Event-related potential study to aversive auditory stimuli

In an auditory oddball task emotionally negative (aversive) sounds (e.g. rubbing together of polystyrene) and everyday sounds (e.g. ringing of a bicycle bell) were presented as task-irrelevant (novel) sounds. Both the aversive and the everyday sounds elicited the orientation-related P3a component of the event-related potentials (ERPs). In the 154–250 ms range the ERPs for the aversive sounds were more negative than the ERP of the everyday sounds. For the aversive sounds, this negativity was followed by a frontal positive wave (372–456 ms). The aversive sounds elicited larger late positive shift than the everyday sounds. The early negativity is considered as an initial effect in a broad neural network including limbic structures, while the later is related to the cognitive assessment of the stimuli and to memory-related processes.     

Musically induced arousal affects pain perception in females but not in males: a psychophysiological examination

The present study investigated affective and physiological responses to changes of tempo and mode in classical music and their effects on heat pain perception. Thirty-eight healthy non-musicians (17 female) listened to sequences of 24 music stimuli which were variations of 4 pieces of classical music. Tempo (46, 60, and 95 beats/min) and mode (major and minor) were manipulated digitally, all other musical elements were held constant. Participants rated valence, arousal, happiness and sadness of the musical stimuli as well as the intensity and the unpleasantness of heat pain stimuli which were applied during music listening. Heart rate, respiratory rate and end-tidal PCO(2) were recorded. Pain ratings were highest for the fastest tempo. Also, participants' arousal ratings, their respiratory rate and heart rate were accelerated by the fastest tempo. The modulation of pain perception by the tempo of music seems to be mediated by the listener's arousal.     

IAPS includes photographs that elicit low-arousal physiological responses in healthy volunteers

This article describes pleasant IAPS pictures that elicit low-arousal rather than the high-arousal physiological responses previously reported in the literature. Thirty-two International Affective Picture System (IAPS) photographs were grouped into 4 sets of 8 photographs: highly pleasant-arousing (sexual content and adventures), highly pleasant-relaxing pictures (landscapes, flowers or babies), neutral on both valence/arousal, and highly unpleasant-arousing ones. These stimuli were shown to 24 healthy Brazilian University students (12 males) who had their physiological responses recorded [corrugator and zygomatic facial electromyography activity, skin conductance, heart rate, and peripheral temperature]. Zygomatic EMG differentiated low-arousal pleasant photographs from high-arousal pleasant stimuli of the same valence.     

Postauricular and eyeblink startle responses to facial expressions

Emotional facial expressions have affective significance. Smiles, for example, are perceived as positive and responded to with increased happiness, whereas angry expressions are perceived as negative and threatening. Yet, these perceptions are modulated in part by facial morphological cues related to the sex of the expresser. The present research assessed both eyeblink startle and the postauricular reflex during happy and angry expressions by men and women. For this 14 male and 16 female undergraduates saw happy, neutral, and angry facial expressions as well as positive and negative pictures. The postauricular reflex was potentiated during happy expressions and inhibited during anger expressions; however, as expected, this pattern was more clearly found for female expressers. Conversely, the expected pattern of eyeblink startle potentiation during angry faces and inhibition during happy faces was found only for male expressers.     

Continuity versus change in latent profiles of emotion regulation and working memory during adolescence

Significant structural and functional brain development occurs during early adolescence. These changes underlie developments in central neurocognitive processes such as working memory (WM) and emotion regulation (ER). The preponderance of studies modeling trajectories of adolescent brain development use variable-centered approaches, omitting attention to individual differences that may undergird neurobiological embedding of early life stress and attendant psychopathology. This preregistered, data-driven study used latent transition analysis (LTA) to identify (1) latent profiles of neural function during a WM and implicit ER task, (2) transitions in profiles across 24 months, and 3) associations between transitions, parental support, and subsequent psychopathology. Using two waves of data from the ABCD Study (Mage T1 = 10; Mage T2 = 12), we found three unique profiles of neural function at both T1 and T2. The Typical, Emotion Hypo-response, and Emotion-Hyper response profiles were characterized by, respectively: moderate amygdala activation and fusiform deactivation; high ACC, fusiform, and insula deactivation; and high amygdala, ACC, and insula response to ER. While 69.5 % remained in the Typical profile from T1 to T2, 27.8 % of the sample moved from one profile at T1 to another at T2. However, neither latent profiles nor transitions exhibited associations between parental support or psychopathology symptoms.     

An examination of the incremental contribution of emotion regulation difficulties to health anxiety beyond specific emotion regulation strategies

Given the potential transdiagnostic importance of emotion dysregulation, as well as a lack of research examining emotion dysregulation in relation to health anxiety, the present study sought to examine associations among specific emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression), emotion regulation difficulties, and health anxiety in a physically healthy sample of adults (N = 482). As hypothesized, results of a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that emotion regulation difficulties provided a significant incremental contribution, beyond the specific emotion regulation strategies, in predicting each of the three health anxiety variables. Among the six dimensions of emotion regulation difficulties, the dimension representing perceived access to effective emotion regulation strategies was the only emotion regulation difficulty dimension that predicted all three health anxiety variables beyond the effects of the specific emotion regulation strategies. Results indicate that emotion regulation difficulties, and particularly one's subjective appraisal of his/her ability to effectively regulate emotions, may be of importance to health anxiety. Clinical implications are discussed.     

认知行为取向团体辅导对大学生生气情绪管理的干预效果研究

目的：研究认知行为互动团体辅导对大学生生气情绪管理的干预效果。方法：筛选出21名大学生为试验组,进行4期8次的认知行为取向的团体心理辅导;同时设立对照组21名,不参加团体训练。通过定量和定性的方法对于干预效果进行评估。结果：通过团体心理辅导后,试验组在情境生气、特质生气、生气表达及非理性信念的后测结果较前测显著降低（P〈0．05）,对照组的前后测分数无显著差异（P〉0．05）;后测和追踪测量的结果：在情境生气、特质生气等4个维度方面,试验组显著低于对照组（P〈0．05）。结论：认知行为取向团体心理辅导对改善大学生生气情绪管理具有积极正向的效果。     

Can children with autism read emotions from the eyes? The Eyes Test revisited

This study aimed to test two new, simplified tasks related to the eye-test, targeting children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and typically developing controls (TD). Test-1 assessed the recognition of emotion/mental states with displays using one word and two eye-pictures, whereas Test-2 presented displays using two words and one eye-picture. Black and white photographs of children were used as materials. A cross-cultural study (Caucasian/East-Asian) with adults was initially carried out to verify generalizability across different ethnic groups. Cross-sectional trajectory analyses were used to compare emotion recognition from the eyes in the two tests. Trajectories were constructed linking performance on both tests either to chronological age or to different measures of mental age (receptive vocabulary based on the BPVS, CARS or ASQ for the ASD group). Performance improved with chronological age in both the ASD and TD groups of children. However, performance in Test-1 was significantly superior in children with ASD, who showed delayed onset and slower rate of improvement than TD children in Test-2. In both the ASD and TD groups the lowest error rate was recorded for the item ‘anger’, suggesting that threat-detection cue mechanisms may be intact in autism. In general, all children showed good performance on our novel tests, thus making them good candidates for assessing younger children and those with lower general abilities.     

Physiological evidence of a deficit to enhance the empathic response in schizophrenia

Empathy is crucial for maintaining effective social interactions. Research has identified both an early-emotional sharing and a late-cognitive component of empathy. Although considered a functionally vital social cognition process, empathy has scarcely been studied in schizophrenia (SZ). We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to study the temporal dynamics of empathic response in 19 patients with SZ and 18 matched healthy controls (HC) using an empathy for physical pain paradigm. Participants responded to pictures of hands in neutral and painful situations in an active empathic condition and one manipulated by task demands. Additionally, subjective ratings of the stimuli and empathic self-reports were collected. People with SZ had (1) decreased early-emotional ERP responses to pictures of others in pain; (2) decreased modulation by attention of late-cognitive ERP responses; (3) lower ratings of perspective taking and higher ratings of personal distress which were both related to decreased modulation of late-cognitive empathic responses; (4) a significant relationship between high affective overlap between somebody else's pain and their own pain and decreased modulation of late-cognitive empathic responses; (5) a distinct relationship between regulatory deficits in late-cognitive empathy and functioning. Patients had present but reduced early and late empathy-related ERPs. Patients also reported increased personal distress when faced with distress in others. The late ERP responses are thought to be associated with self-regulation and response modulation. The magnitude of these late responses was inversely associated with reported levels of personal distress in both patients and controls. Additionally, regulatory deficits in cognitive empathy were highly related with deficits in functioning. Decreased ability to regulate one's own emotional engagement and response to emotions of others may be an important source of distress and dysfunction in social situations for patients with schizophrenia.