Brief research report: autistic traits modulate the rapid detection of punishment-associated neutral faces.

Speedy detection of faces with emotional value plays a fundamental role in social interactions. A few previous studies using a visual search paradigm have reported that individuals with high autistic traits (ATs), who are characterized by deficits in social interactions, demonstrated decreased detection performance for emotional facial expressions. However, whether ATs modulate the rapid detection of faces with emotional value remains inconclusive because emotional facial expressions involve salient visual features (i.e., a U-shaped mouth in a happy expression) that can facilitate visual attention. In order to disentangle the effects of visual factors from the rapid detection of emotional faces, we examined the rapid detection of neutral faces associated with emotional value among young adults with varying degrees of ATs in a visual search task. In the experiment, participants performed a learning task wherein neutral faces were paired with monetary reward, monetary punishment, or no monetary outcome, such that the neutral faces acquired positive, negative, or no emotional value, respectively. During the subsequent visual search task, previously learned neutral faces were presented as discrepant faces among newly presented neutral distractor faces, and the participants were asked to detect the discrepant faces. The results demonstrated a significant negative association between the degrees of ATs and an advantage in detecting punishment-associated neutral faces. This indicates the decreased detection of faces with negative value in individuals with higher ATs, which may contribute to their difficulty in making prompt responses in social situations.

Sex differences in the rapid detection of neutral faces associated with emotional value.

BACKGROUND: Rapid detection of faces with emotional meaning is essential for understanding the emotions of others, possibly promoting successful interpersonal relationships. Although few studies have examined sex differences in the ability to detect emotional faces, it remains unclear whether faces with emotional meaning capture the attention of females and males differently, because emotional faces have visual saliency that modulates visual attention. To overcome this issue, we tested the rapid detection of the neutral faces associated with and without learned emotional value, which are all regarded as free from visual saliency. We examined sex differences in the rapid detection of the neutral female and male faces associated with emotional value. METHODS: First, young adult female and male participants completed an associative learning task in which neutral faces were associated with either monetary rewards, monetary punishments, or no monetary outcomes, such that the neutral faces acquired positive, negative, and no emotional value, respectively. Then, they engaged in a visual search task in which previously learned neutral faces were presented as discrepant faces among newly presented neutral distractor faces. During the visual search task, the participants were required to rapidly identify discrepant faces. RESULTS: Female and male participants exhibited comparable learning abilities. The visual search results demonstrated that female participants achieved rapid detection of neutral faces associated with emotional value irrespective of the sex of the faces presented, whereas male participants showed this ability only for male faces. CONCLUSIONS: Our results demonstrated that sex differences in the ability to rapidly detect neutral faces with emotional value were modulated by the sex of those faces. The results suggest greater sensitivity to faces with emotional significance in females, which might enrich interpersonal communication, regardless of sex.

Speedy detection of faces with emotional meaning plays a fundamental role in social interactions. However, it is unclear whether females and males differ in their ability to rapidly detect neutral faces associated with newly acquired emotional meaning/value. This study examined the sex differences in the rapid detection of neutral female and male faces associated with emotional value subsequent to associative learning. During learning, neutral faces were paired with monetary reward or punishment, such that they acquired positive or negative emotional value, respectively. In a subsequent visual search task, previously learned neutral faces were presented as discrepant faces among newly presented neutral faces, and the participants had to rapidly identify the discrepant faces. The results showed that, among female participants, neutral faces associated with reward and punishment were detected more rapidly than neutral faces not associated with monetary outcomes, irrespective of the sex of the face stimuli. By contrast, male participants only showed the rapid detection of neutral male faces. The results suggest enhanced sensitivity to faces with emotional meaning among females, which is consistent with the notion of greater sensitivity to emotional/social information in females.

Long-Term Influence of Incidental Emotions on the Emotional Judgment of Neutral Faces.

Background: Evidence indicates that the processing of facial stimuli may be influenced by incidental factors, and these influences are particularly powerful when facial expressions are ambiguous, such as neutral faces. However, limited research investigated whether emotional contextual information presented in a preceding and unrelated experiment could be pervasively carried over to another experiment to modulate neutral face processing. Objective: The present study aims to investigate whether an emotional text presented in a first experiment could generate negative emotion toward neutral faces in a second experiment unrelated to the previous experiment. Methods: Ninety-nine students (all women) were randomly assigned to read and evaluate a negative text (negative context) or a neutral text (neutral text) in the first experiment. In the subsequent second experiment, the participants performed the following two tasks: (1) an attentional task in which neutral faces were presented as distractors and (2) a task involving the emotional judgment of neutral faces. Results: The results show that compared to the neutral context, in the negative context, the participants rated more faces as negative. No significant result was found in the attentional task. Conclusion: Our study demonstrates that incidental emotional information available in a previous experiment can increase participants' propensity to interpret neutral faces as more negative when emotional information is directly evaluated. Therefore, the present study adds important evidence to the literature suggesting that our behavior and actions are modulated by previous information in an incidental or low perceived way similar to what occurs in everyday life, thereby modulating our judgments and emotions.

Influence of violent contexts on facial reactions elicited by angry and neutral faces.

This study focuses on determining whether violent contexts influence the perception of aggressiveness in faces analysing spontaneous corrugator supercilii activity. Participants viewed pictures of neutral and angry faces preceded by a contextual sentence describing either violent or neutral actions. They were instructed to judge each face according to whether it was aggressive or non-aggressive. Results show a higher level of perceived aggressiveness for neutral faces preceded by violent contexts, accompanied by longer reaction times, and a significant increase of corrugator activity. Angry faces preceded by neutral contexts were judged as less aggressive and elicited less corrugator activity. In conclusion, our results provide evidence that facial reactions and aggressiveness judgment for faces are context-dependent. With this work, we contribute to the view that contextual cues guide the face's emotional meaning, under top-down processing.

A Study of Creating Face Photographs Set Including Different Levels of Attractiveness.

INTRODUCTION: This study was aimed to create a set of photographs including human faces with neutral expression and different levels of attractiveness that can be utilized scientifically by different disciplines and for different scopes. METHODS: In total, 186 students (120 females, 66 males) volunteered to be photographed in passport style with a neutral expression. In these pictures there was no make-up, earring, or piercing. These photographs were evaluated by the participants for the neutrality and attractiveness. The secondary sex characteristics of the faces were also assessed. RESULTS: Symmetrical faces were created by taking the mirror image of the right and left sides of the faces because sufficient number of photographs could not be obtained at the first stage. According to the evaluations of these photographs by the participants, 26 attractive (13 females, 13 males) and 26 average (13 females, 13 male) faces were selected for the final set. CONCLUSION: Finally, a set of 52 photographs representing human faces with neutral expression with different levels of attractiveness is developed. According to the measurement of the secondary sexual characteristics, attractive and average faces differ in terms of the width of the eyes, the nasal area, and the length of the chin. Thus, a scientific-based FaceSet including different levels of the attractiveness has been available for the use by those concerned.

Influence of task instructions and stimuli on the neural network of face processing: An ALE meta-analysis.

Many neuroimaging studies have investigated the neural correlates of face processing. However, the location of face-preferential regions differs considerably between studies, possibly due to the use of different stimuli or tasks. By using Activation likelihood estimation meta-analyses, we aimed to a) delineate regions consistently involved in face processing and b) to assess the influence of stimuli and task on convergence of activation patterns. In total, we included 77 neuroimaging experiments in healthy subjects comparing face processing to a control condition. Results revealed a core face-processing network encompassing bilateral fusiform gyrus (FFG), inferior occipital (IOG) gyrus, superior temporal sulcus/middle temporal gyrus (STS/MTG), amygdala, inferior frontal junction (IFJ) and gyrus (IFG), left anterior insula as well as pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Furthermore, separate meta-analyses showed, that while significant convergence across all task and stimuli conditions was found in bilateral amygdala, right IOG, right mid-FFG, and right IFG, convergence in IFJ, STS/MTG, right posterior FFG, left FFG and pre-SMA differed between conditions. Thus, our results point to an occipito-frontal-amygdalae system that is involved regardless of stimulus and attention, whereas the remaining regions of the face-processing network are influenced by the task-dependent focus on specific facial characteristics as well as the type of stimuli processed.

Face and gaze perception in borderline personality disorder: An electrical neuroimaging study.

Humans are sensitive to gaze direction from early life, and gaze has social and affective values. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is a clinical condition characterized by emotional dysregulation and enhanced sensitivity to affective and social cues. In this study we wanted to investigate the temporal-spatial dynamics of spontaneous gaze processing in BPD. We used a 2-back-working-memory task, in which neutral faces with direct and averted gaze were presented. Gaze was used as an emotional modulator of event-related-potentials to faces. High density EEG data were acquired in 19 females with BPD and 19 healthy women, and analyzed with a spatio-temporal microstates analysis approach. Independently of gaze direction, BPD patients showed altered N170 and P200 topographies for neutral faces. Source localization revealed that the anterior cingulate and other prefrontal regions were abnormally activated during the N170 component related to face encoding, while middle temporal deactivations were observed during the P200 component. Post-task affective ratings showed that BPD patients had difficulty to disambiguate neutral gaze. This study provides first evidence for an early neural bias toward neutral faces in BPD independent of gaze direction and also suggests the importance of considering basic aspects of social cognition in identifying biological risk factors of BPD.

Sad Facial Expressions Increase Choice Blindness.

Previous studies have discovered a fascinating phenomenon known as choice blindness-individuals fail to detect mismatches between the face they choose and the face replaced by the experimenter. Although previous studies have reported a couple of factors that can modulate the magnitude of choice blindness, the potential effect of facial expression on choice blindness has not yet been explored. Using faces with sad and neutral expressions (Experiment 1) and faces with happy and neutral expressions (Experiment 2) in the classic choice blindness paradigm, the present study investigated the effects of facial expressions on choice blindness. The results showed that the detection rate was significantly lower on sad faces than neutral faces, whereas no significant difference was observed between happy faces and neutral faces. The exploratory analysis of verbal reports found that participants who reported less facial features for sad (as compared to neutral) expressions also tended to show a lower detection rate of sad (as compared to neutral) faces. These findings indicated that sad facial expressions increased choice blindness, which might have resulted from inhibition of further processing of the detailed facial features by the less attractive sad expressions (as compared to neutral expressions).

A brain-computer interface for potential non-verbal facial communication based on EEG signals related to specific emotions.

Unlike assistive technology for verbal communication, the brain-machine or brain-computer interface (BMI/BCI) has not been established as a non-verbal communication tool for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients. Face-to-face communication enables access to rich emotional information, but individuals suffering from neurological disorders, such as ALS and autism, may not express their emotions or communicate their negative feelings. Although emotions may be inferred by looking at facial expressions, emotional prediction for neutral faces necessitates advanced judgment. The process that underlies brain neuronal responses to neutral faces and causes emotional changes remains unknown. To address this problem, therefore, this study attempted to decode conditioned emotional reactions to neutral face stimuli. This direction was motivated by the assumption that if electroencephalogram (EEG) signals can be used to detect patients' emotional responses to specific inexpressive faces, the results could be incorporated into the design and development of BMI/BCI-based non-verbal communication tools. To these ends, this study investigated how a neutral face associated with a negative emotion modulates rapid central responses in face processing and then identified cortical activities. The conditioned neutral face-triggered event-related potentials that originated from the posterior temporal lobe statistically significantly changed during late face processing (600-700 ms) after stimulus, rather than in early face processing activities, such as P1 and N170 responses. Source localization revealed that the conditioned neutral faces increased activity in the right fusiform gyrus (FG). This study also developed an efficient method for detecting implicit negative emotional responses to specific faces by using EEG signals. A classification method based on a support vector machine enables the easy classification of neutral faces that trigger specific individual emotions. In accordance with this classification, a face on a computer morphs into a sad or displeased countenance. The proposed method could be incorporated as a part of non-verbal communication tools to enable emotional expression.

Ansiedade social e atribuição de emoções a faces neutras / Social snxiety and attribution of affect to neutral faces

Trabalhos anteriores têm revelado vieses no reconhecimento de emoções e padrões diferenciais de ativação cerebral no transtorno de ansiedade social. No presente estudo, foi investigada a atribuição de emoções a faces neutras em 22 indivíduos com ansiedade social e 20 voluntários controles. Através do método da escolha forçada, participantes atribuíram emoções de alegria, medo, raiva ou tristeza a faces neutras. Verificou-se que homens e mulheres com ansiedade social atribuíram mais frequentemente emoções de raiva e tristeza às faces neutras, respectivamente. A atribuição de raiva por homens pode estar associada à tendência masculina em detectar sinais de hostilidade no ambiente social, enquanto que o aumento na atribuição de tristeza pelas mulheres pode estar associado à facilitação na identificação de emoções negativas. Os resultados sugerem que a ansiedade social afeta diferentemente os sexos e têm implicações importantes sobre o uso da face neutra como condição de base ou controle nas neurociências comportamentais.(AU)

Previous research has revealed facial emotion recognition biases and distinctive patterns of brain activation in social anxiety disorder. We investigated the attribution of emotion to neutral facial displays in 22 subjects with social anxiety and 20 healthy controls. Using a forced choice paradigm, participants labeled neutral faces as happy, fearful, angry or sad. The most frequent emotional labels attributed by males and females to neutral faces were anger and sadness, respectively. These findings are discussed according to the notion that the attribution of anger by men may be associated with the male tendency to detect hostile environmental signs, whereas the increased attribution of sadness by females might be associated with facilitated identification of negative affect. The results suggest that social anxiety disorder differentially affects males and females and has important implications concerning the use of the neutral face as a baseline or control condition in behavioral neuroscience.(AU)

Ansiedade social e atribuição de emoções a faces neutras / Social snxiety and attribution of affect to neutral faces

Trabalhos anteriores têm revelado vieses no reconhecimento de emoções e padrões diferenciais de ativação cerebral no transtorno de ansiedade social. No presente estudo, foi investigada a atribuição de emoções a faces neutras em 22 indivíduos com ansiedade social e 20 voluntários controles. Através do método da escolha forçada, participantes atribuíram emoções de alegria, medo, raiva ou tristeza a faces neutras. Verificou-se que homens e mulheres com ansiedade social atribuíram mais frequentemente emoções de raiva e tristeza às faces neutras, respectivamente. A atribuição de raiva por homens pode estar associada à tendência masculina em detectar sinais de hostilidade no ambiente social, enquanto que o aumento na atribuição de tristeza pelas mulheres pode estar associado à facilitação na identificação de emoções negativas. Os resultados sugerem que a ansiedade social afeta diferentemente os sexos e têm implicações importantes sobre o uso da face neutra como condição de base ou controle nas neurociências comportamentais.

Previous research has revealed facial emotion recognition biases and distinctive patterns of brain activation in social anxiety disorder. We investigated the attribution of emotion to neutral facial displays in 22 subjects with social anxiety and 20 healthy controls. Using a forced choice paradigm, participants labeled neutral faces as happy, fearful, angry or sad. The most frequent emotional labels attributed by males and females to neutral faces were anger and sadness, respectively. These findings are discussed according to the notion that the attribution of anger by men may be associated with the male tendency to detect hostile environmental signs, whereas the increased attribution of sadness by females might be associated with facilitated identification of negative affect. The results suggest that social anxiety disorder differentially affects males and females and has important implications concerning the use of the neutral face as a baseline or control condition in behavioral neuroscience.