How does the presence of a surgical face mask impair the perceived intensity of facial emotions?

The use of surgical-type face masks has become increasingly common during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent findings suggest that it is harder to categorise the facial expressions of masked faces, than of unmasked faces. To date, studies of the effects of mask-wearing on emotion recognition have used categorisation paradigms: authors have presented facial expression stimuli and examined participants’ ability to attach the correct label (e.g., happiness, disgust). While the ability to categorise particular expressions is important, this approach overlooks the fact that expression intensity is also informative during social interaction. For example, when predicting an interactant’s future behaviour, it is useful to know whether they are slightly fearful or terrified, contented or very happy, slightly annoyed or angry. Moreover, because categorisation paradigms force observers to pick a single label to describe their percept, any additional dimensionality within observers’ interpretation is lost. In the present study, we adopted a complementary emotion-intensity rating paradigm to study the effects of mask-wearing on expression interpretation. In an online experiment with 120 participants (82 female), we investigated how the presence of face masks affects the perceived emotional profile of prototypical expressions of happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, and surprise. For each of these facial expressions, we measured the perceived intensity of all six emotions. We found that the perceived intensity of intended emotions (i.e., the emotion that the actor intended to convey) was reduced by the presence of a mask for all expressions except for anger. Additionally, when viewing all expressions except surprise, masks increased the perceived intensity of non-intended emotions (i.e., emotions that the actor did not intend to convey). Intensity ratings were unaffected by presentation duration (500ms vs 3000ms), or attitudes towards mask wearing. These findings shed light on the ambiguity that arises when interpreting the facial expressions of masked faces.

Multilabel convolution neural network for facial expression recognition and ordinal intensity estimation

Facial Expression Recognition (FER) has gained considerable attention in affective computing due to its vast area of applications. Diverse approaches and methods have been considered for a robust FER in the field, but only a few works considered the intensity of emotion embedded in the expression. Even the available studies on expression intensity estimation successfully assigned a nominal/regression value or classified emotion in a range of intervals. Most of the available works on facial expression intensity estimation successfully present only the emotion intensity estimation. At the same time, others proposed methods that predict emotion and its intensity in different channels. These multiclass approaches and extensions do not conform to man heuristic manner of recognising emotion and its intensity estimation. This work presents a Multilabel Convolution Neural Network (ML-CNN)-based model, which could simultaneously recognise emotion and provide ordinal metrics as the intensity estimation of the emotion. The proposed ML-CNN is enhanced with the aggregation of Binary Cross-Entropy (BCE) loss and Island Loss (IL) functions to minimise intraclass and interclass variations. Also, ML-CNN model is pre-trained with Visual Geometric Group (VGG-16) to control overfitting. In the experiments conducted on Binghampton University 3D Facial Expression (BU-3DFE) and Cohn Kanade extension (CK+) datasets, we evaluate ML-CNN’s performance based on accuracy and loss. We also carried out a comparative study of our model with some popularly used multilabel algorithms using standard multilabel metrics. ML-CNN model simultaneously predicts emotion and intensity estimation using ordinal metrics. The model also shows appreciable and superior performance over four standard multilabel algorithms: Chain Classifier (CC), distinct Random K label set (RAKEL), Multilabel K Nearest Neighbour (MLKNN) and Multilabel ARAM (MLARAM).

Parameters of the gelatinase B activity in the integument epithelium and the lamina propria of the gastric mucosa in experimental acetate ulcer in rats

Objective: to determine the specifi c number and expression intensity of gelatinase B-positive cells in the gastric surface epithelium and lamina propria (cell component) in the area of the ulcerous defect in rats with experimental acetate ulcer of the stomach.Materials and methods: 18 white Wistar rats were divided into three groups: initial (intact), experimental (modeling of an acetate ulcer) and control (falsely operated) in the experiment. Tissues were obtained from the ulceration zone or the presumed ulceration zone (in the initial and control groups) to asses morphological changes and also indicators, characterizing the activity of gelatinase B 7 days after the simulation of the experiment.Results and Discussion. It was revealed some increase in the specifi c number of gelatinase B-positive cells against the background of moderate accumulation of lymphocytes in the integument epithelium of the gastric mucosa. A signifi cant increase in the specifi c number of gelatinase B-positive cells at the maximum intensity of its expression and a moderate accumulation of eff ector cells of tissue alterations was determined in the cellular component of the lamina propria of the gastric mucosa at the same time.

The effects of conflict type and conflict expression intensity on conflict management

Purpose This paper aims to add to the current knowledge about conflict management by examining the relationships between conflict type, conflict expression intensity and the use of the conflict management approach. Design/methodology/approach The authors test theory-based hypotheses using a field study of new product development teams in an interdisciplinary Masters program (Study 1) and an experimental vignette study (Study 2). Findings Results show that people are more likely to respond to task conflict and conflicts expressed with less intensity using collectivistic conflict management approaches (i.e. problem-solving, compromising and yielding), and to relationship conflicts and conflicts expressed with higher intensity through forcing, an individualistic conflict management approach. Information acquisition and negative emotions experienced by team members mediate these relationships. Practical implications Knowing how the characteristics of the conflict (type and expression intensity) affect conflict management, managers can counteract the tendency to use dysfunctional, forcing conflict management approaches in response to high intensity conflicts, as well as to relationship conflicts and support the tendency to use collectivistic conflict management approaches in response to low intensity conflict, as well as task conflicts. Originality/value The authors examine an alternative to the prevailing view that conflict management serves as a moderator of the relationship between conflict and team outcomes. The research shows that conflict type and intensity of conflict expression influence the conflict management approach as a result of the information and emotion they evoke. The authors open avenues for future research on the complex and intriguing relationships between conflict characteristics and the conflict management approach.

Expression of Programmed Death Ligand 2 in Patients with Thymoma and Thymomatous Myasthenia Gravis

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine the expression of PD-L2 in thymoma and thymomatous myasthenia gravis (MG). Methods: The records of 70 patients with thymoma who underwent surgical resection between January 2017 and December 2018 were retrospectively reviewed. Thymoma PD-L2 expression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry (IHC) staining. Associations between PD-L2 expression and clinicopathological features were examined. Results: PD-L2 expression was positive in 41 patients (58.6%) and negative in 29 patients (41.4%). Of the patients, 33 had thymomatous MG. Patients with MG were more likely to be ≤ 50 years of age (69.70% vs. 35.14%), have higher WHO type (84.85% vs. 64.86%), smaller tumor size (4.09 ± 2.33 vs. 6.47 ± 2.42 cm), have positive PD-L2 expression (78.79% vs. 40.54%), and have higher PD-L2 expression intensity, ratio, and score (all, P < 0.05). Positive PD-L2 expression was associated with higher WHO type, higher Masaoka-Koga stage, smaller tumor size, ectopic thymus, and MG (all, P < 0.05). Factors significantly associated with MG were age > 50 years (OR = 0.09, 95% CI: 0.02 to 0.39), tumor size > 5 cm (OR = 0.22, 95% CI: 0.06 to 0.82), and positive PD-L2 expression (OR = 9.25, 95% CI: 1.93 to 44.30) (all, P < 0.05; Table 3).Conclusion: Thymoma PD-L2 expression is significantly associated with thymomatous MG and WHO histological type B2 and B3.

Facial Expression Ambiguity and Face Image Quality Affect Differently on Expression Interpretation Bias

We often show an invariant or comparable recognition performance for perceiving prototypical facial expressions, such as happiness and anger, under different viewing settings. However, it is unclear to what extent the categorisation of ambiguous expressions and associated interpretation bias are invariant in degraded viewing conditions. In this exploratory eye-tracking study, we systematically manipulated both facial expression ambiguity (via morphing happy and angry expressions in different proportions) and face image clarity/quality (via manipulating image resolution) to measure participants’ expression categorisation performance, perceived expression intensity, and associated face-viewing gaze distribution. Our analysis revealed that increasing facial expression ambiguity and decreasing face image quality induced the opposite direction of expression interpretation bias (negativity vs. positivity bias, or increased anger vs. increased happiness categorisation), the same direction of deterioration impact on rating expression intensity, and qualitatively different influence on face-viewing gaze allocation (decreased gaze at eyes but increased gaze at mouth vs. stronger central fixation bias). These novel findings suggest that in comparison with prototypical facial expressions, our visual system has less perceptual tolerance in processing ambiguous expressions which are subject to viewing condition-dependent interpretation bias.