Schizophrenic and depressed inpatients' perceptions of congruent and incongruent communications

Schizophrenic inpatients (N = 14), depressed inpatients (N = 15), and normal hospital employees (N = 15), all females, were compared on an interpersonal perception task. Subjects rated how accepting and how loving they perceived an actress to be in each of several videotapes. There were four types of videotaped behavior, defined by the possible combinations of positive or negative messages in the verbal and nonverbal channels. Based on prior research, it was expected that the schizophrenics would be more influenced by the verbal channel; based on Beck's theory of depression, it was expected that the depressives would show a bias toward perceiving the actress to be less friendly. The principal findings were that: the three groups' perceptions of the actress were influenced equally by the verbal channel; the schizophrenics were less influenced by the nonverbal channel than were the normals, but they did not differ in that regard from the depressives; and the depressives tended (p less than .10) to perceive the actress as less friendly than did the other groups. Deficits in schizophrenics' communication skills appeared not to be specific to schizophrenia.     

Effects of believes and expectations about self and others on emotional recognition of facial expressions: from the perspective of adult attachment

This study aimed at examining how adult attachment styles as believes and expectations about self and others affected emotional recognition of facial expressions. In this study, hypotheses were framed based on the perspective of attachment dimensions. One hundred and sixty one undergraduates observed positive, negative, and neutral facial expressions as stimulus, and rated the extent to which each stimuli expressed several kinds of emotion. The main results were as follows. Generally, either anxious or avoidant individuals were less likely to perceive positive emotion (happy) from facial expressions, and anxious and less avoidant individuals perceived other-oriented negative emotions (anger, disgust, and contempt). In addition, avoidant individuals were less likely to perceive positive emotion from positive facial expressions. On the other hand, from negative facial expressions, anxious and less avoidant individuals were more likely to perceive other-oriented negative emotions, and anxious individuals were less likely to perceive positive emotion. The results were discussed from the perspective of adult attachment theory.     

Impact of total sleep deprivation on behavioural neural processing of emotionally expressive faces

Sleep deprivation impacts subjective mood states, but very little research has examined the impact on processing emotional information. In the current study, we investigated the impact of total sleep deprivation on neural responses to emotional facial expressions as well as the accuracy and speed with which these faces were categorized. Forty-nine participants completed two tasks in which they were asked to categorize emotional facial expressions as Happy, Sad, Angry, or Fearful. They were shown the ‘full’ expression of the emotions in one task and more subtle expressions in a second task in which expressions were ‘morphed’ with neutral faces so that the intensity of emotion varied. It was expected that sleep deprivation would lead to greater reactivity (indexed by larger amplitude N170 event-related potentials), particularly for negative and more subtle facial expressions. In the full face task, sleep-deprived (SD) participants were significantly less accurate than controls (C) at identifying Sad faces and slower to identify all emotional expressions. P1 was smaller and N170 was larger for the SD compared to C group, but for all emotions, indicating generalized impairment in low-level visual processing. In the more difficult morphed face task, SD participants were less accurate than C participants for Sad faces; as well, the group difference in reaction time was greatest for Sad faces. For the SD group, N170 increased in amplitude with increasing perceptual difficulty for the Fearful and Angry faces, but decreased in amplitude with increasing difficulty for Sad faces. These data illustrate that sleep deprivation led to greater neural reactivity for the threat-related negative emotions as they became more subtle; however, there was a failure to engage these perceptual resources for the processing of Sad faces. Sleep loss preferentially impacted the processing of Sad faces; this has widespread implications for sleep-deprived groups.     

基于ERP情绪状态对工作记忆刷新功能影响研究

近年来,情绪对工作记忆的建设作用正逐步受到关注,尤其是情绪对工作记忆中央执行系统刷新功能的影响至关重要。组织16名青年受试者参与动态工作记忆任务实验,探讨积极、中性和消极三类不同情绪状态对工作记忆刷新功能的影响。实验首先采用国际情绪图片系统(IAPS)使受试者分别进入三类情绪状态,随后执行4个数字的动态工作记忆任务。结果发现,积极情绪状态下工作记忆刷新时间显著增长(积极情绪状态:(1.016±0.338) s;中性情绪状态:(0.814±0.347) s, P<0.05);刷新ERP在额中央部N2幅值显著小于中性情绪;工作记忆刷新的后期(400～1 000 ms),在频带13～30 Hz处的能量降低显著低于中性情绪。消极情绪状态下工作记忆刷新时间与中性情绪无显著差异;工作记忆刷新的早期(0～400ms),在频带0～8Hz处的能量升高显著低于中性情绪。以上结果说明积极情绪对工作记忆刷新存在干扰作用,但未发现消极情绪对工作记忆刷新的显著影响。有关情绪状态影响工作记忆刷新机制的初步研究将为提高工作记忆刷新绩效提供实验依据。     

Pervasive emotion recognition deficit common to alexithymia and the repressive coping style

OBJECTIVE: Previous research has demonstrated a deficit in the ability to recognize emotions in alexithymic individuals. The repressive coping style is thought to preferentially impair the detection of unpleasant compared with pleasant emotions, and the degree of deficit is typically thought to be less severe than in alexithymia. We compared emotion recognition ability in both individuals with alexithymia and those with the repressive coping style. METHODS: Three hundred seventy-nine subjects completed the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale, the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale, the Marlowe-Crowne Scale (a measure of repressive defensiveness), the Bendig Short Form of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, and the Perception of Affect Task. The Perception of Affect Task consists of four 35-item emotion recognition subtasks: matching sentences and words, faces and words, sentences and faces, and faces and photographs of scenes. The stimuli in each subtask consist of seven emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise, and neutral) depicted five times each. Recognition accuracy results were collapsed across subtasks within each emotion category. RESULTS: Highly alexithymic subjects (for all, p<.01) and those with low emotional awareness (for all, p<.001) were consistently less accurate in emotion recognition in all seven categories. Highly defensive subjects (including repressors) were less accurate in the detection of anger, sadness, fear, and happiness (for all, p<.05). Furthermore, scores on the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale accounted for significantly more variance in performance on the Perception of Affect Task than scores on the Marlowe-Crowne Scale (p<.01). CONCLUSIONS: The results indicate that alexithymia and the repressive coping style are each associated with impairments in the recognition of both pleasant and unpleasant emotions and that the two styles of emotional self-regulation differ more in the magnitude than in the quality of these impairments.     

情绪对变化盲视的影响

目的:探讨情绪对变化盲视现象的影响。方法:采用3(情绪:积极/中性/消极)×3(刺激类型:出现消失类/颜色改变类/完全替换类)的混合设计,以"图片+故事"作为情绪诱发材料,选取76名被试完成经典闪烁范式的变化探测任务。结果:①情绪主效应边缘显著,F=2.96,P=0.059;②刺激类型主效应显著,F=22.00,P<0.001;③刺激类型和情绪的交互作用显著,F=6.759,P<0.001。结论:①积极情绪促进个体对变化的觉察,消极情绪阻碍个体对变化的觉察;②情绪对变化盲视的影响受到任务难度的调节。在任务难度较大时,积极情绪促进变化觉察,消极情绪阻碍变化觉察,任务难度较小时,积极情绪和消极情绪对变化觉察的影响没有显著差异。     

Decreased P3 amplitudes elicited by negative facial emotion in manic patients: Selective deficits in emotional processing

Manic patients have impairments in recognizing negative emotional stimuli. However, there have been few studies on manic patients’ neurophysiological responses to facial emotions. We measured the P3 event-related potentials using facial emotional stimuli to investigate whether the impairment in recognition of negative emotions is greater in maniac patients. We recruited twenty manic patients and twenty controls. A visual oddball paradigm was used with facial pictures: happy, neutral, sad, fear, and disgust emotions. While P3 amplitudes of emotional stimuli were significantly larger than those of neutral stimuli in controls, the amplitudes were not significantly different from those for neutral pictures in manic patients. Repeated-measures analysis of variance on P3 amplitudes revealed significant interaction effects of paired emotions as sad-neutral, disgust-neutral, fear-neutral, but not in the happy-neutral emotion pairs. These differential P3 responses suggest that manic patients may have abnormal neurophysiological activity when evaluating negative facial emotions. Thus, these findings may give the evidence for reduced negative emotion recognition of manic patients.     

Neural correlates of regulation of positive and negative emotions: An fMRI study

Regulation of emotion is important for adaptive social functioning and mental well-being. This functional magnetic resonance imaging study identified neural correlates of regulation of positive or negative emotion. Twelve healthy female Chinese participants performed the experimental task that required them to simply view emotional pictures or to regulate their emotions induced by these pictures while their brain activities were monitored by a 1.5 T MRI scanner. The neuroimaging findings indicate that the left superior and lateral frontal regions (BA8/9) are common neural correlates of regulation of both emotions. For regulation of positive or negative emotion, changes of BOLD responses in the prefrontal regions and the left insula are associated with regulation of positive emotion; whereas activity of the left orbitofrontal gyrus, the left superior frontal gyrus, and the anterior cingulate gyrus appears to be involved in regulation of negative emotion. According to the participants’ self-report, they appeared to be more effective in regulating positive than negative emotions, which may relate to the distinct patterns of neural activity associated with regulation of the specific emotion. As a conclusion, our findings suggest that there are shared as well as valence-specific neurocognitive mechanisms underlying regulation of positive and negative emotions. Enhanced knowledge about the neural mechanisms of emotion regulation helps improve understanding of the complex interplay of emotion and cognition underlying human behaviors.     

联合脑电信号与虚拟技术的大脑情绪状态的半球不对称性研究

为区分大脑的情绪状态以及研究在不同情绪状态下的大脑半球不对称性,征选20名健康视听无障碍的受试作为实验对象,联合虚拟现实(VR)技术和脑电(EEG)监测,在不同的VR影片刺激下,采集受试脑电信号,提取各频段的平均功率谱密度,并计算大脑半球不对称性的参考指数,对比在不同情绪状态下各频段与各脑区下的参考指数.结果 显示,相...     

Verbal pragmatics following unilateral stroke: emotional content and valence

Verbal pragmatic aspects of discourse production were examined in 16 right brain-damaged (RBD), 16 left brain-damaged (LBD), and 16 normal control right-handed adults. The facilitation effect of emotional content, valence hypothesis, and relationship between pragmatics and emotion were evaluated. Participants produced monologues while recollecting emotional and nonemotional experiences. Transcribed monologues were rated for appropriateness on 6 pragmatic features: conciseness, lexical selection, quantity, relevancy, specificity, and topic maintenance. Overall, brain-damaged groups were rated as significantly less appropriate than normals. Consistent with the facilitation effect, emotional content enhanced pragmatic performance of LBD aphasic participants yet suppressed performance of RBD participants. Contrary to the valence hypothesis, RBD participants were more impaired for positive emotions and LBD participants for negative emotions. Pragmatic appropriateness was not strongly correlated with a measure of emotional intensity.     

Incidental emotions influence risk preference and outcome evaluation

Incidental emotions, which are irrelevant to the current decision, play a significant role in the decision‐making process. In this study, to investigate the influence of incidental emotions on behavioral, psychological, and electrophysiological responses in the process of decision making, participants were required to perform a monetary gambling task. During the selection stage, an emotional picture, which was chosen from the Chinese Affective Picture System and fell into one of three categories: negative, neutral, and positive, was presented between two alternatives (small/large amount of bet). The pictures were provided to induce incidental emotions. ERPs and self‐rating emotional experiences to outcome feedback were recorded during the task. Behavioral results showed that positive incidental emotions elicited risk preference, but emotional experiences to outcome feedback were not influenced by incidental emotions. The feedback‐related negativity amplitudes were larger in the positive emotion condition than in the negative and neutral emotion conditions for small outcomes (including wins and losses), whereas there was no difference between the three conditions for large outcomes. In addition, the amplitudes of P3 were reduced overall in the negative emotion condition. We suggest that incidental emotions have modulated both the option assessment stage (manifested in behavioral choices) and the outcome evaluation stage (manifested in ERP amplitudes) of decision making unconsciously (indicated by unchanged subjective emotional experiences). The current findings have expanded our understanding of the role of incidental emotion in decision making.     

中职生学业情绪现状调查

目的:探讨现阶段上海市中职生学业情绪的现状。方法:采用青少年学业情绪问卷对上海市某中职学校一、二年级共276名学生进行问卷调查。结果:中职生体验到的积极高唤醒学业情绪强度最强。中职生被试的消极高唤醒学业情绪上存在着显著的性别差异(t=-2.89,P0.01);在积极高唤醒(t=4.02,P0.001)、积极低唤醒(t=-1.98,P0.05)、消极高唤醒(t=2.34,P0.05)维度上,学业情绪存在显著的年级差异;在积极低唤醒(t=-1.97,P0.05)、消极高唤醒(t=2.40,P0.05)维度上,学业情绪存在显著的专业差异;在积极高唤醒(t=-2.52,P0.05)、消极高唤醒(t=-2.33,P0.05)维度上,学业情绪存在显著的生源类别差异。结论:中职生学业情绪体验比较丰富,体验到的积极学业情绪多于消极学业情绪,整体水平良好。不同类群的中职生体验到的学业情绪存在不同。     

大学生情绪调节方式与抑郁的研究

目的：探讨大学生的情绪及情绪调节方法及其与抑郁和性别的关系。方法：98名大学本科生接受了情绪量表,情绪调节方式量表和抑郁量表的评定。结果：（1）大学生情绪感受频率序列（从多到少）为：快乐、兴趣,羞愧、内疚,羞涩、悲伤、惊奇、敌意、愤怒、蔑视、厌恶、恐惧等。（2）一般的模式在感受负性情绪时出现比较多的忽视和抑制,感受正性情绪时出现比较多的重视和宣泄;原因调节多于反应调节。（3）男性感受比较多的愤怒、在感受正性情绪时,男性存在比较多的忽视和抑制,女性存在比较多的重视和宣泄。（4）抑郁高分组包含比较的羞愧、羞涩、悲伤,自我敌意、恐惧、厌恶、愤怒等负性情绪,比较少的快乐和兴趣。在调节方式上,高抑郁在感受负情绪时有更多的重视和宣泄,在感受正情情绪时存在比较多的忽视和抑制,比较少的重视和宣泄,结论：不适当的情绪调节方式可能是增强抑郁的重要原因。     

Acute sleep restriction effects on emotion responses in 30- to 36-month-old children

Early childhood is a period of dramatic change in sleep and emotion processing, as well as a time when disturbance in both domains are first detected. Although sleep is recognized as central in emotion processing and psychopathology, the great majority of experimental data have been collected in adults. We examined the effects of acute sleep restriction (nap deprivation) on toddlers' emotion expression. Ten healthy children (seven females; 30-36 months old) followed a strict sleep schedule (≥12.5 h time in bed per 24-h) for 5 days, before each of two randomly assigned afternoon emotion assessments following Nap and No-Nap conditions (resulting in an 11-day protocol). Children viewed emotion-eliciting pictures (five positive, three neutral, three negative) and completed puzzles (one solvable, one unsolvable). Children's faces were video-recorded, and emotion displays were coded. When sleep restricted, children displayed less confusion in response to neutral pictures, more negativity to neutral and negative pictures, and less positivity to positive pictures. Sleep restriction also resulted in a 34% reduction in positive emotion responses (solvable puzzle), as well as a 31% increase in negative emotion responses and a 39% decrease in confused responses (unsolvable puzzle). These findings suggest sleep is a key factor in how young children respond to their world. When sleep restricted, toddlers are neither able to take full advantage of positive experiences nor are they as adaptive in challenging contexts. If insufficient sleep consistently 'taxes' young children's emotion responses, they may not manage emotion regulation challenges effectively, potentially placing them at risk for future emotional/behavioral problems.     

Recognition of emotional facial expressions in benzodiazepine dependence and detoxification

Introduction: The study investigates how benzodiazepine (BZD) use and detoxification affects empathy and the recognition and intensity rating of emotional facial expressions. The sample comprised 43 participants in three groups: (1) during detoxification (N?=?13), (2) after detoxification (N?=?15), (3) a matched control group (N?=?15). Clinical subjects were recruited from in-patients of an addiction treatment unit.

Methods: Empathy levels were tested with the Empathy Quotient (EQ-Short). Recognition accuracy and emotion intensity rating were based on a computerised task displaying static and dynamic facial expressions of joy, anger, sadness, and fear.

Results: The controls proved more accurate than both experimental groups in identifying facial expressions of negative emotions. Joy recognition proved most accurate overall. Among the clinical subjects, women in particular exhibited an impaired ability to correctly identify negative emotions from facial expressions. Dynamic stimuli were better recognised than static ones albeit only in the experimental groups. No significant differences were found for emotion intensity ratings and EQ scores.

Conclusion: Our findings suggest that the impaired facial emotion recognition accuracy is not caused by deficits in empathy. No improvement was recorded post-detoxification which may indicate impaired interpersonal functioning among BZD users. Further research is warranted in light of this study’s limitations.     

The cognitive consequences of emotion regulation: an ERP investigation

Increasing evidence suggests that emotion regulation (ER) strategies modulate encoding of information presented during regulation; however, no studies have assessed the impact of cognitive reappraisal ER strategies on the processing of stimuli presented after the ER period. Participants in the present study regulated emotions to unpleasant pictures and then judged whether a word was negative or neutral. Electromyographic measures (corrugator supercilli) confirmed that individuals increased and decreased negative affect according to ER condition. Event-related potential analyses revealed smallest N400 amplitudes to negative and neutral words presented after decreasing unpleasant emotions and smallest P300 amplitudes to words presented after increasing unpleasant emotions whereas reaction time data failed to show ER modulations. Results are discussed in the context of the developing ER literature, as well as theories of emotional incongruity (N400) and resource allocation (P300).     

Posed facial expressions of emotion in schizophrenia and depression.

The goals of the present study were to explore: (1) whether schizophrenics, depressives, and normals differ in their likelihood of expressing different emotions; and (2) whether the types of expressions subjects exhibit are associated with their level of reported depressive symptomatology. Subjects were asked to imagine: seeing, smelling, or tasting something disgusting; and having something wonderful happen to them. Subjects were asked to show the experimenter what their face would look like if these things happened. The groups differed in how frequently they exhibited anger or contempt in the first condition and happiness in the second condition. The depressives were most likely to exhibit anger/contempt and least likely to exhibit happiness. Using Beck Depression Inventory scores as dependent variables, there were significant interactions between diagnostic group and the type of facial expressions exhibited. The associations between facial expressions and BDI scores were in the opposite directions for depressives and schizophrenics.     

Marital adjustment in major depression

The association between depression and marital adjustment is examined in 45 married inpatients with major depression as compared to 45 normal controls from the same community. The marriages of the depressed couples were significantly worse in all areas of functioning than were those of the normals. Two risk factors which distinguished the families of origin of the depressed and normal couples were history of divorce and/or separation in parents and death in the family. In addition, twice as many of the children of the depressives had serious medical or psychiatric illness compared to those of the normals.     

The mind in REM sleep: reports of emotional experience.

STUDY OBJECTIVES: No consensus has been reached on the characteristics of emotional experience during rapid eye movement sleep (REM). Thus, the relationship between the emotional brain activation and mental activity in REM remains unclear. Our objective is to characterize emotional experience in REM in order to facilitate understanding of brain-mind correlations in this state. DESIGN: We combined instrumental awakenings from REM with the subjects' own ratings of the occurrence and intensity of discrete emotion types for each line in their REM mentation reports. SETTING: The study was performed in the subjects' own homes over three consecutive nights using ambulatory polysomnography. PARTICIPANTS: Nine normal healthy subjects, age 31-60 (mean=43.0). INTERVENTIONS: Awakenings 5-15 minutes into REM periods across the night. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Emotions were found in 74% of 88 mentation reports, with a balanced proportion of positive and negative emotions. Among the reports scored for emotions, 14% contained one emotion and 86% contained two or more different emotion types. Joy/elation was the most frequent emotion, found in 36% of the reports, followed by surprise (24%), anger (17%), anxiety/fear (11%), and sadness (10%). Anxiety/fear was significantly less intense than joy/elation, anger, and surprise. Except for surprise, no specific emotion type changed from the first to the second half of the night. Negative emotions and surprise but not positive emotions varied significantly across subjects. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of subject reports of emotions following instrumental awakenings demonstrate a balanced and widespread occurrence of both positive and negative emotions in REM sleep dreams. Emotions in REM are likely to be powerfully modulated by the neurobiological processes which differentiate REM from waking.     

大学生学业情绪量表(AEQ)中文版的修订

目的:对大学生学业情绪量表(AEQ英文版)进行中文修订。方法:以1114名大学生为被试,分析中文版的信、效度。结果:①修订后的问卷内部一致性系数在0.67～0.90之间;②AEQ的积极情绪快乐、希望、自豪和ABS-10呈负相关(r=-0.22～-0.41),消极情绪生气、焦虑、厌烦、失望、羞愧和ABS-10呈正相关(r=0.21～0.58),学业成绩和AEQ的积极情绪呈正相关(r=0.15～0.30),和消极情绪呈负相关(r=-0.16～-0.32);③探索性因素分析得出三种情境下的分量表均包含8个因子,验证性因素分析的结果表明模型4对数据的拟合情况最好。结论:中文版AEQ是一个有效的测量大学生学业情绪的工具。