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PubMed2005

Decoding emotional facial expressions in depressed and anorexic patients.

BACKGROUND: Several studies suggest the existence of impairments in the decoding of emotional facial expressions in various psychopathological conditions. This study investigates the recognition of emotional facial expressions (EFE) in young depressed patients and compares it to patients with eating disorders and control subjects. METHODS: 21 hospitalized female adolescents with major depression, 36 hospitalized female adolescents with eating disorders and 32 female control subjects were investigated with a set of emotional facial stimuli [Hess, U., Blairy, S., 1995. Set of Emotional Facial Stimuli, Department of Psychology, University of Quebec at Montréal, Montréal, Canada]. RESULTS: No significant differences were found between anorexic patients and controls in EFE decoding. Significant results were observed for depressed patients: they were less accurate in EFE decoding compared to anorexic patients and controls for the emotion of anger. LIMITATIONS: Previous studies on EFE decoding in depression and eating disorders used different facial stimuli or methodology. Furthermore, our study concerns only female subjects. These limitations could explain some discrepant result. CONCLUSIONS: The present results support the existence of impairments in the decoding of facial expressions in young female patients suffering from major depression.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

[Face recognition in preschool children: effects of familiarity, facial expression and angle of view].

The purpose of this study was to investigate the face recognition processes in preschool children. Two experiments were carried out to examine the effects, on face recognition, of familiarity, facial expression and angle of view of faces as well as changes or no changes in facial expression and/or angle of view occurring between the first presentation and the subsequent recognition test. The subjects were 188 five- and six-year old children. In Experiments 1 and 2, half of the faces were highly familiar to the subjects, and the remaining half unfamiliar to them. In Experiment 1, the facial expressions (e.g., smiling or serious) were either changed or unchanged. In Experiment 2, the facial expressions or angles of view (e.g., full-face views or three-quarter views of faces) were either changed or unchanged. The major findings were that the familiar faces and the smiling faces were recognized more correctly than the unfamiliar faces and the serious faces respectively. The results were discussed in terms of 'identity-specific semantic codes' and 'visually-derived semantic codes'.

Child↗
PubMed2001

Explicit and incidental facial expression processing: an fMRI study.

Considerable evidence indicates that processing facial expression involves both subcortical (amygdala and basal ganglia) and cortical (occipito-temporal, orbitofrontal, and prefrontal cortex) structures. However, the specificity of these regions for single types of emotions and for the cognitive demands of expression processing, is still unclear. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study investigated the neural correlates of incidental and explicit processing of the emotional content of faces expressing either disgust or happiness. Subjects were examined while they were viewing neutral, disgusted, or happy faces. The incidental task required subjects to decide about face gender, the explicit task to decide about face expression. In the control task subjects were requested to detect a white square in a greyscale mosaic stimulus. Results showed that the left inferior frontal cortex and the bilateral occipito-temporal junction responded equally to all face conditions. Several cortical and subcortical regions were modulated by task type, and by facial expression. Right neostriatum and left amygdala were activated when subjects made explicit judgements of disgust, bilateral orbitofrontal cortex when they made judgement of happiness, and right frontal and insular cortex when they made judgements about any emotion.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Social phobics do not misinterpret facial expression of emotion.

Attentional biases in the processing of threatening facial expressions in social anxiety are well documented. It is generally assumed that these attentional biases originate in an evaluative bias: socially threatening information would be evaluated more negatively by socially anxious individuals. However, three studies have failed to evidence a negative evaluative bias in the processing of emotional facial expression (EFE) in socially anxious individuals. These studies however suffer from several methodological limitations that the present study has attempted to overcome. Twenty-one out-patients diagnosed with generalized social phobia have been compared to 20 out-patients diagnosed with another anxiety disorder and with 39 normal controls matched for gender, age and level of education. They had to decode on seven emotion intensity scales a set of 40 EFE whose intensity and emotional nature were manipulated. Although sufficient statistical power was ensured, no differences among groups could be found in terms of decoding accuracy, attributed emotion intensity, or reported difficulty of the task. Based on these findings as well as on other evidences, we propose that, if they exist, evaluative biases in social anxiety should be implicit and automatic and that they might be determined by the relevance of the stimulus to the person's concern rather than by the stimulus valence. The implications of these findings for the interpersonal processes involved in social phobia are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Masked presentations of emotional facial expressions modulate amygdala activity without explicit knowledge.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the human brain was used to study whether the amygdala is activated in response to emotional stimuli, even in the absence of explicit knowledge that such stimuli were presented. Pictures of human faces bearing fearful or happy expressions were presented to 10 normal, healthy subjects by using a backward masking procedure that resulted in 8 of 10 subjects reporting that they had not seen these facial expressions. The backward masking procedure consisted of 33 msec presentations of fearful or happy facial expressions, their offset coincident with the onset of 167 msec presentations of neutral facial expressions. Although subjects reported seeing only neutral faces, blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal in the amygdala was significantly higher during viewing of masked fearful faces than during the viewing of masked happy faces. This difference was composed of significant signal increases in the amygdala to masked fearful faces as well as significant signal decreases to masked happy faces, consistent with the notion that the level of amygdala activation is affected differentially by the emotional valence of external stimuli. In addition, these facial expressions activated the sublenticular substantia innominata (SI), where signal increases were observed to both fearful and happy faces--suggesting a spatial dissociation of territories that respond to emotional valence versus salience or arousal value. This study, using fMRI in conjunction with masked stimulus presentations, represents an initial step toward determining the role of the amygdala in nonconscious processing.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Faces and facial expressions do not pop out.

Subjects were asked to detect faces or facial expressions from patterns with a variable number of nonfaces or faces expressing different emotions. In most tests, reaction time was found to increase steeply with sample size, thus indicating serial-search characteristics for the patterns tested. There were, however, considerable differences in the slopes of the graphs (search time versus sample size), which could be attributed to visual (but not face) cues that are discriminated at similar speeds. Slopes did not change when patterns were presented upside down, although such a modification strongly affects the perception of faces and facial expressions.

Face↗
PubMed2006

Age-related differences in the ability to perceive sad facial expressions.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Research has shown that the ability to label negative emotions displayed by facial expressions declines with age. Such studies, however, have tended to adopt the Ekman and Friesen (1976) Caucasian faces as their emotional stimuli. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether the age differences in identifying negative emotions are also found using the more recent Japanese and Caucasian Facial Expressions of Emotion (JACFEE). METHODS: In Experiment 1, 29 younger and 29 older individuals performed a verbal labeling emotion identification task (happy, sad, angry, frightened, disgusted, surprised, contemptuous). The ability to identify each emotion as a function of ethnicity across the age groups was examined. In order to reduce the verbal decision-making load on the task, a second experiment was conducted in which 60 younger and 60 older participants performed an emotion-matching task (sad, angry, contemptuous). RESULTS: In Experiment 1, older adults showed a significant decrement in the ability to recognize sad faces compared with younger adults, but no age x face ethnicity interaction was found. In Experiment 2, age differences were found when making same/different judgments regarding two sad faces or a sad and a contemptuous face. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that aging has an impact upon perceiving sad facial expressions, that this effect is not mediated by own-race versus other-race faces, and that age effects are not attributable to differences in verbal decision-making.

Adult↗
PubMed1998

Rapid facial reactions to emotional facial expressions.

This study explored how rapidly emotion specific facial muscle reactions were elicited when subjects were exposed to pictures of angry and happy facial expressions. In three separate experiments, it was found that distinctive facial electromyographic reactions, i.e., greater Zygomaticus major muscle activity in response to happy than to angry stimuli and greater Corrugator supercilii muscle activity in response to angry stimuli, were detectable after only 300-400 ms of exposure. These findings demonstrate that facial reactions are quickly elicited, indicating that expressive emotional reactions can be very rapidly manifested and are perhaps controlled by fast operating facial affect programs.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Cosmetic denervation of the muscles of facial expression with botulinum toxin. A dose-response study.

BACKGROUND: Botulinum toxin has been used for facial hemispasm, strabismus, and blepharospasm. Recently it has been advocated to treat the frown lines. We have extended this program to treatment of other muscles of facial expression. METHODS: Botulinum toxin is injected into the muscles of facial expression in two or three sessions to produce a temporary loss of muscle tone. A standard method of cooling, injection, and compression was developed to minimize pain and bruising. OBJECTIVE: To complete a dose-response study to document the optimum timing and amount of toxin needed for each muscle group. RESULTS: Two to five Botulinum toxin units per muscle was as adequate as higher doses. Toxin that was reconstituted 30 days earlier produced the same loss of muscle tone as freshly mixed toxin. With two or three injection sessions loss of muscle tone lasted for up to 1 year. CONCLUSION: Botulinum toxin is highly effective as an adjuvant therapy for facial rejuvenation. This minor surgical procedure can temporarily reduce the lines on the upper face and produce a pleasing effect. With proper dosing and dilution this rejuvenation program becomes cost effective.

Adult↗
PubMed1983

The facial expression of anger in seven-month-old infants.

This study concerned whether anger can be observed reliably in facial expressions as early as 7 months of age in a sample of 30 infants. It also assessed the influence of several variables on anger responses: infant's familiarity with the frustrator (mother vs. stranger), repetition of trials, and sex of the child. Correlations were obtained between the expression of anger and cognitive developmental level, maternal perceptions of irascibility (temperament), time since eating or sleeping, and facial flushing. Dependent variables included facial expression components as well as ratings of facial flushing. We found that the capacity to express anger is well developed by 7 months of age: facial patterning was detected reliably in the absence of contextual information, and repeated frustrations increased the amount of anger shown. No significant relationships were found, however, between facial expression of anger and temperament, drive states, or cognitive developmental scores.

Anger↗
PubMed2006

Recognition of emotional facial expressions in attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

In ADHD, impaired interpersonal relationships have been documented. They have been hypothesized to be secondary to impairment of receptive nonverbal language. Recognition of emotional facial expressions is an important aspect of receptive nonverbal language, and it has been demonstrated to be central to organization of emotional and social behavior. This study investigated the identification of facial expression of four emotions (joy, anger, disgust, and sadness) in a group of 30 children aged 7-12 years who met the DSM-IV criteria for ADHD disorder of the predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type and have no comorbid mental retardation, specific learning difficulties, developmental coordination disorder, pervasive developmental disorders, conduct disorder, bipolar disorder, or substance abuse, and in 30 matched unimpaired control children. The test used includes 16 validated photographs depicting these emotions in varying intensities constructed by morphing. Children with ADHD exhibited a general deficit in decoding emotional facial expressions, with specific deficit in identifying anger and sadness. Self-rating of the task difficulty revealed lack of awareness of decoding errors in the ADHD group as compared with control subjects. Within the ADHD group, there was a significant correlation between interpersonal problems and emotional facial expression decoding impairment, which was more marked for anger expressions. These results suggest suboptimal nonverbal decoding abilities in ADHD that may have important implications for therapy.

Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity↗
PubMed2006

Heightened sensitivity to facial expressions of emotion in borderline personality disorder.

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have been hypothesized to exhibit significant problems associated with emotional sensitivity. The current study examined emotional sensitivity (i.e., low threshold for recognition of emotional stimuli) in BPD by comparing 20 individuals with BPD and 20 normal controls on their accuracy in identifying emotional expressions. Results demonstrated that, as facial expressions morphed from neutral to maximum intensity, participants with BPD correctly identified facial affect at an earlier stage than did healthy controls. Participants with BPD were more sensitive than healthy controls in identifying emotional expressions in general, regardless of valence. These findings could not be explained by participants with BPD responding faster with more errors. Overall, results appear to support the contention that heightened emotional sensitivity may be a core feature of BPD.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Anomia for facial expressions: neuropsychological mechanisms and anatomical correlates.

We report a patient with a selective impairment in naming and pointing to emotional facial expressions following a circumscribed lesion of the right temporal lobe. Detailed investigation of this patient's deficit revealed that the neuropsychological mechanism underlying his anomia for facial expressions is best understood as a category-specific bidirectional visual-verbal disconnection between intact visual semantic and verbal semantic representations for facial emotions. Magnetic resonance imaging findings from this case and from another patient previously described with this unique syndrome (Rapcsak, Kaszniak, & Rubens, 1989), together with the results of cortical electrical stimulation studies and microelectrode recordings of cortical neuronal activity in epileptic patients, provide converging evidence that the inferotemporal visual association cortex of the right middle temporal gyrus plays an important functional role in the verbal labeling of emotional facial expressions. The implications of these findings for cognitive and neural models of facial affect processing are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1982

Production and discrimination of facial expressions by preschool children.

Production and discrimination of the 8 basic facial expressions were investigated among 34 3-5-year-old preschool children. The children's productions were elicited and videotaped under 4 different prompt conditions (imitation of photographs of children's facial expressions, imitation of those in front of a mirror, imitation of those when given labels for the expressions, and when given only labels). Adults' "guesses" of the children's productions as well as the children's guesses of their own expressions on videotape were more accurate for the happy than afraid or angry expressions and for those expressions elicited during the imitation conditions. Greater accuracy of guessing by the adult than the child suggests that the children's productions were superior to their discriminations, although these skills appeared to be related. Children's production skills were also related to sociometric ratings by their peers and expressivity ratings by their teachers. These were not related to the child's age and only weakly related to the child's expressivity during classroom free-play observations.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2005

An event-related potential study of the processing of affective facial expressions in young children who experienced maltreatment during the first year of life.

This investigation examined the effects of maltreatment during the first year of life on the neural correlates of processing facial expressions of emotion at 30 months of age. Event-related potentials (ERPs) in response to children passively viewing standardized pictures of female models posing angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions were examined. Four ERP waveform components were derived: early negative (N150), early positive (P260), negative central (Nc), and positive slow wave (PSW). Differences in these waveforms between a group of 35 maltreated and 24 nonmaltreated children were reported. The groups did not differ on the early perceptual negative component (N150), whereas the maltreated children had greater P260 amplitude at frontal leads compared to the nonmaltreated children in response to viewing angry facial expressions. For the Nc component, the nonmaltreated comparison children exhibited greater amplitude while viewing pictures of happy faces compared to angry and neutral faces, whereas the maltreated children showed greater Nc amplitude at central sites while viewing angry faces. For the PSW, the nonmaltreated group showed a greater area score in the right hemisphere in response to viewing angry facial expressions compared to the maltreated group. The results are discussed in terms of brain development and function, as well as their implications for the design and evaluation of preventive interventions.

Affect↗
PubMed1987

The salience of facial expression for autistic children.

Autistic and non-autistic retarded children who were matched for verbal ability were shown 'standard' pairs of photographs of people who differed in three, two or one of the following respects: sex, age, facial expression of emotion, and the type of hat they were wearing. When given similar photographs to sort, the majority of non-autistic children sorted according to people's facial expressions before they sorted according to type of hat, but most autistic children gave priority to sorting by type of hat, and many neglected the facial expressions altogether. It is suggested that these results reflect autistic children's insensitivity to other people's facial expressions of emotion.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Social communication in siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus): use of gestures and facial expressions.

The current study represents the first systematic investigation of the social communication of captive siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus). The focus was on intentional signals, including tactile and visual gestures, as well as facial expressions and actions. Fourteen individuals from different groups were observed and the signals used by individuals were recorded. Thirty-one different signals, consisting of 12 tactile gestures, 8 visual gestures, 7 actions, and 4 facial expressions, were observed, with tactile gestures and facial expressions appearing most frequently. The range of the signal repertoire increased steadily until the age of six, but declined afterwards in adults. The proportions of the different signal categories used within communicative interactions, in particular actions and facial expressions, also varied depending on age. Group differences could be traced back mainly to social factors or housing conditions. Differences in the repertoire of males and females were most obvious in the sexual context. Overall, most signals were used flexibly, with the majority performed in three or more social contexts and almost one-third of signals used in combination with other signals. Siamangs also adjusted their signals appropriately for the recipient, for example, using visual signals most often when the recipient was already attending (audience effects). These observations are discussed in the context of siamang ecology, social structure, and cognition.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The role of the analyst's facial expressions in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy.

This paper, while acknowledging implicitly the importance of transference-distortions in the patient's perceptions of the analyst's countenance, focuses primarily upon the real changes in the latter's facial expressions. The analyst's face has a central role in the phase of therapeutic symbiosis, as well as in subsequent individuation. It is in the realm of the analyst's facial expressions that the borderline patient, for example, can best find a bridge out of autism and into therapeutically symbiotic relatedness with the analyst. During this latter phase, then, each participant's facial expressions "belong" as much to the other as to oneself; that is, the expressions of each person are in the realm of transitional phenomena for both of them. The analyst's facial expressions are a highly, and often centrally, significant dimension of both psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic therapy. Illustrative clinical vignettes are presented from work with both patients who use the couch and those who do not.

Adult↗