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Visual mismatch negativity elicited by facial expressions under non-attentional condition.

A modified "cross-modal delayed response" paradigm was used to investigate putative processing of face expression in the absence of focused attention to the face. Neutral, happy and sad faces were presented during intervals occurring between a tone and a response imperative signal (a faint click), while subjects were instructed to discriminate the location of the tone as quickly and accurately as possible and to ignore the faces. A neutral face was presented in 80% of the trials whereas the happy and sad faces were presented in the remaining trials - 10%, respectively. Expression mismatch negativity (EMMN) was obtained by subtracting the ERP elicited by neutral faces from that elicited by sad faces or happy faces. The EMMN started from around 120 ms (sad) and 110 ms (happy) lasting up to 430 ms (sad) and 360 ms (happy) post-stimulus. The EMMN elicited by sad faces was more negative than that elicited by happy faces. Both EMMNs distributed over posterior areas and covered larger areas in the right than in the left hemisphere sites (especially for happy EMMN).

Adult↗

[Correlation of cutaneo-galvanic and voluntary reactions during recognition of emotional facial expressions].

The frequency of skin-galvanic (SGR) and motor reactions was analyzed at recognition of human emotional state by mimics. 31 healthy persons and 54 patients with lesions of temporal and frontoparietal areas of both cerebral hemispheres were examined. It has been established that the process of recognition takes place by stages: at first - at intuitive level accompanied by SGR, and then at the level of making decision completed by a motor or verbal reaction. Efficiency of recognition at the first stage does not so much depend on lesion localization as at the second stage. Pathology of the left hemisphere affects mainly the stage of making decision, and of the right one - the process of recognition as a whole.

Adolescent↗

Stress specificities: differential effects of coping style, gender, and type of stressor on autonomic arousal, facial expression, and subjective feeling.

In this study several factors considered to be relevant in mediating stress arousal were experimentally manipulated. Ss selected for the coping styles anxiety denying, low anxiety, and high anxiety were confronted with both low- and high-arousal-inducing situations, using 2 different types of stressors (cognitive vs. emotional) in each case. Arousal reactions were measured in 3 response modalities: verbal report of subjective experience; nonverbal, nonvocal behavior; and physiological reactions. The results reveal complex interactions between type and degree of stress, coping style, and gender of Ss, confirming findings on vocal parameters of stress. These complex interactions are discussed with respect to the possibility that Ss' evaluation of situation characteristics may be influenced by coping styles and gender, resulting in differential reaction patterns.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

Amygdala response in patients with acute PTSD to masked and unmasked emotional facial expressions.

OBJECTIVE: This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate amygdala response in patients with acute posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to emotional expressions. METHOD: Thirteen medication-free individuals with acute PTSD and no axis I psychiatric comorbidity were scanned while viewing pictures of fearful or happy faces, presented above or below consciousness, with backward masking. RESULTS: There was a significant positive correlation between the severity of PTSD and the difference in amygdala responses between masked fearful and happy faces and a corresponding negative correlation for the difference between unmasked fearful and happy faces. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that functional abnormalities in brain responses to emotional stimuli observed in chronic PTSD are already apparent in its acute phase.

Acute Disease↗

Response and habituation of the human amygdala during visual processing of facial expression.

We measured amygdala activity in human volunteers during rapid visual presentations of fearful, happy, and neutral faces using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The first experiment involved a fixed order of conditions both within and across runs, while the second one used a fully counterbalanced order in addition to a low level baseline of simple visual stimuli. In both experiments, the amygdala was preferentially activated in response to fearful versus neutral faces. In the counterbalanced experiment, the amygdala also responded preferentially to happy versus neutral faces, suggesting a possible generalized response to emotionally valenced stimuli. Rapid habituation effects were prominent in both experiments. Thus, the human amygdala responds preferentially to emotionally valenced faces and rapidly habituates to them.

Adult↗

Individual differences in the metacontrol of lateralization for recognizing facial expressions of emotion.

Subjects judged whether two faces expressed same or different emotions. Subjects were alternately instructed to empathize with or label the first face which was shown for eight seconds. The second face was then exposed briefly in either the left or right visual field. Eighteen subjects had contrasting hemisphere superiorities in accuracy for making same/different judgments under the two instructions, whereas 12 subjects had consistent hemisphere superiorities. It is proposed that individuals may differ in the metacontrol of lateralization on a task, such that for some individuals, the hemisphere controlling cognitive operations can switch as a function of instructions, expectations, and strategies. For other individuals, the metacontrol of lateralization may dictate that the same hemisphere always controls processing on a particular task.

Adult↗

Facial expression of schizophrenic patients and their interaction partners.

In his earlier works, one of the present investigators attempted to show that psychologically disturbed persons may be characterized by their tendency to induce their social partners to reveal relatively stable and constant leitmotivs, inclinations to react, emotions and fantasies; hence, it should be possible to describe psychological illnesses by means of the patient's specific interaction strategies (Krause 1988; Krause and Lütolf 1988). We assume that this process of induction is neither deliberate nor self-reflective. Inductive modes of behavior are viewed as part of an unconscious process of problem solving--a process, however, which is unsuccessful, since it is no longer appropriate to the reality of the adult patient. The present paper is part of a more comprehensive research project, the object of which is to account for these kinds of interactive strategies.

Adult↗

Negative facial expression captures attention and disrupts performance.

In two experiments, participants counted features of schematic faces with positive, negative, or neutral emotional expressions. In Experiment 1 it was found that counting features took longer when they were embedded in negative as opposed to positive faces. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and also demonstrated that more time was required to count features of negative relative to neutral faces. However, in both experiments, when the faces were inverted to reduce holistic face perception, no differences between neutral, positive, and negative faces were observed, even though the feature information in the inverted faces was the same as in the upright faces. We suggest that, relative to neutral and positive faces, negative faces are particularly effective at capturing attention to the global face level and thereby make it difficult to count the local features of faces.

Attention↗

Biases in eye movements to threatening facial expressions in generalized anxiety disorder and depressive disorder.

The study investigated biases in selective attention to emotional face stimuli in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and depressive disorder, using a modified probe detection task. There were 4 face types: threatening, sad, happy, and neutral. Measures of attentional bias included (a) the direction and latency of the initial eye movement in response to the faces and (b) manual reaction time (RT) to probes replacing the face stimuli 1,000 ms after their onset. Results showed that individuals with GAD (without depressive disorder) were more likely to look first toward threat faces rather than neutral faces compared with normal controls and those with depressive disorder. They also shifted their gaze more quickly toward threat faces, rather than away from them, relative to the other two groups. There were no significant findings from the manual RT data. Implications of the results for recent theories of clinical anxiety and depression are discussed.

Adult↗

Hemispheric perception of emotional valence from facial expressions.

The authors previously reported that normal subjects are better at discriminating happy from neutral faces when the happy face is located to the viewer's right of the neutral face; conversely, discrimination of sad from neutral faces is better when the sad face is shown to the left, supporting a role for the left hemisphere in processing positive valence and for the right hemisphere in processing negative valence. Here, the authors extend this same task to subjects with unilateral cerebral damage (31 right, 28 left). Subjects with right damage performed worse when discriminating sad faces shown on the left, consistent with the prior findings. However, subjects with either left or right damage actually performed superior to normal controls when discriminating happy faces shown on the left. The authors suggest that perception of negative valence relies preferentially on the right hemisphere, whereas perception of positive valence relies on both left and right hemispheres.

Adult↗

Cerebral asymmetry in autonomic conditioning to facial expressions: sex differences.

In the present experiment, sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry during classical conditioning to emotional stimuli are reported. 125 subjects (62 females and 63 males) were shown a slide of a happy face in the right (or left) visual half field (VHF), and simultaneously a slide of an angry face in the left (or right) VHF. Eight groups were formed by the combination of male and female subjects; left and right VHF positions of the angry/happy faces; and the administration/omission of the shock unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Dependent measures were skin conductance responses recorded from both hands. The results during extinction showed a significant larger SCR magnitude to the shock compared to the no-shock groups only for the female subjects. CS position during conditioning was also important in revealing differential responding to either the happy or angry faces. A right hemisphere effect was found for the angry face CS for both the male and female subjects, however with a greater difference for the females.

Adolescent↗

[The evoked cortical activity of the cerebral hemispheres in man during the active and passive perception of facial expression].

Twenty-two right-handed subjects were asked either to identify sad, neutral, or laughing faces presented on a computer monitor or to view passively the same pictures without classification. Visual evoked potentials were recorded from F3/4, C3/4, P3/4, O1/2, and T5/6 derivations. In comparison with the passive viewing, the emotion recognition was characterized by the higher level of cortical activity reflected in the higher N1, N2, N3 amplitudes and shortened latencies of N1, P2, and N2 waves. In contrast, the latencies of the later P3 and N3 waves were longer. During emotion recognition, the dynamical brain mapping technique revealed symmetrical activation of the frontocentral areas and only the right-side activation during the passive perception. Factor analysis demonstrated a complication of N2 structure in the task of face emotion recognition. A principal component corresponding to the descending part of the N2 wave was revealed, which probably reflected the stage of image classification.

Adult↗

Perception of facial expressions and voices and of their combination in the human brain.

Using positron emission tomography we explored brain regions activated during the perception of face expressions, emotional voices and combined audio-visual pairs. A convergence region situated in the left lateral temporal cortex was more activated by bimodal stimuli than by either visual only or auditory only stimuli. Separate analyses for the emotions happiness and fear revealed supplementary convergence areas situated mainly anteriorly in the left hemisphere for happy pairings and in the right hemisphere for fear pairings indicating different neuro-anatomical substrates for multisensory integration of positive versus negative emotions. Activation in the right extended amygdala was obtained for fearful faces and fearful audio-visual pairs but not for fearful voices only. These results suggest that during the multisensory perception of emotion, affective information from face and voice converge in heteromodal regions of the human brain.

Adult↗

Limbic hyperactivation during processing of neutral facial expressions in children with bipolar disorder.

Reflecting a paradigm shift in clinical neuroscience, many chronic psychiatric illnesses are now hypothesized to result from perturbed neural development. However, most work in this area focuses on schizophrenia. Here, we extend this paradigm to pediatric bipolar disorder (BD), thus demonstrating traction in the developmental psychobiology perspective. To study amygdala dysfunction, we examined neural mechanisms mediating face processing in 22 youths (mean age 14.21 +/- 3.11 yr) with BD and 21 controls of comparable age, gender, and IQ. Event-related functional MRI compared neural activation when attention was directed to emotional aspects of faces (hostility, subjects' fearfulness) vs. nonemotional aspects (nose width). Compared with controls, patients perceived greater hostility in neutral faces and reported more fear when viewing them. Also, compared with controls, patients had greater activation in the left amygdala, accumbens, putamen, and ventral prefrontal cortex when rating face hostility, and greater activation in the left amygdala and bilateral accumbens when rating their fear of the face. There were no between-group behavioral or neural differences in the nonemotional conditions. Results implicate deficient emotion-attention interactions in the pathophysiology of BD in youth and suggest that developmental psychobiology approaches to chronic mental illness have broad applicability.

Adolescent↗

The perception of fearful and happy facial expression is modulated by anxiety: an event-related potential study.

Anxiety is supposed to interfere with cognitive and emotional processing and high level of trait-anxiety has been associated with an attentional bias for fearful faces, even in sub-clinical anxiety. On the basis of the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), twenty students were grouped as low vs. high anxious. Pictures from the Ekman and Friesen series were used in an event-related potentials study to investigate the neurophysiological correlates of the emotional processing of fear and happiness in sub-clinical anxiety. Subjects were confronted with a visual oddball design, in which they had to detect, as quickly as possible, deviant happy or fearful faces amongst a train of standard stimuli (neutral faces). Anxiety does not modify early perceptual (N100, P100, N170, VPP) or attentional (N2b) component, but later components are affected. Indeed, high anxious subjects are faster to detect deviant faces as suggested by earlier reaction times and P3b component. However, they show a reduced ability to process the emotional content of faces, this deficit being indexed by a decreased N300 component. Indeed, N300 is supposed to be particularly sensitive to affective features of stimuli rather than to physical characteristics. We propose that the earlier P3b observed in high anxious subjects could be interpreted as a way to overcome the deficient emotional appraisal by a more salient conscious processing.

Adult↗

Children's understanding of facial expression of emotion: I. Voluntary creation of emotion-faces.

22 children (ages 4 to 6 yr.) from a day-care service were asked to "make a face" that would show how they would feel in five situations representing the basic emotions of happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, and fear. Children decoded their own videotaped responses one week later, and they also decoded the same expressions presented by a child whom they did not know. Groups of day-care teachers and university students were employed in decoding the children's facial responses. Recognizability of all emotions by all decoders improved with the age of the child in a linear manner (9% gain per year). Happy and disgusted expressions were the most easily decoded.

Awareness↗

Genetic and diagnostic considerations in three families with abnormalities of facial expression and congenital urinary obstruction: "The Ochoa syndrome".

Seven patients (4 females, and 3 males) born in unrelated families, one of them consanguineous (first cousins), were affected by peculiar facies and gestures while smiling and crying, and by hydronephrosis, hydroureter and intravesical stenosis of the ureter, abnormal caliber of the urether in the prostatic and membranous portions, urethral valves, abnormal bladder with trabeculation, and diverticula associated with severe hypertrophy of the mucosa with sclerotic changes. The genetic analysis of these families indicates that the condition is probably autosomal dominant, with variable expressivity and incomplete penetrance. The syndrome represents alteration of facial and urinary developmental fields. The peculiar facies allows early recognition of the condition, and this can be helpful for early assessment and treatment, leading perhaps to a better prognosis.

Adolescent↗

Judgment of facial expression of emotion in unilateral brain-damaged patients.

Patients with unilateral brain damage and normal controls were asked to give (1) inter-emotion judgment within the photographs of six facial emotions in terms of mutual similarities, and (2) intra-emotion judgment within the hemifacial composite photographs of an emotion in terms of intensity of expression. Right brain-damaged patients could differentiate between the emotion of happiness and all other emotions. Left brain-damaged patients differentiated between aroused-nonaroused emotions. Normal controls differentiated between positive-negative as well as aroused-nonaroused emotions. Left-left facial composites were judged to have expressed more intensely than right-right facial composites or normal/mirror-reversed facial orientations of emotions (except fear) by any group (p >.05).

Journal Article↗