Affective facial expression processing in young children who have experienced maltreatment during the first year of life: An event-related potential study

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. John Curtis ◽  
Dante Cicchetti
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Facial Affect ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
First Year ◽  
Maltreated Children ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Expression Processing

AbstractThis study employed event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the neural correlates of facial affect processing in maltreated and nonmaltreated children at 42 months of age. ERPs elicited while children passively viewed standardized pictures of female models posing angry, happy, and neutral facial expressions were examined, and differences between maltreated (N = 46) and nonmaltreated (N = 25) children were reported. Three occipital components (P1, N170, and P400) and four frontal–central components (N150, P240, Nc, and a positive slow wave [PSW]) were identified. Findings revealed that maltreated children had greater P1 and P400 amplitude in response to angry facial affect compared to other emotions, and compared to nonmaltreated children. N170 amplitude was greater in response to happy compared to angry in the maltreated group. For the P240 component, maltreated children had greater amplitude in response to angry facial expressions relative to happy, whereas children in the nonmaltreated group had greater P240 amplitude in response to happy relative to angry facial affect. Further, the nonmaltreated group had greater PSW amplitude in response to angry facial affect, whereas those in the maltreated group showed greater PSW amplitude to happy facial expressions. The results provided further support for the hypothesis that the experience of maltreatment and the predominantly negative emotional tone in maltreating families alters the functioning of neural systems associated with the identification and processing of facial emotion. These results exemplify the importance of early preventive interventions focused on emotion for children who have experienced maltreatment early in life.

scholarly journals The Relationship Between Childhood Emotional Abuse and Processing of Emotional Facial Expressions in Healthy Young Men: Event-Related Potential and Behavioral Evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yutong Liu ◽  
Huini Peng ◽  
Jianhui Wu ◽  
Hongxia Duan
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Childhood Maltreatment ◽  
Emotional Abuse ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Childhood Emotional Abuse ◽  
The Relationship

Background: Individuals exposed to childhood maltreatment present with a deficiency in emotional processing in later life. Most studies have focused mainly on childhood physical or sexual abuse; however, childhood emotional abuse, a core issue underlying different forms of childhood maltreatment, has received relatively little attention. The current study explored whether childhood emotional abuse is related to the impaired processing of emotional facial expressions in healthy young men.Methods: The emotional facial processing was investigated in a classical gender discrimination task while the event-related potentials (ERPs) data were collected. Childhood emotional abuse was assessed by a Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) among 60 healthy young men. The relationship between the score of emotional abuse and the behavioral and the ERP index of emotional facial expression (angry, disgust, and happy) were explored.Results: Participants with a higher score of childhood emotional abuse responded faster on the behavioral level and had a smaller P2 amplitude on the neural level when processing disgust faces compared to neutral faces.Discussion: Individuals with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse may quickly identify negative faces with less cognitive resources consumed, suggesting altered processing of emotional facial expressions in young men with a higher level of childhood emotional abuse.

scholarly journals Event-related potential examination of facial affect processing in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. K. Wynn ◽  
C. Jahshan ◽  
L. L. Altshuler ◽  
D. C. Glahn ◽  
M. F. Green
Keyword(s):  
Bipolar Disorder ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Facial Affect ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Patient Groups ◽  
Bipolar Patients ◽  
Affect Processing

BackgroundPatients with bipolar disorder exhibit consistent deficits in facial affect identification at both behavioral and neural levels. However, little is known about which stages of facial affect processing are dysfunctional.MethodEvent-related potentials (ERPs), including amplitude and latency, were used to evaluate two stages of facial affect processing: N170 to examine structural encoding of facial features and N250 to examine decoding of facial features in 57 bipolar disorder patients, 30 schizophrenia patients and 30 healthy controls. Three conditions were administered: participants were asked to identify the emotion of a face, the gender of a face, or whether a building was one or two stories tall.ResultsSchizophrenia patients' emotion identification accuracy was lower than that of bipolar patients and healthy controls. N170 amplitude was significantly smaller in schizophrenia patients compared to bipolar patients and healthy controls, which did not differ from each other. Both patient groups had significantly longer N170 latency compared to healthy controls. For N250, both patient groups showed significantly smaller amplitudes compared with controls, but did not differ from each other. Bipolar patients showed longer N250 latency than healthy controls; patient groups did not differ from each other.ConclusionsBipolar disorder patients have relatively intact structural encoding of faces (N170) but are impaired when decoding facial features for complex judgments about faces (N250 latency and amplitude), such as identifying emotion or gender.

scholarly journals Altering sensorimotor simulation impacts early stages of facial expression processing depending on individual differences in alexithymic traits

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arianna Schiano Lomoriello ◽  
Antonio Maffei ◽  
Sabrina Brigadoi ◽  
Paola Sessa
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expression ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Facial Mimicry ◽  
Early Stages ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Expression Processing

Simulation models of facial expressions suggest that posterior visual areas and brain areas underpinning sensorimotor simulations might interact to improve facial expression processing. According to these models, facial mimicry, a manifestation of sensorimotor simulation, may contribute to the visual processing of facial expressions by influencing early stages. The aim of this study was to assess whether and how sensorimotor simulation influences early stages of face processing, also investigating its relationship with alexithymic traits given that previous studies have suggested that individuals with high levels of alexithymic traits (vs. individuals with low levels of alexithymic traits) tend to use sensorimotor simulation to a lesser extent. We monitored P1 and N170 ERP components of the event-related potentials (ERP) in participants performing a fine discrimination task of facial expressions and animals, as a control condition. In half of the experiment, participants could freely use their facial mimicry whereas in the other half they had their facial mimicry blocked by a gel. Our results revealed that only individuals with lower compared to high alexithymic traits showed a larger modulation of the P1 amplitude as a function of the mimicry manipulation selectively for facial expressions (but not for animals), while we did not observe any modulation of the N170. Given the null results at the behavioural level, we interpreted the P1 modulation as compensative visual processing in individuals with low levels of alexithymia under conditions of interference on the sensorimotor processing, providing a preliminary evidence in favor of sensorimotor simulation models.

Brain and personality bases of insensitivity to infant cues in neglectful mothers: An event-related potential study

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
María José Rodrigo ◽  
Inmaculada León ◽  
Ileana Quiñones ◽  
Agustín Lage ◽  
Sonia Byrne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Electrical Potential ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
Social Anhedonia ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
N170 Amplitude ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
Infant Cries ◽  
Infant Cues

AbstractThis investigation examined the neural and personality correlates of processing infant facial expressions in mothers with substantiated neglect of a child under 5 years old. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 14 neglectful and 14 control mothers as they viewed and categorized pictures of infant cries, laughs, and neutral faces. Maternal self-reports of anhedonia and empathy were also completed. Early (negative occipitotemporal component peaking at around 170 ms on the scalp [N170] and positive electrical potential peaking at about 200 ms [P200]) and late positive potential (LPP) components were selected. Both groups of mothers showed behavioral discrimination between the different facial expressions via reaction time and accuracy measures. Neglectful mothers did not exhibit increased N170 amplitude at temporal leads in response to viewing crying versus laughing and neutral expressions compared to control mothers. Both groups had greater P200 and LPP amplitudes at centroparietal leads in response to viewing crying versus neutral facial expressions. However, neglectful mothers displayed an overall attenuated brain response in LPP that was related to their higher scores in social anhedonia but not to their empathy scores. The ERP data suggest that the brain's failures in the early differentiation of cry stimuli and in the sustained processing of infant expressions related to social anhedonia may underlie the insensitive responding in neglectful mothers. The implications of these results for the design and evaluation of preventive interventions are discussed.

Maturation of the auditory event-related potentials during the first year of life

Neuroreport ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Kushnerenko ◽  
Rita Čeponiene ◽  
Polina Balan ◽  
Vineta Fellman ◽  
Minna Huotilainen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
First Year ◽  
Auditory Event ◽  
Related Potentials ◽  
First Year Of Life ◽  
Auditory Event Related Potentials

Neural dynamics of trainee teachers' emotional conflict processing: An event-related potential study

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (7) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Li Jin ◽  
Xu Li ◽  
Jiamei Lu ◽  
Nianqu Chen ◽  
Lin Cheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
School Context ◽  
Event Related Potentials ◽  
Event Related Potential ◽  
The Body ◽  
Educational Context ◽  
Congruent Condition ◽  
Slow Potential ◽  
Emotional Conflict ◽  
Trainee Teachers ◽  
Related Potentials

We investigated emotional conflict in an educational context with an emotional body–word Stroop paradigm, examining whether the N450 (a late fronto-central phasic negative event-related potential signature) and slow potential (SP) effects could be evoked in trainee teachers. The N450 effect is characterized by topography and negative polarity of an incongruent minus congruent difference potential, and the SP effect has positive polarity (incongruent minus congruent difference potential). Positive and negative body language examples were obtained from pupils in an actual school context, and emotional words were selected. Compound stimuli were presented, each comprising a congruent or incongruent word displayed across a body image. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants judged body expression valence. Reaction times were longer and accuracies were lower for the incongruent compared to the congruent condition. The N450 component amplitude in the incongruent condition was more negative than in the congruent condition. Results showed a behavioral interference effect and an N450 effect for trainee teachers in this context, thus indicating that the body–word task was efficient in assessing emotional conflict in an educational context, and trainee teachers' perception of body expressions of students could be influenced by emotional signals. The findings further the understanding of emotional conflict in an educational context.

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