Implementation of Pupil Dilation in AI-Based Emotion Recognition

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has its typical onset in childhood and adolescence. Maladaptive processing of social information may contribute to the etiology and maintenance of SAD. During face perception, individuals execute a succession of visual fixations known as a scanpath which facilitates information processing. Atypically long scanpaths have been reported in adults with SAD, but no data exists from pediatric samples. SAD has also been linked to atypical arousal during face perception. Both metrics were examined in one of the largest eye-tracking studies of pediatric SAD to date.Methods: Participants were children and adolescents with SAD (n = 61) and healthy controls (n = 39) with a mean age of 14 years (range 10–17) who completed an emotion recognition task. The visual scanpath and pupil dilation (an indirect index of arousal) were examined using eye tracking.Results: Scanpaths of youth with SAD were shorter, less distributed, and consisted of a smaller number of fixations than those of healthy controls. These findings were supported by both frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Higher pupil dilation was also observed in the SAD group, but despite a statistically significant group difference, this result was not supported by the Bayesian analysis.Conclusions: The results were contrary to findings from adult studies, but similar to what has been reported in neurodevelopmental conditions associated with social interaction impairments. Restricted scanpaths may disrupt holistic representation of faces known to favor adaptive social understanding.

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Restricted visual scanpaths during emotion recognition in childhood social anxiety disorder

10.31234/osf.io/m4d76 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Johan Lundin Kleberg ◽

Emilie Bäcklin Löwenberg ◽

Jennifer Lau ◽

Eva Serlachius ◽

Jens Högström

Keyword(s):

Anxiety Disorder ◽

Social Anxiety ◽

Emotion Recognition ◽

Social Anxiety Disorder ◽

Recognition Task ◽

Pupil Dilation ◽

Childhood And Adolescence ◽

Significant Group ◽

Significant Group Difference ◽

Visual Fixations

Background: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has its typical onset in childhood and adolescence. Maladaptive processing of social information may contribute to the etiology and maintenance. During face perception, individuals extract information with a succession of visual fixations known as a scanpath. Atypically long scanpaths have been reported in adults with SAD, but no data exists from pediatric samples. SAD has also been linked to atypical arousal. Both metrics were examined in one of the largest eye-tracking studies of pediatric SAD to dateMethods: Children and adolescents with SAD (n = 62) and healthy controls (n = 39) completed an emotion recognition task. The visual scanpath and pupil dilation (an indirect index of arousal) were examined. The analysis plan was preregistered.Results: Youth with SAD showed restricted scanpaths, a finding supported by both frequentist and Bayesian statistics. Higher pupil dilation was also observed in the SAD group, but despite a statistically significant group difference, this result was not supported by the Bayesian analysis.Conclusions: Findings are contrary to findings from adult studies, but similar to what has been reported in neurodevelopmental conditions associated with social interaction impairments. Restricted scanpaths may disrupt holistic representation of faces known to favor adaptive social understanding.

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Beeinträchtigtes Erkennen emotionaler Gesichtsausdrücke durch psychiatrische Patientinnen bei Alexithymie

Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie Psychologie und Psychotherapie ◽

10.1024/1661-4747/a000135 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 7-15 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Daniel Dittrich ◽

Gregor Domes ◽

Susi Loebel ◽

Christoph Berger ◽

Carsten Spitzer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emotion Recognition ◽

Emotional Expression ◽

Depression Scale ◽

Facial Emotion Recognition ◽

Facial Emotion ◽

Check List ◽

Psychosomatische Erkrankungen ◽

Psychiatrische Patienten ◽

Symptom Check List ◽

Tas 20

Die vorliegende Studie untersucht die Hypothese eines mit Alexithymie assoziierten Defizits beim Erkennen emotionaler Gesichtsaudrücke an einer klinischen Population. Darüber hinaus werden Hypothesen zur Bedeutung spezifischer Emotionsqualitäten sowie zu Gender-Unterschieden getestet. 68 ambulante und stationäre psychiatrische Patienten (44 Frauen und 24 Männer) wurden mit der Toronto-Alexithymie-Skala (TAS-20), der Montgomery-Åsberg Depression Scale (MADRS), der Symptom-Check-List (SCL-90-R) und der Emotional Expression Multimorph Task (EEMT) untersucht. Als Stimuli des Gesichtererkennungsparadigmas dienten Gesichtsausdrücke von Basisemotionen nach Ekman und Friesen, die zu Sequenzen mit sich graduell steigernder Ausdrucksstärke angeordnet waren. Mittels multipler Regressionsanalyse untersuchten wir die Assoziation von TAS-20 Punktzahl und facial emotion recognition (FER). Während sich für die Gesamtstichprobe und den männlichen Stichprobenteil kein signifikanter Zusammenhang zwischen TAS-20-Punktzahl und FER zeigte, sahen wir im weiblichen Stichprobenteil durch die TAS-20 Punktzahl eine signifikante Prädiktion der Gesamtfehlerzahl (β = .38, t = 2.055, p < 0.05) und den Fehlern im Erkennen der Emotionen Wut und Ekel (Wut: β = .40, t = 2.240, p < 0.05, Ekel: β = .41, t = 2.214, p < 0.05). Für wütende Gesichter betrug die Varianzaufklärung durch die TAS-20-Punktzahl 13.3 %, für angeekelte Gesichter 19.7 %. Kein Zusammenhang bestand zwischen der Zeit, nach der die Probanden die emotionalen Sequenzen stoppten, um ihre Bewertung abzugeben (Antwortlatenz) und Alexithymie. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit unterstützen das Vorliegen eines mit Alexithymie assoziierten Defizits im Erkennen emotionaler Gesichtsausdrücke bei weiblchen Probanden in einer heterogenen, klinischen Stichprobe. Dieses Defizit könnte die Schwierigkeiten Hochalexithymer im Bereich sozialer Interaktionen zumindest teilweise begründen und so eine Prädisposition für psychische sowie psychosomatische Erkrankungen erklären.

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