scholarly journals Memory facilitation for emotional faces: Visual working memory trade-offs resulting from attentional preference for emotional facial expressions

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (6) ◽  
pp. 1231-1243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyejin J. Lee ◽  
Yang Seok Cho
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Visual Working Memory ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Memory Facilitation

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.

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

Domestic Dogs and Human Infants Look More at Happy and Angry Faces Than Sad Faces

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (8) ◽  
pp. 749-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Hooi Yong ◽  
Ted Ruffman
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Domestic Dogs ◽  
Matching Task ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Human Infants ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Human Voice ◽  
Same Gender

Dogs respond to human emotional expressions. However, it is unknown whether dogs can match emotional faces to voices in an intermodal matching task or whether they show preferences for looking at certain emotional facial expressions over others, similar to human infants. We presented 52 domestic dogs and 24 seven-month-old human infants with two different human emotional facial expressions of the same gender simultaneously, while listening to a human voice expressing an emotion that matched one of them. Consistent with most matching studies, neither dogs nor infants looked longer at the matching emotional stimuli, yet dogs and humans demonstrated an identical pattern of looking less at sad faces when paired with happy or angry faces (irrespective of the vocal stimulus), with no preference for happyversusangry faces. Discussion focuses on why dogs and infants might have an aversion to sad faces, or alternatively, heightened interest in angry and happy faces.

scholarly journals Perceiving Positive Facial Expression Can Relieve Depressive Moods: The Effect of Emotional Contagion on Mood in People With Subthreshold Depression

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuko Yamashita ◽  
Tetsuya Yamamoto
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Contagion ◽  
Subthreshold Depression ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Mood Score ◽  
Happy Mood ◽  
Sad Mood

Emotional contagion is a phenomenon by which an individual’s emotions directly trigger similar emotions in others. We explored the possibility that perceiving others’ emotional facial expressions affect mood in people with subthreshold depression (sD). Around 49 participants were divided into the following four groups: participants with no depression (ND) presented with happy faces; ND participants presented with sad faces; sD participants presented with happy faces; and sD participants presented with sad faces. Participants were asked to answer an inventory about their emotional states before and after viewing the emotional faces to investigate the influence of emotional contagion on their mood. Regardless of depressive tendency, the groups presented with happy faces exhibited a slight increase in the happy mood score and a decrease in the sad mood score. The groups presented with sad faces exhibited an increased sad mood score and a decreased happy mood score. These results demonstrate that emotional contagion affects the mood in people with sD, as well as in individuals with ND. These results indicate that emotional contagion could relieve depressive moods in people with sD. It demonstrates the importance of the emotional facial expressions of those around people with sD such as family and friends from the viewpoint of emotional contagion.

scholarly journals Early Right Motor Cortex Response to Happy and Fearful Facial Expressions: A TMS Motor-Evoked Potential Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 1203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Borgomaneri ◽  
Francesca Vitale ◽  
Simone Battaglia ◽  
Alessio Avenanti
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Motor Evoked Potential ◽  
Corticospinal Excitability ◽  
The Body ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Human Motor Cortex ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
The Right

The ability to rapidly process others’ emotional signals is crucial for adaptive social interactions. However, to date it is still unclear how observing emotional facial expressions affects the reactivity of the human motor cortex. To provide insights on this issue, we employed single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to investigate corticospinal motor excitability. Healthy participants observed happy, fearful and neutral pictures of facial expressions while receiving TMS over the left or right motor cortex at 150 and 300 ms after picture onset. In the early phase (150 ms), we observed an enhancement of corticospinal excitability for the observation of happy and fearful emotional faces compared to neutral expressions specifically in the right hemisphere. Interindividual differences in the disposition to experience aversive feelings (personal distress) in interpersonal emotional contexts predicted the early increase in corticospinal excitability for emotional faces. No differences in corticospinal excitability were observed at the later time (300 ms) or in the left M1. These findings support the notion that emotion perception primes the body for action and highlights the role of the right hemisphere in implementing a rapid and transient facilitatory response to emotional arousing stimuli, such as emotional facial expressions.

scholarly journals Alexithymia explains atypical spatio-temporal dynamics of eye gaze in autism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helio Clemente Cuve ◽  
Santiago Castiello ◽  
brook shiferaw ◽  
Eri Ichijo ◽  
Caroline Catmur ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Eye Gaze ◽  
Emotion Processing ◽  
Visual Exploration ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Information Theoretic ◽  
Emotional Faces ◽  
Gaze Patterns ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Recognition of emotional facial expressions is considered to be atypical in autism. This difficulty is thought to be due to the way that facial expressions are visually explored. Evidence for atypical visual exploration of emotional faces in autism is, however, equivocal. We propose that, where observed, atypical visual exploration of emotional facial expressions is due to alexithymia, a distinct but frequently co-occurring condition. In this eye-tracking study we tested the alexithymia hypothesis using a number of recent methodological advances to study eye gaze during several emotion processing tasks (emotion recognition, intensity judgements, free gaze), in 25 adults with, and 45 without, autism. A multilevel polynomial modelling strategy was used to describe the spatiotemporal dynamics of eye gaze to emotional facial expressions. Converging evidence from traditional and novel analysis methods revealed that atypical gaze to the eyes is best predicted by alexithymia in both autistic and non-autistic individuals. Information theoretic metrics also revealed differential effects of task on gaze patterns as a function of alexithymia, but not autism. These findings highlight factors underlying atypical emotion processing in autistic individuals, with wide-ranging implications for emotion research.

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