualitative study, we sought a better understanding of this process by conducting a detailed case study of a bereaved couple after the loss of their infant daughter. We employed multiple data collection methods (using interviews and written feedback) and an intensive auditing process in our thematic analysis, with special attention to a recurrent metaphor used by this bereaved couple in describing their personal and relational experience. The findings suggest the presence of a dialectic tension between the need to be close to the deceased child and the need for distance from the pain of the loss, which was evidenced on both individual and relational levels. For this couple, the image of "cycling around an emotional core of sadness" captured their dynamic way of dealing with this dialectic of closeness and distance.

Dissociable contributions of amygdala and hippocampus to emotion and memory in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

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Guzmán-Vélez, Edmarie; Warren, David E; Feinstein, Justin S; Bruss, Joel; Tranel, Daniel

2016-06-01

The amygdala and the hippocampus are associated with emotional processing and declarative memory, respectively. Studies have shown that patients with bilateral hippocampal damage caused by anoxia/ischemia, and patients with probable Alzheimer's disease (AD), can experience emotions for prolonged periods of time, even when they cannot remember what caused the emotion in the first place (Feinstein et al. (2010) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:7674-7679; Guzmán-Vélez et al. (2014) Cogn Behav Neurol 27:117-129). This study aimed to investigate, for the first time, the roles of the amygdala and hippocampus in the dissociation between feelings of emotion and declarative memory for emotion-inducing events in patients with AD. Individuals with probable AD (N = 12) and age-matched healthy comparisons participants (HCP; N = 12) completed a high-resolution (0.44 × 0.44 × 0.80 mm) T2-weighted structural MR scan of the medial temporal lobe. Each of these individuals also completed two separate emotion induction procedures (sadness and happiness) using film clips. We collected real-time emotion ratings at baseline and multiple times postinduction, and administered a test of declarative memory shortly after each induction. Consistent with previous research, hippocampal volume was significantly smaller in patients with AD compared with HCP, and was positively correlated with memory for the film clips. Sustained feelings of emotion and amygdala volume did not significantly differ between patients with AD and HCP. Follow-up analyses showed a significant negative correlation between amygdala volume and sustained sadness, and a significant positive correlation between amygdala volume and sustained happiness. Our findings suggest that the amygdala is important for regulating and sustaining an emotion independent of hippocampal function and declarative memory for the emotion-inducing event. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Comparison of Sadness, Anger, and Fear Facial Expressions When Toddlers Look at Their Mothers

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Buss, Kristin A.; Kiel, Elizabeth J.

2004-01-01

Research suggests that sadness expressions may be more beneficial to children than other emotions when eliciting support from caregivers. It is unclear, however, when children develop the ability to regulate their displays of distress. The current study addressed this question. Distress facial expressions (e.g., fear, anger, and sadness) were…

Improvement of autobiographic memory recovery by means of sad music in Alzheimer's Disease type dementia.

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Meilán García, Juan José; Iodice, Rosario; Carro, Juan; Sánchez, José Antonio; Palmero, Francisco; Mateos, Ana María

2012-06-01

Autobiographic memory undergoes progressive deterioration during the evolution of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The aim of this study was to analyze mechanisms which facilitate recovery of autobiographic memories. We used a repeatedly employed mechanism, music, with the addition of an emotional factor. Autobiographic memory provoked by a variety of sounds (music which was happy, sad, lacking emotion, ambient noise in a coffee bar and no sound) was analyzed in a sample of 25 patients with AD. Emotional music, especially sad music for remote memories, was found to be the most effective kind for recall of autobiographic experiences. The factor evoking the memory is not the music itself, but rather the emotion associated with it, and is useful for semantic rather than episodic memory.

REM-Enriched Naps Are Associated with Memory Consolidation for Sad Stories and Enhance Mood-Related Reactivity.

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Gilson, Médhi; Deliens, Gaétane; Leproult, Rachel; Bodart, Alice; Nonclercq, Antoine; Ercek, Rudy; Peigneux, Philippe

2015-12-29

Emerging evidence suggests that emotion and affect modulate the relation between sleep and cognition. In the present study, we investigated the role of rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep in mood regulation and memory consolidation for sad stories. In a counterbalanced design, participants (n = 24) listened to either a neutral or a sad story during two sessions, spaced one week apart. After listening to the story, half of the participants had a short (45 min) morning nap. The other half had a long (90 min) morning nap, richer in REM and N2 sleep. Story recall, mood evolution and changes in emotional response to the re-exposure to the story were assessed after the nap. Although recall performance was similar for sad and neutral stories irrespective of nap duration, sleep measures were correlated with recall performance in the sad story condition only. After the long nap, REM sleep density positively correlated with retrieval performance, while re-exposure to the sad story led to diminished mood and increased skin conductance levels. Our results suggest that REM sleep may not only be associated with the consolidation of intrinsically sad material, but also enhances mood reactivity, at least on the short term.

Proactive and reactive control depends on emotional valence: a Stroop study with emotional expressions and words.

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Kar, Bhoomika Rastogi; Srinivasan, Narayanan; Nehabala, Yagyima; Nigam, Richa

2018-03-01

We examined proactive and reactive control effects in the context of task-relevant happy, sad, and angry facial expressions on a face-word Stroop task. Participants identified the emotion expressed by a face that contained a congruent or incongruent emotional word (happy/sad/angry). Proactive control effects were measured in terms of the reduction in Stroop interference (difference between incongruent and congruent trials) as a function of previous trial emotion and previous trial congruence. Reactive control effects were measured in terms of the reduction in Stroop interference as a function of current trial emotion and previous trial congruence. Previous trial negative emotions exert greater influence on proactive control than the positive emotion. Sad faces in the previous trial resulted in greater reduction in the Stroop interference for happy faces in the current trial. However, current trial angry faces showed stronger adaptation effects compared to happy faces. Thus, both proactive and reactive control mechanisms are dependent on emotional valence of task-relevant stimuli.

The Pleasure Evoked by Sad Music Is Mediated by Feelings of Being Moved.

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Vuoskoski, Jonna K; Eerola, Tuomas

2017-01-01

Why do we enjoy listening to music that makes us sad? This question has puzzled music psychologists for decades, but the paradox of "pleasurable sadness" remains to be solved. Recent findings from a study investigating the enjoyment of sad films suggest that the positive relationship between felt sadness and enjoyment might be explained by feelings of being moved (Hanich et al., 2014). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether feelings of being moved also mediated the enjoyment of sad music. In Experiment 1, 308 participants listened to five sad music excerpts and rated their liking and felt emotions. A multilevel mediation analysis revealed that the initial positive relationship between liking and felt sadness ( r = 0.22) was fully mediated by feelings of being moved. Experiment 2 explored the interconnections of perceived sadness, beauty, and movingness in 27 short music excerpts that represented independently varying levels of sadness and beauty. Two multilevel mediation analyses were carried out to test competing hypotheses: (A) that movingness mediates the effect of perceived sadness on liking, or (B) that perceived beauty mediates the effect of sadness on liking. Stronger support was obtained for Hypothesis A. Our findings suggest that - similarly to the enjoyment of sad films - the aesthetic appreciation of sad music is mediated by being moved. We argue that felt sadness may contribute to the enjoyment of sad music by intensifying feelings of being moved.

Engaging in an experiential processing mode increases positive emotional response during recall of pleasant autobiographical memories.

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Gadeikis, Darius; Bos, Nikita; Schweizer, Susanne; Murphy, Fionnuala; Dunn, Barnaby

2017-05-01

It is important to identify effective emotion regulation strategies to increase positive emotion experience in the general population and in clinical conditions characterized by anhedonia. There are indications that engaging in experiential processing (direct awareness of sensory and bodily experience) bolsters positive emotion experience but this has not been extensively tested during memory recall. To further test this notion, 99 community participants recalled two positive autobiographical memories. Prior to the second recall, participants either underwent an experiential, analytical, or distraction induction (n = 33 per condition). Subjective happiness and sadness ratings and heart rate variability (HRV) response were measured during each recall. Greater spontaneous use of experiential processing during the first memory was associated with greater happiness experience, but was unrelated to HRV and sadness experience. Inducing experiential processing increased happiness experience relative to both the analytical and distraction conditions (but had no impact on sadness experience). There was a significant difference in HRV between conditions. The experiential condition led to a trend-significant increase, and the other conditions a non-significant decrease, in HRV from the first to the second memory. These results suggest that engaging in experiential processing is an effective way to up-regulate positive emotion experience during positive memory recall. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Subjective emotional experience at different stages of Parkinson's disease.

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Vicente, Siobhan; Péron, Julie; Biseul, Isabelle; Ory, Sophie; Philippot, Pierre; Drapier, Sophie; Drapier, Dominique; Vérin, Marc

2011-11-15

Subjective emotional experience is thought to rely on a large cortical-subcortical network including orbitofrontal and cingulate frontostriatal circuits together with the mesolimbic dopaminergic system that modulates their activity. Parkinson's disease (PD) provides a model for exploring this issue. By using an original emotion induction procedure, the present study examined to what extent subjective experience of emotion of PD patients at different stages of the disease was modulated by emotion in the same way as healthy individuals. A battery of film excerpts was used to elicit different emotional feelings (happiness, anger, fear, sadness, disgust, and neutral) in 15 newly diagnosed PD patients, 18 patients with advanced PD and 15 matched controls. The newly diagnosed patients were examined in two conditions: "on" and "off" dopaminergic medication. Participants reported the intensity of their emotional feelings on a scale consisting of 10 emotional categories. Results indicated that PD patients at different stages of the disease did not significantly differ from the controls in the self-reported emotional experience to the presented film excerpts. Moreover, analyses conducted within the newly diagnosed PD group (on-dopa vs. off-dopa conditions) indicated that the patients' emotional reactivity to the presented film excerpts was not significantly modulated by dopaminergic medication. These results thus question the possible role of dopaminergic pathways in subjective emotional experience, at least in this sample and in the context of emotion induction. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotional Aging: A Discrete Emotions Perspective

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Ute eKunzmann

2014-05-01

Full Text Available Perhaps the most important single finding in the field of emotional aging has been that the overall quality of affective experience steadily improves during adulthood and can be maintained into old age. Recent lifespan developmental theories have provided motivation- and experience-based explanations for this phenomenon. These theories suggest that, as individuals grow older, they become increasingly motivated and able to regulate their emotions, which could result in reduced negativity and enhanced positivity. The objective of this paper is to expand existing theories and empirical research on emotional aging by presenting a discrete emotions perspective. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, we focus on a discussion of the literature examining age differences in anger and sadness. These two negative emotions have been subsumed under the singular concept of negative affect. From a discrete emotions perspective, however, they are highly distinct. Sadness is elicited by an irreversible loss and associated with low situational control, high goal adjustment tendencies, and the motivation to search for social support. The experience of anger, by contrast, is typically triggered by other individuals who intentio

The emotional body and time perception.

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Droit-Volet, Sylvie; Gil, Sandrine

2016-01-01

We examined the effects of emotional bodily expressions on the perception of time. Participants were shown bodily expressions of fear, happiness and sadness in a temporal bisection task featuring different stimulus duration ranges. Stimulus durations were judged to be longer for bodily expressions of fear than for those of sadness, whereas no significant difference was observed between sad and happy postures. In addition, the magnitude of the lengthening effect of fearful versus sad postures increased with duration range. These results suggest that the perception of fearful bodily expressions increases the level of arousal which, in turn, speeds up the internal clock system underlying the representation of time. The effect of bodily expressions on time perception is thus consistent with findings for other highly arousing emotional stimuli, such as emotional facial expressions.

The Pleasure Evoked by Sad Music Is Mediated by Feelings of Being Moved

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Vuoskoski, Jonna K.; Eerola, Tuomas

2017-01-01

Why do we enjoy listening to music that makes us sad? This question has puzzled music psychologists for decades, but the paradox of “pleasurable sadness” remains to be solved. Recent findings from a study investigating the enjoyment of sad films suggest that the positive relationship between felt sadness and enjoyment might be explained by feelings of being moved (Hanich et al., 2014). The aim of the present study was to investigate whether feelings of being moved also mediated the enjoyment of sad music. In Experiment 1, 308 participants listened to five sad music excerpts and rated their liking and felt emotions. A multilevel mediation analysis revealed that the initial positive relationship between liking and felt sadness (r = 0.22) was fully mediated by feelings of being moved. Experiment 2 explored the interconnections of perceived sadness, beauty, and movingness in 27 short music excerpts that represented independently varying levels of sadness and beauty. Two multilevel mediation analyses were carried out to test competing hypotheses: (A) that movingness mediates the effect of perceived sadness on liking, or (B) that perceived beauty mediates the effect of sadness on liking. Stronger support was obtained for Hypothesis A. Our findings suggest that – similarly to the enjoyment of sad films – the aesthetic appreciation of sad music is mediated by being moved. We argue that felt sadness may contribute to the enjoyment of sad music by intensifying feelings of being moved. PMID:28377740

Selective attention to emotional cues and emotion recognition in healthy subjects: the role of mineralocorticoid receptor stimulation.

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Schultebraucks, Katharina; Deuter, Christian E; Duesenberg, Moritz; Schulze, Lars; Hellmann-Regen, Julian; Domke, Antonia; Lockenvitz, Lisa; Kuehl, Linn K; Otte, Christian; Wingenfeld, Katja

2016-09-01

Selective attention toward emotional cues and emotion recognition of facial expressions are important aspects of social cognition. Stress modulates social cognition through cortisol, which acts on glucocorticoid (GR) and mineralocorticoid receptors (MR) in the brain. We examined the role of MR activation on attentional bias toward emotional cues and on emotion recognition. We included 40 healthy young women and 40 healthy young men (mean age 23.9 ± 3.3), who either received 0.4 mg of the MR agonist fludrocortisone or placebo. A dot-probe paradigm was used to test for attentional biases toward emotional cues (happy and sad faces). Moreover, we used a facial emotion recognition task to investigate the ability to recognize emotional valence (anger and sadness) from facial expression in four graded categories of emotional intensity (20, 30, 40, and 80 %). In the emotional dot-probe task, we found a main effect of treatment and a treatment × valence interaction. Post hoc analyses revealed an attentional bias away from sad faces after placebo intake and a shift in selective attention toward sad faces compared to placebo. We found no attentional bias toward happy faces after fludrocortisone or placebo intake. In the facial emotion recognition task, there was no main effect of treatment. MR stimulation seems to be important in modulating quick, automatic emotional processing, i.e., a shift in selective attention toward negative emotional cues. Our results confirm and extend previous findings of MR function. However, we did not find an effect of MR stimulation on emotion recognition.

REM-Enriched Naps Are Associated with Memory Consolidation for Sad Stories and Enhance Mood-Related Reactivity

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Médhi Gilson

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Emerging evidence suggests that emotion and affect modulate the relation between sleep and cognition. In the present study, we investigated the role of rapid-eye movement (REM sleep in mood regulation and memory consolidation for sad stories. In a counterbalanced design, participants (n = 24 listened to either a neutral or a sad story during two sessions, spaced one week apart. After listening to the story, half of the participants had a short (45 min morning nap. The other half had a long (90 min morning nap, richer in REM and N2 sleep. Story recall, mood evolution and changes in emotional response to the re-exposure to the story were assessed after the nap. Although recall performance was similar for sad and neutral stories irrespective of nap duration, sleep measures were correlated with recall performance in the sad story condition only. After the long nap, REM sleep density positively correlated with retrieval performance, while re-exposure to the sad story led to diminished mood and increased skin conductance levels. Our results suggest that REM sleep may not only be associated with the consolidation of intrinsically sad material, but also enhances mood reactivity, at least on the short term.

Children's understanding of facial expression of emotion: II. Drawing of emotion-faces.

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Missaghi-Lakshman, M; Whissell, C

1991-06-01

67 children from Grades 2, 4, and 7 drew faces representing the emotional expressions of fear, anger, surprise, disgust, happiness, and sadness. The children themselves and 29 adults later decoded the drawings in an emotion-recognition task. Children were the more accurate decoders, and their accuracy and the accuracy of adults increased significantly for judgments of 7th-grade drawings. The emotions happy and sad were most accurately decoded. There were no significant differences associated with sex. In their drawings, children utilized a symbol system that seems to be based on a highlighting or exaggeration of features of the innately governed facial expression of emotion.

The Hundred-Year Emotion War: Are Emotions Natural Kinds or Psychological Constructions? Comment on Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011)

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Lindquist, Kristen A.; Siegel, Erika H.; Quigley, Karen S.; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

2012-01-01

For the last century, there has been a continuing debate about the nature of emotion. In the most recent offering in this scientific dialogue, Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011) report a meta-analysis of emotion induction research and claim support for the natural kind hypothesis that discrete emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety) elicit specific changes in cognition, judgment, behavior, experience, and physiology. In this paper, we point out that Lench et al. (2011) is not the final word on the emotion debate. First, we point out that Lench et al.’s findings do not support their claim that discrete emotions organize cognition, judgment, experience, and physiology because they did not demonstrate emotion-consistent and -specific directional changes in these measurement domains. Second, we point out that Lench et al.’s findings are in fact consistent with the alternative (a psychological constructionist approach to emotion). We close by appealing for a construct validity approach to emotion research, which we hope will lead to greater consensus on the operationalization of the natural kind and psychological construction approaches, as well as the criteria required to finally resolve the emotion debate. PMID:23294094

Empathy for positive and negative emotions in social anxiety disorder.

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Morrison, Amanda S; Mateen, Maria A; Brozovich, Faith A; Zaki, Jamil; Goldin, Philippe R; Heimberg, Richard G; Gross, James J

2016-12-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is associated with elevated negative and diminished positive affective experience. However, little is known about the way in which individuals with SAD perceive and respond emotionally to the naturally-unfolding negative and positive emotions of others, that is, cognitive empathy and affective empathy, respectively. In the present study, participants with generalized SAD (n = 32) and demographically-matched healthy controls (HCs; n = 32) completed a behavioral empathy task. Cognitive empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous ratings of targets' emotions, whereas affective empathy was indexed by the correlation between targets' and participants' continuous self-ratings of emotion. Individuals with SAD differed from HCs only in positive affective empathy: they were less able to vicariously share others' positive emotions. Mediation analyses revealed that poor emotional clarity and negative interpersonal perceptions among those with SAD might account for this finding. Future research using experimental methodology is needed to examine whether this finding represents an inability or unwillingness to share positive affect. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ERP evidence for own-age effects on late stages of processing sad faces.

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Fölster, Mara; Werheid, Katja

2016-08-01

Faces convey important information on interaction partners, such as their emotional state and age. Faces of the same age are, according to recent research, preferentially processed. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the neural processes underlying this own-age effect are influenced by the emotional expression of the face, and to explore possible explanations such as the frequency or quality of contact to own-age versus other-age groups. Event-related potentials were recorded while 19 younger (18-30 years) and 19 older (64-86 years) observers watched younger and older sad and happy faces. Sad but not happy faces elicited higher late positive potential amplitudes for own-age than for other-age faces. This own-age effect was significant for older, but not for younger, observers, and correlated with the quality of contact with the own-age versus the other-age group. This pattern suggests that sad own-age faces are motivationally more relevant.

Sadness and Depression

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... Videos for Educators Search English Español Sadness and Depression KidsHealth / For Kids / Sadness and Depression Print en ... big difference in your life. When Sadness Is Depression When you're in a sad mood, it ...

Feelings without memory in Alzheimer disease.

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Guzmán-Vélez, Edmarie; Feinstein, Justin S; Tranel, Daniel

2014-09-01

Patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) typically have impaired declarative memory as a result of hippocampal damage early in the disease. Far less is understood about AD's effect on emotion. We investigated whether feelings of emotion can persist in patients with AD, even after their declarative memory for what caused the feelings has faded. A sample of 17 patients with probable AD and 17 healthy comparison participants (case-matched for age, sex, and education) underwent 2 separate emotion induction procedures in which they watched film clips intended to induce feelings of sadness or happiness. We collected real-time emotion ratings at baseline and at 3 post-induction time points, and we administered a test of declarative memory shortly after each induction. As expected, the patients with AD had severely impaired declarative memory for both the sad and happy films. Despite their memory impairment, the patients continued to report elevated levels of sadness and happiness that persisted well beyond their memory for the films. This outcome was especially prominent after the sadness induction, with sustained elevations in sadness lasting for more than 30 minutes, even in patients with no conscious recollection for the films. These findings indicate that patients with AD can experience prolonged states of emotion that persist well beyond the patients' memory for the events that originally caused the emotion. The preserved emotional life evident in patients with AD has important implications for their management and care, and highlights the need for caretakers to foster positive emotional experiences.

Emotional Development across Adulthood: Differential Age-Related Emotional Reactivity and Emotion Regulation in a Negative Mood Induction Procedure

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Kliegel, Matthias; Jager, Theodor; Phillips, Louise H.

2007-01-01

The present study examines the hypothesis that older adults might differentially react to a negative versus neutral mood induction procedure than younger adults. The rationale for this expectation was derived from Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST), which postulates differential salience of emotional information and ability to regulate…

Sadness and ruminative thinking independently depress people's moods.

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Jahanitabesh, Azra; Cardwell, Brittany A; Halberstadt, Jamin

2017-11-02

Depression and rumination often co-occur in clinical populations, but it is not clear which causes which, or if both are manifestations of an underlying pathology. Does rumination simply exacerbate whatever affect a person is experiencing, or is it a negative experience in and of itself? In two experiments we answer this question by independently manipulating emotion and rumination. Participants were allocated to sad or neutral (in Experiment 1), or sad, neutral or happy (Experiment 2) mood conditions, via a combination of emotionally evocative music and autobiographical recall. Afterwards, in both studies, participants either ruminated by thinking about self-relevant statements or, in a control group, thought about self-irrelevant statements. Taken together, our data show that, independent of participants' mood, ruminators reported more negative affect relative to controls. The findings are consistent with theories suggesting that self-focus is itself unpleasant, and illustrate that depressive rumination comprises both affective and ruminative components, which could be targeted independently in clinical samples. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

A functional MRI study of happy and sad affective states induced by classical music.

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Mitterschiffthaler, Martina T; Fu, Cynthia H Y; Dalton, Jeffrey A; Andrew, Christopher M; Williams, Steven C R

2007-11-01

The present study investigated the functional neuroanatomy of transient mood changes in response to Western classical music. In a pilot experiment, 53 healthy volunteers (mean age: 32.0; SD = 9.6) evaluated their emotional responses to 60 classical musical pieces using a visual analogue scale (VAS) ranging from 0 (sad) through 50 (neutral) to 100 (happy). Twenty pieces were found to accurately induce the intended emotional states with good reliability, consisting of 5 happy, 5 sad, and 10 emotionally unevocative, neutral musical pieces. In a subsequent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, the blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal contrast was measured in response to the mood state induced by each musical stimulus in a separate group of 16 healthy participants (mean age: 29.5; SD = 5.5). Mood state ratings during scanning were made by a VAS, which confirmed the emotional valence of the selected stimuli. Increased BOLD signal contrast during presentation of happy music was found in the ventral and dorsal striatum, anterior cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, and auditory association areas. With sad music, increased BOLD signal responses were noted in the hippocampus/amygdala and auditory association areas. Presentation of neutral music was associated with increased BOLD signal responses in the insula and auditory association areas. Our findings suggest that an emotion processing network in response to music integrates the ventral and dorsal striatum, areas involved in reward experience and movement; the anterior cingulate, which is important for targeting attention; and medial temporal areas, traditionally found in the appraisal and processing of emotions. Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

An investigation on the effect of emotional management problems on children's anxiety

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Afrooz Afshari

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Today’s research on emotion regulation reveals its importance on many mental and physical heath related issues. One of the problems to deregulation of emotions is anxiety disorders subject. The aim of this research is to identify the relationship between emotional management problems including emotional inhibition, emotional deregulation and emotional coping on children’s anxiety symptoms, where it includes separation anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, school phobia and generalized anxiety symptoms. The sample was consisted of 307 primary students including boy and girl aged between 9-13 years old in city of Isfahan selected by simple random sampling. The instruments were Screen for Child Anxiety Related Disorders (SCARED, child Sadness Management Scale (CSMS and child Anger Management Scale (CAMS. The results shows that problems of children in management of anger and sadness consist of anger and sadness inhibition; anger and sadness deregulation predicts anxiety symptoms in children (p<0.0001. However, emotional coping could not predict children's anxiety symptoms, significantly. In addition, deregulation and inhibition of sadness and anger predicts anxiety in children.

Effect of risperidone versus haloperidol on emotional responding in schizophrenic patients.

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Fakra, E; Khalfa, S; Da Fonseca, D; Besnier, N; Delaveau, P; Azorin, J M; Blin, O

2008-10-01

Studies on emotional processing report that schizophrenic patients present a specific pattern of emotional responding that usually includes deficits in emotional expressiveness, increased feelings of unpleasant emotion but decreased feelings of pleasant emotion, and increased physiological reactivity. However, studies have rarely controlled the nature of antipsychotic medication. Yet, the influence of these drugs on emotional response is uncertain and could vary depending on their pharmacological profile. This prospective and randomized study aimed to compare the effects of an atypical antipsychotic, risperidone, to a typical one, haloperidol, on patients' emotional responding during an emotional induction task. Twenty-five schizophrenic patients underwent two emotional and clinical evaluations: one before treatment initiation and a second 4 weeks after. Emotional states of fear, sadness, anger, joy, and disgust were induced, as well as a neutral baseline state. Video recordings of patients during the induction task allowed for assessment of emotional expressiveness. Self-reports and measures of skin conductance and heart rate were performed to determine both subjective and physiological reactions to emotional experience. Compared to haloperidol, risperidone did not reduce patients' facial expressiveness, decreased physiological reactivity, and decreased experience of unpleasant emotion but maintained experience of pleasant emotion. Emotional expressiveness was negatively correlated to parkisonism. Our preliminary results suggest that atypical antipsychotics allow for better-adapted patterns of emotional responding than typical ones do. We suggest that this effect is due to reduced striatal D2 blockade, therefore, attenuating akinesia, coupled with increased 5HT and DA levels in prefrontal cortex, which improves emotional regulation.

The Effect of a Brief Mindfulness Induction on Processing of Emotional Images: an ERP Study

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Marianna D. Eddy

2015-09-01

Full Text Available The ability to effectively direct one’s attention is an important aspect of regulating emotions and a component of mindfulness. Mindfulness practices have been established as effective interventions for mental and physical illness; however, the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness and how they relate to emotional processing have not been explored in depth. The current study used a within-subjects repeated measures design to examine if focused breathing, a brief mindfulness induction, could modulate event-related potentials (ERPs during emotional image processing relative to a control condition. We related ERP measures of processing positive, negative, and neutral images (the P300 and late posterior positivity – LPP to state and trait mindfulness measures. Overall, the brief mindfulness induction condition did not influence ERPs reflecting emotional processing; however, in the brief mindfulness induction condition, those participants who reported feeling more decentered (a subscale of the Toronto Mindfulness Scale after viewing the images had reduced P300 responses to negative versus neutral images.

The effect of a brief mindfulness induction on processing of emotional images: an ERP study.

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Eddy, Marianna D; Brunyé, Tad T; Tower-Richardi, Sarah; Mahoney, Caroline R; Taylor, Holly A

2015-01-01

The ability to effectively direct one's attention is an important aspect of regulating emotions and a component of mindfulness. Mindfulness practices have been established as effective interventions for mental and physical illness; however, the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness and how they relate to emotional processing have not been explored in depth. The current study used a within-subjects repeated measures design to examine if focused breathing, a brief mindfulness induction, could modulate event-related potentials (ERPs) during emotional image processing relative to a control condition. We related ERP measures of processing positive, negative, and neutral images (the P300 and late positive potential - LPP) to state and trait mindfulness measures. Overall, the brief mindfulness induction condition did not influence ERPs reflecting emotional processing; however, in the brief mindfulness induction condition, those participants who reported feeling more decentered (a subscale of the Toronto Mindfulness Scale) after viewing the images had reduced P300 responses to negative versus neutral images.

Body Weight Can Change How Your Emotions Are Perceived.

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Yujung Oh

Full Text Available Accurately interpreting other's emotions through facial expressions has important adaptive values for social interactions. However, due to the stereotypical social perception of overweight individuals as carefree, humorous, and light-hearted, the body weight of those with whom we interact may have a systematic influence on our emotion judgment even though it has no relevance to the expressed emotion itself. In this experimental study, we examined the role of body weight in faces on the affective perception of facial expressions. We hypothesized that the weight perceived in a face would bias the assessment of an emotional expression, with overweight faces generally more likely to be perceived as having more positive and less negative expressions than healthy weight faces. Using two-alternative forced-choice perceptual decision tasks, participants were asked to sort the emotional expressions of overweight and healthy weight facial stimuli that had been gradually morphed across six emotional intensity levels into one of two categories-"neutral vs. happy" (Experiment 1 and "neutral vs. sad" (Experiment 2. As predicted, our results demonstrated that overweight faces were more likely to be categorized as happy (i.e., lower happy decision threshold and less likely to be categorized as sad (i.e., higher sad decision threshold compared to healthy weight faces that had the same levels of emotional intensity. The neutral-sad decision threshold shift was negatively correlated with participant's own fear of becoming fat, that is, those without a fear of becoming fat more strongly perceived overweight faces as sad relative to those with a higher fear. These findings demonstrate that the weight of the face systematically influences how its emotional expression is interpreted, suggesting that being overweight may make emotional expressions appear more happy and less sad than they really are.

Effects of anger and sadness on attentional patterns in decision making: an eye-tracking study.

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Xing, Cai

2014-02-01

Past research examining the effect of anger and sadness on decision making has associated anger with a relatively more heuristic decision-making approach. However, it is unclear whether angry and sad individuals differ while attending to decision-relevant information. An eye-tracking experiment (N=87) was conducted to examine the role of attention in links between emotion and decision making. Angry individuals looked more and earlier toward heuristic cues while making decisions, whereas sad individuals did not show such bias. Implications for designing persuasive messages and studying motivated visual processing were discussed.

The hundred-year emotion war: are emotions natural kinds or psychological constructions? Comment on Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011).

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Lindquist, Kristen A; Siegel, Erika H; Quigley, Karen S; Barrett, Lisa Feldman

2013-01-01

For the last century, there has been a continuing debate about the nature of emotion. In the most recent offering in this scientific dialogue, Lench, Flores, and Bench (2011) reported a meta-analysis of emotion induction research and claimed support for the natural kind hypothesis that discrete emotions (e.g., happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety) elicit specific changes in cognition, judgment, behavior, experience, and physiology. In this article, we point out that Lench et al. (2011) is not the final word on the emotion debate. First, we point out that Lench et al.'s findings do not support their claim that discrete emotions organize cognition, judgment, experience, and physiology because they did not demonstrate emotion-consistent and emotion-specific directional changes in these measurement domains. Second, we point out that Lench et al.'s findings are in fact consistent with the alternative (a psychological constructionist approach to emotion). We close by appealing for a construct validity approach to emotion research, which we hope will lead to greater consensus on the operationalization of the natural kind and psychological construction approaches, as well as the criteria required to finally resolve the emotion debate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotional Communication in Finger Braille

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Yasuhiro Matsuda

2010-01-01

Full Text Available We describe analyses of the features of emotions (neutral, joy, sadness, and anger expressed by Finger Braille interpreters and subsequently examine the effectiveness of emotional expression and emotional communication between people unskilled in Finger Braille. The goal is to develop a Finger Braille system to teach emotional expression and a system to recognize emotion. The results indicate the following features of emotional expression by interpreters. The durations of the code of joy were significantly shorter than the durations of the other emotions, the durations of the code of sadness were significantly longer, and the finger loads of anger were significantly larger. The features of emotional expression by unskilled subjects were very similar to those of the interpreters, and the coincidence ratio of emotional communication was 75.1%. Therefore, it was confirmed that people unskilled in Finger Braille can express and communicate emotions using this communication medium.

Emotion-Specific Priming: Congruence Effects on Affect and Recognition across Negative Emotions.

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Hansen, Christine H.; Shantz, Cynthia A.

1995-01-01

Demonstrated the emotion-specific priming effects of negatively valenced emotions (anger, sadness, and fear) in a divided attention task. Results indicated that a negative emotion displayed by a target that matched the emotion induced by a priming manipulation was significantly stronger than an incongruous priming manipulation and displayed…

Side effects of being blue: influence of sad mood on visual statistical learning.

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Julie Bertels

Full Text Available It is well established that mood influences many cognitive processes, such as learning and executive functions. Although statistical learning is assumed to be part of our daily life, as mood does, the influence of mood on statistical learning has never been investigated before. In the present study, a sad vs. neutral mood was induced to the participants through the listening of stories while they were exposed to a stream of visual shapes made up of the repeated presentation of four triplets, namely sequences of three shapes presented in a fixed order. Given that the inter-stimulus interval was held constant within and between triplets, the only cues available for triplet segmentation were the transitional probabilities between shapes. Direct and indirect measures of learning taken either immediately or 20 minutes after the exposure/mood induction phase revealed that participants learned the statistical regularities between shapes. Interestingly, although participants from the sad and neutral groups performed similarly in these tasks, subjective measures (confidence judgments taken after each trial revealed that participants who experienced the sad mood induction showed increased conscious access to their statistical knowledge. These effects were not modulated by the time delay between the exposure/mood induction and the test phases. These results are discussed within the scope of the robustness principle and the influence of negative affects on processing style.

Speech-based emotion detection in a resource-scarce environment

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Martirosian, O

2007-11-01

Full Text Available , happiness and frustration; passive emotion encompasses sadness and dis- appointment, and neutral encompasses speech with a negligible amount of emotional content. Because a study on the expression of emotion in speech has not been done in the South... seconds long and the segments labelled with the dominant emotion of the speech contained in them. The fine emotional labels used were angry, frustrated, happy, friendly, neutral, sad and depressed. These fine labels were combined into three broad...

Mass-induced instability of SAdS black hole in Einstein-Ricci cubic gravity

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Myung, Yun Soo

2018-05-01

We perform the stability analysis of Schwarzschild-AdS (SAdS) black hole in the Einstein-Ricci cubic gravity. It shows that the Ricci tensor perturbations exhibit unstable modes for small black holes. We call this the mass-induced instability of SAdS black hole because the instability of small black holes arises from the massiveness in the linearized Einstein-Ricci cubic gravity, but not a feature of higher-order derivative theory giving ghost states. Also, we point out that the correlated stability conjecture holds for the SAdS black hole by computing the Wald entropy of SAdS black hole in Einstein-Ricci cubic gravity.

Prefrontal mediation of emotion regulation in social anxiety disorder during laughter perception.

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Kreifelts, Benjamin; Brück, Carolin; Ethofer, Thomas; Ritter, Jan; Weigel, Lena; Erb, Michael; Wildgruber, Dirk

2017-02-01

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by negatively biased perception of social cues and deficits in emotion regulation. While negatively biased perception is thought to maintain social anxiety, emotion regulation represents an ability necessary to overcome both biased perception and social anxiety. Here, we used laughter as a social threat in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study to identify cerebral mediators linking SAD with attention and interpretation biases and their modification through cognitive emotion regulation in the form of reappraisal. We found that reappraisal abolished the negative laughter interpretation bias in SAD and that this process was directly mediated through activation patterns of the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) serving as a cerebral pivot between biased social perception and its normalization through reappraisal. Connectivity analyses revealed reduced prefrontal control over threat-processing sensory cortices (here: the temporal voice area) during cognitive emotion regulation in SAD. Our results indicate a central role for the left DLPFC in SAD which might represent a valuable target for future research on interventions either aiming to directly modulate cognitive emotion regulation in SAD or to evaluate its potential as physiological marker for psychotherapeutic interventions relying on emotion regulation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effects of mindfulness, reappraisal, and suppression on sad mood and cognitive resources.

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Keng, Shian-Ling; Tan, Elysia Li Yan; Eisenlohr-Moul, Tory A; Smoski, Moria J

2017-04-01

The present study investigated the relative effects of mindfulness, reappraisal and suppression in reducing sadness, and the extent to which implementation of these strategies affects cognitive resources in a laboratory context. A total of 171 Singaporean undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to receive brief training in mindfulness, reappraisal, or suppression prior to undergoing a sad mood induction. Individual adherence to Asian cultural values was assessed as a potential moderator of strategy effectiveness. Participants rated their mood and completed a Color-Word Stroop task before and after mood regulation instructions. Analyses using multi-level modelling showed that the suppression condition caused less robust declines in sadness over time compared to mindfulness. There was also a nonsignificant trend in which mindfulness was associated with greater sadness recovery compared to reappraisal. Suppression resulted in lower average sadness compared to mindfulness among those high on Asian cultural values, but not those low on Asian cultural values. Both mindfulness and reappraisal buffered against increases in Stroop interference from pre-to post-regulation compared to suppression. The findings highlight the advantage of mindfulness as a strategy effective not only in the regulation of sad mood, but also in the preservation of cognitive resources in the context of mood regulation. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The pea SAD short-chain dehydrogenase/reductase: quinone reduction, tissue distribution, and heterologous expression.

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Scherbak, Nikolai; Ala-Häivälä, Anneli; Brosché, Mikael; Böwer, Nathalie; Strid, Hilja; Gittins, John R; Grahn, Elin; Eriksson, Leif A; Strid, Åke

2011-04-01

The pea (Pisum sativum) tetrameric short-chain alcohol dehydrogenase-like protein (SAD) family consists of at least three highly similar members (SAD-A, -B, and -C). According to mRNA data, environmental stimuli induce SAD expression. The aim of this study was to characterize the SAD proteins by examining their catalytic function, distribution in pea, and induction in different tissues. In enzyme activity assays using a range of potential substrates, the SAD-C enzyme was shown to reduce one- or two-ring-membered quinones lacking long hydrophobic hydrocarbon tails. Immunological assays using a specific antiserum against the protein demonstrated that different tissues and cell types contain small amounts of SAD protein that was predominantly located within epidermal or subepidermal cells and around vascular tissue. Particularly high local concentrations were observed in the protoderm of the seed cotyledonary axis. Two bow-shaped rows of cells in the ovary and the placental surface facing the ovule also exhibited considerable SAD staining. Ultraviolet-B irradiation led to increased staining in epidermal and subepidermal cells of leaves and stems. The different localization patterns of SAD suggest functions both in development and in responses to environmental stimuli. Finally, the pea SAD-C promoter was shown to confer heterologous wound-induced expression in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), which confirmed that the inducibility of its expression is regulated at the transcriptional level.

Inducing sadness and anxiousness through visual media: Measurement techniques and persistence

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Kuijsters, A.; Redi, J.; Ruyter, B.E.R. de; Heynderickx, I.

2016-01-01

The persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness) induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP) was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 minutes with the Self-Assessment Manikin (every 2 minutes) and with recordings of skin

Why We Like to Watch Sad Films : The Pleasure of Being Moved in Aesthetic Experiences

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Hanich, Julian; Wagner, Valentin; Shah, Mira; Jacobsen, Thomas; Menninghaus, Winfried

This article investigates an age-old, puzzling question: how can a negatively valenced emotion such as sadness go together with aesthetic liking and even pleasure? We propose that an answer to this question must take into account the feeling of being moved, a complex emotional state that plays a

Children's developing ability to depict emotions in their drawings.

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Bonoti, F; Misailidi, P

2006-10-01

55 children aged 5 to 9 years were asked to draw pictures depicting happiness, sadness, anger, surprise, and fear as well as pictures that did not express any emotion. These pictures were then scored by nonexpert adults for their overall emotional expressiveness, that is, how well they depicted the intended emotion. The results showed that drawings were generally regarded by adults as emotionally expressive. Happiness was the emotion most easily recognized in children's drawings, closely followed by sadness. The results also showed a linear increase in ratings of emotional expressiveness with age.

Antecedents of emotions in elite athletes: a cognitive motivational relational theory perspective.

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Uphill, Mark A; Jones, Marc V

2007-03-01

Cognitive motivational relational theory suggests that cognitive appraisals or core relational themes (a composite summary of appraisal components) represent the proximal determinants of athletes' emotions. Semistructured interviews with 12 current international athletes (1 woman and 11 men) ages 19 to 37 years (M age = 27 years, SD = 6.03), representing a range of sports (badminton, golf rugby union, athletics, archery, sailing, and snooker) explored the association between athletes' appraisals and emotions. Concurrent inductive and deductive content analyses suggested that primary and secondary appraisal components (goal relevance, goal congruence, ego-involvement, blame/credit, coping potential, future expectations) were associated with a range of emotions: anger anxiety, guilt, happiness, pride, relief sadness, and shame. A hierarchical content analysis provided some support for Lazarus' (1991) core relational themes. Limitations and applications of this study are discussed.

Inducing sadness and anxiousness through visual media: measurement techniques and persistence

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A. Kuijsters (Andre); J.A. Redi (Judith); B. de Ruyter (Boris); I. Heynderickx (Ingrid)

2016-01-01

textabstractThe persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness) induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP) was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 min with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; every 2 min) and with recordings of

Preattentive processing of emotional musical tones: a multidimensional scaling and ERP study

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Thomas F Münte

2013-09-01

Full Text Available Musical emotion can be conveyed by subtle variations in timbre. Here, we investigated whether the brain is capable to discriminate tones differing in emotional expression by recording event-related potentials (ERPs in an oddball paradigm under preattentive listening conditions. First, using multidimensional Fechnerian scaling, pairs of violin tones played with a happy or sad intonation were rated same or different by a group of non-musicians. Three happy and three sad tones were selected for the ERP experiment. The Fechnerian distances between tones within an emotion were in the same range as the distances between tones of different emotions. In two conditions, either 3 happy and 1 sad or 3 sad and 1 happy tone were presented in pseudo-random order. A mismatch negativity for the emotional deviant was observed, indicating that in spite of considerable perceptual differences between the three equiprobable tones of the standard emotion, a template was formed based on timbral cues against which the emotional deviant was compared. Based on Juslin’s assumption of redundant code usage, we propose that tones were grouped together, because they were identified as belonging to one emotional category based on different emotion-specific cues. These results indicate that the brain forms an emotional memory trace at a preattentive level and thus extends previous investigations in which emotional deviance was confounded with physical dissimilarity. Differences between sad and happy tones were observed which might be due to the fact that the happy emotion is mostly communicated by suprasegmental features.

Negative incidental emotions augment fairness sensitivity.

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Liu, Cuizhen; Chai, Jing Wen; Yu, Rongjun

2016-04-22

Previous studies have shown that task-unrelated emotions induced incidentally exert carryover effects on individuals' subsequent decisions in financial negotiations. However, the specificity of these emotion effects are not clear. In three experiments, we systematically investigated the role of seven transiently induced basic emotions (disgust, sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and neutral) on rejection of unfair offers using the ultimatum game. We found that all negative emotions (disgust, sadness, anger and fear), but not happiness or surprise, significantly increased rejection rates, suggesting that the effect of incidental negative emotions on fairness is not specific to the type of negative emotion. Our findings highlight the role of fleeting emotions in biasing decision-making processes and suggest that all incidental negative emotions exert similar effects on fairness sensitivity, possibly by potentiating attention towards negative aspects of the situation.

Empathy costs: Negative emotional bias in high empathisers.

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Chikovani, George; Babuadze, Lasha; Iashvili, Nino; Gvalia, Tamar; Surguladze, Simon

2015-09-30

Excessive empathy has been associated with compassion fatigue in health professionals and caregivers. We investigated an effect of empathy on emotion processing in 137 healthy individuals of both sexes. We tested a hypothesis that high empathy may underlie increased sensitivity to negative emotion recognition which may interact with gender. Facial emotion stimuli comprised happy, angry, fearful, and sad faces presented at different intensities (mild and prototypical) and different durations (500ms and 2000ms). The parameters of emotion processing were represented by discrimination accuracy, response bias and reaction time. We found that higher empathy was associated with better recognition of all emotions. We also demonstrated that higher empathy was associated with response bias towards sad and fearful faces. The reaction time analysis revealed that higher empathy in females was associated with faster (compared with males) recognition of mildly sad faces of brief duration. We conclude that although empathic abilities were providing for advantages in recognition of all facial emotional expressions, the bias towards emotional negativity may potentially carry a risk for empathic distress. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Affective and cognitive reactivity to mood induction in chronic depression.

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Guhn, Anne; Sterzer, Philipp; Haack, Friderike H; Köhler, Stephan

2018-03-15

Chronic depression (CD) is strongly associated with childhood maltreatment, which has been proposed to lead to inefficient coping styles that are characterized by abnormal affective responsiveness and dysfunctional cognitive attitudes. However, while this notion forms an important basis for psychotherapeutic strategies in the treatment of CD, there is still little direct empirical evidence for a role of altered affective and cognitive reactivity in CD. The present study therefore experimentally investigated affective and cognitive reactivity to two forms of negative mood induction in CD patients versus a healthy control sample (HC). For the general mood induction procedure, a combination of sad pictures and sad music was used, while for individualized mood induction, negative mood was induced by individualized scripts with autobiographical content. Both experiments included n = 15 CD patients versus n = 15 HC, respectively. Interactions between affective or cognitive reactivity and group were analyzed by repeated measurements ANOVAs. General mood induction neither revealed affective nor cognitive reactivity in the patient group while the control group reported the expected decrease of positive affect [interaction (IA) affective reactivity x group: p = .011, cognitive reactivity x group: n.s.]. In contrast, individualized mood induction specifically increased affective reactivity (IA: p = .037) as well as the amount of dysfunctional cognitions in patients versus controls (IA: p = .014). The experiments were not balanced in a crossover design, causal conclusions are thus limited. Additionally, the differences to non-chronic forms of depression are still outstanding. The results suggest that in patients with CD, specific emotional activation through autobiographical memories is a key factor in dysfunctional coping styles. Psychotherapeutic interventions aimed at modifying affective and cognitive reactivity are thus of high relevance in the treatment of CD. Copyright �

Toward an implicit measure of emotions: ratings of abstract images reveal distinct emotional states.

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Bartoszek, Gregory; Cervone, Daniel

2017-11-01

Although implicit tests of positive and negative affect exist, implicit measures of distinct emotional states are scarce. Three experiments examined whether a novel implicit emotion-assessment task, the rating of emotion expressed in abstract images, would reveal distinct emotional states. In Experiment 1, participants exposed to a sadness-inducing story inferred more sadness, and less happiness, in abstract images. In Experiment 2, an anger-provoking interaction increased anger ratings. In Experiment 3, compared to neutral images, spider images increased fear ratings in spider-fearful participants but not in controls. In each experiment, the implicit task indicated elevated levels of the target emotion and did not indicate elevated levels of non-target negative emotions; the task thus differentiated among emotional states of the same valence. Correlations also supported the convergent and discriminant validity of the implicit task. Supporting the possibility that heuristic processes underlie the ratings, group differences were stronger among those who responded relatively quickly.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia responses to induced emotional states: effects of RSA indices, emotion induction method, age, and sex.

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Overbeek, Thérèse J M; van Boxtel, Anton; Westerink, Joyce H D M

2012-09-01

The literature shows large inconsistencies in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) responses to induced emotional states. This may be caused by differences in emotion induction methods, RSA quantification, and non-emotional demands of the situation. In 83 healthy subjects, we studied RSA responses to pictures and film fragments eliciting six different discrete emotions relative to neutral baseline stimuli. RSA responses were quantified in the time and frequency domain and were additionally corrected for differences in mean heart rate and respiration rate, resulting in eight different RSA response measures. Subjective ratings of emotional stimuli and facial electromyographic responses indicated that pictures and film fragments elicited the intended emotions. Although RSA measures showed various emotional effects, responses were quite heterogeneous and frequently nonsignificant. They were substantially influenced by methodological factors, in particular time vs. frequency domain response measures, correction for changes in respiration rate, use of pictures vs. film fragments, and sex of participants. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Elevated amygdala activity to sad facial expressions: a state marker of bipolar but not unipolar depression.

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Almeida, Jorge R C; Versace, Amelia; Hassel, Stefanie; Kupfer, David J; Phillips, Mary L

2010-03-01

Difficulties in emotion processing and poor social function are common to bipolar disorder (BD) and major depressive disorder (MDD) depression, resulting in many BD depressed individuals being misdiagnosed with MDD. The amygdala is a key region implicated in processing emotionally salient stimuli, including emotional facial expressions. It is unclear, however, whether abnormal amygdala activity during positive and negative emotion processing represents a persistent marker of BD regardless of illness phase or a state marker of depression common or specific to BD and MDD depression. Sixty adults were recruited: 15 depressed with BD type 1 (BDd), 15 depressed with recurrent MDD, 15 with BD in remission (BDr), diagnosed with DSM-IV and Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Research Version criteria; and 15 healthy control subjects (HC). Groups were age- and gender ratio-matched; patient groups were matched for age of illness onset and illness duration; depressed groups were matched for depression severity. The BDd were taking more psychotropic medication than other patient groups. All individuals participated in three separate 3T neuroimaging event-related experiments, where they viewed mild and intense emotional and neutral faces of fear, happiness, or sadness from a standardized series. The BDd-relative to HC, BDr, and MDD-showed elevated left amygdala activity to mild and neutral facial expressions in the sad (p sad and neutral faces might be a depression-specific marker in BD but not MDD, suggesting different pathophysiologic processes for BD versus MDD depression. Copyright 2010 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Negative emotions in cancer care: do oncologists' responses depend on severity and type of emotion?

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Kennifer, Sarah L; Alexander, Stewart C; Pollak, Kathryn I; Jeffreys, Amy S; Olsen, Maren K; Rodriguez, Keri L; Arnold, Robert M; Tulsky, James A

2009-07-01

To examine how type and severity of patients' negative emotions influence oncologists' responses and subsequent conversations. We analyzed 264 audio-recorded conversations between advanced cancer patients and their oncologists. Conversations were coded for patients' expressions of negative emotion, which were categorized by type of emotion and severity. Oncologists' responses were coded as using either empathic language or blocking and distancing approaches. Patients presented fear more often than anger or sadness; severity of disclosures was most often moderate. Oncologists responded to 35% of these negative emotional disclosures with empathic language. They were most empathic when patients presented intense emotions. Responding empathically to patients' emotional disclosures lengthened discussions by an average of only 21s. Greater response rates to severe emotions suggest oncologists may recognize negative emotions better when patients express them more intensely. Oncologists were least responsive to patient fear and responded with greatest empathy to sadness. Oncologists may benefit from additional training to recognize negative emotions, even when displayed without intensity. Teaching cancer patients to better articulate their emotional concerns may also enhance patient-oncologist communication.

Cognitive and Emotion Regulation Change Processes in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder.

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O'Toole, Mia S; Mennin, Douglas S; Hougaard, Esben; Zachariae, Robert; Rosenberg, Nicole K

2015-01-01

The objective of the study was to investigate variables, derived from both cognitive and emotion regulation conceptualizations of social anxiety disorder (SAD), as possible change processes in cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for SAD. Several proposed change processes were investigated: estimated probability, estimated cost, safety behaviours, acceptance of emotions, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. Participants were 50 patients with SAD, receiving a standard manualized CBT program, conducted in groups or individually. All variables were measured pre-therapy, mid-therapy and post-therapy. Lower level mediation models revealed that while a change in most process measures significantly predicted clinical improvement, only changes in estimated probability and cost and acceptance of emotions showed significant indirect effects of CBT for SAD. The results are in accordance with previous studies supporting the mediating role of changes in cognitive distortions in CBT for SAD. In addition, acceptance of emotions may also be a critical component to clinical improvement in SAD during CBT, although more research is needed on which elements of acceptance are most helpful for individuals with SAD. The study's lack of a control condition limits any conclusion regarding the specificity of the findings to CBT. Change in estimated probability and cost, and acceptance of emotions showed an indirect effect of CBT for SAD. Cognitive distortions appear relevant to target with cognitive restructuring techniques. Finding acceptance to have an indirect effect could be interpreted as support for contemporary CBT approaches that include acceptance-based strategies. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Children can discriminate the authenticity of happy but not sad or fearful facial expressions, and use an immature intensity-only strategy

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Amy eDawel

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Much is known about development of the ability to label facial expressions of emotion (e.g., as happy or sad, but rather less is known about the emergence of more complex emotional face processing skills. The present study investigates one such advanced skill: the ability to tell if someone is genuinely feeling an emotion or just pretending (i.e., authenticity discrimination. Previous studies have shown that children can discriminate authenticity of happy faces, using expression intensity of the happy expressions as an important cue, but have not tested the negative emotions of sadness or fear. Here, children aged 8-12 years (n = 85 and adults (n = 57 viewed pairs of faces in which one face showed a genuinely-felt emotional expression (happy, sad, or scared and the other face showed a pretend version. For happy faces, children discriminated authenticity above chance, although they performed more poorly than adults. For sad faces, for which our pretend and genuine images were equal in intensity, adults could discriminate authenticity, but children could not. Neither age group could discriminate authenticity of the fear faces. Results also showed that children judged authenticity based on intensity information alone for all three expressions tested, while adults used a combination of intensity and other factor/s. In addition, novel results show that individual differences in empathy (both cognitive and affective correlated with authenticity discrimination for happy faces in adults, but not children. Overall, our results indicate late maturity of skills needed to accurately determine the authenticity of emotions from facial information alone, and raise questions about how this might affect social interactions in late childhood and the teenage years.

Children can discriminate the authenticity of happy but not sad or fearful facial expressions, and use an immature intensity-only strategy.

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Dawel, Amy; Palermo, Romina; O'Kearney, Richard; McKone, Elinor

2015-01-01

Much is known about development of the ability to label facial expressions of emotion (e.g., as happy or sad), but rather less is known about the emergence of more complex emotional face processing skills. The present study investigates one such advanced skill: the ability to tell if someone is genuinely feeling an emotion or just pretending (i.e., authenticity discrimination). Previous studies have shown that children can discriminate authenticity of happy faces, using expression intensity as an important cue, but have not tested the negative emotions of sadness or fear. Here, children aged 8-12 years (n = 85) and adults (n = 57) viewed pairs of faces in which one face showed a genuinely-felt emotional expression (happy, sad, or scared) and the other face showed a pretend version. For happy faces, children discriminated authenticity above chance, although they performed more poorly than adults. For sad faces, for which our pretend and genuine images were equal in intensity, adults could discriminate authenticity, but children could not. Neither age group could discriminate authenticity of the fear faces. Results also showed that children judged authenticity based on intensity information alone for all three expressions tested, while adults used a combination of intensity and other factor/s. In addition, novel results show that individual differences in empathy (both cognitive and affective) correlated with authenticity discrimination for happy faces in adults, but not children. Overall, our results indicate late maturity of skills needed to accurately determine the authenticity of emotions from facial information alone, and raise questions about how this might affect social interactions in late childhood and the teenage years.

Aberrant default-mode network-hippocampus connectivity after sad memory-recall in remitted-depression

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Figueroa, Caroline A.; Mocking, Roel J. T.; van Wingen, Guido; Martens, Suzanne; Ruhé, Henricus G.; Schene, Aart H.

2017-01-01

Rumination and cognitive reactivity (dysfunctional cognitions after sad mood-induction) remain high in remitted Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and can contribute to new episodes. These factors have been linked to increased fMRI resting-state functional-connectivity within the Default-Mode Network

Emotions, Emotional Intelligence and Leadership: A Brief, Pragmatic Perspective

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Ingram, Jay; Cangemi, Joseph

2012-01-01

When people think of emotions, usually they think of different states of being, such as happiness, sadness, or anger. However, emotions generate very powerful chemicals that can create positive feelings, such as motivation and enthusiasm, or they can create more negative responses, such as offending and even attacking others. When an emotionally…

Altered insular activation and increased insular functional connectivity during sad and happy face processing in adolescent major depressive disorder.

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Henje Blom, Eva; Connolly, Colm G; Ho, Tiffany C; LeWinn, Kaja Z; Mobayed, Nisreen; Han, Laura; Paulus, Martin P; Wu, Jing; Simmons, Alan N; Yang, Tony T

2015-06-01

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is a leading cause of disability worldwide and occurs commonly first during adolescence. The insular cortex (IC) plays an important role in integrating emotion processing with interoception and has been implicated recently in the pathophysiology of adult and adolescent MDD. However, no studies have yet specifically examined the IC in adolescent MDD during processing of faces in the sad-happy continuum. Thus, the aim of the present study is to investigate the IC during sad and happy face processing in adolescents with MDD compared to healthy controls (HCL). Thirty-one adolescents (22 female) with MDD and 36 (23 female) HCL underwent a well-validated emotional processing fMRI paradigm that included sad and happy face stimuli. The MDD group showed significantly less differential activation of the anterior/middle insular cortex (AMIC) in response to sad versus happy faces compared to the HCL group. AMIC also showed greater functional connectivity with right fusiform gyrus, left middle frontal gyrus, and right amygdala/parahippocampal gyrus in the MDD compared to HCL group. Moreover, differential activation to sad and happy faces in AMIC correlated negatively with depression severity within the MDD group. Small age-range and cross-sectional nature precluded assessment of development of the AMIC in adolescent depression. Given the role of the IC in integrating bodily stimuli with conscious cognitive and emotional processes, our findings of aberrant AMIC function in adolescent MDD provide a neuroscientific rationale for targeting the AMIC in the development of new treatment modalities. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity

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Deng, Yaling; Chang, Lei; Yang, Meng; Huo, Meng

2016-01-01

The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR) was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure). We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception—women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence. PMID:27362361

Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity.

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Deng, Yaling; Chang, Lei; Yang, Meng; Huo, Meng; Zhou, Renlai

2016-01-01

The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR) was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure). We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception-women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence.

Gender Differences in Emotional Response: Inconsistency between Experience and Expressivity.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaling Deng

Full Text Available The present study investigated gender differences in both emotional experience and expressivity. Heart rate (HR was recorded as an indicator of emotional experience while the participants watched 16 video clips that induced eight types of emotion (sadness, anger, horror, disgust, neutrality, amusement, surprise, and pleasure. We also asked the participants to report valence, arousal, and motivation as indicators of emotional expressivity. Overall, the results revealed gender differences in emotional experience and emotional expressivity. When watching videos that induced anger, amusement, and pleasure, men showed larger decreases in HR, whereas women reported higher levels of arousal. There was no gender difference in HR when the participants watched videos that induced horror and disgust, but women reported lower valence, higher arousal, and stronger avoidance motivation than did men. Finally, no gender difference was observed in sadness or surprise, although there was one exception-women reported higher arousal when watching videos that induced sadness. The findings suggest that, when watching videos that induce an emotional response, men often have more intense emotional experiences, whereas women have higher emotional expressivity, particularly for negative emotions. In addition, gender differences depend on the specific emotion type but not the valence.

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.

Emotions and clinical ethics support. A moral inquiry into emotions in moral case deliberation.

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Molewijk, Bert; Kleinlugtenbelt, Dick; Pugh, Scott M; Widdershoven, Guy

2011-12-01

Emotions play an important part in moral life. Within clinical ethics support (CES), one should take into account the crucial role of emotions in moral cases in clinical practice. In this paper, we present an Aristotelian approach to emotions. We argue that CES can help participants deal with emotions by fostering a joint process of investigation of the role of emotions in a case. This investigation goes beyond empathy with and moral judgment of the emotions of the case presenter. In a moral case deliberation, the participants are invited to place themselves in the position of the case presenter and to investigate their own emotions in the situation. It is about critically assessing the facts in the case that cause the emotion and the related (moral) thoughts that accompany the emotion. It is also about finding the right emotion in a given situation and finding the right balance in dealing with that emotion. These steps in the moral inquiry give rise to group learning. It is a process of becoming open towards the perspectives of others, leading to new insights into what is an appropriate emotion in the specific situation. We show how this approach works in moral case deliberation. A physician presents a situation in which he is faced with a pregnant woman who is about to deliver multiple extremely premature infants at the threshold of viability. The moral deliberation of the case and the emotions therein leads to the participants' conclusion that "compassion" is a more adequate emotion than "sadness". The emotion "sadness" is pointed towards the tragedy that is happening to the woman. The emotion "compassion" is pointed towards the woman; it combines consideration and professional responsibility. Through the shift towards compassion, participants experienced more creativity and freedom to deal with the sad situation and to support the woman. The paper ends with an analysis and reflection on the deliberation process. In the conclusion we argue for more attention to

Intranasal oxytocin impedes the ability to ignore task-irrelevant facial expressions of sadness in students with depressive symptoms.

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Ellenbogen, Mark A; Linnen, Anne-Marie; Cardoso, Christopher; Joober, Ridha

2013-03-01

The administration of oxytocin promotes prosocial behavior in humans. The mechanism by which this occurs is unknown, but it likely involves changes in social information processing. In a randomized placebo-controlled study, we examined the influence of intranasal oxytocin and placebo on the interference control component of inhibition (i.e. ability to ignore task-irrelevant information) in 102 participants using a negative affective priming task with sad, angry, and happy faces. In this task, participants are instructed to respond to a facial expression of emotion while simultaneously ignoring another emotional face. On the subsequent trial, the previously-ignored emotional valence may become the emotional valence of the target face. Inhibition is operationalized as the differential delay between responding to a previously-ignored emotional valence and responding to an emotional valence unrelated to the previous one. Although no main effect of drug administration on inhibition was observed, a drug × depressive symptom interaction (β = -0.25; t = -2.6, p < 0.05) predicted the inhibition of sad faces. Relative to placebo, participants with high depression scores who were administered oxytocin were unable to inhibit the processing of sad faces. There was no relationship between drug administration and inhibition among those with low depression scores. These findings are consistent with increasing evidence that oxytocin alters social information processing in ways that have both positive and negative social outcomes. Because elevated depression scores are associated with an increased risk for major depressive disorder, difficulties inhibiting mood-congruent stimuli following oxytocin administration may be associated with risk for depression. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia reactivity to a sad film predicts depression symptom improvement and symptomatic trajectory.

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Panaite, Vanessa; Hindash, Alexandra Cowden; Bylsma, Lauren M; Small, Brent J; Salomon, Kristen; Rottenberg, Jonathan

2016-01-01

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) reactivity, an index of cardiac vagal tone, has been linked to self-regulation and the severity and course of depression (Rottenberg, 2007). Although initial data supports the proposition that RSA withdrawal during a sad film is a specific predictor of depression course (Fraguas, 2007; Rottenberg, 2005), the robustness and specificity of this finding are unclear. To provide a stronger test, RSA reactivity to three emotion films (happy, sad, fear) and to a more robust stressor, a speech task, were examined in currently depressed individuals (n=37), who were assessed for their degree of symptomatic improvement over 30weeks. Robust RSA reactivity to the sad film uniquely predicted overall symptom improvement over 30weeks. RSA reactivity to both sad and stressful stimuli predicted the speed and maintenance of symptomatic improvement. The current analyses provide the most robust support to date that RSA withdrawal to sad stimuli (but not stressful) has specificity in predicting the overall symptomatic improvement. In contrast, RSA reactivity to negative stimuli (both sad and stressful) predicted the trajectory of depression course. Patients' engagement with sad stimuli may be an important sign to attend to in therapeutic settings. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Does cortisol modulate emotion recognition and empathy?

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Duesenberg, Moritz; Weber, Juliane; Schulze, Lars; Schaeuffele, Carmen; Roepke, Stefan; Hellmann-Regen, Julian; Otte, Christian; Wingenfeld, Katja

2016-04-01

Emotion recognition and empathy are important aspects in the interaction and understanding of other people's behaviors and feelings. The Human environment comprises of stressful situations that impact social interactions on a daily basis. Aim of the study was to examine the effects of the stress hormone cortisol on emotion recognition and empathy. In this placebo-controlled study, 40 healthy men and 40 healthy women (mean age 24.5 years) received either 10mg of hydrocortisone or placebo. We used the Multifaceted Empathy Test to measure emotional and cognitive empathy. Furthermore, we examined emotion recognition from facial expressions, which contained two emotions (anger and sadness) and two emotion intensities (40% and 80%). We did not find a main effect for treatment or sex on either empathy or emotion recognition but a sex × emotion interaction on emotion recognition. The main result was a four-way-interaction on emotion recognition including treatment, sex, emotion and task difficulty. At 40% task difficulty, women recognized angry faces better than men in the placebo condition. Furthermore, in the placebo condition, men recognized sadness better than anger. At 80% task difficulty, men and women performed equally well in recognizing sad faces but men performed worse compared to women with regard to angry faces. Apparently, our results did not support the hypothesis that increases in cortisol concentration alone influence empathy and emotion recognition in healthy young individuals. However, sex and task difficulty appear to be important variables in emotion recognition from facial expressions. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Facial Emotion Recognition and Expression in Parkinson's Disease: An Emotional Mirror Mechanism?

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Ricciardi, Lucia; Visco-Comandini, Federica; Erro, Roberto; Morgante, Francesca; Bologna, Matteo; Fasano, Alfonso; Ricciardi, Diego; Edwards, Mark J; Kilner, James

2017-01-01

Parkinson's disease (PD) patients have impairment of facial expressivity (hypomimia) and difficulties in interpreting the emotional facial expressions produced by others, especially for aversive emotions. We aimed to evaluate the ability to produce facial emotional expressions and to recognize facial emotional expressions produced by others in a group of PD patients and a group of healthy participants in order to explore the relationship between these two abilities and any differences between the two groups of participants. Twenty non-demented, non-depressed PD patients and twenty healthy participants (HC) matched for demographic characteristics were studied. The ability of recognizing emotional facial expressions was assessed with the Ekman 60-faces test (Emotion recognition task). Participants were video-recorded while posing facial expressions of 6 primary emotions (happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear and anger). The most expressive pictures for each emotion were derived from the videos. Ten healthy raters were asked to look at the pictures displayed on a computer-screen in pseudo-random fashion and to identify the emotional label in a six-forced-choice response format (Emotion expressivity task). Reaction time (RT) and accuracy of responses were recorded. At the end of each trial the participant was asked to rate his/her confidence in his/her perceived accuracy of response. For emotion recognition, PD reported lower score than HC for Ekman total score (pemotions sub-scores happiness, fear, anger, sadness (pfacial emotion expressivity task, PD and HC significantly differed in the total score (p = 0.05) and in the sub-scores for happiness, sadness, anger (all pemotions. There was a significant positive correlation between the emotion facial recognition and expressivity in both groups; the correlation was even stronger when ranking emotions from the best recognized to the worst (R = 0.75, p = 0.004). PD patients showed difficulties in recognizing emotional

Emotion regulation in interpersonal problems: the role of cognitive-emotional complexity, emotion regulation goals, and expressivity.

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Coats, Abby Heckman; Blanchard-Fields, Fredda

2008-03-01

Young, middle-aged, and older adults' emotion regulation strategies in interpersonal problems were examined. Participants imagined themselves in anger- or sadness-eliciting situations with a close friend. Factor analyses of a new questionnaire supported a 4-factor model of emotion regulation strategies, including passivity, expressing emotions, seeking emotional information or support, and solving the problem. Results suggest that age differences in emotion regulation (such as older adults' increased endorsement of passive emotion regulation relative to young adults) are partially due to older adults' decreased ability to integrate emotion and cognition, increased prioritization of emotion regulation goals, and decreased tendency to express anger. (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

The effect of music background on the emotional appraisal of film sequences

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Pavlović Ivanka

2011-01-01

Full Text Available In this study the effects of musical background on the emotional appraisal of film sequences was investigated. Four pairs of polar emotions defined in Plutchik’s model were used as basic emotional qualities: joy-sadness, anticipation-surprise, fear-anger, and trust disgust. In the preliminary study eight film sequences and eight music themes were selected as the best representatives of all eight Plutchik’s emotions. In the main experiment the participant judged the emotional qualities of film-music combinations on eight seven-point scales. Half of the combinations were congruent (e.g. joyful film - joyful music, and half were incongruent (e.g. joyful film - sad music. Results have shown that visual information (film had greater effects on the emotion appraisal than auditory information (music. The modulation effects of music background depend on emotional qualities. In some incongruent combinations (joysadness the modulations in the expected directions were obtained (e.g. joyful music reduces the sadness of a sad film, in some cases (anger-fear no modulation effects were obtained, and in some cases (trust-disgust, anticipation-surprise the modulation effects were in an unexpected direction (e.g. trustful music increased the appraisal of disgust of a disgusting film. These results suggest that the appraisals of conjoint effects of emotions depend on the medium (film masks the music and emotional quality (three types of modulation effects.

Are specific emotions narrated differently?

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Habermas, Tilmann; Meier, Michaela; Mukhtar, Barbara

2009-12-01

Two studies test the assertion that anger, sadness, fear, pride, and happiness are typically narrated in different ways. Everyday events eliciting these 5 emotions were narrated by young women (Study 1) and 5- and 8-year-old girls (Study 2). Negative narratives were expected to engender more effort to process the event, be longer, more grammatically complex, more often have a complication section, and use more specific emotion labels than global evaluations. Narratives of Hogan's (2003) juncture emotions anger and fear were expected to focus more on action and to contain more core narrative sections of orientation, complication, and resolution than narratives of the outcome emotions sadness and happiness. Hypotheses were confirmed for adults except for syntactic complexity, whereas children showed only some of these differences. Hogan's theory that juncture emotions are restricted to the complication section was not confirmed. Finally, in adults, indirect speech was more frequent in anger narratives and internal monologue in fear narratives. It is concluded that different emotions should be studied in how they are narrated, and that narratives should be analyzed according to qualitatively different emotions.

The Influence of Music on Facial Emotion Recognition in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Neurotypical Children.

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Brown, Laura S

2017-03-01

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often struggle with social skills, including the ability to perceive emotions based on facial expressions. Research evidence suggests that many individuals with ASD can perceive emotion in music. Examining whether music can be used to enhance recognition of facial emotion by children with ASD would inform development of music therapy interventions. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of music with a strong emotional valance (happy; sad) on children with ASD's ability to label emotions depicted in facial photographs, and their response time. Thirty neurotypical children and 20 children with high-functioning ASD rated expressions of happy, neutral, and sad in 30 photographs under two music listening conditions (sad music; happy music). During each music listening condition, participants rated the 30 images using a 7-point scale that ranged from very sad to very happy. Response time data were also collected across both conditions. A significant two-way interaction revealed that participants' ratings of happy and neutral faces were unaffected by music conditions, but sad faces were perceived to be sadder with sad music than with happy music. Across both conditions, neurotypical children rated the happy faces as happier and the sad faces as sadder than did participants with ASD. Response times of the neurotypical children were consistently shorter than response times of the children with ASD; both groups took longer to rate sad faces than happy faces. Response times of neurotypical children were generally unaffected by the valence of the music condition; however, children with ASD took longer to respond when listening to sad music. Music appears to affect perceptions of emotion in children with ASD, and perceptions of sad facial expressions seem to be more affected by emotionally congruent background music than are perceptions of happy or neutral faces. © the American Music Therapy Association 2016

Recognition of facial expressions and prosodic cues with graded emotional intensities in adults with Asperger syndrome.

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Doi, Hirokazu; Fujisawa, Takashi X; Kanai, Chieko; Ohta, Haruhisa; Yokoi, Hideki; Iwanami, Akira; Kato, Nobumasa; Shinohara, Kazuyuki

2013-09-01

This study investigated the ability of adults with Asperger syndrome to recognize emotional categories of facial expressions and emotional prosodies with graded emotional intensities. The individuals with Asperger syndrome showed poorer recognition performance for angry and sad expressions from both facial and vocal information. The group difference in facial expression recognition was prominent for stimuli with low or intermediate emotional intensities. In contrast to this, the individuals with Asperger syndrome exhibited lower recognition accuracy than typically-developed controls mainly for emotional prosody with high emotional intensity. In facial expression recognition, Asperger and control groups showed an inversion effect for all categories. The magnitude of this effect was less in the Asperger group for angry and sad expressions, presumably attributable to reduced recruitment of the configural mode of face processing. The individuals with Asperger syndrome outperformed the control participants in recognizing inverted sad expressions, indicating enhanced processing of local facial information representing sad emotion. These results suggest that the adults with Asperger syndrome rely on modality-specific strategies in emotion recognition from facial expression and prosodic information.

The Pea SAD Short-Chain Dehydrogenase/Reductase: Quinone Reduction, Tissue Distribution, and Heterologous Expression1[W][OA

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Scherbak, Nikolai; Ala-Häivälä, Anneli; Brosché, Mikael; Böwer, Nathalie; Strid, Hilja; Gittins, John R.; Grahn, Elin; Eriksson, Leif A.; Strid, Åke

2011-01-01

The pea (Pisum sativum) tetrameric short-chain alcohol dehydrogenase-like protein (SAD) family consists of at least three highly similar members (SAD-A, -B, and -C). According to mRNA data, environmental stimuli induce SAD expression. The aim of this study was to characterize the SAD proteins by examining their catalytic function, distribution in pea, and induction in different tissues. In enzyme activity assays using a range of potential substrates, the SAD-C enzyme was shown to reduce one- or two-ring-membered quinones lacking long hydrophobic hydrocarbon tails. Immunological assays using a specific antiserum against the protein demonstrated that different tissues and cell types contain small amounts of SAD protein that was predominantly located within epidermal or subepidermal cells and around vascular tissue. Particularly high local concentrations were observed in the protoderm of the seed cotyledonary axis. Two bow-shaped rows of cells in the ovary and the placental surface facing the ovule also exhibited considerable SAD staining. Ultraviolet-B irradiation led to increased staining in epidermal and subepidermal cells of leaves and stems. The different localization patterns of SAD suggest functions both in development and in responses to environmental stimuli. Finally, the pea SAD-C promoter was shown to confer heterologous wound-induced expression in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), which confirmed that the inducibility of its expression is regulated at the transcriptional level. PMID:21343423

Short-term memory for emotional faces in dysphoria.

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Noreen, Saima; Ridout, Nathan

2010-07-01

The study aimed to determine if the memory bias for negative faces previously demonstrated in depression and dysphoria generalises from long- to short-term memory. A total of 29 dysphoric (DP) and 22 non-dysphoric (ND) participants were presented with a series of faces and asked to identify the emotion portrayed (happiness, sadness, anger, or neutral affect). Following a delay, four faces were presented (the original plus three distractors) and participants were asked to identify the target face. Half of the trials assessed memory for facial emotion, and the remaining trials examined memory for facial identity. At encoding, no group differences were apparent. At memory testing, relative to ND participants, DP participants exhibited impaired memory for all types of facial emotion and for facial identity when the faces featured happiness, anger, or neutral affect, but not sadness. DP participants exhibited impaired identity memory for happy faces relative to angry, sad, and neutral, whereas ND participants exhibited enhanced facial identity memory when faces were angry. In general, memory for faces was not related to performance at encoding. However, in DP participants only, memory for sad faces was related to sadness recognition at encoding. The results suggest that the negative memory bias for faces in dysphoria does not generalise from long- to short-term memory.

Is the emotional Stroop task a special case of mood induction? Evidence from sustained effects of attention under emotion.

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Ben-Haim, Moshe Shay; Mama, Yaniv; Icht, Michal; Algom, Daniel

2014-01-01

Sustained effects of emotion are well known in everyday experience. Surprisingly, such effects are seldom recorded in laboratory studies of the emotional Stroop task, in which participants name the color of emotion and neutral words. Color performance is more sluggish with emotion words than with neutral words, the emotional Stroop effect (ESE). The ESE is not sensitive to the order in which the two groups of words are presented, so the effect of exposure to emotion words does not extend to disrupting performance in a subsequent block with neutral words. We attribute this absence of a sustained effect to habituation engendered by excessive repetition of the experimental stimuli. In a series of four experiments, we showed that sustained effects do occur when habituation is removed, and we also showed that the massive exposure to negative stimuli within the ESE paradigm induces a commensurately negative mood. A novel perspective is offered, in which the ESE is considered a special case of mood induction.

Facial Emotion Recognition and Expression in Parkinson’s Disease: An Emotional Mirror Mechanism?

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Ricciardi, Lucia; Visco-Comandini, Federica; Erro, Roberto; Morgante, Francesca; Bologna, Matteo; Fasano, Alfonso; Ricciardi, Diego; Edwards, Mark J.; Kilner, James

2017-01-01

Background and aim Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients have impairment of facial expressivity (hypomimia) and difficulties in interpreting the emotional facial expressions produced by others, especially for aversive emotions. We aimed to evaluate the ability to produce facial emotional expressions and to recognize facial emotional expressions produced by others in a group of PD patients and a group of healthy participants in order to explore the relationship between these two abilities and any differences between the two groups of participants. Methods Twenty non-demented, non-depressed PD patients and twenty healthy participants (HC) matched for demographic characteristics were studied. The ability of recognizing emotional facial expressions was assessed with the Ekman 60-faces test (Emotion recognition task). Participants were video-recorded while posing facial expressions of 6 primary emotions (happiness, sadness, surprise, disgust, fear and anger). The most expressive pictures for each emotion were derived from the videos. Ten healthy raters were asked to look at the pictures displayed on a computer-screen in pseudo-random fashion and to identify the emotional label in a six-forced-choice response format (Emotion expressivity task). Reaction time (RT) and accuracy of responses were recorded. At the end of each trial the participant was asked to rate his/her confidence in his/her perceived accuracy of response. Results For emotion recognition, PD reported lower score than HC for Ekman total score (pemotions sub-scores happiness, fear, anger, sadness (pfacial emotion expressivity task, PD and HC significantly differed in the total score (p = 0.05) and in the sub-scores for happiness, sadness, anger (all pemotions. There was a significant positive correlation between the emotion facial recognition and expressivity in both groups; the correlation was even stronger when ranking emotions from the best recognized to the worst (R = 0.75, p = 0.004). Conclusions PD

Facial responsiveness of psychopaths to the emotional expressions of others.

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Janina Künecke

Full Text Available Psychopathic individuals show selfish, manipulative, and antisocial behavior in addition to emotional detachment and reduced empathy. Their empathic deficits are thought to be associated with a reduced responsiveness to emotional stimuli. Immediate facial muscle responses to the emotional expressions of others reflect the expressive part of emotional responsiveness and are positively related to trait empathy. Empirical evidence for reduced facial muscle responses in adult psychopathic individuals to the emotional expressions of others is rare. In the present study, 261 male criminal offenders and non-offenders categorized dynamically presented facial emotion expressions (angry, happy, sad, and neutral during facial electromyography recording of their corrugator muscle activity. We replicated a measurement model of facial muscle activity, which controls for general facial responsiveness to face stimuli, and modeled three correlated emotion-specific factors (i.e., anger, happiness, and sadness representing emotion specific activity. In a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis, we compared the means of the anger, happiness, and sadness latent factors between three groups: 1 non-offenders, 2 low, and 3 high psychopathic offenders. There were no significant mean differences between groups. Our results challenge current theories that focus on deficits in emotional responsiveness as leading to the development of psychopathy and encourage further theoretical development on deviant emotional processes in psychopathic individuals.

SAD effects on grantsmanship.

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Lozano, George A

2015-01-01

SAD is a state of depression induced by a lack of sufficient sunlight that occurs at high latitudes during the fall and winter. SAD causes people to be risk-adverse. Granting agencies of high latitude countries should time high-risk research competitions so they do not coincide with the SAD months. © 2015 WILEY Periodicals, Inc.

Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders

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Marsh, Penny; Beauchaine, Theodore P.; Williams, Bailey

2009-01-01

Although deficiencies in emotional responding have been linked to externalizing behaviors in children, little is known about how discrete response systems (e.g., expressive, physiological) are coordinated during emotional challenge among these youth. We examined time-linked correspondence of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity during an empathy-eliciting task among boys with disruptive behavior disorders (n = 31) and controls (n = 23). For controls, sad facial expressions were associated with reduced sympathetic (lower skin conductance level, lengthened cardiac preejection period [PEP]) and increased parasympathetic (higher respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA]) activity. In contrast, no correspondence between facial expressions and autonomic reactivity was observed among boys with conduct problems. Furthermore, low correspondence between facial expressions and PEP predicted externalizing symptom severity, whereas low correspondence between facial expressions and RSA predicted internalizing symptom severity. PMID:17868261

Stress Induction and Visual Working Memory Performance: The Effects of Emotional and Non-Emotional Stimuli

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Zahra Khayyer

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Background Some studies have shown working memory impairment following stressful situations. Also, researchers have found that working memory performance depends on many different factors such as emotional load of stimuli and gender. Objectives The present study aimed to determine the effects of stress induction on visual working memory (VWM performance among female and male university students. Methods This quasi-experimental research employed a posttest with only control group design (within-group study. A total of 62 university students (32 males and 30 females were randomly selected and allocated to experimental and control groups (mean age of 23.73. Using cold presser test (CPT, stress was induced and then, an n-back task was implemented to evaluate visual working memory function (such as the number of true items, time reactions, and the number of wrong items through emotional and non-emotional pictures. 100 pictures were selected from the international affective picture system (IASP with different valences. Results Results showed that stress impaired different visual working memory functions (P < 0.002 for true scores, P < 0.001 for reaction time, and P < 0.002 for wrong items. Conclusions In general, stress significantly decreases the VWM performances. On the one hand, females were strongly impressed by stress more than males and on the other hand, the VWM performance was better for emotional stimuli than non-emotional stimuli.

On the Time Course of Vocal Emotion Recognition

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Pell, Marc D.; Kotz, Sonja A.

2011-01-01

How quickly do listeners recognize emotions from a speaker's voice, and does the time course for recognition vary by emotion type? To address these questions, we adapted the auditory gating paradigm to estimate how much vocal information is needed for listeners to categorize five basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness) and neutral utterances produced by male and female speakers of English. Semantically-anomalous pseudo-utterances (e.g., The rivix jolled the silling) conveying each emotion were divided into seven gate intervals according to the number of syllables that listeners heard from sentence onset. Participants (n = 48) judged the emotional meaning of stimuli presented at each gate duration interval, in a successive, blocked presentation format. Analyses looked at how recognition of each emotion evolves as an utterance unfolds and estimated the “identification point” for each emotion. Results showed that anger, sadness, fear, and neutral expressions are recognized more accurately at short gate intervals than happiness, and particularly disgust; however, as speech unfolds, recognition of happiness improves significantly towards the end of the utterance (and fear is recognized more accurately than other emotions). When the gate associated with the emotion identification point of each stimulus was calculated, data indicated that fear (M = 517 ms), sadness (M = 576 ms), and neutral (M = 510 ms) expressions were identified from shorter acoustic events than the other emotions. These data reveal differences in the underlying time course for conscious recognition of basic emotions from vocal expressions, which should be accounted for in studies of emotional speech processing. PMID:22087275

Recognizing vocal emotions in Mandarin Chinese: a validated database of Chinese vocal emotional stimuli.

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Liu, Pan; Pell, Marc D

2012-12-01

To establish a valid database of vocal emotional stimuli in Mandarin Chinese, a set of Chinese pseudosentences (i.e., semantically meaningless sentences that resembled real Chinese) were produced by four native Mandarin speakers to express seven emotional meanings: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, happiness, pleasant surprise, and neutrality. These expressions were identified by a group of native Mandarin listeners in a seven-alternative forced choice task, and items reaching a recognition rate of at least three times chance performance in the seven-choice task were selected as a valid database and then subjected to acoustic analysis. The results demonstrated expected variations in both perceptual and acoustic patterns of the seven vocal emotions in Mandarin. For instance, fear, anger, sadness, and neutrality were associated with relatively high recognition, whereas happiness, disgust, and pleasant surprise were recognized less accurately. Acoustically, anger and pleasant surprise exhibited relatively high mean f0 values and large variation in f0 and amplitude; in contrast, sadness, disgust, fear, and neutrality exhibited relatively low mean f0 values and small amplitude variations, and happiness exhibited a moderate mean f0 value and f0 variation. Emotional expressions varied systematically in speech rate and harmonics-to-noise ratio values as well. This validated database is available to the research community and will contribute to future studies of emotional prosody for a number of purposes. To access the database, please contact pan.liu@mail.mcgill.ca.

Older but not younger infants associate own-race faces with happy music and other-race faces with sad music.

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Xiao, Naiqi G; Quinn, Paul C; Liu, Shaoying; Ge, Liezhong; Pascalis, Olivier; Lee, Kang

2018-03-01

We used a novel intermodal association task to examine whether infants associate own- and other-race faces with music of different emotional valences. Three- to 9-month-olds saw a series of neutral own- or other-race faces paired with happy or sad musical excerpts. Three- to 6-month-olds did not show any specific association between face race and music. At 9 months, however, infants looked longer at own-race faces paired with happy music than at own-race faces paired with sad music. Nine-month-olds also looked longer at other-race faces paired with sad music than at other-race faces paired with happy music. These results indicate that infants with nearly exclusive own-race face experience develop associations between face race and music emotional valence in the first year of life. The potential implications of such associations for developing racial biases in early childhood are discussed. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Emotional Awareness and Couples' Relationship Satisfaction

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Croyle, Kristin L.; Waltz, Jennifer

2002-01-01

This study examined the role of emotional awareness in couples' relationships and the effects of a tendency to respond to difficult couples' situations with "soft" emotions (including sadness and fear) versus "hard" emotions (including anger and resentment). Participants were 56 heterosexual couples who completed a measure of relationship…

A cross-cultural study on emotion expression and the learning of social norms

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Hareli, Shlomo; Kafetsios, Konstantinos; Hess, Ursula

2015-01-01

When we do not know how to correctly behave in a new context, the emotions that people familiar with the context show in response to the behaviors of others, can help us understand what to do or not to do. The present study examined cross-cultural differences in how group emotional expressions (anger, sadness, neutral) can be used to deduce a norm violation in four cultures (Germany, Israel, Greece, and the US), which differ in terms of decoding rules for negative emotions. As expected, in all four countries, anger was a stronger norm violation signal than sadness or neutral expressions. However, angry and sad expressions were perceived as more intense and the relevant norm was learned better in Germany and Israel than in Greece and the US. Participants in Greece were relatively better at using sadness as a sign of a likely norm violation. The results demonstrate both cultural universality and cultural differences in the use of group emotion expressions in norm learning. In terms of cultural differences they underscore that the social signal value of emotional expressions may vary with culture as a function of cultural differences, both in emotion perception, and as a function of a differential use of emotions. PMID:26483744

A cross-cultural study on emotion expression and the learning of social norms.

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Hareli, Shlomo; Kafetsios, Konstantinos; Hess, Ursula

2015-01-01

When we do not know how to correctly behave in a new context, the emotions that people familiar with the context show in response to the behaviors of others, can help us understand what to do or not to do. The present study examined cross-cultural differences in how group emotional expressions (anger, sadness, neutral) can be used to deduce a norm violation in four cultures (Germany, Israel, Greece, and the US), which differ in terms of decoding rules for negative emotions. As expected, in all four countries, anger was a stronger norm violation signal than sadness or neutral expressions. However, angry and sad expressions were perceived as more intense and the relevant norm was learned better in Germany and Israel than in Greece and the US. Participants in Greece were relatively better at using sadness as a sign of a likely norm violation. The results demonstrate both cultural universality and cultural differences in the use of group emotion expressions in norm learning. In terms of cultural differences they underscore that the social signal value of emotional expressions may vary with culture as a function of cultural differences, both in emotion perception, and as a function of a differential use of emotions.

A cross-cultural study on emotion expression and the learning of social norms

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Shlomo eHareli

2015-10-01

Full Text Available When we do not know how to correctly behave in a new context, the emotions that people familiar with the context show in response to the behaviors of others, can help us understand what to do or not to do. The present study examined cross-cultural differences in how group emotional expressions (anger, sadness, neutral can be used to deduce a norm violation in four cultures (Germany, Israel, Greece and the US, which differ in terms of decoding rules for negative emotions. As expected, in all four countries, anger was a stronger norm violation signal than sadness or neutral expressions. However, angry and sad expressions were perceived as more intense and the relevant norm was learned better in Germany and Israel than in Greece and the US. Participants in Greece were relatively better at using sadness as a sign of a likely norm violation. The results demonstrate both cultural universality and cultural differences in the use of group emotion expressions in norm learning. In terms of cultural differences they underscore that the social signal value of emotional expressions may vary with culture as a function of cultural differences, both in emotion perception, and as a function of a differential use of emotions.

Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain.

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Trost, Wiebke; Ethofer, Thomas; Zentner, Marcel; Vuilleumier, Patrik

2012-12-01

Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). Irrespective of their positive/negative valence, high-arousal emotions (Tension, Power, and Joy) also correlated with activations in sensory and motor areas, whereas low-arousal categories (Peacefulness, Nostalgia, and Sadness) selectively engaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The right parahippocampal cortex activated in all but positive high-arousal conditions. Results also suggested some blends between activation patterns associated with different classes of emotions, particularly for feelings of Wonder or Transcendence. These data reveal a differentiated recruitment across emotions of networks involved in reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, which may account for the unique richness of musical emotions.

Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndromes (SADS) Foundation

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... SADS Foundation UK SADS Foundation Netherlands SADS Foundation China SADS Foundation Hong Kong Search for: Log in ... research crucial for health of patients and the economy 7/18/2017 More funding for heart disease ...

The Emotional Child Witness Effect Survives Presentation Mode.

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Melinder, Annika; Burrell, Lisa; Eriksen, Maria Olaussen; Magnussen, Svein; Wessel, Ellen

2016-01-01

The emotional witness effect - the phenomenon whereby people are affected by the emotional manner in which a witness presents testimony - constitutes a possible source of wrongful decisions in legal contexts. One stereotypical view of abused children is that they should be sad when talking about their experiences of maltreatment, whereas children may in fact express a variety of emotional expressions when talking about abusive events. This raises the question as to whether there is an optimal mode in which to present child victim testimony that could reduce the possible influence of displayed emotions. In the present study, mock police interviews were carried out with female child actors, role-playing the victims of physical abuse by their stepfather, telling the same story with four emotional expressions (neutral, sad, angry, or positive). Laypersons (N = 465) were presented with the interviews as transcripts with the emotional reactions of the child witness noted, audio recordings, or videotaped recordings. Participants then rated the credibility of the victim witness. Replicating previous results, the "sad" expression elicited the highest credibility ratings across all modes of presentations. Presentation mode affected ratings of credibility, with the transcript versions resulting in the highest ratings. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Parental Socialization of Emotion: How Mothers Respond to their Children’s Emotions in Turkey

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Ebru Ersay

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Several research studies suggest a link between parents’ emotion socialization and children’s social competence and behavior problems. Parents contribute to their children’s emotion socialization, more directly, through responses to their children’s emotions. Early emotion socialization experiences with parents establish patterns of emotion experience, expression, and regulation that children carry into their broader social circles. Few scales exist to document parents’ responses to children’s emotions. The aim of this study was to document mothers’ responses to their children’s sadness, anger, fear, and being overjoyed. A study sample of 868 mothers of preschoolers completed the questionnaire in Turkey. The validity and reliability properties of the Responses to Children’s Emotions (RCE Questionnaire were also examined. We found that mothers in Turkey preferred to respond differently to children’s different emotions. Mothers’ responses generally did not differ according to the gender of their children; the only difference was found for sadness. Mothers’ responses to their children’s emotions related to the children’s and mothers’ ages, monthly family income, levels of mothers’ education, mothers’ employment status, birth order of children, and the city they lived in. This study is important in that it is the first to document mothers’ emotion socialization strategies for their children in terms of one positive and three negative emotions.

Different Neural Correlates of Emotion-Label Words and Emotion-Laden Words: An ERP Study

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Zhang, Juan; Wu, Chenggang; Meng, Yaxuan; Yuan, Zhen

2017-01-01

It is well-documented that both emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, wedding) can induce emotion activation. However, the neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words recognition have not been examined. The present study aimed to compare the underlying neural responses when processing the two kinds of words by employing event-related potential (ERP) measurements. Fifteen Chinese native speakers were asked to perform a lexical...

Sex Differences in Emotional Evaluation of Film Clips: Interaction with Five High Arousal Emotional Categories

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Maffei, Antonio; Vencato, Valentina; Angrilli, Alessandro

2015-01-01

The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives. PMID:26717488

Sex Differences in Emotional Evaluation of Film Clips: Interaction with Five High Arousal Emotional Categories.

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Antonio Maffei

Full Text Available The present study aimed to investigate gender differences in the emotional evaluation of 18 film clips divided into six categories: Erotic, Scenery, Neutral, Sadness, Compassion, and Fear. 41 female and 40 male students rated all clips for valence-pleasantness, arousal, level of elicited distress, anxiety, jittery feelings, excitation, and embarrassment. Analysis of positive films revealed higher levels of arousal, pleasantness, and excitation to the Scenery clips in both genders, but lower pleasantness and greater embarrassment in women compared to men to Erotic clips. Concerning unpleasant stimuli, unlike men, women reported more unpleasantness to the Compassion, Sadness, and Fear compared to the Neutral clips and rated them also as more arousing than did men. They further differentiated the films by perceiving greater arousal to Fear than to Compassion clips. Women rated the Sadness and Fear clips with greater Distress and Jittery feelings than men did. Correlation analysis between arousal and the other emotional scales revealed that, although men looked less aroused than women to all unpleasant clips, they also showed a larger variance in their emotional responses as indicated by the high number of correlations and their relatively greater extent, an outcome pointing to a masked larger sensitivity of part of male sample to emotional clips. We propose a new perspective in which gender difference in emotional responses can be better evidenced by means of film clips selected and clustered in more homogeneous categories, controlled for arousal levels, as well as evaluated through a number of emotion focused adjectives.

Infants' Temperament and Mothers', and Fathers' Depression Predict Infants' Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces.

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Aktar, Evin; Mandell, Dorothy J; de Vente, Wieke; Majdandžić, Mirjana; Raijmakers, Maartje E J; Bögels, Susan M

2016-07-01

Between 10 and 14 months, infants gain the ability to learn about unfamiliar stimuli by observing others' emotional reactions to those stimuli, so called social referencing (SR). Joint processing of emotion and head/gaze direction is essential for SR. This study tested emotion and head/gaze direction effects on infants' attention via pupillometry in the period following the emergence of SR. Pupil responses of 14-to-17-month-old infants (N = 57) were measured during computerized presentations of unfamiliar objects alone, before-and-after being paired with emotional (happy, sad, fearful vs. neutral) faces gazing towards (vs. away) from objects. Additionally, the associations of infants' temperament, and parents' negative affect/depression/anxiety with infants' pupil responses were explored. Both mothers and fathers of participating infants completed questionnaires about their negative affect, depression and anxiety symptoms and their infants' negative temperament. Infants allocated more attention (larger pupils) to negative vs. neutral faces when the faces were presented alone, while they allocated less attention to objects paired with emotional vs. neutral faces independent of head/gaze direction. Sad (but not fearful) temperament predicted more attention to emotional faces. Infants' sad temperament moderated the associations of mothers' depression (but not anxiety) with infants' attention to objects. Maternal depression predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions in infants low in sad temperament, while it predicted less attention in infants high in sad temperament. Fathers' depression (but not anxiety) predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions independent of infants' temperament. We conclude that infants' own temperamental dispositions for sadness, and their exposure to mothers' and fathers' depressed moods may influence infants' attention to emotion-object associations in social learning contexts.

Recognition of facial and musical emotions in Parkinson's disease.

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Saenz, A; Doé de Maindreville, A; Henry, A; de Labbey, S; Bakchine, S; Ehrlé, N

2013-03-01

Patients with amygdala lesions were found to be impaired in recognizing the fear emotion both from face and from music. In patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), impairment in recognition of emotions from facial expressions was reported for disgust, fear, sadness and anger, but no studies had yet investigated this population for the recognition of emotions from both face and music. The ability to recognize basic universal emotions (fear, happiness and sadness) from both face and music was investigated in 24 medicated patients with PD and 24 healthy controls. The patient group was tested for language (verbal fluency tasks), memory (digit and spatial span), executive functions (Similarities and Picture Completion subtests of the WAIS III, Brixton and Stroop tests), visual attention (Bells test), and fulfilled self-assessment tests for anxiety and depression. Results showed that the PD group was significantly impaired for recognition of both fear and sadness emotions from facial expressions, whereas their performance in recognition of emotions from musical excerpts was not different from that of the control group. The scores of fear and sadness recognition from faces were neither correlated to scores in tests for executive and cognitive functions, nor to scores in self-assessment scales. We attributed the observed dissociation to the modality (visual vs. auditory) of presentation and to the ecological value of the musical stimuli that we used. We discuss the relevance of our findings for the care of patients with PD. © 2012 The Author(s) European Journal of Neurology © 2012 EFNS.

Emotion Regulation Characteristics Development in Iranian Primary School Pupils

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Asghar Dadkhah

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Objectives: Emotion regulations refer to the ability of experiencing emotions as a basic human capacity and the experience of the basic emotions happiness, anger, sadness and fear are considered as reular characteristics among nations. In school-age children, problems in socioemotional development typically shows themselves as challenging, socially disruptive paterns of behavior. The purpose of the present study was to understand Emotion Regulation characteristics in Iranian primary school pupils and whether Iranian children enable to identify common emotions. Methods: Participants included 900 children, 9 to 10 years, from elementary schools from 21 provinces in Iran. In pilot work we presented 200 children with four hypothetical vignettes of the kind typically used in display rule research. In the main study children’s knowledge regarding hiding their emotions was assessed through a structured interview. The participants were presented with the interview questions after the vignettes. The answers were coded by two people and the interrater reliability was high. The children were assessed on the basis of four common emotions:Happiness, Anger,Fear,and, Sadness. Results: The analysis of the data indicated that: 1 all children were enabled to identify and differentiate all four emotions from each other, most of students hide their happiness, anger, fear and sadness, they hide their emotions in specific situation such as school and home, hide happiness and anger against peers and hide fear and sadness in front of adults. Discussion: The study indicates that Iranian children not only differ from other culture peers in the amount of display rule use in daily life, but also in the situations they report using it and their motives for doing so they suppress their overall emotions more frequently, especially in presence of family and for pro-social and self-protective reasons. These findings provides the basic knowledge about Iranian children

Music-evoked emotions in schizophrenia.

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Abe, Daijyu; Arai, Makoto; Itokawa, Masanari

2017-07-01

Previous studies have reported that people with schizophrenia have impaired musical abilities. Here we developed a simple music-based assay to assess patient's ability to associate a minor chord with sadness. We further characterize correlations between impaired musical responses and psychiatric symptoms. We exposed participants sequentially to two sets of sound stimuli, first a C-major progression and chord, and second a C-minor progression and chord. Participants were asked which stimulus they associated with sadness, the first set, the second set, or neither. The severity of psychiatric symptoms was assessed using the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Study participants were 29 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia and 29 healthy volunteers matched in age, gender and musical background. 37.9% (95% confidence interval [CI]:19.1-56.7) of patients with schizophrenia associated the minor chord set as sad, compared with 97.9% (95%CI: 89.5-103.6) of controls. Four patients were diagnosed with treatment-resistant schizophrenia, and all four failed to associate the minor chord with sadness. Patients who did not recognize minor chords as sad had significantly higher scores on all PANSS subscales. A simple test allows music-evoked emotions to be assessed in schizophrenia patient, and may show potential relationships between music-evoked emotions and psychiatric symptoms. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Electrophysiological correlates of fearful and sad distraction on target processing in adolescents with attention deficit-hyperactivity symptoms and affective disorders.

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Anthony eSinghal

2012-12-01

Full Text Available In this study we used event-related brain potentials (ERP as neural markers of cognitive operations to examine emotion and attentional processing in a population of high-risk adolescents with mental health problems that included ADHD, anxiety, and depression. We included a healthy control group for comparison purposes, and employed a modified version of the emotional oddball paradigm, consisting of frequent distracters (scrambled pictures, infrequent distracters (sad, fearful, and neutral pictures and infrequent targets (circles. Participants were instructed to make a right hand button press to targets and a left hand button press to all other stimuli. EEG/ERP recordings were taken using a high-density 256-channel recording system. Behavioral data showed that for both clinical and non-clinical adolescents, reaction time was slowest in response to the fearful images. Electrophysiological data differentiated emotion and target processing between clinical and non-clinical adolescents. In the clinical group we observed a larger P100 and Late Positive Potential (LPP in response to fearful compared to sad or neutral pictures. There were no differences in these ERPs in the healthy sample. Emotional modulation of target processing was also identified in the clinical sample, where we observed an increase in P300 amplitude, and a larger sustained LPP in response to targets that followed emotional pictures (fear & sad compared to targets that followed neutral pictures or other targets. There were no differences in these target ERPs for the healthy participants. Taken together, we suggest that these data provide important and novel evidence of affective and attention dysfunction in this clinical population of adolescents, and offer an example of the disruptive effects of emotional reactivity on basic cognition.

Stimulus-Driven Attention, Threat Bias, and Sad Bias in Youth with a History of an Anxiety Disorder or Depression.

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Sylvester, Chad M; Hudziak, James J; Gaffrey, Michael S; Barch, Deanna M; Luby, Joan L

2016-02-01

Attention biases towards threatening and sad stimuli are associated with pediatric anxiety and depression, respectively. The basic cognitive mechanisms associated with attention biases in youth, however, remain unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that threat bias (selective attention for threatening versus neutral stimuli) but not sad bias relies on stimulus-driven attention. We collected measures of stimulus-driven attention, threat bias, sad bias, and current clinical symptoms in youth with a history of an anxiety disorder and/or depression (ANX/DEP; n = 40) as well as healthy controls (HC; n = 33). Stimulus-driven attention was measured with a non-emotional spatial orienting task, while threat bias and sad bias were measured at a short time interval (150 ms) with a spatial orienting task using emotional faces and at a longer time interval (500 ms) using a dot-probe task. In ANX/DEP but not HC, early attention bias towards threat was negatively correlated with later attention bias to threat, suggesting that early threat vigilance was associated with later threat avoidance. Across all subjects, stimulus-driven orienting was not correlated with early threat bias but was negatively correlated with later threat bias, indicating that rapid stimulus-driven orienting is linked to later threat avoidance. No parallel relationships were detected for sad bias. Current symptoms of depression but not anxiety were related to decreased stimulus-driven attention. Together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that threat bias but not sad bias relies on stimulus-driven attention. These results inform the design of attention bias modification programs that aim to reverse threat biases and reduce symptoms associated with pediatric anxiety and depression.

Stimulus-driven attention, threat bias, and sad bias in youth with a history of an anxiety disorder or depression

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Sylvester, Chad M.; Hudziak, James J.; Gaffrey, Michael S.; Barch, Deanna M.; Luby, Joan L.

2015-01-01

Attention biases towards threatening and sad stimuli are associated with pediatric anxiety and depression, respectively. The basic cognitive mechanisms associated with attention biases in youth, however, remain unclear. Here, we tested the hypothesis that threat bias (selective attention for threatening versus neutral stimuli) but not sad bias relies on stimulus-driven attention. We collected measures of stimulus-driven attention, threat bias, sad bias, and current clinical symptoms in youth with a history of an anxiety disorder and/or depression (ANX/DEP; n=40) as well as healthy controls (HC; n=33). Stimulus-driven attention was measured with a non-emotional spatial orienting task, while threat bias and sad bias were measured at a short time interval (150 ms) with a spatial orienting task using emotional faces and at a longer time interval (500 ms) using a dot-probe task. In ANX/DEP but not HC, early attention bias towards threat was negatively correlated with later attention bias to threat, suggesting that early threat vigilance was associated with later threat avoidance. Across all subjects, stimulus-driven orienting was not correlated with early threat bias but was negatively correlated with later threat bias, indicating that rapid stimulus-driven orienting is linked to later threat avoidance. No parallel relationships were detected for sad bias. Current symptoms of depression but not anxiety were related to decreased stimulus-driven attention. Together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that threat bias but not sad bias relies on stimulus-driven attention. These results inform the design of attention bias modification programs that aim to reverse threat biases and reduce symptoms associated with pediatric anxiety and depression. PMID:25702927

Difficulty identifying feelings and automatic activation in the fusiform gyrus in response to facial emotion.

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Eichmann, Mischa; Kugel, Harald; Suslow, Thomas

2008-12-01

Difficulties in identifying and differentiating one's emotions are a central characteristic of alexithymia. In the present study, automatic activation of the fusiform gyrus to facial emotion was investigated as a function of alexithymia as assessed by the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale. During 3 Tesla fMRI scanning, pictures of faces bearing sad, happy, and neutral expressions masked by neutral faces were presented to 22 healthy adults who also responded to the Toronto Alexithymia Scale. The fusiform gyrus was selected as the region of interest, and voxel values of this region were extracted, summarized as means, and tested among the different conditions (sad, happy, and neutral faces). Masked sad facial emotions were associated with greater bilateral activation of the fusiform gyrus than masked neutral faces. The subscale, Difficulty Identifying Feelings, was negatively correlated with the neural response of the fusiform gyrus to masked sad faces. The correlation results suggest that automatic hyporesponsiveness of the fusiform gyrus to negative emotion stimuli may reflect problems in recognizing one's emotions in everyday life.

Autobiographically recalled emotional states impact forward gait initiation as a function of motivational direction.

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Fawver, Bradley; Hass, Chris J; Park, Kyoungshin D; Janelle, Christopher M

2014-12-01

The impact of self-generated affective states on self-initiated motor behavior remains unspecified. The purpose of the current study was to determine how self-generated emotional states impact forward gait initiation. Participants recalled past emotional experiences (anger, fear, happy, sad, and neutral), "relived" those emotional memories before gait initiation (GI), and then walked ∼4 m across the laboratory floor. Kinetic and kinematic data revealed GI characteristics consistent with a motivational direction hypothesis. Specifically, participants produced greater posterior-lateral displacement and velocity of their center of pressure (COP) during the initial phase of GI after self-generation of happy and anger emotional states relative to sad ones. During the second phase of GI, greater medial displacement of COP was found during the happy condition compared with sad, greater velocity was occasioned during happy and angry trials compared with sad, and greater velocity was exhibited after happy compared with fear memories. Finally, greater anterior velocity was produced by participants during the final phase of GI for happy and angry memories compared with sad ones. Steady state kinetic and kinematic data when recalling happy and angry memories (longer, faster, and more forceful stepping behavior) followed the anticipatory postural adjustments noted during GI. Together the results from GI and steady state gait provide robust evidence that self-generated emotional states impact forward gait behavior based on motivational direction. Endogenous manipulations of emotional states hold promise for clinical and performance interventions aimed at improving self-initiated movement.

The voice conveys specific emotions: evidence from vocal burst displays.

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Simon-Thomas, Emiliana R; Keltner, Dacher J; Sauter, Disa; Sinicropi-Yao, Lara; Abramson, Anna

2009-12-01

Studies of emotion signaling inform claims about the taxonomic structure, evolutionary origins, and physiological correlates of emotions. Emotion vocalization research has tended to focus on a limited set of emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness, and for the voice, also tenderness. Here, we examine how well brief vocal bursts can communicate 22 different emotions: 9 negative (Study 1) and 13 positive (Study 2), and whether prototypical vocal bursts convey emotions more reliably than heterogeneous vocal bursts (Study 3). Results show that vocal bursts communicate emotions like anger, fear, and sadness, as well as seldom-studied states like awe, compassion, interest, and embarrassment. Ancillary analyses reveal family-wise patterns of vocal burst expression. Errors in classification were more common within emotion families (e.g., 'self-conscious,' 'pro-social') than between emotion families. The three studies reported highlight the voice as a rich modality for emotion display that can inform fundamental constructs about emotion.

Opioid system and human emotions.

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Nummenmaa, Lauri; Tuominen, Lauri

2017-04-10

Emotions are states of vigilant readiness that guide human and animal behaviour during survival-salient situations. Categorical models of emotions posit neurally and physiologically distinct basic human emotions (anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness and surprise) that govern different survival functions. Opioid receptors are expressed abundantly in the mammalian emotion circuit, and the opioid system modulates a variety of functions related to arousal and motivation. Yet, its specific contribution to different basic emotions has remained poorly understood. Here, we review how the endogenous opioid system and particularly the μ receptor contribute to emotional processing in humans. Activation of the endogenous opioid system is consistently associated with both pleasant and unpleasant emotions. In general, exogenous opioid agonists facilitate approach-oriented emotions (anger, pleasure) and inhibit avoidance-oriented emotions (fear, sadness). Opioids also modulate social bonding and affiliative behaviour, and prolonged opioid abuse may render both social bonding and emotion recognition circuits dysfunctional. However, there is no clear evidence that the opioid system is able to affect the emotions associated with surprise and disgust. Taken together, the opioid systems contribute to a wide array of positive and negative emotions through their general ability to modulate the approach versus avoidance motivation associated with specific emotions. Because of the protective effects of opioid system-mediated prosociality and positive mood, the opioid system may constitute an important factor contributing to psychological and psychosomatic resilience. © 2017 The British Pharmacological Society.

Parental socialization of sadness regulation in middle childhood: the role of expectations and gender.

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Cassano, Michael C; Zeman, Janice L

2010-09-01

The authors of this study investigated mothers' and fathers' socialization of their children's sadness. The particular focus was an examination of how socialization practices changed when parents' expectancies concerning their child's sadness management abilities were violated. Methods included an experimental manipulation and direct observation of parent-child interactions in 62 families of White, middle-class children in 3rd and 4th grades. Families were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 conditions. After parents were provided with a description of normative child behavior on a sadness-induction task, feedback was manipulated such that parents in the control condition were told their child had demonstrated typical regulation while parents in the violated-expectancy condition were informed their child did not manage sadness as well as peers. The hypothesis that violated expectancies influence socialization processes was supported, with greater evidence emerging for fathers than mothers. In certain circumstances within the violated-expectancy condition, there was more parental similarity in socialization practices than in the control condition. Further, mother-father comparisons indicated differences in socialization as a function of parent and child gender that were generally consistent with gender stereotypes.

Primary emotional traits in patients with personality disorders.

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Karterud, Sigmund; Pedersen, Geir; Johansen, Merete; Wilberg, Theresa; Davis, Ken; Panksepp, Jaak

2016-11-01

There is a longstanding tradition that connects temperament pathology and personality disorders. Emotions are the major constituents of temperament. In mammals, seven primary emotions have been identified: SEEKING, FEAR, CARE, RAGE, SADNESS/PANIC, LUST and PLAY. The study aimed at exploring the relationship between primary emotions and personality disorders (PDs). Five hundred forty-six patients with different degrees and qualities of personality pathology, admitted to treatment in specialized PD services, were diagnosed according to Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorders, and their primary emotional profiles were assessed by the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales. The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales explained 19% of the variance in borderline and avoidant criteria. The DSM-IV PD categories displayed different patterns of association to the primary emotions, e.g. the borderline PD profile suggested low thresholds for RAGE and SADNESS, but on the positive side a propensity for SEEKING. In contrast, the dependent PD profile suggested a low threshold for SADNESS but a high threshold for RAGE and SEEKING. The results are promising for a more coherent and evolution-based overall theory of PDs, and the correlations found in this study indicate testable causal pathways to PDs. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mapping Aesthetic Musical Emotions in the Brain

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Ethofer, Thomas; Zentner, Marcel; Vuilleumier, Patrik

2012-01-01

Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness). Irrespective of their positive/negative valence, high-arousal emotions (Tension, Power, and Joy) also correlated with activations in sensory and motor areas, whereas low-arousal categories (Peacefulness, Nostalgia, and Sadness) selectively engaged ventromedial prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. The right parahippocampal cortex activated in all but positive high-arousal conditions. Results also suggested some blends between activation patterns associated with different classes of emotions, particularly for feelings of Wonder or Transcendence. These data reveal a differentiated recruitment across emotions of networks involved in reward, memory, self-reflective, and sensorimotor processes, which may account for the unique richness of musical emotions. PMID:22178712

How Color Properties Can Be Used to Elicit Emotions in Video Games

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Erik Geslin

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Classifying the many types of video games is difficult, as their genres and supports are different, but they all have in common that they seek the commitment of the player through exciting emotions and challenges. Since the income of the video game industry exceeds that of the film industry, the field of inducting emotions through video games and virtual environments is attracting more attention. Our theory, widely supported by substantial literature, is that the chromatic stimuli intensity, brightness, and saturation of a video game environment produce an emotional effect on players. We have observed a correlation between the RGB additives color spaces, HSV, HSL, and HSI components of video game images, presented to n=85 participants, and the emotional statements expressed in terms of arousal and valence, recovered in a subjective semantic questionnaire. Our results show a significant correlation between luminance, saturation, lightness, and the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and serenity experienced by participants viewing 24 video game images. We also show strong correlations between the colorimetric diversity, saliency volume, and stimuli conspicuity and the emotions expressed by the players. These results allow us to propose video game environment development methods in the form of a circumplex model. It is aimed at game designers for developing emotional color scripting.

Lexical Availability of Young Spanish EFL Learners: Emotion Words versus Non-Emotion Words

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Jiménez Catalán, Rosa M.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary-school English as foreign language learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion…

Contributions of emotional state and attention to the processing of syntactic agreement errors: evidence from P600

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Martine Wilhelmina Francina Teresia Verhees

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The classic account of language is that language processing occurs in isolation from other cognitive systems, like perception, motor action and emotion. The theme of this paper is the relationship between a participant’s emotional state and language comprehension. Does emotional context affect how we process neutral words? Recent studies showed that processing of word meaning –traditionally conceived as an automatic process– is affected by emotional state. The influence of emotional state on syntactic processing is less clear. One study reported a mood-related P600 modulation, while another study did not observe an effect of mood on syntactic processing. The goals of this study were: First, to clarify whether and if so how mood affects syntactic processing. Second, to shed light on the underlying mechanisms by separating possible effects of mood from those of attention on syntactic processing.ERPs were recorded while participants read syntactically correct or incorrect sentences. Mood (happy vs. sad was manipulated by presenting film clips. Attention was manipulated by directing attention to syntactic features vs. physical features. The mood induction was effective. Interactions between mood, attention and syntactic correctness were obtained, showing that mood and attention modulated P600. The mood manipulation led to a reduction in P600 for sad as compared to happy mood when attention was directed at syntactic features. The attention manipulation led to a reduction in P600 when attention was directed at physical features compared to syntactic features for happy mood. From this we draw two conclusions: First, emotional state does affect syntactic processing. We propose mood-related differences in the reliance on heuristics as the underlying mechanism. Second, attention can contribute to emotion-related ERP effects in syntactic language processing. Therefore, future studies on the relation between language and emotion will have to control

Contributions of emotional state and attention to the processing of syntactic agreement errors: evidence from P600.

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Verhees, Martine W F T; Chwilla, Dorothee J; Tromp, Johanne; Vissers, Constance T W M

2015-01-01

The classic account of language is that language processing occurs in isolation from other cognitive systems, like perception, motor action, and emotion. The central theme of this paper is the relationship between a participant's emotional state and language comprehension. Does emotional context affect how we process neutral words? Recent studies showed that processing of word meaning - traditionally conceived as an automatic process - is affected by emotional state. The influence of emotional state on syntactic processing is less clear. One study reported a mood-related P600 modulation, while another study did not observe an effect of mood on syntactic processing. The goals of this study were: First, to clarify whether and if so how mood affects syntactic processing. Second, to shed light on the underlying mechanisms by separating possible effects of mood from those of attention on syntactic processing. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants read syntactically correct or incorrect sentences. Mood (happy vs. sad) was manipulated by presenting film clips. Attention was manipulated by directing attention to syntactic features vs. physical features. The mood induction was effective. Interactions between mood, attention and syntactic correctness were obtained, showing that mood and attention modulated P600. The mood manipulation led to a reduction in P600 for sad as compared to happy mood when attention was directed at syntactic features. The attention manipulation led to a reduction in P600 when attention was directed at physical features compared to syntactic features for happy mood. From this we draw two conclusions: First, emotional state does affect syntactic processing. We propose mood-related differences in the reliance on heuristics as the underlying mechanism. Second, attention can contribute to emotion-related ERP effects in syntactic language processing. Therefore, future studies on the relation between language and emotion will

Emotion in Children's Art: Do Young Children Understand the Emotions Expressed in Other Children's Drawings?

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Misailidi, Plousia; Bonoti, Fotini

2008-01-01

This study examined developmental changes in children's ability to understand the emotions expressed in other children's drawings. Eighty participants, at each of four age groups--three, four, five and six years--were presented with a series of child drawings, each expressing a different emotion (happiness, sadness, anger or fear). All drawings…

Regression analysis utilizing subjective evaluation of emotional experience in PET studies on emotions.

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Aalto, Sargo; Wallius, Esa; Näätänen, Petri; Hiltunen, Jaana; Metsähonkala, Liisa; Sipilä, Hannu; Karlsson, Hasse

2005-09-01

A methodological study on subject-specific regression analysis (SSRA) exploring the correlation between the neural response and the subjective evaluation of emotional experience in eleven healthy females is presented. The target emotions, i.e., amusement and sadness, were induced using validated film clips, regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured using positron emission tomography (PET), and the subjective intensity of the emotional experience during the PET scanning was measured using a category ratio (CR-10) scale. Reliability analysis of the rating data indicated that the subjects rated the intensity of their emotional experience fairly consistently on the CR-10 scale (Cronbach alphas 0.70-0.97). A two-phase random-effects analysis was performed to ensure the generalizability and inter-study comparability of the SSRA results. Random-effects SSRAs using Statistical non-Parametric Mapping 99 (SnPM99) showed that rCBF correlated with the self-rated intensity of the emotional experience mainly in the brain regions that were identified in the random-effects subtraction analyses using the same imaging data. Our results give preliminary evidence of a linear association between the neural responses related to amusement and sadness and the self-evaluated intensity of the emotional experience in several regions involved in the emotional response. SSRA utilizing subjective evaluation of emotional experience turned out a feasible and promising method of analysis. It allows versatile exploration of the neurobiology of emotions and the neural correlates of actual and individual emotional experience. Thus, SSRA might be able to catch the idiosyncratic aspects of the emotional response better than traditional subtraction analysis.

Impaired emotion recognition in music in Parkinson's disease.

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van Tricht, Mirjam J; Smeding, Harriet M M; Speelman, Johannes D; Schmand, Ben A

2010-10-01

Music has the potential to evoke strong emotions and plays a significant role in the lives of many people. Music might therefore be an ideal medium to assess emotion recognition. We investigated emotion recognition in music in 20 patients with idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) and 20 matched healthy volunteers. The role of cognitive dysfunction and other disease characteristics in emotion recognition was also evaluated. We used 32 musical excerpts that expressed happiness, sadness, fear or anger. PD patients were impaired in recognizing fear and anger in music. Fear recognition was associated with executive functions in PD patients and in healthy controls, but the emotion recognition impairments of PD patients persisted after adjusting for executive functioning. We found no differences in the recognition of happy or sad music. Emotion recognition was not related to depressive symptoms, disease duration or severity of motor symptoms. We conclude that PD patients are impaired in recognizing complex emotions in music. Although this impairment is related to executive dysfunction, our findings most likely reflect an additional primary deficit in emotional processing. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Maternal Socialization of Children's Anger, Sadness, and Physical Pain in Two Communities in Gujarat, India

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Raval, Vaishali Vidhatri; Martini, Tanya Susan

2009-01-01

Despite the recognition of cultural influences in child socialization, little is known about socialization of emotion in children from different cultures. This study examined (a) Gujarati Indian mothers' reports concerning their beliefs, affective and behavioral responses to their children's displays of anger, sadness, and physical pain, and (b)…

Why pass on viral messages? Because they connect emotionally

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Dobele, A.; Lindgreen, A.; Beverland, M.; Vanhamme, J.; Wijk, van R.

2007-01-01

In this article, we identify that successful viral marketing campaigns trigger an emotional response in recipients. Working under this premise, we examine the effects of viral messages containing the six primary emotions (surprise, joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust) on recipients' emotional

The Discrete Emotions Questionnaire: A New Tool for Measuring State Self-Reported Emotions.

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Harmon-Jones, Cindy; Bastian, Brock; Harmon-Jones, Eddie

2016-01-01

Several discrete emotions have broad theoretical and empirical importance, as shown by converging evidence from diverse areas of psychology, including facial displays, developmental behaviors, and neuroscience. However, the measurement of these states has not progressed along with theory, such that when researchers measure subjectively experienced emotions, they commonly rely on scales assessing broad dimensions of affect (positivity and negativity), rather than discrete emotions. The current manuscript presents four studies that validate a new instrument, the Discrete Emotions Questionnaire (DEQ), that is sensitive to eight distinct state emotions: anger, disgust, fear, anxiety, sadness, happiness, relaxation, and desire. Emotion theory supporting the importance of distinguishing these specific emotions is reviewed.

Neural evidence that human emotions share core affective properties.

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Wilson-Mendenhall, Christine D; Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Barsalou, Lawrence W

2013-06-01

Research on the "emotional brain" remains centered around the idea that emotions like fear, happiness, and sadness result from specialized and distinct neural circuitry. Accumulating behavioral and physiological evidence suggests, instead, that emotions are grounded in core affect--a person's fluctuating level of pleasant or unpleasant arousal. A neuroimaging study revealed that participants' subjective ratings of valence (i.e., pleasure/displeasure) and of arousal evoked by various fear, happiness, and sadness experiences correlated with neural activity in specific brain regions (orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala, respectively). We observed these correlations across diverse instances within each emotion category, as well as across instances from all three categories. Consistent with a psychological construction approach to emotion, the results suggest that neural circuitry realizes more basic processes across discrete emotions. The implicated brain regions regulate the body to deal with the world, producing the affective changes at the core of emotions and many other psychological phenomena.

An integrative review of the enjoyment of sadness associated with music.

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Eerola, Tuomas; Vuoskoski, Jonna K; Peltola, Henna-Riikka; Putkinen, Vesa; Schäfer, Katharina

2017-11-23

The recent surge of interest towards the paradoxical pleasure produced by sad music has generated a handful of theories and an array of empirical explorations on the topic. However, none of these have attempted to weigh the existing evidence in a systematic fashion. The present work puts forward an integrative framework laid out over three levels of explanation - biological, psycho-social, and cultural - to compare and integrate the existing findings in a meaningful way. First, we review the evidence pertinent to experiences of pleasure associated with sad music from the fields of neuroscience, psychophysiology, and endocrinology. Then, the psychological and interpersonal mechanisms underlying the recognition and induction of sadness in the context of music are combined with putative explanations ranging from social surrogacy and nostalgia to feelings of being moved. Finally, we address the cultural aspects of the paradox - the extent to which it is embedded in the Western notion of music as an aesthetic, contemplative object - by synthesising findings from history, ethnography, and empirical studies. Furthermore, we complement these explanations by considering the particularly significant meanings that sadness portrayed in art can evoke in some perceivers. Our central claim is that one cannot attribute the enjoyment of sadness fully to any one of these levels, but to a chain of functionalities afforded by each level. Each explanatory level has several putative explanations and its own shift towards positive valence, but none of them deliver the full transformation from a highly negative experience to a fully enjoyable experience alone. The current evidence within this framework ranges from weak to non-existent at the biological level, moderate at the psychological level, and suggestive at the cultural level. We propose a series of focussed topics for future investigation that would allow to deconstruct the drivers and constraints of the processes leading to

Discrete emotions and persuasion: the role of emotion-induced expectancies.

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DeSteno, David; Petty, Richard E; Rucker, Derek D; Wegener, Duane T; Braverman, Julia

2004-01-01

The authors argue that specific emotions can alter the persuasive impact of messages as a function of the emotional framing of persuasive appeals. Because specific emotions inflate expectancies for events possessing matching emotional overtones (D. DeSteno, R. E. Petty, D. T. Wegener, & D. D. Rucker, 2000), the authors predicted that attempts at persuasion would be more successful when messages were framed with emotional overtones matching the emotional state of the receiver and that these changes would be mediated by emotion-induced biases involving expectancies attached to arguments contained in the messages. Two studies manipulating discrete negative emotional states and message frames (i.e., sadness and anger) confirmed these predictions. The functioning of this emotion-matching bias in parallel with emotion-induced processing differences and the limitations of a valence-based approach to the study of attitude change are also considered.

The contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgements assigned to emotional faces is context specific

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Megan L Willis

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Previous research on approachability judgements has indicated that facial expressions modulate how these judgements are made, but the relationship between emotional empathy and context in this decision-making process has not yet been examined. This study examined the contribution of emotional empathy to approachability judgements assigned to emotional faces in different contexts. One hundred and twenty female participants completed the Questionnaire Measure of Emotional Empathy. Participants provided approachability judgements to faces displaying angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, neutral and sad expressions, in three different contexts – when evaluating whether they would approach another individual to: 1 receive help; 2 give help; or 3 when no contextual information was provided. In addition, participants were also required to provide ratings of perceived threat, emotional intensity and label facial expressions. Emotional empathy significantly predicted approachability ratings for specific emotions in each context, over and above the contribution of perceived threat and intensity, which were associated with emotional empathy. Higher emotional empathy predicted less willingness to approach people with angry and disgusted faces to receive help, and a greater willingness to approach people with happy faces to receive help. Higher emotional empathy also predicted a greater willingness to approach people with sad faces to offer help, and more willingness to approach people with happy faces when no contextual information was provided. These results highlight the important contribution of individual differences in emotional empathy in predicting how approachability judgements are assigned to facial expressions in context.

Helping yourself helps others: Linking children's emotion regulation to prosocial behavior through sympathy and trust.

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Song, Ju-Hyun; Colasante, Tyler; Malti, Tina

2018-06-01

Although emotionally well-regulated children are more likely to behave prosocially, the psychological processes that connect their emotion regulation abilities and prosocial behavior are less clear. We tested if other-oriented sympathy and trust mediated the links between emotion regulation capacities (i.e., resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA], negative emotional intensity, and sadness regulation) and prosocial behavior in an ethnically diverse sample of 4- and 8-year-olds (N = 131; 49% girls). Resting RSA was calculated from children's electrocardiogram data in response to a nondescript video. Sympathy was child and caregiver reported, whereas negative emotional intensity, sadness regulation, trust, and prosocial behavior were caregiver reported. Regardless of age, higher resting RSA was linked to higher sympathy, which was associated with higher prosocial behavior. The positive link between sadness regulation and prosocial behavior was mediated by higher sympathy and trust. Children's other-oriented psychological processes may play important roles in translating certain emotion regulation capacities into prosocial behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Development and Preliminary Validation of the Salzburg Emotional Eating Scale.

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Meule, Adrian; Reichenberger, Julia; Blechert, Jens

2018-01-01

Existing self-report questionnaires for the assessment of emotional eating do not differentiate between specific types of emotions and between increased or decreased food intake in response to these emotions. Therefore, we developed a new measure of emotional eating-the Salzburg Emotional Eating Scale (SEES)-for which higher scores indicate eating more than usual in response to emotions and lower scores indicate eating less than usual in response to emotions. In study 1, a pool of items describing 40 emotional states was used. Factor analysis yielded four factors, which represented both positive ( happiness subscale) and negative emotions ( sadness, anger , and anxiety subscales). Subsequently, the scale was reduced to 20 items (5 items for each subscale) and its four-factor structure was replicated in studies 2 and 3. In all three studies, internal consistencies of each subscale were α > 0.70 and mean subscale scores significantly differed from each other such that individuals reported the strongest tendency to eat more than usual when being sad and the strongest tendency to eat less than usual when being anxious (sadness > happiness > anger > anxiety). Higher scores on the happiness subscale related to lower scores on the negative emotions subscales, lower body mass index (BMI), and lower eating pathology. In contrast, higher scores on the negative emotions subscales related to lower scores on the happiness subscale, higher BMI, and higher eating pathology. The SEES represents a useful measure for the investigation of emotional eating by increasing both specificity (differentiation between specific emotional states) and breadth (differentiation between increase and decrease of food intake) in the assessment of the emotion-eating relationship.

Emotion perception, but not affect perception, is impaired with semantic memory loss.

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Lindquist, Kristen A; Gendron, Maria; Barrett, Lisa Feldman; Dickerson, Bradford C

2014-04-01

For decades, psychologists and neuroscientists have hypothesized that the ability to perceive emotions on others' faces is inborn, prelinguistic, and universal. Concept knowledge about emotion has been assumed to be epiphenomenal to emotion perception. In this article, we report findings from 3 patients with semantic dementia that cannot be explained by this "basic emotion" view. These patients, who have substantial deficits in semantic processing abilities, spontaneously perceived pleasant and unpleasant expressions on faces, but not discrete emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, or sadness, even in a task that did not require the use of emotion words. Our findings support the hypothesis that discrete emotion concept knowledge helps transform perceptions of affect (positively or negatively valenced facial expressions) into perceptions of discrete emotions such as anger, disgust, fear, and sadness. These findings have important consequences for understanding the processes supporting emotion perception.

The population distribution of the sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD) and SAD/height ratio among Finnish adults.

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Kahn, H S; Rissanen, H; Bullard, K M; Knekt, P

2014-12-01

Sagittal abdominal diameter (SAD; 'abdominal height' measured in supine position) may improve upon conventional anthropometry for predicting incident cardiometabolic diseases. However, the SAD is used infrequently by practitioners and epidemiologists. A representative survey of Finnish adults in 2000-2001 collected body measurements including SAD (by sliding-beam calliper) using standardized protocols. Sampled non-pregnant adults (ages 30+ years; 79% participation) provided 6123 SAD measurements from 80 health centre districts. Through stratified, complex survey design, these data represented 2.86 million adults at ages 30+ years. SAD ranged from 13.5 to 38.0 cm, with a population mean (standard error) of 21.7 (0.05) cm and median (interquartile range) of 21.0 (19.1-23.4). Median SAD was higher at ages 50+ years compared with ages 30-49 both for men (22.4 [20.5-24.6] vs. 20.8 [19.3-22.7]) and women (21.7 [19.6-23.9] vs. 19.4 [17.8-21.4]). The SAD/height ratio was similar (0.118) for both sexes at 30-39 years, rising more steeply with age for women than men. Attaining only a basic education, compared with a high level, was associated with increased mean (95% confidence interval) SADs for men (22.6 [22.3-22.8] vs. 22.0 [21.7-22.2]) and women (21.8 [21.5-22.0] vs. 20.6 [20.4-20.8]). Finland's early experience with nationally representative SAD measurements provides normative reference values and physiological insights useful for investigations of cardiometabolic risk. © 2014 World Obesity.

Processing environmental stimuli in paranoid schizophrenia: recognizing facial emotions and performing executive functions.

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Yu, Shao Hua; Zhu, Jun Peng; Xu, You; Zheng, Lei Lei; Chai, Hao; He, Wei; Liu, Wei Bo; Li, Hui Chun; Wang, Wei

2012-12-01

To study the contribution of executive function to abnormal recognition of facial expressions of emotion in schizophrenia patients. Abnormal recognition of facial expressions of emotion was assayed according to Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion (JACFEE), Wisconsin card sorting test (WCST), positive and negative symptom scale, and Hamilton anxiety and depression scale, respectively, in 88 paranoid schizophrenia patients and 75 healthy volunteers. Patients scored higher on the Positive and Negative Symptom Scale and the Hamilton Anxiety and Depression Scales, displayed lower JACFEE recognition accuracies and poorer WCST performances. The JACFEE recognition accuracy of contempt and disgust was negatively correlated with the negative symptom scale score while the recognition accuracy of fear was positively with the positive symptom scale score and the recognition accuracy of surprise was negatively with the general psychopathology score in patients. Moreover, the WCST could predict the JACFEE recognition accuracy of contempt, disgust, and sadness in patients, and the perseverative errors negatively predicted the recognition accuracy of sadness in healthy volunteers. The JACFEE recognition accuracy of sadness could predict the WCST categories in paranoid schizophrenia patients. Recognition accuracy of social-/moral emotions, such as contempt, disgust and sadness is related to the executive function in paranoid schizophrenia patients, especially when regarding sadness. Copyright © 2012 The Editorial Board of Biomedical and Environmental Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Emotions during sexual activity: differences between sexually functional and dysfunctional men and women.

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Nobre, Pedro J; Pinto-Gouveia, José

2006-08-01

The present study investigated the differences in emotional response to automatic thoughts presented during sexual activity between sexually functional and dysfunctional men and women. A total of 376 participants (160 women and 120 men without sexual problems and 47 women and 49 men with a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of sexual dysfunction) completed the Sexual Modes Questionnaire (SMQ male and female versions; P. J. Nobre & J. Pinto-Gouveia, 2000) and measures of sexual functioning: The International Index of Sexual Function (IIEF; R. C. Rosen et al., 1997), and The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI; R. C. Rosen et al., 2000). The SMQ is a combined measure constituted by three interdependent subscales: Automatic Thought subscale (AT), Emotional Response subscale (ER), and Sexual Response subscale (SR). Emotions were assessed by the ER subscale, where participants endorsed emotional reactions (worry, sadness, disillusion, fear, guilt, shame, anger, hurt, pleasure, satisfaction) to a list of automatic thoughts (AT subscale) that may occur during sexual activity. Results showed that both men and women with sexual dysfunction had significantly less positive emotional reactions to automatic thoughts during sexual activity. Sexually dysfunctional men had significantly more emotions of sadness, disillusion, and fear, and less pleasure and satisfaction, compared to men without sexual problems. Women with sexual dysfunction had significantly less pleasure and satisfaction, and more sadness, disillusion, guilt, and anger. Findings were congruent with recent studies indicating that emotions related to depressed affect (sadness, disillusion, lack of pleasure) as opposed to negative emotions (mostly related to anxiety) were stronger correlates of sexual dysfunction.

Emotional preferences and goals and emotion dysregulation in children with Asperger's syndrome and typically developing children.

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López-Pérez, Belén; Ambrona, Tamara; Gummerum, Michaela

2018-02-05

Emotion goals lie at the heart of emotion regulation, as people have to first decide what emotions they want to feel before engaging in emotion regulation. Given that children with Asperger's syndrome (AS) are characterized by exhibiting difficulties in emotion regulation, studying whether they display similar or different emotion goals compared to typically developing (TD) children may provide insightful information. Thirty AS and 30 TD children (10-12 years) reported about their general (i.e., how they want to feel in general) and contextualized (i.e., how they want to feel when confronting vs. collaborating with someone) emotion goals, and about their difficulties in emotion regulation through questionnaires. Results showed that both groups did not differ in their general emotional goals and in their contextualized emotion goals for happiness for collaboration and anger for confrontation. AS children only differed from TD children in a higher preference for sadness for collaboration and happiness for confrontation. These emotion goals predicted their difficulties to engage in goal-directed behaviour. The obtained results support the need to further study emotion goals as an aspect of emotion dysregulation, namely the difficulties to engage in goal-directed behaviour when experiencing different emotions. AS and TD children did not differ in their general emotion goals. AS and TD children did not vary in their preferences for happiness for collaboration and anger for confrontation. AS children only differed in a higher preference for sadness for collaboration and happiness for confrontation. Understanding emotion goals might help practitioners to develop better interventions. © 2018 The British Psychological Society.

Film clips and narrative text as subjective emotion elicitation techniques.

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Zupan, Barbra; Babbage, Duncan R

2017-01-01

Film clips and narrative text are useful techniques in eliciting emotion in a laboratory setting but have not been examined side-by-side using the same methodology. This study examined the self-identification of emotions elicited by film clip and narrative text stimuli to confirm that selected stimuli appropriately target the intended emotions. Seventy participants viewed 30 film clips, and 40 additional participants read 30 narrative texts. Participants identified the emotion experienced (happy, sad, angry, fearful, neutral-six stimuli each). Eighty-five percent of participants self-identified the target emotion for at least two stimuli for all emotion categories of film clips, except angry (only one) and for all categories of narrative text, except fearful (only one). The most effective angry text was correctly identified 74% of the time. Film clips were more effective in eliciting all target emotions in participants for eliciting the correct emotion (angry), intensity rating (happy, sad), or both (fearful).

Native SAD is maturing.

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Rose, John P; Wang, Bi-Cheng; Weiss, Manfred S

2015-07-01

Native SAD phasing uses the anomalous scattering signal of light atoms in the crystalline, native samples of macromolecules collected from single-wavelength X-ray diffraction experiments. These atoms include sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, potassium and calcium. Native SAD phasing is challenging and is critically dependent on the collection of accurate data. Over the past five years, advances in diffraction hardware, crystallographic software, data-collection methods and strategies, and the use of data statistics have been witnessed which allow 'highly accurate data' to be routinely collected. Today, native SAD sits on the verge of becoming a 'first-choice' method for both de novo and molecular-replacement structure determination. This article will focus on advances that have caught the attention of the community over the past five years. It will also highlight both de novo native SAD structures and recent structures that were key to methods development.

Inducing Sadness and Anxiousness through Visual Media: Measurement Techniques and Persistence

OpenAIRE

Kuijsters, Andre; Redi, Judith; de Ruyter, Boris; Heynderickx, Ingrid

2016-01-01

textabstractThe persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness) induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP) was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 min with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; every 2 min) and with recordings of skin conductance level (SCL) and electrocardiography (ECG). The SAM pleasure ratings showed that short and longer film fragments were effective in inducing a longer lasting negative mood, whereas the ...

The effective comparison between emotion-focused cognitive behavioral group therapy and cognitive behavioral group therapy in children with separation anxiety disorder

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Afrooz Afshari

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Background: Emotion-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (ECBT is a new form of CBT with emotion regulation components. This form of treatment is suggested to be employed to improve dysregulation of anxiety and other kind of emotions in anxious children. This study observed and compared the effectiveness of CBT and ECBT on anxiety symptoms; sadness and anger management; and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in children with separation anxiety disorder (SAD. Materials and Methods: This study is a randomized clinical trial. Subjects were 30 children from 9 to 13-years-old (15 girls and 15 boys with diagnosis of SAD, being randomly assigned to CBT, ECBT, and control groups (five girls and five boys in each group. Subject children in CBT group participated in 10-h weekly sessions within Coping Cat manual; whereas, subject children in ECBT group contributed in 12-h weekly sessions within ECBT. The control group received no treatment. The Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED; child and parent forms, Children′s Emotion Management Scale (CEMS; anger and sadness forms, and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (CERQ tests administered to all subjects in pretest, posttest, and the follow-up measurement (3 months later. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA repeated measure and Kruskal-Wallis were applied to analyze data by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS software package (v. 20. Results: CBT and ECBT; demonstrated no significant difference in reducing separation anxiety and total anxiety symptoms from parent and children′s reports. ECBT effectively increased anger coping and decreased negative cognitive strategies and dysregulation of anger in children, both in posttest and follow-up. Also, ECBT reduced sadness dysregulation and increased sadness coping, though these significant advantages were lost in 3 months later follow-up. CBT reduced negative cognitive strategies in follow-up and increased sadness coping

Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controllers for Rotor Flux Oriented Control of Induction Motor

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Abdollahi, Rohollah; Farhangi, Reza; Yarahmadi, Ali

2014-08-01

This paper presents design and evaluation of a novel approach based on emotional learning to improve the speed control system of rotor flux oriented control of induction motor. The controller includes a neuro-fuzzy system with speed error and its derivative as inputs. A fuzzy critic evaluates the present situation, and provides the emotional signal (stress). The controller modifies its characteristics so that the critics stress is reduced. The comparative simulation results show that the proposed controller is more robust and hence found to be a suitable replacement of the conventional PI controller for the high performance industrial drive applications.

Differentiating Emotions Across Contexts: Comparing Adults with and without Social Anxiety Disorder Using Random, Social Interaction, and Daily Experience Sampling

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Kashdan, Todd B.; Farmer, Antonina S.

2014-01-01

The ability to recognize and label emotional experiences has been associated with well-being and adaptive functioning. This skill is particularly important in social situations, as emotions provide information about the state of relationships and help guide interpersonal decisions, such as whether to disclose personal information. Given the interpersonal difficulties linked to social anxiety disorder (SAD), deficient negative emotion differentiation may contribute to impairment in this population. We hypothesized that people with SAD would exhibit less negative emotion differentiation in daily life, and these differences would translate to impairment in social functioning. We recruited 43 people diagnosed with generalized SAD and 43 healthy adults to describe the emotions they experienced over 14 days. Participants received palmtop computers for responding to random prompts and describing naturalistic social interactions; to complete end-of-day diary entries, they used a secure online website. We calculated intraclass correlation coefficients to capture the degree of differentiation of negative and positive emotions for each context (random moments, face-to-face social interactions, and end-of-day reflections). Compared to healthy controls, the SAD group exhibited less negative (but not positive) emotion differentiation during random prompts, social interactions, and (at trend level) end-of-day assessments. These differences could not be explained by emotion intensity or variability over the 14 days, or to comorbid depression or anxiety disorders. Our findings suggest that people with generalized SAD have deficits in clarifying specific negative emotions felt at a given point of time. These deficits may contribute to difficulties with effective emotion regulation and healthy social relationship functioning. PMID:24512246

Differentiating emotions across contexts: comparing adults with and without social anxiety disorder using random, social interaction, and daily experience sampling.

Science.gov (United States)

Kashdan, Todd B; Farmer, Antonina S

2014-06-01

The ability to recognize and label emotional experiences has been associated with well-being and adaptive functioning. This skill is particularly important in social situations, as emotions provide information about the state of relationships and help guide interpersonal decisions, such as whether to disclose personal information. Given the interpersonal difficulties linked to social anxiety disorder (SAD), deficient negative emotion differentiation may contribute to impairment in this population. We hypothesized that people with SAD would exhibit less negative emotion differentiation in daily life, and these differences would translate to impairment in social functioning. We recruited 43 people diagnosed with generalized SAD and 43 healthy adults to describe the emotions they experienced over 14 days. Participants received palmtop computers for responding to random prompts and describing naturalistic social interactions; to complete end-of-day diary entries, they used a secure online website. We calculated intraclass correlation coefficients to capture the degree of differentiation of negative and positive emotions for each context (random moments, face-to-face social interactions, and end-of-day reflections). Compared to healthy controls, the SAD group exhibited less negative (but not positive) emotion differentiation during random prompts, social interactions, and (at trend level) end-of-day assessments. These differences could not be explained by emotion intensity or variability over the 14 days, or to comorbid depression or anxiety disorders. Our findings suggest that people with generalized SAD have deficits in clarifying specific negative emotions felt at a given point of time. These deficits may contribute to difficulties with effective emotion regulation and healthy social relationship functioning.

Positive Emotions and Your Health: Developing a Brighter Outlook

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... Issues Subscribe August 2015 Print this issue Positive Emotions and Your Health Developing a Brighter Outlook En ... outlook doesn’t mean you never feel negative emotions, such as sadness or anger, says Dr. Barbara ...

Adversity, emotion recognition, and empathic concern in high-risk youth.

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Jodi A Quas

Full Text Available Little is known about how emotion recognition and empathy jointly operate in youth growing up in contexts defined by persistent adversity. We investigated whether adversity exposure in two groups of youth was associated with reduced empathy and whether deficits in emotion recognition mediated this association. Foster, rural poor, and comparison youth from Swaziland, Africa identified emotional expressions and rated their empathic concern for characters depicted in images showing positive, ambiguous, and negative scenes. Rural and foster youth perceived greater anger and happiness in the main characters in ambiguous and negative images than did comparison youth. Rural children also perceived less sadness. Youth's perceptions of sadness in the negative and ambiguous expressions mediated the relation between adversity and empathic concern, but only for the rural youth, who perceived less sadness, which then predicted less empathy. Findings provide new insight into processes that underlie empathic tendencies in adversity-exposed youth and highlight potential directions for interventions to increase empathy.

Music and Its Inductive Power: A Psychobiological and Evolutionary Approach to Musical Emotions

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Reybrouck, Mark; Eerola, Tuomas

2017-01-01

The aim of this contribution is to broaden the concept of musical meaning from an abstract and emotionally neutral cognitive representation to an emotion-integrating description that is related to the evolutionary approach to music. Starting from the dispositional machinery for dealing with music as a temporal and sounding phenomenon, musical emotions are considered as adaptive responses to be aroused in human beings as the product of neural structures that are specialized for their processing. A theoretical and empirical background is provided in order to bring together the findings of music and emotion studies and the evolutionary approach to musical meaning. The theoretical grounding elaborates on the transition from referential to affective semantics, the distinction between expression and induction of emotions, and the tension between discrete-digital and analog-continuous processing of the sounds. The empirical background provides evidence from several findings such as infant-directed speech, referential emotive vocalizations and separation calls in lower mammals, the distinction between the acoustic and vehicle mode of sound perception, and the bodily and physiological reactions to the sounds. It is argued, finally, that early affective processing reflects the way emotions make our bodies feel, which in turn reflects on the emotions expressed and decoded. As such there is a dynamic tension between nature and nurture, which is reflected in the nature-nurture-nature cycle of musical sense-making. PMID:28421015

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).

Low and Middle Income Mothers' Regulation of Negative Emotion: Effects of Children's Temperament and Situational Emotional Responses

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Martini, Tanya S.; Root, Carol A.; Jenkins, Jennifer M.

2004-01-01

The present study investigated the effects of situational (child situational emotions) and dispositional (child temperament) child variables on mothers' regulation of their own hostile (anger) and nonhostile (sadness and anxiety) emotions. Participants included 94 low and middle income mothers and their children (41 girls; 53 boys) aged 3 to 6…

Lexical availability of young Spanish EFL learners: emotion words versus non-emotion words

OpenAIRE

Jiménez Catalán, R.; Dewaele, Jean-Marc

2017-01-01

This study intends to contribute to L2 emotion vocabulary research by looking at the words that primary school EFL learners produce in response to prompts in a lexical availability task. Specifically, it aims to ascertain whether emotion prompts (Love, Hate, Happy and Sad) generate a greater number of words than non-emotion prompts (School and Animals). It also seeks to identify the words learners associate with each semantic category to determine whether the words produced in response to emo...

Encoding conditions affect recognition of vocally expressed emotions across cultures

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Rebecca eJürgens

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Although the expression of emotions in humans is considered to be largely universal, cultural effects contribute to both emotion expression and recognition. To disentangle the interplay between these factors, play-acted and authentic (non-instructed vocal expressions of emotions were used, on the assumption that cultural effects may contribute differentially to the recognition of staged and spontaneous emotions. Speech tokens depicting four emotions (anger, sadness, joy, fear were obtained from German radio archives and reenacted by professional actors, and presented to 120 participants from Germany, Romania, and Indonesia. Participants in all three countries were poor at distinguishing between play-acted and spontaneous emotional utterances (58.73% correct on average with only marginal cultural differences. Nevertheless, authenticity influenced emotion recognition: across cultures, anger was recognized more accurately when play-acted (z = 15.06, p < .001 and sadness when authentic (z = 6.63, p < .001, replicating previous findings from German populations. German subjects revealed a slight advantage in recognizing emotions, indicating a moderate in-group advantage. There was no difference between Romanian and Indonesian subjects in the overall emotion recognition. Differential cultural effects became particularly apparent in terms of differential biases in emotion attribution. While all participants labeled play-acted expressions as anger more frequently than expected, German participants exhibited a further bias towards choosing anger for spontaneous stimuli. In contrast to the German sample, Romanian and Indonesian participants were biased towards choosing sadness. These results support the view that emotion recognition rests on a complex interaction of human universals and cultural specificities. Whether and in which way the observed biases are linked to cultural differences in self-construal remains an issue for further investigation.

Emotional aging: a discrete emotions perspective.

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Kunzmann, Ute; Kappes, Cathleen; Wrosch, Carsten

2014-01-01

Perhaps the most important single finding in the field of emotional aging has been that the overall quality of affective experience steadily improves during adulthood and can be maintained into old age. Recent lifespan developmental theories have provided motivation- and experience-based explanations for this phenomenon. These theories suggest that, as individuals grow older, they become increasingly motivated and able to regulate their emotions, which could result in reduced negativity and enhanced positivity. The objective of this paper is to expand existing theories and empirical research on emotional aging by presenting a discrete emotions perspective. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach, we focus on a discussion of the literature examining age differences in anger and sadness. These two negative emotions have typically been subsumed under the singular concept of negative affect. From a discrete emotions perspective, however, they are highly distinct and show multidirectional age differences. We propose that such contrasting age differences in specific negative emotions have important implications for our understanding of long-term patterns of affective well-being across the adult lifespan.

Attention and multisensory integration of emotions in schizophrenia

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Mikhail eZvyagintsev

2013-10-01

Full Text Available The impairment of multisensory integration in schizophrenia is often explained by deficits of attentional selection. Emotion perception, however, does not always depend on attention because affective stimuli can capture attention automatically. In our study, we specify the role of attention in the multisensory perception of emotional stimuli in schizophrenia. We evaluated attention by interference between conflicting auditory and visual information in two multisensory paradigms in patients with schizophrenia and healthy participants. In the first paradigm, interference occurred between physical features of the dynamic auditory and visual stimuli. In the second paradigm, interference occurred between the emotional content of the auditory and visual stimuli, namely fearful and sad emotions. In patients with schizophrenia, the interference effect was observed in both paradigms. In contrast, in healthy participants, the interference occurred in the emotional paradigm only. These findings indicate that the information leakage between different modalities in patients with schizophrenia occurs at the perceptual level, which is intact in healthy participants. However, healthy participants can have problems with the separation of fearful and sad emotions similar to those of patients with schizophrenia.

Explaining Sad People's Memory Advantage for Faces.

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Hills, Peter J; Marquardt, Zoe; Young, Isabel; Goodenough, Imogen

2017-01-01

Sad people recognize faces more accurately than happy people (Hills et al., 2011). We devised four hypotheses for this finding that are tested between in the current study. The four hypotheses are: (1) sad people engage in more expert processing associated with face processing; (2) sad people are motivated to be more accurate than happy people in an attempt to repair their mood; (3) sad people have a defocused attentional strategy that allows more information about a face to be encoded; and (4) sad people scan more of the face than happy people leading to more facial features to be encoded. In Experiment 1, we found that dysphoria (sad mood often associated with depression) was not correlated with the face-inversion effect (a measure of expert processing) nor with response times but was correlated with defocused attention and recognition accuracy. Experiment 2 established that dysphoric participants detected changes made to more facial features than happy participants. In Experiment 3, using eye-tracking we found that sad-induced participants sampled more of the face whilst avoiding the eyes. Experiment 4 showed that sad-induced people demonstrated a smaller own-ethnicity bias. These results indicate that sad people show different attentional allocation to faces than happy and neutral people.

Effects of mood induction via music on cardiovascular measures of negative emotion during simulated driving

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fairclough, S.H.; Zwaag, van der M.D.; Spiridon, E.; Westerink, J.H.D.M.

2014-01-01

A study was conducted to investigate the potential of mood induction via music to influence cardiovascular correlates of negative emotions experience during driving behaviour. One hundred participants were randomly assigned to one of five groups, four of whom experienced different categories of

Cognitive Bias by Gender Interaction on N170 Response to Emotional Facial Expressions in Major and Minor Depression.

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Wu, Xingqu; Chen, Jiu; Jia, Ting; Ma, Wentao; Zhang, Yan; Deng, Zihe; Yang, Laiqi

2016-03-01

States of depression are considered to relate to a cognitive bias reactivity to emotional events. Moreover, gender effect may influence differences in emotional processing. The current study is to investigate whether there is an interaction of cognitive bias by gender on emotional processing in minor depression (MiD) and major depression (MaD). N170 component was obtained during a visual emotional oddball paradigm to manipulate the processing of emotional information in 33 MiD, 36 MaD, and 32 controls (CN). Compared with CN, in male, both MiD and MaD had lower N170 amplitudes for happy faces, but MaD had higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces; in female, both MiD and MaD had lower N170 amplitudes for happy and neutral faces, but higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces. Compared with MaD in male, MiD had higher N170 amplitudes for happy faces, lower N170 amplitudes for sad faces; in female, MiD only had higher N170 amplitudes for sad faces. Interestingly, a negative relationship was observed between N170 amplitude and the HDRS score for identification of happy faces in depressed patients while N170 amplitude was positively correlated with the HDRS score for sad faces identification. These results provide novel evidence for the mood-brightening effect with an interaction of cognitive bias by gender on emotional processing. It further suggests that female depression may be more vulnerable than male during emotional face processing with the unconscious negative cognitive bias and depressive syndromes may exist on a spectrum of severity on emotional face processing.

Emotions and consumption behaviour

OpenAIRE

I. Soscia

2013-01-01

This stimulating book scrutinizes how emotions function in consumers, from both a psychological and a managerial perspective. It demonstrates how gratitude, happiness, guilt, anger, pride and sadness determine different post-consumption behaviours such as positive and negative word of mouth, repurchase intention and complaint behaviour. The emotional side of consumption seems to play an essential role in explaining choices made and actions taken by consumers. Isabella Soscia explores the ...

Discrete emotions predict changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology: a meta-analysis of experimental emotion elicitations.

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Lench, Heather C; Flores, Sarah A; Bench, Shane W

2011-09-01

Our purpose in the present meta-analysis was to examine the extent to which discrete emotions elicit changes in cognition, judgment, experience, behavior, and physiology; whether these changes are correlated as would be expected if emotions organize responses across these systems; and which factors moderate the magnitude of these effects. Studies (687; 4,946 effects, 49,473 participants) were included that elicited the discrete emotions of happiness, sadness, anger, and anxiety as independent variables with adults. Consistent with discrete emotion theory, there were (a) moderate differences among discrete emotions; (b) differences among discrete negative emotions; and (c) correlated changes in behavior, experience, and physiology (cognition and judgment were mostly not correlated with other changes). Valence, valence-arousal, and approach-avoidance models of emotion were not as clearly supported. There was evidence that these factors are likely important components of emotion but that they could not fully account for the pattern of results. Most emotion elicitations were effective, although the efficacy varied with the emotions being compared. Picture presentations were overall the most effective elicitor of discrete emotions. Stronger effects of emotion elicitations were associated with happiness versus negative emotions, self-reported experience, a greater proportion of women (for elicitations of happiness and sadness), omission of a cover story, and participants alone versus in groups. Conclusions are limited by the inclusion of only some discrete emotions, exclusion of studies that did not elicit discrete emotions, few available effect sizes for some contrasts and moderators, and the methodological rigor of included studies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion

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Choi, Sukwoo

It was widely accepted that emotion such as fear, anger and pleasure could not be studied using a modern scientific tools. During the very early periods of emotion researches, psychologists, but not biologist, dominated in studying emotion and its disorders. Intuitively, one may think that emotion arises from brain first and then bodily responses follow. For example, we are sad first, and then cry. However, groups of psychologists suggested a proposal that our feeling follows bodily responses; that is, we feel sad because we cry! This proposal seems counterintuitive but became a popular hypothesis for emotion. Another example for this hypothesis is as follows. When you accidentally confront a large bear in a mountain, what would be your responses?; you may feel terrified first, and then run, or you may run first, and then feel terrified later on. In fact, the latter explanation is correct! You feel fear after you run (even because you run?). Or, you can imagine that you date with your girl friend who you love so much. Your heart must be beating fast and your body temperature must be elevated! In this situation, if you take a very cold bath, what would you expect? Your hot feeling is usually calmed down after this cold bath; that is, you feel hot because your heart and bodily temperature change. While some evidence supported this hypothesis, others do not. In the case of patients whose cervical vertebrae were severed with an accident, they still retained significant amount of emotion (feelings!) in some cases (but other patients lost most of emotional experience). In addition, one can imagine that there would be a specific set of physical responses for specific emotion if the original hypothesis is correct (e.g. fasten heart beating and redden face for anger etc.). However, some psychologists failed to find any specific set of physical responses for specific emotion, though others insisted that there existed such specific responses. Based on these controversial

The affective tie that binds: Examining the contribution of positive emotions and anxiety to relationship formation in social anxiety disorder.

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Taylor, Charles T; Pearlstein, Sarah L; Stein, Murray B

2017-06-01

Individuals with social anxiety disorder (SAD) have difficulty forming social relationships. The prevailing clinical perspective is that negative emotions such as anxiety inhibit one's capacity to develop satisfying social connections. However, empirical findings from social psychology and affective neuroscience suggest that positive emotional experiences are fundamental to establishing new social bonds. To reconcile these perspectives, we collected repeated measurements of anxiety, positive emotions (pleasantness), and connectedness over the course of a controlled relationship formation encounter in 56 participants diagnosed with SAD (64% female; M age =23.3, SD=4.7). Participants experienced both increases in positive emotions and decreases in anxiety throughout the interaction. Change in positive emotions was the most robust predictor of subsequent increases in connectedness, as well as a greater desire to engage one's partner in future social activities, above and beyond reductions in anxiety (medium to large sized effects). Those findings suggest that anxiety-based models alone may not fully explain difficulties in relationship formation in SAD, and underscore the potential value of considering positive emotional experiences in conceptual and treatment models of SAD. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Facial Emotion Recognition Deficits following Moderate-Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): Re-examining the Valence Effect and the Role of Emotion Intensity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Rosenberg, H.; McDonald, S.; Dethier, M.; Kessels, R.P.C.; Westbrook, R.F.

2014-01-01

Many individuals who sustain moderate-severe traumatic brain injuries (TBI) are poor at recognizing emotional expressions, with a greater impairment in recognizing negative (e.g., fear, disgust, sadness, and anger) than positive emotions (e.g., happiness and surprise). It has been questioned whether

Hemispheric specialization in affective responses, cerebral dominance for language, and handedness: Lateralization of emotion, language, and dexterity.

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Costanzo, Elsa Yolanda; Villarreal, Mirta; Drucaroff, Lucas Javier; Ortiz-Villafañe, Manuel; Castro, Mariana Nair; Goldschmidt, Micaela; Wainsztein, Agustina Edith; Ladrón-de-Guevara, María Soledad; Romero, Carlos; Brusco, Luis Ignacio; Camprodon, Joan A; Nemeroff, Charles; Guinjoan, Salvador Martín

2015-07-15

Hemispheric specialization in affective responses has received little attention in the literature. This is a fundamental variable to understand circuit dynamics of networks subserving emotion. In this study we put to test a modified "valence" hypothesis of emotion processing, considering that sadness and happiness are processed by each hemisphere in relation to dominance for language and handedness. Mood induction and language activation during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were used in 20 right-handed and 20 nonright-handed subjects, focusing on interconnected regions known to play critical roles in affective responses: subgenual cingulate cortex, amygdala, and anterior insular cortex. We observed a consistent relationship between lateralization of affective processing, motor dexterity, and language in individuals with clear right-handedness. Sadness induces a greater activation of right-hemisphere cortical structures in right-handed, left-dominant individuals, which is not evident in nonright-handed subjects who show no consistent hemispheric dominance for language. In anterior insula, right-handed individuals displayed reciprocal activation of either hemisphere depending upon mood valence, whereas amygdala activation was predominantly left-sided regardless of mood valence. Nonright-handed individuals exhibited less consistent brain lateralization of affective processing regardless of language and motor dexterity lateralization. In contrast with traditional views on emotion processing lateralization, hemispheric specialization in affective responses is not a unitary process but is specific to the brain structure being activated. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Individual differences in preschoolers' emotion content memory: the role of emotion knowledge.

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Channell, Marie Moore; Barth, Joan M

2013-07-01

This study examined the relation between preschool children's emotion knowledge and their ability to recall emotionally salient information. In total, 42 participants (ages 35-65months) viewed a brief video in which a child played with different toys and expressed one of four basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, or afraid) or a neutral expression in each of 10 vignettes. Children were tested on memory accuracy from the vignettes, and their emotion knowledge was also measured. Results indicated that preschoolers' emotion knowledge was significantly related to memory accuracy for emotion information above and beyond the effect of age or receptive language skills. Tests of a mediation model revealed that emotion knowledge fully mediated the effect of age (or general developmental level) on memory accuracy. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Dissociating maternal responses to sad and happy facial expressions of their own child: An fMRI study.

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Kluczniok, Dorothea; Hindi Attar, Catherine; Stein, Jenny; Poppinga, Sina; Fydrich, Thomas; Jaite, Charlotte; Kappel, Viola; Brunner, Romuald; Herpertz, Sabine C; Boedeker, Katja; Bermpohl, Felix

2017-01-01

Maternal sensitive behavior depends on recognizing one's own child's affective states. The present study investigated distinct and overlapping neural responses of mothers to sad and happy facial expressions of their own child (in comparison to facial expressions of an unfamiliar child). We used functional MRI to measure dissociable and overlapping activation patterns in 27 healthy mothers in response to happy, neutral and sad facial expressions of their own school-aged child and a gender- and age-matched unfamiliar child. To investigate differential activation to sad compared to happy faces of one's own child, we used interaction contrasts. During the scan, mothers had to indicate the affect of the presented face. After scanning, they were asked to rate the perceived emotional arousal and valence levels for each face using a 7-point Likert-scale (adapted SAM version). While viewing their own child's sad faces, mothers showed activation in the amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex whereas happy facial expressions of the own child elicited activation in the hippocampus. Conjoint activation in response to one's own child happy and sad expressions was found in the insula and the superior temporal gyrus. Maternal brain activations differed depending on the child's affective state. Sad faces of the own child activated areas commonly associated with a threat detection network, whereas happy faces activated reward related brain areas. Overlapping activation was found in empathy related networks. These distinct neural activation patterns might facilitate sensitive maternal behavior.

Facial Emotion Recognition Performance Differentiates Between Behavioral Variant Frontotemporal Dementia and Major Depressive Disorder.

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Chiu, Isabelle; Piguet, Olivier; Diehl-Schmid, Janine; Riedl, Lina; Beck, Johannes; Leyhe, Thomas; Holsboer-Trachsler, Edith; Kressig, Reto W; Berres, Manfred; Monsch, Andreas U; Sollberger, Marc

Misdiagnosis of early behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) with major depressive disorder (MDD) is not uncommon due to overlapping symptoms. The aim of this study was to improve the discrimination between these disorders using a novel facial emotion perception task. In this prospective cohort study (July 2013-March 2016), we compared 25 patients meeting Rascovsky diagnostic criteria for bvFTD, 20 patients meeting DSM-IV criteria for MDD, 21 patients meeting McKhann diagnostic criteria for Alzheimer's disease dementia, and 31 healthy participants on a novel emotion intensity rating task comprising morphed low-intensity facial stimuli. Participants were asked to rate the intensity of morphed faces on the congruent basic emotion (eg, rating on sadness when sad face is shown) and on the 5 incongruent basic emotions (eg, rating on each of the other basic emotions when sad face is shown). While bvFTD patients underrated congruent emotions (P dementia patients perceived emotions similarly to healthy participants, indicating no impact of cognitive impairment on rating scores. Our congruent and incongruent facial emotion intensity rating task allows a detailed assessment of facial emotion perception in patient populations. By using this simple task, we achieved an almost complete discrimination between bvFTD and MDD, potentially helping improve the diagnostic certainty in early bvFTD. © Copyright 2018 Physicians Postgraduate Press, Inc.

Emotion Regulation through Movement: Unique Sets of Movement Characteristics are Associated with and Enhance Basic Emotions.

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Shafir, Tal; Tsachor, Rachelle P; Welch, Kathleen B

2015-01-01

We have recently demonstrated that motor execution, observation, and imagery of movements expressing certain emotions can enhance corresponding affective states and therefore could be used for emotion regulation. But which specific movement(s) should one use in order to enhance each emotion? This study aimed to identify, using Laban Movement Analysis (LMA), the Laban motor elements (motor characteristics) that characterize movements whose execution enhances each of the basic emotions: anger, fear, happiness, and sadness. LMA provides a system of symbols describing its motor elements, which gives a written instruction (motif) for the execution of a movement or movement-sequence over time. Six senior LMA experts analyzed a validated set of video clips showing whole body dynamic expressions of anger, fear, happiness and sadness, and identified the motor elements that were common to (appeared in) all clips expressing the same emotion. For each emotion, we created motifs of different combinations of the motor elements common to all clips of the same emotion. Eighty subjects from around the world read and moved those motifs, to identify the emotion evoked when moving each motif and to rate the intensity of the evoked emotion. All subjects together moved and rated 1241 motifs, which were produced from 29 different motor elements. Using logistic regression, we found a set of motor elements associated with each emotion which, when moved, predicted the feeling of that emotion. Each emotion was predicted by a unique set of motor elements and each motor element predicted only one emotion. Knowledge of which specific motor elements enhance specific emotions can enable emotional self-regulation through adding some desired motor qualities to one's personal everyday movements (rather than mimicking others' specific movements) and through decreasing motor behaviors which include elements that enhance negative emotions.

Emotion regulation through movement: Unique sets of movement characteristics are associated with and enhance basic emotions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tal eShafir

2016-01-01

Full Text Available We have recently demonstrated that motor execution, observation and imagery of movements expressing certain emotions can enhance corresponding affective states and therefore could be used for emotion regulation. But which specific movement(s should one use in order to enhance each emotion? This study aimed to identify, using Laban Movement Analysis (LMA, the Laban motor elements (motor characteristics that characterize movements whose execution enhances each of the basic emotions: anger, fear happiness, and sadness. LMA provides a system of symbols describing its motor elements, which gives a written instruction (motif for the execution of a movement or movement-sequence over time. Six senior LMA experts analyzed a validated set of video clips showing whole body dynamic expressions of anger, fear, happiness and sadness, and identified the motor elements that were common to (appeared in all clips expressing the same emotion. For each emotion, we created motifs of different combinations of the motor elements common to all clips of the same emotion. Eighty subjects from around the world read and moved those motifs, to identify the emotion evoked when moving each motif and to rate the intensity of the evoked emotion. All subjects together moved and rated 1241 motifs, which were produced from 29 different motor elements. Using logistic regression, we found a set of motor elements associated with each emotion which, when moved, predicted the feeling of that emotion. Each emotion was predicted by a unique set of motor elements and each motor element predicted only one emotion. Knowledge of which specific motor elements enhance specific emotions can enable emotional self-regulation through adding some desired motor qualities to one’s personal everyday movements (rather than mimicking others’ specific movements and through decreasing motor behaviors which include elements that enhance negative emotions.

Cloning and functional characterization of SAD genes in potato.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Fei; Bian, Chun Song; Xu, Jian Fei; Pang, Wan Fu; Liu, Jie; Duan, Shao Guang; Lei, Zun-Guo; Jiwan, Palta; Jin, Li-Ping

2015-01-01

Stearoyl-acyl carrier protein desaturase (SAD), locating in the plastid stroma, is an important fatty acid biosynthetic enzyme in higher plants. SAD catalyzes desaturation of stearoyl-ACP to oleyl-ACP and plays a key role in determining the homeostasis between saturated fatty acids and unsaturated fatty acids, which is an important player in cold acclimation in plants. Here, four new full-length cDNA of SADs (ScoSAD, SaSAD, ScaSAD and StSAD) were cloned from four Solanum species, Solanum commersonii, S. acaule, S. cardiophyllum and S. tuberosum, respectively. The ORF of the four SADs were 1182 bp in length, encoding 393 amino acids. A sequence alignment indicated 13 amino acids varied among the SADs of three wild species. Further analysis showed that the freezing tolerance and cold acclimation capacity of S. commersonii are similar to S. acaule and their SAD amino acid sequences were identical but differed from that of S. cardiophyllum, which is sensitive to freezing. Furthermore, the sequence alignments between StSAD and ScoSAD indicated that only 7 different amino acids at residues were found in SAD of S. tuberosum (Zhongshu8) against the protein sequence of ScoSAD. A phylogenetic analysis showed the three wild potato species had the closest genetic relationship with the SAD of S. lycopersicum and Nicotiana tomentosiformis but not S. tuberosum. The SAD gene from S. commersonii (ScoSAD) was cloned into multiple sites of the pBI121 plant binary vector and transformed into the cultivated potato variety Zhongshu 8. A freeze tolerance analysis showed overexpression of the ScoSAD gene in transgenic plants significantly enhanced freeze tolerance in cv. Zhongshu 8 and increased their linoleic acid content, suggesting that linoleic acid likely plays a key role in improving freeze tolerance in potato plants. This study provided some new insights into how SAD regulates in the freezing tolerance and cold acclimation in potato.

Cloning and functional characterization of SAD genes in potato.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fei Li

Full Text Available Stearoyl-acyl carrier protein desaturase (SAD, locating in the plastid stroma, is an important fatty acid biosynthetic enzyme in higher plants. SAD catalyzes desaturation of stearoyl-ACP to oleyl-ACP and plays a key role in determining the homeostasis between saturated fatty acids and unsaturated fatty acids, which is an important player in cold acclimation in plants. Here, four new full-length cDNA of SADs (ScoSAD, SaSAD, ScaSAD and StSAD were cloned from four Solanum species, Solanum commersonii, S. acaule, S. cardiophyllum and S. tuberosum, respectively. The ORF of the four SADs were 1182 bp in length, encoding 393 amino acids. A sequence alignment indicated 13 amino acids varied among the SADs of three wild species. Further analysis showed that the freezing tolerance and cold acclimation capacity of S. commersonii are similar to S. acaule and their SAD amino acid sequences were identical but differed from that of S. cardiophyllum, which is sensitive to freezing. Furthermore, the sequence alignments between StSAD and ScoSAD indicated that only 7 different amino acids at residues were found in SAD of S. tuberosum (Zhongshu8 against the protein sequence of ScoSAD. A phylogenetic analysis showed the three wild potato species had the closest genetic relationship with the SAD of S. lycopersicum and Nicotiana tomentosiformis but not S. tuberosum. The SAD gene from S. commersonii (ScoSAD was cloned into multiple sites of the pBI121 plant binary vector and transformed into the cultivated potato variety Zhongshu 8. A freeze tolerance analysis showed overexpression of the ScoSAD gene in transgenic plants significantly enhanced freeze tolerance in cv. Zhongshu 8 and increased their linoleic acid content, suggesting that linoleic acid likely plays a key role in improving freeze tolerance in potato plants. This study provided some new insights into how SAD regulates in the freezing tolerance and cold acclimation in potato.

Sad Facial Expressions Increase Choice Blindness

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yajie Wang

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Previous studies have discovered a fascinating phenomenon known as choice blindness—individuals fail to detect mismatches between the face they choose and the face replaced by the experimenter. Although previous studies have reported a couple of factors that can modulate the magnitude of choice blindness, the potential effect of facial expression on choice blindness has not yet been explored. Using faces with sad and neutral expressions (Experiment 1 and faces with happy and neutral expressions (Experiment 2 in the classic choice blindness paradigm, the present study investigated the effects of facial expressions on choice blindness. The results showed that the detection rate was significantly lower on sad faces than neutral faces, whereas no significant difference was observed between happy faces and neutral faces. The exploratory analysis of verbal reports found that participants who reported less facial features for sad (as compared to neutral expressions also tended to show a lower detection rate of sad (as compared to neutral faces. These findings indicated that sad facial expressions increased choice blindness, which might have resulted from inhibition of further processing of the detailed facial features by the less attractive sad expressions (as compared to neutral expressions.

Sad Facial Expressions Increase Choice Blindness.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yajie; Zhao, Song; Zhang, Zhijie; Feng, Wenfeng

2017-01-01

Previous studies have discovered a fascinating phenomenon known as choice blindness-individuals fail to detect mismatches between the face they choose and the face replaced by the experimenter. Although previous studies have reported a couple of factors that can modulate the magnitude of choice blindness, the potential effect of facial expression on choice blindness has not yet been explored. Using faces with sad and neutral expressions (Experiment 1) and faces with happy and neutral expressions (Experiment 2) in the classic choice blindness paradigm, the present study investigated the effects of facial expressions on choice blindness. The results showed that the detection rate was significantly lower on sad faces than neutral faces, whereas no significant difference was observed between happy faces and neutral faces. The exploratory analysis of verbal reports found that participants who reported less facial features for sad (as compared to neutral) expressions also tended to show a lower detection rate of sad (as compared to neutral) faces. These findings indicated that sad facial expressions increased choice blindness, which might have resulted from inhibition of further processing of the detailed facial features by the less attractive sad expressions (as compared to neutral expressions).

Autonomic nervous system response patterns specificity to basic emotions.

Science.gov (United States)

Collet, C; Vernet-Maury, E; Delhomme, G; Dittmar, A

1997-01-12

The aim of this study was to test the assumption that the autonomic nervous system responses to emotional stimuli are specific. A series of six slides was randomly presented to the subjects while six autonomic nervous system (ANS) parameters were recorded: skin conductance, skin potential, skin resistance, skin blood flow, skin temperature and instantaneous respiratory frequency. Each slide induced a basic emotion: happiness, surprise, anger, fear, sadness and disgust. Results have been first considered with reference to electrodermal responses (EDR) and secondly through thermo-vascular and respiratory variations. Classical as well as original indices were used to quantify autonomic responses. The six basic emotions were distinguished by Friedman variance analysis. Thus, ANS values corresponding to each emotion were compared two-by-two. EDR distinguished 13 emotion-pairs out of 15. 10 emotion-pairs were separated by skin resistance as well as skin conductance ohmic perturbation duration indices whereas conductance amplitude was only capable of distinguishing 7 emotion-pairs. Skin potential responses distinguished surprise and fear from sadness, and fear from disgust, according to their elementary pattern analysis in form and sign. Two-by-two comparisons of skin temperature, skin blood flow (estimated by the new non-oscillary duration index) and instantaneous respiratory frequency, enabled the distinction of 14 emotion-pairs out of 15. 9 emotion-pairs were distinguished by the non-oscillatory duration index values. Skin temperature was demonstrated to be different i.e. positive versus negative in response to anger and fear. The instantaneous respiratory frequency perturbation duration index was the only one capable of separating sadness from disgust. From the six ANS parameters study, different autonomic patterns were identified, each characterizing one of the six basic emotion used as inducing signals. No index alone, nor group of parameters (EDR and thermovascular

Mapping aesthetic musical emotions in the brain

OpenAIRE

Trost, Johanna Wiebke; Ethofer, Thomas Stefan; Zentner, Marcel Robert; Vuilleumier, Patrik

2012-01-01

Music evokes complex emotions beyond pleasant/unpleasant or happy/sad dichotomies usually investigated in neuroscience. Here, we used functional neuroimaging with parametric analyses based on the intensity of felt emotions to explore a wider spectrum of affective responses reported during music listening. Positive emotions correlated with activation of left striatum and insula when high-arousing (Wonder, Joy) but right striatum and orbitofrontal cortex when low-arousing (Nostalgia, Tenderness...

Head movements encode emotions during speech and song.

Science.gov (United States)

Livingstone, Steven R; Palmer, Caroline

2016-04-01

When speaking or singing, vocalists often move their heads in an expressive fashion, yet the influence of emotion on vocalists' head motion is unknown. Using a comparative speech/song task, we examined whether vocalists' intended emotions influence head movements and whether those movements influence the perceived emotion. In Experiment 1, vocalists were recorded with motion capture while speaking and singing each statement with different emotional intentions (very happy, happy, neutral, sad, very sad). Functional data analyses showed that head movements differed in translational and rotational displacement across emotional intentions, yet were similar across speech and song, transcending differences in F0 (varied freely in speech, fixed in song) and lexical variability. Head motion specific to emotional state occurred before and after vocalizations, as well as during sound production, confirming that some aspects of movement were not simply a by-product of sound production. In Experiment 2, observers accurately identified vocalists' intended emotion on the basis of silent, face-occluded videos of head movements during speech and song. These results provide the first evidence that head movements encode a vocalist's emotional intent and that observers decode emotional information from these movements. We discuss implications for models of head motion during vocalizations and applied outcomes in social robotics and automated emotion recognition. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Recognizing emotions from EEG subbands using wavelet analysis.

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Candra, Henry; Yuwono, Mitchell; Handojoseno, Ardi; Chai, Rifai; Su, Steven; Nguyen, Hung T

2015-01-01

Objectively recognizing emotions is a particularly important task to ensure that patients with emotional symptoms are given the appropriate treatments. The aim of this study was to develop an emotion recognition system using Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals to identify four emotions including happy, sad, angry, and relaxed. We approached this objective by firstly investigating the relevant EEG frequency band followed by deciding the appropriate feature extraction method. Two features were considered namely: 1. Wavelet Energy, and 2. Wavelet Entropy. EEG Channels reduction was then implemented to reduce the complexity of the features. The ground truth emotional states of each subject were inferred using Russel's circumplex model of emotion, that is, by mapping the subjectively reported degrees of valence (pleasure) and arousal to the appropriate emotions - for example, an emotion with high valence and high arousal is equivalent to a `happy' emotional state, while low valence and low arousal is equivalent to a `sad' emotional state. The Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier was then used for mapping each feature vector into corresponding discrete emotions. The results presented in this study indicated thatWavelet features extracted from alpha, beta and gamma bands seem to provide the necessary information for describing the aforementioned emotions. Using the DEAP (Dataset for Emotion Analysis using electroencephalogram, Physiological and Video Signals), our proposed method achieved an average sensitivity and specificity of 77.4% ± 14.1% and 69.1% ± 12.8%, respectively.

Schizotypy and specificity of negative emotions on an emotional Stroop paradigm in the general population.

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Yaffe, Beril; Walder, Deborah J

2016-05-30

Attentional-interference using emotional Stroop tasks (ESTs) is greater among individuals in the general population with positive (versus negative) schizotypal traits; specifically in response to negatively (versus positively) valenced words, potentially capturing threat-sensitivity. Variability in attentional-interference as a function of subcategories of negatively valenced words (and in relation to schizotypal traits) remains underexplored in EST studies. We examined attentional-interference across negative word subcategories (fear/anger/sadness/disgust), and in relation to positive schizotypy, among non-clinical individuals in the general population reporting varying degrees of schizotypal traits. As hypothesized, performance differed across word subcategories, though the pattern varied from expectation. Attentional-interference was greater for fear and sadness compared to anger; and analogous for fear, disgust, and sadness. In the high schizotypy group, positive schizotypal traits were directly associated with attentional-interference to disgust. Attentional-interference was comparable between high- and low-positive schizotypy. Results suggest negative emotion subcategories may differentially reflect threat-sensitivity. Disgust-sensitivity may be particularly salient in (non-clinical) positive schizotypy. Findings have implications for understanding negative emotion specificity and variability in stimulus presentation modality when studying threat-related attentional-interference. Finally, disgust-related attentional-interference may serve as a cognitive correlate of (non-clinical) positive schizotypy. Expanding this research to prodromal populations will help explore disgust-related attentional-interference as a potential cognitive marker of positive symptoms. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Emotion Reactivity, Comfort Expressing Emotions, and Future Suicidal Ideation in Emerging Adults.

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Polanco-Roman, Lillian; Moore, Alyssa; Tsypes, Aliona; Jacobson, Colleen; Miranda, Regina

2018-01-01

Emotion reactivity and difficulties in expressing emotions have been implicated in risk for suicidal behavior. This study examined comfort in expressing emotions (positive vs. negative) and depressive symptoms as mediators of the prospective relation between emotion reactivity and suicidal ideation. Emerging adults (N = 143; 72% female; 28% White) completed measures of emotion reactivity, comfort expressing emotions, and suicidal ideation at baseline and of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation 12 months later. Emotion reactivity predicted suicidal ideation at follow-up through depressive symptoms. Difficulty expressing love-but not happiness, sadness, and anger-partially mediated the relationship between emotion reactivity and suicidal ideation at follow-up before but not after adjusting for baseline ideation. The relation between high emotion reactivity and suicidal ideation may be explained by discomfort in the expression of positive emotions and by depressive symptoms. Promotion of comfort in positive emotion expression may reduce vulnerability to suicidal ideation. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The effects of DAT1 genotype on fMRI activation in an emotional go/no-go task.

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Brown, Brenna K; Murrell, Jill; Karne, Harish; Anand, Amit

2017-02-01

Dopaminergic brain circuits participate in emotional processing and impulsivity. The dopamine transporter (DAT) modulates dopamine reuptake. A variable number tandem repeat (VNTR) in the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1) affects DAT expression. The influence of DAT1 genotype on neural activation during emotional processing and impulse inhibition has not been examined. Forty-two healthy subjects were classified as 9DAT (n = 17) or 10DAT (n = 25) based on DAT1 genotype (9DAT = 9R/9R and 9R/10R; 10DAT = 10R/10R). Subjects underwent fMRI during non-emotional and emotional go/no-go tasks. Subjects were instructed to inhibit responses to letters, happy faces, or sad faces in separate blocks. Accuracy and reaction time did not differ between groups. Within group results showed activation in regions previously implicated in emotional processing and response inhibition. Between groups results showed increased activation in 9DAT individuals during inhibition. During letter inhibition, 9DAT individuals exhibited greater activation in right inferior parietal regions. During sad inhibition, 9DAT Individuals exhibited greater activation in frontal, posterior cingulate, precuneus, right cerebellar, left paracentral, and right occipital brain regions. The interaction between DAT genotype and response type in sad versus letter stimuli showed increased activation in 9DAT individuals during sad no-go responses in the anterior cingulate cortex, extending into frontal-orbital regions. 9DAT individuals have greater activation than 10DAT individuals during neutral and sad inhibition, showing that genotypic variation influencing basal dopamine levels can alter the neural basis of emotional processing and response inhibition. This may indicate that 9R carriers exert more effort to overcome increased basal dopamine activation when inhibiting responses in emotional contexts.

Negative emotions and the meaningful sides of media entertainment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Oliver, M. B.; Bartsch, A.; Hartmann, T.; Parrott, G.

2014-01-01

This unique volume brings together state-of-the-art research showing the value of emotions that many believe to be undesirable. Leading investigators explore the functions and benefits of sadness, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, shame, guilt, jealousy, and envy. The role of these emotions in social

The Communicative Function of Sad Facial Expressions.

Science.gov (United States)

Reed, Lawrence Ian; DeScioli, Peter

2017-01-01

What are the communicative functions of sad facial expressions? Research shows that people feel sadness in response to losses but it's unclear whether sad expressions function to communicate losses to others and if so, what makes these signals credible. Here we use economic games to test the hypothesis that sad expressions lend credibility to claims of loss. Participants play the role of either a proposer or recipient in a game with a fictional backstory and real monetary payoffs. The proposers view a (fictional) video of the recipient's character displaying either a neutral or sad expression paired with a claim of loss. The proposer then decided how much money to give to the recipient. In three experiments, we test alternative theories by using situations in which the recipient's losses were uncertain (Experiment 1), the recipient's losses were certain (Experiment 2), or the recipient claims failed gains rather than losses (Experiment 3). Overall, we find that participants gave more money to recipients who displayed sad expressions compared to neutral expressions, but only under conditions of uncertain loss. This finding supports the hypothesis that sad expressions function to increase the credibility of claims of loss.

The Communicative Function of Sad Facial Expressions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lawrence Ian Reed

2017-03-01

Full Text Available What are the communicative functions of sad facial expressions? Research shows that people feel sadness in response to losses but it’s unclear whether sad expressions function to communicate losses to others and if so, what makes these signals credible. Here we use economic games to test the hypothesis that sad expressions lend credibility to claims of loss. Participants play the role of either a proposer or recipient in a game with a fictional backstory and real monetary payoffs. The proposers view a (fictional video of the recipient’s character displaying either a neutral or sad expression paired with a claim of loss. The proposer then decided how much money to give to the recipient. In three experiments, we test alternative theories by using situations in which the recipient’s losses were uncertain (Experiment 1, the recipient’s losses were certain (Experiment 2, or the recipient claims failed gains rather than losses (Experiment 3. Overall, we find that participants gave more money to recipients who displayed sad expressions compared to neutral expressions, but only under conditions of uncertain loss. This finding supports the hypothesis that sad expressions function to increase the credibility of claims of loss.

The long and the short of SAD-1 kinase.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Joanne S M; Hung, Wesley; Zhen, Mei

2010-05-01

The Ser/Thr SAD kinases are evolutionarily conserved, critical regulators of neural development. Exciting findings in recent years have significantly advanced our understanding of the mechanism through which SAD kinases regulate neural development. Mammalian SAD-A and SAD-B, activated by a master kinase LKB1, regulate microtubule dynamics and polarize neurons. In C. elegans, the sad-1 gene encodes two isoforms, namely the long and the short, which exhibit overlapping and yet distinct functions in neuronal polarity and synaptic organization. Surprisingly, our most recent findings in C. elegans revealed a SAD-1-independent LKB1 activity in neuronal polarity. We also found that the long SAD-1 isoform directly interacts with a STRADalpha pseudokinase, STRD-1, to regulate neuronal polarity and synaptic organization. We elaborate here a working model of SAD-1 in which the two isoforms dimer/oligomerize to form a functional complex, and STRD-1 clusters and localizes the SAD-1 complex to synapses. While the mechanistic difference between the vertebrate and invertebrate SAD kinases may be puzzling, a recent discovery of the functionally distinct SAD-B isoforms predicts that the difference likely arises from our incomplete understanding of the SAD kinase mechanism and may eventually be reconciled as the revelation continues.

Detrended Fluctuation Analysis of the Human EEG during Listening to Emotional Music

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

无

2007-01-01

A nonlinear method named detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) was utilized to investigate the scaling behavior of the human electroencephalogram (EEG) in three emotional music conditions (fear, happiness, sadness) and a rest condition (eyes-closed). The results showed that the EEG exhibited scaling behavior in two regions with two scaling exponents β1 and β2 which represented the complexity of higher and lower frequency activity besides β band respectively. As the emotional intensity decreased the value of β1 increased and the value of β2 decreased. The change of β1 was weakly correlated with the 'approach-withdrawal' model of emotion and both of fear and sad music made certain differences compared with the eyes-closed rest condition. The study shows that music is a powerful elicitor of emotion and that using nonlinear method can potentially contribute to the investigation of emotion.

The voice conveys specific emotions: Evidence from vocal burst displays

OpenAIRE

Simon-Thomas, E.; Keltner, D.; Sauter, D.; Sinicropi-Yao, L.; Abramson, A.

2009-01-01

Studies of emotion signaling inform claims about the taxonomic structure, evolutionary origins, and physiological correlates of emotions. Emotion vocalization research has tended to focus on a limited set of emotions: anger, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness, and for the voice, also tenderness. Here, we examine how well brief vocal bursts can communicate 22 different emotions: 9 negative (Study 1) and 13 positive (Study 2), and whether prototypical vocal bursts convey emotions more ...

Embodied memory: unconscious smiling modulates emotional evaluation of episodic memories

KAUST Repository

Arminjon, Mathieu; Preissmann, Delphine; Chmetz, Florian; Duraku, Andrea; Ansermet, Franç ois; Magistretti, Pierre J.

2015-01-01

modulate the emotional evaluation of negative memories. Because facial feedback has been shown to be a powerful means of modifying emotional judgements, we used it to manipulate somatic markers. Participants first read a sad story in order to induce a

Emotional response patterns of depression, grief, sadness and stress to differing life events: a quantitative analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, Gordon; Paterson, Amelia; Hadzi-Pavlovic, Dusan

2015-04-01

In clarifying the clinical definition of an episode of major depression, DSM-5 equates bereavement with a number of other loss-related stressors (e.g. financial ruin, serious medical problems) and infers differences between such loss-related and non-loss-related responses. We undertook a study with the aim of examining the likelihood of varying life stressors leading to depression or to other emotional responses, and so allowing consideration as to whether bereavement might be equivalent to other loss-related stressful triggers. We studied a sample comprising sub-sets of those likely to have either experienced or never experienced a clinical depressive episode and report data for both the whole sample and the separate sub-sets. Participants were asked to report their exposure to 16 differing stressors and, given definitions of depression, grief, sadness and stress, to rate (in order of importance) their primary and secondary reactions if so experienced. Only one event (i.e. the individual being left by their partner) generated depression as the most likely response within the sample. A grief reaction was nominated as the most likely primary response to the death of a first-degree relative (52%) and was also a relatively common primary response to the death of a more distant relative or close family friend (36%). While one-fourth (24%) nominated grief as the primary response to being left by one's partner, it was rarely nominated as a primary response to all other events, including the DSM-5 'loss-related' exemplars of a financial crisis and of a medical illness (rates of 3% and 2%, respectively). As participants were given a definition of the emotional responses and candidate contexts, their responses may have been a reflection of the definitions provided. Additionally, a retrospective, self-report design was used which may have impacted on the veracity of responses. Findings position a grief response as showing relative specificity to bereavement events and that

State-Dependent Differences in Emotion Regulation Between Unmedicated Bipolar Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Rive, Maria M; Mocking, Roel J T; Koeter, Maarten W J; van Wingen, Guido; de Wit, Stella J; van den Heuvel, Odile A; Veltman, Dick J; Ruhé, Henricus G; Schene, Aart H

2015-07-01

Major depressive disorder (MDD) and bipolar disorder (BD) are difficult to distinguish clinically during the depressed or remitted states. Both mood disorders are characterized by emotion regulation disturbances; however, little is known about emotion regulation differences between MDD and BD. Better insight into these differences would be helpful for differentiation based on disorder-specific underlying pathophysiological mechanisms. Previous studies comparing these disorders often allowed medication use, limiting generalizability and validity. Moreover, patients with MDD and BD were mostly compared during the depressed, but not the remitted, state, while state might potentially modulate differences between MDD and BD. To investigate positive and negative emotion regulation in medication-free patients with MDD and BD in 2 mood states: depressed or remitted. A cross-sectional study conducted from May 2009 to August 2013 comparing behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging emotion regulation data of 42 patients with MDD, 35 with BD, and 36 healthy control (HC) participants free of psychotropic medication recruited from several psychiatric institutions across the Netherlands. A voluntary emotion regulation functional magnetic resonance imaging task using positive and negative pictures. Behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging blood oxygen level-dependent responses during emotion regulation. In the remitted state, only patients with BD showed impaired emotion regulation (t = 3.39; P emotion type and associated with increased dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity compared with those with MDD and healthy control participants (P = .008). In the depressed state, patients with MDD and BD differed with regard to happy vs sad emotion regulation (t = 4.19; P differences in rostral anterior cingulate activity (P emotions poorly compared with those with BD and healthy control participants, while they demonstrated no rostral anterior

The SAD story

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Johansson, K.E.

1984-12-01

SAD was installed as planned in the EHS area. It did in fact perform better than was expected when the project started. SAD has been used in several experiments, and during this time no hardware failures have occurred. Even though SAD is not a particularly complex detector, it still took rather long from the first idea until the detector was fully implemented. As usual the first stage was dominated by optimism. The limitations did not seem important and we wanted to go for a complete and rather complex detector system. When we realized the complications we concentrated on a feasible but still interesting project. The move towards a realistic project fortunately started early and was very fast. It was very soon clear that there were numerous additional investigations that had to be done in order to produce an optimized detector. The most important of these were: - understanding the optical properties of aerogel - understanding the effect of different reflecting materials - optimization of the photomultiplier voltage - shielding of the photomultipliers In 1976 the idea to construct an aerogel detector was first presented at an EHS workshop. In 1981 the detector was installed and ready to take data. During these five years the physics interest had changed. The study of charm particles had the highest priority and EHS was modified in order to optimize it for the new situation. It took an additional three years before physics results appeared - thus a total of eight years from detector idea to physics publications. Now the SAD people do it with charm. (Author)

Is this happiness I see? Biases in the identification of emotional facial expressions in depression and social phobia.

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Joormann, Jutta; Gotlib, Ian H

2006-11-01

The present study was designed to examine the operation of depression-specific biases in the identification or labeling of facial expression of emotions. Participants diagnosed with major depression and social phobia and control participants were presented with faces that expressed increasing degrees of emotional intensity, slowly changing from a neutral to a full-intensity happy, sad, or angry expression. The authors assessed individual differences in the intensity of facial expression of emotion that was required for the participants to accurately identify the emotion being expressed. The depressed participants required significantly greater intensity of emotion than did the social phobic and the control participants to correctly identify happy expressions and less intensity to identify sad than angry expressions. In contrast, social phobic participants needed less intensity to correctly identify the angry expressions than did the depressed and control participants and less intensity to identify angry than sad expressions. Implications of these results for interpersonal functioning in depression and social phobia are discussed. (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved.

Multimodal Analysis of Piano Performances Portraying Different Emotions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Kristoffer; Frimodt-Møller, Søren

2013-01-01

changes, and 3 times where the music was intended to portray the emotions happy, sad and angry, respectively. Motion-capture data from all of the performances was recorded alongside the audio. We analyze differences in the data for the differ- ent emotions, both with respect to the size and shape...

Explaining Sad People’s Memory Advantage for Faces

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Hills, Peter J.; Marquardt, Zoe; Young, Isabel; Goodenough, Imogen

2017-01-01

Sad people recognize faces more accurately than happy people (Hills et al., 2011). We devised four hypotheses for this finding that are tested between in the current study. The four hypotheses are: (1) sad people engage in more expert processing associated with face processing; (2) sad people are motivated to be more accurate than happy people in an attempt to repair their mood; (3) sad people have a defocused attentional strategy that allows more information about a face to be encoded; and (4) sad people scan more of the face than happy people leading to more facial features to be encoded. In Experiment 1, we found that dysphoria (sad mood often associated with depression) was not correlated with the face-inversion effect (a measure of expert processing) nor with response times but was correlated with defocused attention and recognition accuracy. Experiment 2 established that dysphoric participants detected changes made to more facial features than happy participants. In Experiment 3, using eye-tracking we found that sad-induced participants sampled more of the face whilst avoiding the eyes. Experiment 4 showed that sad-induced people demonstrated a smaller own-ethnicity bias. These results indicate that sad people show different attentional allocation to faces than happy and neutral people. PMID:28261138

Rumination but not distraction increases eating-related symptoms in anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

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Naumann, Eva; Tuschen-Caffier, Brunna; Voderholzer, Ulrich; Caffier, Detlef; Svaldi, Jennifer

2015-05-01

Recent models of eating disorders emphasize the importance of ruminative thinking in the occurrence of unhealthy eating behavior. Hence, the aim of the current study was to examine the influence of induced rumination and distraction on the desire to engage in eating-related symptoms in anorexia (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN). After a sadness induction, either a ruminative or distractive emotion regulation style was encouraged in women with AN (n = 38), BN (n = 37), and non-eating disordered controls (CG; n = 36). At baseline and after the emotion regulation induction feelings of sadness, desire to abstain from eating (DTA) and desire to binge (DTB) were assessed. Main results reveal that rumination led to a significant increase of DTA in the AN group and of DTB in patients with BN. In the CG, DTA significantly decreased after distraction. Although there were significant increases in subjective sadness in the rumination condition, no changes were found in the distraction condition. The results suggest that rumination in response to sadness has a detrimental effect on eating-related symptoms in eating disorders. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Impact of emotion on consciousness: positive stimuli enhance conscious reportability.

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Kristine Rømer Thomsen

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Emotion and reward have been proposed to be closely linked to conscious experience, but empirical data are lacking. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC plays a central role in the hedonic dimension of conscious experience; thus potentially a key region in interactions between emotion and consciousness. Here we tested the impact of emotion on conscious experience, and directly investigated the role of the ACC. We used a masked paradigm that measures conscious reportability in terms of subjective confidence and objective accuracy in identifying the briefly presented stimulus in a forced-choice test. By manipulating the emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative and the presentation time (16 ms, 32 ms, 80 ms we measured the impact of these variables on conscious and subliminal (i.e. below threshold processing. First, we tested normal participants using face and word stimuli. Results showed that participants were more confident and accurate when consciously seeing happy versus sad/neutral faces and words. When stimuli were presented subliminally, we found no effect of emotion. To investigate the neural basis of this impact of emotion, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs directly in the ACC in a chronic pain patient. Behavioural findings were replicated: the patient was more confident and accurate when (consciously seeing happy versus sad faces, while no effect was seen in subliminal trials. Mirroring behavioural findings, we found significant differences in the LFPs after around 500 ms (lasting 30 ms in conscious trials between happy and sad faces, while no effect was found in subliminal trials. We thus demonstrate a striking impact of emotion on conscious experience, with positive emotional stimuli enhancing conscious reportability. In line with previous studies, the data indicate a key role of the ACC, but goes beyond earlier work by providing the first direct evidence of interaction between emotion and conscious experience in the human

Visual Scanning Patterns and Executive Function in Relation to Facial Emotion Recognition in Aging

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Circelli, Karishma S.; Clark, Uraina S.; Cronin-Golomb, Alice

2012-01-01

Objective The ability to perceive facial emotion varies with age. Relative to younger adults (YA), older adults (OA) are less accurate at identifying fear, anger, and sadness, and more accurate at identifying disgust. Because different emotions are conveyed by different parts of the face, changes in visual scanning patterns may account for age-related variability. We investigated the relation between scanning patterns and recognition of facial emotions. Additionally, as frontal-lobe changes with age may affect scanning patterns and emotion recognition, we examined correlations between scanning parameters and performance on executive function tests. Methods We recorded eye movements from 16 OA (mean age 68.9) and 16 YA (mean age 19.2) while they categorized facial expressions and non-face control images (landscapes), and administered standard tests of executive function. Results OA were less accurate than YA at identifying fear (precognition of sad expressions and with scanning patterns for fearful, sad, and surprised expressions. Conclusion We report significant age-related differences in visual scanning that are specific to faces. The observed relation between scanning patterns and executive function supports the hypothesis that frontal-lobe changes with age may underlie some changes in emotion recognition. PMID:22616800

Efecto del contexto verbal en el reconocimiento de la expresión de alegría y tristeza (Effect of verbal context on the expression of happiness and sadness

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Fernando Gordillo

2016-04-01

Full Text Available The recognition of emotions involves a combination of physical aspects related to movements of the facial muscles. In addition, different approaches have drawn attention to the context in which facial expressions occur when they are being perceived. This study analysed the role of verbal context in the recognition of the facial expressions of happiness and sadness. The study included 50 participants. They were asked to view images of mixed neutral expressions surrounded by five positive, negative, or neutral words (verbal context that described the life an individual (Phase I. Following this, they were shown happy or sad facial expressions of the same individuals who appeared in the previous phase. The images were displayed for 39 ms such that the participants had to decide as quickly as possible whether the expression was happy or sad (Phase II. The results showed that participants found expressions of sadness harder to recognise than expressions of happiness when the former were preceded by a positive verbal context. In contrast, they found that expressions of sadness were easier to recognise than expressions of happiness when the former were preceded by a negative verbal context. The results are discussed within the constructivist model of emotion.

A new look at emotion perception: Concepts speed and shape facial emotion recognition.

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Nook, Erik C; Lindquist, Kristen A; Zaki, Jamil

2015-10-01

Decades ago, the "New Look" movement challenged how scientists thought about vision by suggesting that conceptual processes shape visual perceptions. Currently, affective scientists are likewise debating the role of concepts in emotion perception. Here, we utilized a repetition-priming paradigm in conjunction with signal detection and individual difference analyses to examine how providing emotion labels-which correspond to discrete emotion concepts-affects emotion recognition. In Study 1, pairing emotional faces with emotion labels (e.g., "sad") increased individuals' speed and sensitivity in recognizing emotions. Additionally, individuals with alexithymia-who have difficulty labeling their own emotions-struggled to recognize emotions based on visual cues alone, but not when emotion labels were provided. Study 2 replicated these findings and further demonstrated that emotion concepts can shape perceptions of facial expressions. Together, these results suggest that emotion perception involves conceptual processing. We discuss the implications of these findings for affective, social, and clinical psychology. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparing the Effects of Negative and Mixed Emotional Messages on Predicted Occasional Excessive Drinking

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Pilar Carrera

2008-01-01

Full Text Available In this work we present two types of emotional message, negative (sadness versus mixed (joy and sadness, with the aim of studying their differential effect on attitude change and the probability estimated by participants of repeating the behavior of occasional excessive drinking in the near future. The results show that for the group of participants with moderate experience in this behavior the negative message, compared to the mixed one, is associated with higher probability of repeating the risk behavior and a less negative attitude toward it. These results suggest that mixed emotional messages (e.g. joy and sadness messages could be more effective in campaigns for the prevention of this risk behavior.

Comparing the effects of negative and mixed emotional messages on predicted occasional excessive drinking.

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Carrera, Pilar; Caballero, Amparo; Muñoz, Dolores

2008-01-01

In this work we present two types of emotional message, negative (sadness) versus mixed (joy and sadness), with the aim of studying their differential effect on attitude change and the probability estimated by participants of repeating the behavior of occasional excessive drinking in the near future. The results show that for the group of participants with moderate experience in this behavior the negative message, compared to the mixed one, is associated with higher probability of repeating the risk behavior and a less negative attitude toward it. These results suggest that mixed emotional messages (e.g. joy and sadness messages) could be more effective in campaigns for the prevention of this risk behavior.

Inducing sadness and anxiousness through visual media: measurement techniques and persistence

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Andre Kuijsters

2016-08-01

Full Text Available The persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 minutes with the Self-Assessment Manikin (every 2 minutes and with recordings of skin conductance level (SCL and electrocardiography (ECG. The SAM pleasure ratings showed that short and longer film fragments were effective in inducing a longer lasting negative mood, whereas the negative mood induced by the IAPS slideshow was short lived. The induced arousal during the anxious MIPs diminished quickly after the mood induction; nevertheless, the SCL data suggest longer lasting arousal effects for both movies. The decay of the induced mood follows a logarithmic function; diminishing quickly in the first minutes, thereafter returning slowly back to baseline. These results reveal that caution is needed when investigating the effects of the induced mood on a task or the effect of interventions on induced moods, because the induced mood diminishes quickly after the mood induction.

Inducing Sadness and Anxiousness through Visual Media: Measurement Techniques and Persistence.

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Kuijsters, Andre; Redi, Judith; de Ruyter, Boris; Heynderickx, Ingrid

2016-01-01

The persistence of negative moods (sadness and anxiousness) induced by three visual Mood Induction Procedures (MIP) was investigated. The evolution of the mood after the MIP was monitored for a period of 8 min with the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; every 2 min) and with recordings of skin conductance level (SCL) and electrocardiography (ECG). The SAM pleasure ratings showed that short and longer film fragments were effective in inducing a longer lasting negative mood, whereas the negative mood induced by the IAPS slideshow was short lived. The induced arousal during the anxious MIPs diminished quickly after the mood induction; nevertheless, the SCL data suggest longer lasting arousal effects for both movies. The decay of the induced mood follows a logarithmic function; diminishing quickly in the first minutes, thereafter returning slowly back to baseline. These results reveal that caution is needed when investigating the effects of the induced mood on a task or the effect of interventions on induced moods, because the induced mood diminishes quickly after the mood induction.

Expectations of emotions during testimony: the role of communicator and perceiver characteristics.

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Bederian-Gardner, Daniel; Goldfarb, Deborah

2014-01-01

This study investigated the influence of communicator (child victim) and perceiver (adult participant) characteristics on expectations about witnesses' emotional displays during testimony. In total, 191 adults were asked whether or not they expected child victims who were testifying about sexual abuse to display sadness, fear, anger, disgust, happiness, or a neutral demeanor, and how intensely the adults expected each emotion to be displayed. In describing the victims, child age (5 vs. 13 years old) and child gender (female vs. male) were factorially combined as within-subject factors. Results included that victim gender predicted expectations of fear, and victim age predicted expectations of anger and disgust. There was a significant interaction of victim age and victim gender for expectations of sadness. Of participants who expected multiple emotions, a combination of negative and neutral emotions was expected more from 13-year-old female victims than from 5-year-old female victims. Child victim empathy predicted ratings of how intensely sad and fearful the child victim would look. Implications of these findings for psychological research and the legal system are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Two types of peak emotional responses to music: The psychophysiology of chills and tears

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Mori, Kazuma; Iwanaga, Makoto

2017-01-01

People sometimes experience a strong emotional response to artworks. Previous studies have demonstrated that the peak emotional experience of chills (goose bumps or shivers) when listening to music involves psychophysiological arousal and a rewarding effect. However, many aspects of peak emotion are still not understood. The current research takes a new perspective of peak emotional response of tears (weeping, lump in the throat). A psychophysiological experiment showed that self-reported chills increased electrodermal activity and subjective arousal whereas tears produced slow respiration during heartbeat acceleration, although both chills and tears induced pleasure and deep breathing. A song that induced chills was perceived as being both happy and sad whereas a song that induced tears was perceived as sad. A tear-eliciting song was perceived as calmer than a chill-eliciting song. These results show that tears involve pleasure from sadness and that they are psychophysiologically calming; thus, psychophysiological responses permit the distinction between chills and tears. Because tears may have a cathartic effect, the functional significance of chills and tears seems to be different. We believe that the distinction of two types of peak emotions is theoretically relevant and further study of tears would contribute to more understanding of human peak emotional response. PMID:28387335

Two types of peak emotional responses to music: The psychophysiology of chills and tears.

Science.gov (United States)

Mori, Kazuma; Iwanaga, Makoto

2017-04-07

People sometimes experience a strong emotional response to artworks. Previous studies have demonstrated that the peak emotional experience of chills (goose bumps or shivers) when listening to music involves psychophysiological arousal and a rewarding effect. However, many aspects of peak emotion are still not understood. The current research takes a new perspective of peak emotional response of tears (weeping, lump in the throat). A psychophysiological experiment showed that self-reported chills increased electrodermal activity and subjective arousal whereas tears produced slow respiration during heartbeat acceleration, although both chills and tears induced pleasure and deep breathing. A song that induced chills was perceived as being both happy and sad whereas a song that induced tears was perceived as sad. A tear-eliciting song was perceived as calmer than a chill-eliciting song. These results show that tears involve pleasure from sadness and that they are psychophysiologically calming; thus, psychophysiological responses permit the distinction between chills and tears. Because tears may have a cathartic effect, the functional significance of chills and tears seems to be different. We believe that the distinction of two types of peak emotions is theoretically relevant and further study of tears would contribute to more understanding of human peak emotional response.

Abnormal emotional processing in maltreated children diagnosed of Complex Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

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Bertó, Clara; Ferrin, Maite; Barberá, María; Livianos, Lorenzo; Rojo, Luis; García-Blanco, Ana

2017-11-01

Maltreated children usually show a specific pattern of emotional and behavioral symptoms that exceed those relating to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These symptoms have been defined as Complex PTSD (CPTSD). The underlying attentional mechanisms of abnormal emotional processing and their relation to the clinical presentation of CPTSD are not well understood. A visual dot-probe paradigm involving pre-attentive (i.e., 500ms) and attentive (i.e., 1500ms) presentation rates of neutral versus emotional (i.e., angry, happy or sad) facial expressions was applied. Twenty-one maltreated CPTSD children were compared with twenty-six controls. The results are as follows: an attention bias away from threatening faces and an attentional bias towards sad faces were observed in maltreated CPTSD children during pre-attentive and attentive processing. Whereas the attentional bias away from angry faces was associated with social problems, the attentional bias towards sad faces was associated with depressive and withdrawn symptoms. Therefore, CPTSD children develop maladaptive negative cognitive styles, which may underlie not only social problems (by a cognitive avoidance of threatening stimuli) but also depressive symptoms (by a cognitive approach to sad stimuli). Attention processing abnormalities should be considered as therapeutic targets for new treatment approaches in this population. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The effect of emotions on risk perception: Experimental evaluation of the affective tendencies framework

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Drače Saša

2012-01-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to assess the role of specific emotions on risk perception providing a more stringent experimental test of the Appraisal Tendencies Framework (ATF. Consistent with expectations, angry and happy participants made more optimistic risk estimates than participants who were made sad. As hypothesized by ATF, happiness and anger also led people to somewhat higher certainty appraisals than sadness. However, this change in perception did not mediate the impact of emotions on risk estimates. Taken together, our results provide the evidence for causal role of specific emotions in risk perception and contribute to literature showing that the effects of emotion on judgment are not solely due to the valence of the experienced emotion. However, they also suggest that the processes underlying emotion effects remain in need for further specifications.

Persistence of the cell-cycle checkpoint kinase Wee1 in SadA- and SadB-deficient neurons disrupts neuronal polarity.

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Müller, Myriam; Lutter, Daniela; Püschel, Andreas W

2010-01-15

Wee1 is well characterized as a cell-cycle checkpoint kinase that regulates the entry into mitosis in dividing cells. Here we identify a novel function of Wee1 in postmitotic neurons during the establishment of distinct axonal and dendritic compartments, which is an essential step during neuronal development. Wee1 is expressed in unpolarized neurons but is downregulated after neurons have extended an axon. Suppression of Wee1 impairs the formation of minor neurites but does not interfere with axon formation. However, neuronal polarity is disrupted when neurons fail to downregulate Wee1. The kinases SadA and SadB (Sad kinases) phosphorylate Wee1 and are required to initiate its downregulation in polarized neurons. Wee1 expression persists in neurons that are deficient in SadA and SadB and disrupts neuronal polarity. Knockdown of Wee1 rescues the Sada(-/-);Sadb(-/-) mutant phenotype and restores normal polarity in these neurons. Our results demonstrate that the regulation of Wee1 by SadA and SadB kinases is essential for the differentiation of polarized neurons.

Moved through Music: The Effect of Experienced Emotions on Performers' Movement Characteristics

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Van Zijl, Anemone G. W.; Luck, Geoff

2013-01-01

Do performers who feel sad move differently compared to those who express sadness? Although performers' expressive movements have been widely studied, little is known about how performers' experienced emotions affect such movements. To investigate this, we made 72 motion-capture recordings of eight violinists playing a melodic phrase in response…

Computerised analysis of facial emotion expression in eating disorders

Science.gov (United States)

2017-01-01

Background Problems with social-emotional processing are known to be an important contributor to the development and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). Diminished facial communication of emotion has been frequently reported in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN). Less is known about facial expressivity in bulimia nervosa (BN) and in people who have recovered from AN (RecAN). This study aimed to pilot the use of computerised facial expression analysis software to investigate emotion expression across the ED spectrum and recovery in a large sample of participants. Method 297 participants with AN, BN, RecAN, and healthy controls were recruited. Participants watched film clips designed to elicit happy or sad emotions, and facial expressions were then analysed using FaceReader. Results The finding mirrored those from previous work showing that healthy control and RecAN participants expressed significantly more positive emotions during the positive clip compared to the AN group. There were no differences in emotion expression during the sad film clip. Discussion These findings support the use of computerised methods to analyse emotion expression in EDs. The findings also demonstrate that reduced positive emotion expression is likely to be associated with the acute stage of AN illness, with individuals with BN showing an intermediate profile. PMID:28575109

Computerised analysis of facial emotion expression in eating disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Leppanen, Jenni; Dapelo, Marcela Marin; Davies, Helen; Lang, Katie; Treasure, Janet; Tchanturia, Kate

2017-01-01

Problems with social-emotional processing are known to be an important contributor to the development and maintenance of eating disorders (EDs). Diminished facial communication of emotion has been frequently reported in individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN). Less is known about facial expressivity in bulimia nervosa (BN) and in people who have recovered from AN (RecAN). This study aimed to pilot the use of computerised facial expression analysis software to investigate emotion expression across the ED spectrum and recovery in a large sample of participants. 297 participants with AN, BN, RecAN, and healthy controls were recruited. Participants watched film clips designed to elicit happy or sad emotions, and facial expressions were then analysed using FaceReader. The finding mirrored those from previous work showing that healthy control and RecAN participants expressed significantly more positive emotions during the positive clip compared to the AN group. There were no differences in emotion expression during the sad film clip. These findings support the use of computerised methods to analyse emotion expression in EDs. The findings also demonstrate that reduced positive emotion expression is likely to be associated with the acute stage of AN illness, with individuals with BN showing an intermediate profile.

Specific biases for identifying facial expression of emotion in children and adolescents with conversion disorders.

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Kozlowska, Kasia; Brown, Kerri J; Palmer, Donna M; Williams, Lea M

2013-04-01

This study aimed to assess how children and adolescents with conversion disorders identify universal facial expressions of emotion and to determine whether identification of emotion in faces relates to subjective emotional distress. Fifty-seven participants (41 girls and 16 boys) aged 8.5 to 18 years with conversion disorders and 57 age- and sex-matched healthy controls completed a computerized task in which their accuracy and reaction times for identifying facial expressions were recorded. To isolate the effect of individual emotional expressions, participants' reaction times for each emotion (fear, anger, sadness, disgust, and happiness) were subtracted from their reaction times for the neutral control face. Participants also completed self-report measures of subjective emotional distress. Children/Adolescents with conversion disorders showed faster reaction times for identifying expressions of sadness (t(112) = -2.2, p = .03; 444 [609] versus 713 [695], p = .03) and slower reactions times for happy expressions (t(99.3) = 2.28, p ≤ .024; -33 [35] versus 174 [51], p = .024), compared with controls (F(33.75, 419.81) = 3.76, p .018). There were also no differences in identification accuracy for any emotion (p > .82). The observation of faster reaction times to sad faces in children and adolescents with conversion disorders suggests increased vigilance and motor readiness to emotional signals that are potential threats to self or to close others. These effects may occur before conscious processing.

Emotions and emotion regulation in survivors of childhood sexual abuse: the importance of "disgust" in traumatic stress and psychopathology.

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Coyle, Eimear; Karatzias, Thanos; Summers, Andy; Power, Mick

2014-01-01

Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has the potential to compromise socio-emotional development of the survivor resulting in increased vulnerability to difficulties regulating emotions. In turn, emotion regulation is thought to play a key part in a number of psychological disorders which CSA survivors are at increased risk of developing. A better understanding of the basic emotions experienced in this population and emotion regulation strategies will inform current treatment. This paper examines the relationships between type of emotions experienced, emotion regulation strategies, and psychological trauma symptoms in a sample of survivors of CSA. A consecutive case series of CSA survivors (n=109) completed the Basic Emotions Scale (BES)-Weekly, General, and Coping versions; the Regulation of Emotions Questionnaire; the Post-traumatic Stress Checklist-Civilian Version (PCL-C); and the Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure. Significantly higher levels of disgust than other levels of emotions were reported on the weekly version of the BES. In addition, significantly higher levels of disgust and lower levels of happiness were reported on the BES-General subscale. Regression analyses revealed that sadness, fear, disgust, and external dysfunctional coping strategies predicted global post-traumatic stress disorder and re-experiencing symptomatology measured by the PCL-C. Global distress, as measured by CORE, was predicted by the emotions of sadness, disgust, and low happiness, as well as dysfunctional regulatory strategies. In addition, preliminary exploratory factor analyses supported the structure of all three versions of the BES, with disgust explaining the largest percentage of variance, followed by happiness. The findings highlight the utility of profiling basic emotions in understanding the strong associations between emotional phenomena, particularly the emotion of disgust and psychopathology in CSA survivors.

Recognition of Facial Expressions of Different Emotional Intensities in Patients with Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration

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Roy P. C. Kessels

2007-01-01

Full Text Available Behavioural problems are a key feature of frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD. Also, FTLD patients show impairments in emotion processing. Specifically, the perception of negative emotional facial expressions is affected. Generally, however, negative emotional expressions are regarded as more difficult to recognize than positive ones, which thus may have been a confounding factor in previous studies. Also, ceiling effects are often present on emotion recognition tasks using full-blown emotional facial expressions. In the present study with FTLD patients, we examined the perception of sadness, anger, fear, happiness, surprise and disgust at different emotional intensities on morphed facial expressions to take task difficulty into account. Results showed that our FTLD patients were specifically impaired at the recognition of the emotion anger. Also, the patients performed worse than the controls on recognition of surprise, but performed at control levels on disgust, happiness, sadness and fear. These findings corroborate and extend previous results showing deficits in emotion perception in FTLD.

Embracing your emotions: affective state impacts lateralisation of human embraces.

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Packheiser, Julian; Rook, Noemi; Dursun, Zeynep; Mesenhöller, Janne; Wenglorz, Alrescha; Güntürkün, Onur; Ocklenburg, Sebastian

2018-01-18

Humans are highly social animals that show a wide variety of verbal and non-verbal behaviours to communicate social intent. One of the most frequently used non-verbal social behaviours is embracing, commonly used as an expression of love and affection. However, it can also occur in a large variety of social situations entailing negative (fear or sadness) or neutral emotionality (formal greetings). Embracing is also experienced from birth onwards in mother-infant interactions and is thus accompanying human social interaction across the whole lifespan. Despite the importance of embraces for human social interactions, their underlying neurophysiology is unknown. Here, we demonstrated in a well-powered sample of more than 2500 adults that humans show a significant rightward bias during embracing. Additionally, we showed that this general motor preference is strongly modulated by emotional contexts: the induction of positive or negative affect shifted the rightward bias significantly to the left, indicating a stronger involvement of right-hemispheric neural networks during emotional embraces. In a second laboratory study, we were able to replicate both of these findings and furthermore demonstrated that the motor preferences during embracing correlate with handedness. Our studies therefore not only show that embracing is controlled by an interaction of motor and affective networks, they also demonstrate that emotional factors seem to activate right-hemispheric systems in valence-invariant ways.

Common and distinct neural correlates of facial emotion processing in social anxiety disorder and Williams syndrome: A systematic review and voxel-based meta-analysis of functional resonance imaging studies.

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Binelli, C; Subirà, S; Batalla, A; Muñiz, A; Sugranyés, G; Crippa, J A; Farré, M; Pérez-Jurado, L; Martín-Santos, R

2014-11-01

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Williams-Beuren Syndrome (WS) are two conditions which seem to be at opposite ends in the continuum of social fear but show compromised abilities in some overlapping areas, including some social interactions, gaze contact and processing of facial emotional cues. The increase in the number of neuroimaging studies has greatly expanded our knowledge of the neural bases of facial emotion processing in both conditions. However, to date, SAD and WS have not been compared. We conducted a systematic review of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies comparing SAD and WS cases to healthy control participants (HC) using facial emotion processing paradigms. Two researchers conducted comprehensive PubMed/Medline searches to identify all fMRI studies of facial emotion processing in SAD and WS. The following search key-words were used: "emotion processing"; "facial emotion"; "social anxiety"; "social phobia"; "Williams syndrome"; "neuroimaging"; "functional magnetic resonance"; "fMRI" and their combinations, as well as terms specifying individual facial emotions. We extracted spatial coordinates from each study and conducted two separate voxel-wise activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses, one for SAD and one for WS. Twenty-two studies met the inclusion criteria: 17 studies of SAD and five of WS. We found evidence for both common and distinct patterns of neural activation. Limbic engagement was common to SAD and WS during facial emotion processing, although we observed opposite patterns of activation for each disorder. Compared to HC, SAD cases showed hyperactivation of the amygdala, the parahippocampal gyrus and the globus pallidus. Compared to controls, participants with WS showed hypoactivation of these regions. Differential activation in a number of regions specific to either condition was also identified: SAD cases exhibited greater activation of the insula, putamen, the superior temporal gyrus, medial frontal regions and

Gender differences in emotion experience perception under different facial muscle manipulations.

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Wang, Yufeng; Zhang, Dongjun; Zou, Feng; Li, Hao; Luo, Yanyan; Zhang, Meng; Liu, Yijun

2016-04-01

According to embodied emotion theory, facial manipulations should modulate and initiate particular emotions. However, whether there are gender differences in emotion experience perception under different facial muscle manipulations is not clear. Therefore, we conducted two behavioral experiments to examine gender differences in emotional perception in response to facial expressions (sad, neutral, and happy) under three conditions: (1) holding a pen using only the teeth (HPT), which facilitates the muscles typically associated with smiling; (2) holding a pen using only the lips (HPL), which inhibits the muscles typically associated with smiling; and (3) a control condition--hold no pen (HNP). We found that HPT made the emotional feelings more positive, and that the change degree of female's ratings of sad facial expressions between conditions (HPL to HPT) was larger than males'. These results suggested cognition can be affected by the interaction of the stimuli and the body, especially the female. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Clinicians' recognition and management of emotions during difficult healthcare conversations.

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Martin, Elliott B; Mazzola, Natalia M; Brandano, Jessica; Luff, Donna; Zurakowski, David; Meyer, Elaine C

2015-10-01

To examine the most commonly reported emotions encountered among healthcare practitioners when holding difficult conversations, including frequency and impact on care delivery. Interprofessional learners from a range of experience levels and specialties completed self-report questionnaires prior to simulation-based communication workshops. Clinicians were asked to describe up to three emotions they experienced when having difficult healthcare conversations; subsequent questions used Likert-scales to measure frequency of each emotion, and whether care was affected. 152 participants completed questionnaires, including physicians, nurses, and psychosocial professionals. Most commonly reported emotions were anxiety, sadness, empathy, frustration, and insecurity. There were significant differences in how clinicians perceived these different emotions affecting care. Empathy and anxiety were emotions perceived to influence care more than sadness, frustration, and insecurity. Most clinicians, regardless of clinical experience and discipline, find their emotional state influences the quality of their care delivery. Most clinicians rate themselves as somewhat to quite capable of recognizing and managing their emotions, acknowledging significant room to grow. Further education designed to increase clinicians' recognition of, reflection on, and management of emotion would likely prove helpful in improving their ability to navigate difficult healthcare conversations. Interventions aimed at anxiety management are particularly needed. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Depression and emotional reactivity: variation among Asian Americans of East Asian descent and European Americans.

Science.gov (United States)

Chentsova-Dutton, Yulia E; Chu, Joyce P; Tsai, Jeanne L; Rottenberg, Jonathan; Gross, James J; Gotlib, Ian H

2007-11-01

Studies of Western samples (e.g., European Americans [EAs]) suggest that depressed individuals tend to show diminished emotional reactivity (J. G. Gehricke & A. J. Fridlund, 2002; G. E. Schwartz, P. L. Fair, P. Salt, M. R. Mandel, & G. L. Klerman, 1976a, 1976b). Do these findings generalize to individuals oriented to other cultures (e.g., East Asian cultures)? The authors compared the emotional reactions (i.e., reports of emotional experience, facial behavior, and physiological reactivity) of depressed and nondepressed EAs and Asian Americans of East Asian descent (AAs) to sad and amusing films. Their results were consistent with previous findings: Depressed EAs showed a pattern of diminished reactivity to the sad film (less crying, less intense reports of sadness) compared with nondepressed participants. In contrast, depressed AAs showed a pattern of heightened emotional reactivity (greater crying) compared with nondepressed participants. Across cultural groups, depressed and nondepressed participants did not differ in their reports of amusement or facial behavior during the amusing film. Physiological reactivity to the film clips did not differ between depressed and control participants for either cultural group. Thus, although depression may influence particular aspects of emotional reactivity across cultures (e.g., crying), the specific direction of this influence may depend on prevailing cultural norms regarding emotional expression. (c) 2007 APA

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...

Incidental emotions in moral dilemmas: the influence of emotion regulation.

Science.gov (United States)

Szekely, Raluca D; Miu, Andrei C

2015-01-01

Recent theories have argued that emotions play a central role in moral decision-making and suggested that emotion regulation may be crucial in reducing emotion-linked biases. The present studies focused on the influence of emotional experience and individual differences in emotion regulation on moral choice in dilemmas that pit harming another person against social welfare. During these "harm to save" moral dilemmas, participants experienced mostly fear and sadness but also other emotions such as compassion, guilt, anger, disgust, regret and contempt (Study 1). Fear and disgust were more frequently reported when participants made deontological choices, whereas regret was more frequently reported when participants made utilitarian choices. In addition, habitual reappraisal negatively predicted deontological choices, and this effect was significantly carried through emotional arousal (Study 2). Individual differences in the habitual use of other emotion regulation strategies (i.e., acceptance, rumination and catastrophising) did not influence moral choice. The results of the present studies indicate that negative emotions are commonly experienced during "harm to save" moral dilemmas, and they are associated with a deontological bias. By efficiently reducing emotional arousal, reappraisal can attenuate the emotion-linked deontological bias in moral choice.

Brief report Effects of spinal cord injuries on the subjective component of emotions.

Science.gov (United States)

Cobos, Pilar; Sánchez, María; Pérez, Nieves; Vila, Jaime

2004-02-01

Responses to a structured interview by 19 patients with spinal cord injuries (SCI) (7 women and 12 men) concerning their past (pre-injury) and present emotions were analysed and compared with responses by 19 SCI-free controls matched for sex, age, and education. In addition, subjects assessed the valence and arousal of 10 pleasant, 10 neutral, and 10 unpleasant pictures selected from the International Affective Picture System. The results indicate that there is no decrease in emotional experience among individuals with SCI compared with those without. For all the emotional scales (joy, love, sentimentalism, positive emotions as a whole, fear, anger, sadness, and negative emotions as a whole) the SCI group always showed either no change or an increase; this increase was significantly higher in SCI than in control subjects for sadness. No differences were observed between the two groups in the subjective assessment of the pictures. The implications of the results for the James versus Cannon controversy on the theory of emotions are discussed.

Lonely adolescents exhibit heightened sensitivity for facial cues of emotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Vanhalst, Janne; Gibb, Brandon E; Prinstein, Mitchell J

2017-02-01

Contradicting evidence exists regarding the link between loneliness and sensitivity to facial cues of emotion, as loneliness has been related to better but also to worse performance on facial emotion recognition tasks. This study aims to contribute to this debate and extends previous work by (a) focusing on both accuracy and sensitivity to detecting positive and negative expressions, (b) controlling for depressive symptoms and social anxiety, and (c) using an advanced emotion recognition task with videos of neutral adolescent faces gradually morphing into full-intensity expressions. Participants were 170 adolescents (49% boys; M age  = 13.65 years) from rural, low-income schools. Results showed that loneliness was associated with increased sensitivity to happy, sad, and fear faces. When controlling for depressive symptoms and social anxiety, loneliness remained significantly associated with sensitivity to sad and fear faces. Together, these results suggest that lonely adolescents are vigilant to negative facial cues of emotion.

HAPPY Team Entry to NIST OpenSAD Challenge

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kinnunen, Tomi; Sholokhov, Alexey; Khoury, Elie

2016-01-01

Speech activity detection (SAD), the task of locating speech segments from a given recording, remains challenging under acoustically degraded conditions. In 2015, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) coordinated OpenSAD bench-mark. We summarize “HAPPY” team effort to Open- SAD...

Ball driven type MEMS SAD for artillery fuse

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Seok, Jin Oh; Jeong, Ji-hun; Eom, Junseong; Lee, Seung S; Lee, Chun Jae; Ryu, Sung Moon; Oh, Jong Soo

2017-01-01

The SAD (safety and arming device) is an indispensable fuse component that ensures safe and reliable performance during the use of ammunition. Because the application of electronic devices for smart munitions is increasing, miniaturization of the SAD has become one of the key issues for next-generation artillery fuses. Based on MEMS technology, various types of miniaturized SADs have been proposed and fabricated. However, none of them have been reported to have been used in actual munitions due to their lack of high impact endurance and complicated explosive train arrangements. In this research, a new MEMS SAD using a ball driven mechanism, is successfully demonstrated based on a UV LIGA (lithography, electroplating and molding) process. Unlike other MEMS SADs, both high impact endurance and simple structure were achieved by using a ball driven mechanism. The simple structural design also simplified the fabrication process and increased the processing yield. The ball driven type MEMS SAD performed successfully under the desired safe and arming conditions of a spin test and showed fine agreement with the FEM simulation result, conducted prior to its fabrication. A field test was also performed with a grenade launcher to evaluate the SAD performance in the firing environment. All 30 of the grenade samples equipped with the proposed MEMS SAD operated successfully under the high-G setback condition. (paper)

Ball driven type MEMS SAD for artillery fuse

Science.gov (United States)

Seok, Jin Oh; Jeong, Ji-hun; Eom, Junseong; Lee, Seung S.; Lee, Chun Jae; Ryu, Sung Moon; Oh, Jong Soo

2017-01-01

The SAD (safety and arming device) is an indispensable fuse component that ensures safe and reliable performance during the use of ammunition. Because the application of electronic devices for smart munitions is increasing, miniaturization of the SAD has become one of the key issues for next-generation artillery fuses. Based on MEMS technology, various types of miniaturized SADs have been proposed and fabricated. However, none of them have been reported to have been used in actual munitions due to their lack of high impact endurance and complicated explosive train arrangements. In this research, a new MEMS SAD using a ball driven mechanism, is successfully demonstrated based on a UV LIGA (lithography, electroplating and molding) process. Unlike other MEMS SADs, both high impact endurance and simple structure were achieved by using a ball driven mechanism. The simple structural design also simplified the fabrication process and increased the processing yield. The ball driven type MEMS SAD performed successfully under the desired safe and arming conditions of a spin test and showed fine agreement with the FEM simulation result, conducted prior to its fabrication. A field test was also performed with a grenade launcher to evaluate the SAD performance in the firing environment. All 30 of the grenade samples equipped with the proposed MEMS SAD operated successfully under the high-G setback condition.

The effects of anger and sadness on clinical pain reports and experimentally-induced pain thresholds in women with and without fibromyalgia.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Middendorp, H. van; Lumley, M.A.; Jacobs, J.W.G.; Bijlsma, J.W.J.; Geenen, R.

2010-01-01

OBJECTIVE: Negative emotions are commonly experienced in fibromyalgia and may affect pain. This study examined the effects of anger and sadness on clinical pain reports and on pain threshold and tolerance in response to electrical stimulation in women with and without fibromyalgia. METHODS: In an

Age-related differences in affective responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music: a cross-sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Vieillard, Sandrine; Gilet, Anne-Laure

2013-01-01

There is mounting evidence that aging is associated with the maintenance of positive affect and the decrease of negative affect to ensure emotion regulation goals. Previous empirical studies have primarily focused on a visual or autobiographical form of emotion communication. To date, little investigation has been done on musical emotions. The few studies that have addressed aging and emotions in music were mainly interested in emotion recognition, thus leaving unexplored the question of how aging may influence emotional responses to and memory for emotions conveyed by music. In the present study, eighteen older (60-84 years) and eighteen younger (19-24 years) listeners were asked to evaluate the strength of their experienced emotion on happy, peaceful, sad, and scary musical excerpts (Vieillard et al., 2008) while facial muscle activity was recorded. Participants then performed an incidental recognition task followed by a task in which they judged to what extent they experienced happiness, peacefulness, sadness, and fear when listening to music. Compared to younger adults, older adults (a) reported a stronger emotional reactivity for happiness than other emotion categories, (b) showed an increased zygomatic activity for scary stimuli, (c) were more likely to falsely recognize happy music, and (d) showed a decrease in their responsiveness to sad and scary music. These results are in line with previous findings and extend them to emotion experience and memory recognition, corroborating the view of age-related changes in emotional responses to music in a positive direction away from negativity.

Emotional reactivity and emotion regulation among adults with a history of self-harm: laboratory self-report and functional MRI evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Tchiki S; Mauss, Iris B; Lumian, Daniel; Troy, Allison S; Shallcross, Amanda J; Zarolia, Paree; Ford, Brett Q; McRae, Kateri

2014-08-01

Intentionally hurting one's body (deliberate self-harm; DSH) is theorized to be associated with high negative emotional reactivity and poor emotion regulation ability. However, little research has assessed the relationship between these potential risk factors and DSH using laboratory measures. Therefore, we conducted 2 studies using laboratory measures of negative emotional reactivity and emotion regulation ability. Study 1 assessed self-reported negative emotions during a sad film clip (reactivity) and during a sad film clip for which participants were instructed to use reappraisal (regulation). Those with a history of DSH were compared with 2 control groups without a history of DSH matched on key demographics: 1 healthy group low in depression and anxiety symptoms and 1 group matched to the DSH group on depression and anxiety symptoms. Study 2 extended Study 1 by assessing neural responding to negative images (reactivity) and negative images for which participants were instructed to use reappraisal (regulation). Those with a history of DSH were compared with a control group matched to the DSH group on demographics, depression, and anxiety symptoms. Compared with control groups, participants with a history of DSH did not exhibit greater negative emotional reactivity but did exhibit lower ability to regulate emotion with reappraisal (greater self-reported negative emotions in Study 1 and greater amygdala activation in Study 2 during regulation). These results suggest that poor emotion regulation ability, but not necessarily greater negative emotional reactivity, is a correlate of and may be a risk factor for DSH, even when controlling for mood disorder symptoms. (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved.

Guanfacine modulates the emotional biasing of amygdala-prefrontal connectivity for cognitive control.

Science.gov (United States)

Schulz, Kurt P; Clerkin, Suzanne M; Newcorn, Jeffrey H; Halperin, Jeffrey M; Fan, Jin

2014-09-01

Functional interactions between amygdala and prefrontal cortex provide a cortical entry point for emotional cues to bias cognitive control. Stimulation of α2 adrenoceptors enhances the prefrontal control functions and blocks the amygdala-dependent encoding of emotional cues. However, the impact of this stimulation on amygdala-prefrontal interactions and the emotional biasing of cognitive control have not been established. We tested the effect of the α2 adrenoceptor agonist guanfacine on psychophysiological interactions of amygdala with prefrontal cortex for the emotional biasing of response execution and inhibition. Fifteen healthy adults were scanned twice with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing an emotional go/no-go task following administration of oral guanfacine (1mg) and placebo in a double-blind, counterbalanced design. Happy, sad, and neutral faces served as trial cues. Guanfacine moderated the effect of face emotion on the task-related functional connectivity of left and right amygdala with left inferior frontal gyrus compared to placebo, by selectively reversing the functional co-activation of the two regions for response execution cued by sad faces. This shift from positively to negatively correlated activation for guanfacine was associated with selective improvements in the relatively low accuracy of responses to sad faces seen for placebo. These results demonstrate the importance of functional interactions between amygdala and inferior frontal gyrus to both bottom-up biasing of cognitive control and top-down control of emotional processing, as well as for the α2 adrenoceptor-mediated modulation of these processes. These mechanisms offer a possibile method to address the emotional reactivity that is common to several psychiatric disorders. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. and ECNP. All rights reserved.

Decreased response inhibition to sad faces during explicit and implicit tasks in females with depression: Evidence from an event-related potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Yu, Fengqiong; Zhou, Xiaoqing; Qing, Wu; Li, Dan; Li, Jing; Chen, Xingui; Ji, Gongjun; Dong, Yi; Luo, Yuejia; Zhu, Chunyan; Wang, Kai

2017-01-30

The present study aimed to investigate neural substrates of response inhibition to sad faces across explicit and implicit tasks in depressed female patients. Event-related potentials were obtained while participants performed modified explicit and implicit emotional go/no-go tasks. Compared to controls, depressed patients showed decreased discrimination accuracy and amplitudes of original and nogo-go difference waves at the P3 interval in response inhibition to sad faces during explicit and implicit tasks. P3 difference wave were positively correlated with discrimination accuracy and were independent of clinical assessment. The activation of right dorsal prefrontal cortex was larger for the implicit than for the explicit task in sad condition in health controls, but was similar for the two tasks in depressed patients. The present study indicated that selectively impairment in response inhibition to sad faces in depressed female patients occurred at the behavior inhibition stage across implicit and explicit tasks and may be a trait-like marker of depression. Longitudinal studies are required to determine whether decreased response inhibition to sad faces increases the risk for future depressive episodes so that appropriate treatment can be administered to patients. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

How do you feel? Students’ emotions after practicing bullying

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jorge Luiz da Silva

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Our objective was to identify and analyze emotions generated in students involved in bullying situations as aggressors. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study, conducted with 232 students from the sixth to ninth year of middle school, who answered a self-reported questionnaire. We analyzed the data with the Statistical Analysis Software, through descriptive statistics and Fisher’s exact test. Of all students, 17.4% were identified as aggressors. Not feeling any emotion after practicing aggression against friends was prevalent for boys (36.7% and girls (25.0%. Boys demonstrated to feel anger (26.7% and sadness (23.3% in smaller proportions, while girls also demonstrated to feel guilt (25.0%, sadness (16.7% and shame (8.3%. The study indicates investigated aggressors presenting emotions that do not compete to comprehend negative effects of the practiced violence, as well as it does not collaborate to interrupt aggressions.

Positive and negative emotions in motivation for second language learning

OpenAIRE

MacIntyre, Peter D.; Vincze, Laszlo

2017-01-01

The role of basic emotions in SLA has been underestimated in both research and pedagogy. The present article examines 10 positive emotions (joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, and love) and 9 negative emotions (anger, contempt, disgust, embarrassment, guilt, hate, sadness, feeling scared, and being stressed). The emotions are correlated with core variables chosen from three well-known models of L2 motivation: Gardner’s integrative motive, Clément’s so...

Rational versus Emotional Reasoning in a Realistic Multi-Objective Environment

OpenAIRE

Mayboudi, Seyed Mohammad Hossein

2011-01-01

ABSTRACT: Emotional intelligence and its associated with models have recently become one of new active studies in the field of artificial intelligence. Several works have been performed on modelling of emotional behaviours such as love, hate, happiness and sadness. This study presents a comparative evaluation of rational and emotional behaviours and the effects of emotions on the decision making process of agents in a realistic multi-objective environment. NetLogo simulation environment is u...

Powerful and Powerless Emotions in Partner Conflicts: Gender Differences