scholarly journals Complex facial emotion recognition and atypical gaze patterns in autistic adults

Autism ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 258-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa H Black ◽  
Nigel TM Chen ◽  
Ottmar V Lipp ◽  
Sven Bölte ◽  
Sonya Girdler
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Gaze Patterns ◽  
Gaze Behaviour ◽  
Autistic Adults

While altered gaze behaviour during facial emotion recognition has been observed in autistic individuals, there remains marked inconsistency in findings, with the majority of previous research focused towards the processing of basic emotional expressions. There is a need to examine whether atypical gaze during facial emotion recognition extends to more complex emotional expressions, which are experienced as part of everyday social functioning. The eye gaze of 20 autistic and 20 IQ-matched neurotypical adults was examined during a facial emotion recognition task of complex, dynamic emotion displays. Autistic adults fixated longer on the mouth region when viewing complex emotions compared to neurotypical adults, indicating that altered prioritization of visual information may contribute to facial emotion recognition impairment. Results confirm the need for more ecologically valid stimuli for the elucidation of the mechanisms underlying facial emotion recognition difficulty in autistic individuals.

Impaired Recognition of Negative Facial Emotions in Body Dysmorphic Disorder

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (08) ◽  
pp. 884-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally A. Grace ◽  
Wei Lin Toh ◽  
Ben Buchanan ◽  
David J. Castle ◽  
Susan L. Rossell
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Body Dysmorphic Disorder ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Facial Emotions ◽  
Healthy Control

Abstract Objectives: Patients with body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) have difficulty in recognising facial emotions, and there is evidence to suggest that there is a specific deficit in identifying negative facial emotions, such as sadness and anger. Methods: This study investigated facial emotion recognition in 19 individuals with BDD compared with 21 healthy control participants who completed a facial emotion recognition task, in which they were asked to identify emotional expressions portrayed in neutral, happy, sad, fearful, or angry faces. Results: Compared to the healthy control participants, the BDD patients were generally less accurate in identifying all facial emotions but showed specific deficits for negative emotions. The BDD group made significantly more errors when identifying neutral, angry, and sad faces than healthy controls; and were significantly slower at identifying neutral, angry, and happy faces. Conclusions: These findings add to previous face-processing literature in BDD, suggesting deficits in identifying negative facial emotions. There are treatment implications as future interventions would do well to target such deficits.

scholarly journals Lighting for pedestrians: Does multi-tasking affect the performance of typical pedestrian tasks?

2021 ◽  
pp. 147715352110026
Author(s):  
Y Mao ◽  
S Fotios
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Obstacle Detection ◽  
Detection Task ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Lighting Conditions ◽  
Multiple Tasks ◽  
Visual Tasks

Obstacle detection and facial emotion recognition are two critical visual tasks for pedestrians. In previous studies, the effect of changes in lighting was tested for these as individual tasks, where the task to be performed next in a sequence was known. In natural situations, a pedestrian is required to attend to multiple tasks, perhaps simultaneously, or at least does not know which of several possible tasks would next require their attention. This multi-tasking might impair performance on any one task and affect evaluation of optimal lighting conditions. In two experiments, obstacle detection and facial emotion recognition tasks were performed in parallel under different illuminances. Comparison of these results with previous studies, where these same tasks were performed individually, suggests that multi-tasking impaired performance on the peripheral detection task but not the on-axis facial emotion recognition task.

Affective functioning and social cognition in Noonan syndrome

2011 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 419-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Wingbermühle ◽  
J. I. M. Egger ◽  
W. M. A. Verhoeven ◽  
I. van der Burgt ◽  
R. P. C. Kessels
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Noonan Syndrome ◽  
Heart Defects ◽  
Genetic Disorder ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Clinical Group

BackgroundNoonan syndrome (NS) is a common genetic disorder, characterized by short stature, facial dysmorphia, congenital heart defects and a mildly lowered IQ. Impairments in psychosocial functioning have often been suggested, without, however, systematic investigation in a clinical group. In this study, different aspects of affective processing, social cognition and behaviour, in addition to personal well-being, were assessed in a large group of patients with NS.MethodForty adult patients with NS were compared with 40 healthy controls, matched with respect to age, sex, intelligence and education level. Facial emotion recognition was measured with the Emotion Recognition Task (ERT), alexithymia with both the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Bermond–Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ), and mentalizing with the Theory of Mind (ToM) test. The Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R) and the Scale for Interpersonal Behaviour (SIB) were used to record aspects of psychological well-being and social interaction.ResultsPatients showed higher levels of cognitive alexithymia than controls. They also experienced more social distress, but the frequency of engaging in social situations did not differ. Facial emotion recognition was only slightly impaired.ConclusionsHigher levels of alexithymia and social discomfort are part of the behavioural phenotype of NS. However, patients with NS have relatively intact perception of emotions in others and unimpaired mentalizing. These results provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of social daily life functioning in this patient group.

scholarly journals In the eyes of the beholder: investigating the effect of visual probing on accuracy and gaze fixations when attending to facial expressions among primary and secondary callous-unemotional variants

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (10) ◽  
pp. 1441-1451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melina Nicole Kyranides ◽  
Kostas A. Fanti ◽  
Maria Petridou ◽  
Eva R. Kimonis
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Repeated Measurements ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Cu Traits ◽  
Callous Unemotional ◽  
The Face ◽  
Gaze Fixations

AbstractIndividuals with callous-unemotional (CU) traits show deficits in facial emotion recognition. According to preliminary research, this impairment may be due to attentional neglect to peoples’ eyes when evaluating emotionally expressive faces. However, it is unknown whether this atypical processing pattern is unique to established variants of CU traits or modifiable with intervention. This study examined facial affect recognition and gaze patterns among individuals (N = 80; M age = 19.95, SD = 1.01 years; 50% female) with primary vs secondary CU variants. These groups were identified based on repeated measurements of conduct problems, CU traits, and anxiety assessed in adolescence and adulthood. Accuracy and number of fixations on areas of interest (forehead, eyes, and mouth) while viewing six dynamic emotions were assessed. A visual probe was used to direct attention to various parts of the face. Individuals with primary and secondary CU traits were less accurate than controls in recognizing facial expressions across all emotions. Those identified in the low-anxious primary-CU group showed reduced overall fixations to fearful and painful facial expressions compared to those in the high-anxious secondary-CU group. This difference was not specific to a region of the face (i.e. eyes or mouth). Findings point to the importance of investigating both accuracy and eye gaze fixations, since individuals in the primary and secondary groups were only differentiated in the way they attended to specific facial expression. These findings have implications for differentiated interventions focused on improving facial emotion recognition with regard to attending and correctly identifying emotions.

scholarly journals Do You See What I See -- Exploring the Role of Personality in Emotion Recognition using a Priming Paradigm

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parama Gupta ◽  
Deepshikha Ray ◽  
Sukanto Sarkar
Keyword(s):  
Young Adult ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Healthy Participants

The current study explored the mediating role of Neuroticism and Psychoticism involving young adult healthy participants who performed a facial emotion recognition task.

scholarly journals Foveal processing of emotion-informative facial features

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazire Duran ◽  
ANTHONY P. ATKINSON
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Recognition Accuracy ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Recognition Of Facial Expressions ◽  
Initial Fixation ◽  
Gaze Behaviour

Certain facial features provide useful information for recognition of facial expressions. In two experiments, we investigated whether foveating informative features of briefly presented expressions improves recognition accuracy and whether these features are targeted reflexively when not foveated. Angry, fearful, surprised, and sad or disgusted expressions were presented briefly at locations which would ensure foveation of specific features. Foveating the mouth of fearful, surprised and disgusted expressions improved emotion recognition compared to foveating an eye or cheek or the central brow. Foveating the brow lead to equivocal results in anger recognition across the two experiments, which might be due to the different combination of emotions used. There was no consistent evidence suggesting that reflexive first saccades targeted emotion-relevant features; instead, they targeted the closest feature to initial fixation. In a third experiment, angry, fearful, surprised and disgusted expressions were presented for 5 seconds. Duration of task-related fixations in the eyes, brow, nose and mouth regions was modulated by the presented expression. Moreover, longer fixation at the mouth positively correlated with anger and disgust accuracy both when these expressions were freely viewed (Experiment 3) and when briefly presented at the mouth (Experiment 2). Finally, an overall preference to fixate the mouth across all expressions correlated positively with anger and disgust accuracy. These findings suggest that foveal processing of informative features is functional/contributory to emotion recognition, but they are not automatically sought out when not foveated, and that facial emotion recognition performance is related to idiosyncratic gaze behaviour.

scholarly journals Foveal processing of emotion-informative facial features

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260814
Author(s):  
Nazire Duran ◽  
Anthony P. Atkinson
Keyword(s):  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Recognition Accuracy ◽  
Recognition Performance ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Recognition Of Facial Expressions ◽  
Initial Fixation ◽  
Gaze Behaviour

Certain facial features provide useful information for recognition of facial expressions. In two experiments, we investigated whether foveating informative features of briefly presented expressions improves recognition accuracy and whether these features are targeted reflexively when not foveated. Angry, fearful, surprised, and sad or disgusted expressions were presented briefly at locations which would ensure foveation of specific features. Foveating the mouth of fearful, surprised and disgusted expressions improved emotion recognition compared to foveating an eye or cheek or the central brow. Foveating the brow led to equivocal results in anger recognition across the two experiments, which might be due to the different combination of emotions used. There was no consistent evidence suggesting that reflexive first saccades targeted emotion-relevant features; instead, they targeted the closest feature to initial fixation. In a third experiment, angry, fearful, surprised and disgusted expressions were presented for 5 seconds. Duration of task-related fixations in the eyes, brow, nose and mouth regions was modulated by the presented expression. Moreover, longer fixation at the mouth positively correlated with anger and disgust accuracy both when these expressions were freely viewed (Experiment 2b) and when briefly presented at the mouth (Experiment 2a). Finally, an overall preference to fixate the mouth across all expressions correlated positively with anger and disgust accuracy. These findings suggest that foveal processing of informative features is functional/contributory to emotion recognition, but they are not automatically sought out when not foveated, and that facial emotion recognition performance is related to idiosyncratic gaze behaviour.

scholarly journals Facial Sadness Recognition is Modulated by Estrogen Receptor Gene Polymorphisms in Healthy Females

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (12) ◽  
pp. 219 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayra Gutiérrez-Muñoz ◽  
Martha Fajardo-Araujo ◽  
Erika González-Pérez ◽  
Victor Aguirre-Arzola ◽  
Silvia Solís-Ortiz
Keyword(s):  
Estrogen Receptor ◽  
Response Time ◽  
Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Processing ◽  
Receptor Gene ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Facial Emotion Recognition ◽  
Facial Emotion ◽  
The Impact

Polymorphisms of the estrogen receptor ESR1 and ESR2 genes have been linked with cognitive deficits and affective disorders. The effects of these genetic variants on emotional processing in females with low estrogen levels are not well known. The aim was to explore the impact of the ESR1 and ESR2 genes on the responses to the facial emotion recognition task in females. Postmenopausal healthy female volunteers were genotyped for the polymorphisms Xbal and PvuII of ESR1 and the polymorphism rs1256030 of ESR2. The effect of these polymorphisms on the response to the facial emotion recognition of the emotions happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, surprise, and fear was analyzed. Females carrying the P allele of the PvuII polymorphism or the X allele of the Xbal polymorphism of ESR1 easily recognized facial expressions of sadness that were more difficult for the women carrying the p allele or the x allele. They displayed higher accuracy, fast response time, more correct responses, and fewer omissions to complete the task, with a large effect size. Women carrying the ESR2 C allele of ESR2 showed a faster response time for recognizing facial expressions of anger. These findings link ESR1 and ESR2 polymorphisms in facial emotion recognition of negative emotions.

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