scholarly journals Deficits of visual working memory representations of emotional facial expressions in patients with congenital facial palsy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Filippo Gambarota ◽  
Roy Luria ◽  
massimiliano pastore ◽  
Elisa De Stefani ◽  
Pier Francesco Ferrari ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Simulation Models ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Time Interval ◽  
Short Time Interval ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Moebius Syndrome ◽  
Healthy Participants

Recent models of sensorimotor simulation postulate that simulation aids ‘refining’ visual representations of others’ emotional facial expressions through an iterative communication with the visual system. In order to test this aspect of sensorimotor simulation models, in the present investigation we recruited a sample of patients with Moebius syndrome (MS), characterized by congenital facial paralysis, and a control group of healthy participants. MS patients constitute a particularly interesting test as their congenital impossibility of producing facial movements and expressing emotions through the face should translate into a deficit of facial expressions processing. Here, MS and healthy participants underwent a task aimed at measuring the precision with which representations of facial expressions of emotions are maintained in visual working memory (VWM) by implementing a delayed estimation task. In each trial, participants saw a face with a certain intensity of facial expression (i.e., of happiness, disgust or anger) and, after a short time interval of about 1 sec, they had to select the to-be-memorized image inside a circular array in which facial expressions of increasing intensity were presented in an orderly manner. The results indicated that MS participants built lower quality representations of the intensity of emotional expressions when compared to healthy participants. These findings support the role of sensorimotor simulation in improving the quality of emotional representations of facial expressions during early stages of processing.

scholarly journals The effects of sleep deprivation on the processing of emotional facial expressions in young adults with and without ADHD

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ami Cohen ◽  
Kfir Asraf ◽  
Ivgeny Saveliev ◽  
Orrie Dan ◽  
Iris Haimov
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Sleep Deprivation ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Interactive Effect ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Experimental Session ◽  
Poor Sleep ◽  
Adhd Group ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Oddball Task

AbstractThe ability to recognize emotions from facial expressions is essential to the development of complex social cognition behaviors, and impairments in this ability are associated with poor social competence. This study aimed to examine the effects of sleep deprivation on the processing of emotional facial expressions and nonfacial stimuli in young adults with and without attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Thirty-five men (mean age 25.4) with (n = 19) and without (n = 16) ADHD participated in the study. During the five days preceding the experimental session, the participants were required to sleep at least seven hours per night (23:00/24:00–7:00/9:00) and their sleep was monitored via actigraphy. On the morning of the experimental session, the participants completed a 4-stimulus visual oddball task combining facial and nonfacial stimuli, and repeated it after 25 h of sustained wakefulness. At baseline, both study groups had poorer performance in response to facial rather than non-facial target stimuli on all indices of the oddball task, with no differences between the groups. Following sleep deprivation, rates of omission errors, commission errors and reaction time variability increased significantly in the ADHD group but not in the control group. Time and target type (face/non-face) did not have an interactive effect on any indices of the oddball task. Young adults with ADHD are more sensitive to the negative effects of sleep deprivation on attentional processes, including those related to the processing of emotional facial expressions. As poor sleep and excessive daytime sleepiness are common in individuals with ADHD, it is feasible that poor sleep quality and quantity play an important role in cognitive functioning deficits, including the processing of emotional facial expressions that are associated with ADHD.

Updating schematic emotional facial expressions in working memory: Response bias and sensitivity

2017 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 10-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerly Tamm ◽  
Kairi Kreegipuu ◽  
Jaanus Harro ◽  
Nelson Cowan
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Response Bias ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Memory Response

scholarly journals The influence of visual working memory representations on attention bias to threat in individuals with high trait anxiety

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 204380871987614
Author(s):  
Nisha Yao ◽  
Marcus A. Rodriguez ◽  
Mengyao He ◽  
Mingyi Qian
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Attention Bias ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Memory Representations ◽  
High Trait Anxiety ◽  
The Relationship

Experimental studies have yielded discrepant results regarding the relationship between anxiety and attention bias to threat. Cognitive factors modulating the presence of threat-related attention bias in anxiety have drawn growing attention. Previous research demonstrated that visual working memory (WM) representations can guide attention allocation in a top-down manner. Whether threat-related WM representations affected the presence of attention bias in anxiety awaits examination. Combining a memory task and a dot-probe task, this study investigated how WM representations of faces with neutral or negative expressions modulated the attention bias to threat among highly anxious individuals versus controls. Results showed that highly anxious individuals developed more pronounced attention bias to threat when maintaining WM representations of negative faces as compared to the control group. There were no significant between-group effects when the WM representations were neutral. These results suggested that highly anxious individuals were more susceptible to the influence of mental representations with negative valence on attention deployment.

scholarly journals Psychophysiological, but Not Behavioral, Indicator of Working Memory Capacity Predicts Video Game Proficiency

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Jakubowska ◽  
Paweł Dobrowolski ◽  
Alicja Anna Binkowska ◽  
Ibrahim V. Arslan ◽  
Monika Myśliwiec ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Active Control ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Passive Control ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Memory Capacity ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Control Groups ◽  
Variable Environment

Visual working memory (VWM) is the ability to actively maintain visual information over short periods of time and is strongly related to global fluid intelligence and overall cognitive ability. In our study, we used two indices of visual working memory capacity: the behavioral estimate of capacity (K) and contralateral delay activity (CDA) in order to check whether training in a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) video game StarCraft II can influence the VWM capacity measured by the change detection task. We also asked a question whether individual differences in behavioral and psychophysiological indices of VWM can predict the effectiveness of video game training. Sixty-two participants (non-players) were recruited to the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned to either experimental (Variable environment), active control (Fixed environment), and passive control groups. Experimental and active control groups differed in the type of training received. Training consisted of 30 h of playing the StarCraft II game. Participants took part in two EEG sessions (pre- and post-training) during which they performed the VWM task. Our results showed that working memory capacity (K calculated according to Pashler’s formula) increases after training in both experimental groups, but not in a control group. We have also found a correlation between average visual working memory capacity (calculated as K) and mean CDA amplitude no matter which group we are looking at. And, last but not least, we have found that we can predict the amount of improvement in the RTS video game by looking at the psychophysiological indices (CDA amplitude) recorded at baseline (before training), but only in the experimental group. We think that the strength of the psychophysiological indicator of VWM capacity might be a marker of the future success in video game acquisition.

Impact of Experimental Modulation of EEG Alpha Power on Visual Working Memory Storage in Healthy Participants

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 (9) ◽  
pp. S403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Molly Erickson ◽  
Dillon Smith ◽  
Laura Crespo ◽  
Steven Silverstein
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Alpha Power ◽  
Eeg Alpha ◽  
Healthy Participants
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