Facial electromyographic reactions and autonomic activity to auditory stimuli

This study explored whether high- and low-intensity auditory stimuli evoke different facial electromyographic reactions and autonomic responses. Subjects were repeatedly exposed to 95-dB and 75-dB tones (1000 Hz, 40 ms rise and fall times) while their facial electromyograms from the corrugator and zygomatic muscle regions, heart rate, skin conductance responses, skin conductance half recovery time and ratings were measured. The 95-dB tone evoked a "negative" reaction with increased corrugator activity and an autonomic response pattern that carried aspects of a defense reaction, that is, slowly habituating skin conductance responses with retarded recovery rate and an initial tendency to heart rate acceleration. Furthermore, the 95-dB tone was rated as unpleasant. The 75-dB tone elicited an orienting response indicated by a distinct heart rate deceleration and fast habituating skin conductance responses with a relatively short recovery time. Thus, the present study demonstrated that the facial electromyographic technique is sensitive to simple environmental stimuli such as auditory stimuli and that the facial response is consistent with the autonomic response patterns and the experience of the stimuli.     

Probing the psychophysiology of the airways: physical activity, experienced emotion, and facially expressed emotion

This article reviews research on airway reactivity in health and asthma within a psychophysiological context, including the effects of physical activity, emotion induction, and manipulation of facial expression of emotion. Skeletal muscle activation leads to airway dilation, with vagal withdrawal being the most likely mechanism. Emotional arousal, in particular negative affect, leads to airway constriction, with evidence for a vagal pathway in depressive states and ventilatory contributions in positive affect. Laboratory-induced airway responses covary with reports of emotion-induced asthma and with lung function decline during negative mood in the field. Like physical activity, facial expression of emotion leads to airway dilation. However, these effects are small and less consistent in posed emotional expressions. The mechanisms of emotion-induced airway responses and potential benefits of emotional expression in asthma deserve further study.     

Right hemisphere representation of autonomic conditioning to facial emotional expressions

In this experiment, a lateralized right hemisphere effect was found for electrodermal associative learning to facial emotional expressions. Sixty-two subjects were presented simultaneously with a slide of a happy face in the right or left visual half field (VHF) and a slide of an angry face in the opposite VHF. Four groups were formed by the combination of the two VHF positions of angry/happy faces and the administration/omission of shock unconditioned stimuli. The results showed that simultaneous presentation of the angry face to the right hemisphere and the happy face to the left hemisphere, together with shock, resulted in a strong conditioned association with the angry face and a relatively weak association with the happy face. Furthermore, simultaneous presentation of the angry face to the left hemisphere and the happy face to the right hemisphere, together with shock, resulted in a relatively weak association with both stimuli. No significant differences were found for the no-shock control groups. The present results confirm previous findings of a right hemisphere advantage for representation of associative learning.     

Amygdalar unit activity during three learning tasks: eyeblink classical conditioning, Pavlovian fear conditioning, and signaled avoidance conditioning

Neural activity in central and basolateral amygdala nuclei (CeA and BLA, respectively) was recorded during delay eyeblink conditioning, Pavlovian fear conditioning, and signaled barpress avoidance. During paired training, the CeA exhibited robust learning-related excitatory activity during all 3 tasks. By contrast, the BLA exhibited minimal activity during eyeblink conditioning, while demonstrating pronounced increases in learning-related excitatory responsiveness during fear conditioning and barpress avoidance. In addition, the relative amount of amygdalar activation observed appeared to be related to the relative intensity of the unconditioned stimulus and somatic requirements of the task. Results suggest the CeA mediates the Pavlovian association between sensory stimuli and the BLA mediates the modulation of instrumental responding through the assignment of motivational value to the unconditioned stimulus.     

Facial expressions of emotion and physiologic reactions in children with bronchial asthma

Eighteen children with bronchial asthma (ages 7.5 to 12) and 18 control children were exposed to a pleasant comic film and a stress-inducing achievement task. Facial expressions of emotion and heart rate (HR) were recorded, and pre- and posttest forced expiratory volume at 1 sec (FEV1) were assessed. The asthmatic children showed significantly fewer expressions of emotion than the control subjects in the stress-inducing but not in the joy-inducing situation. Their FEV1 decreased significantly under both experimental conditions, whereas no significant changes were found in the control group. The asthmatic children's mean HR was significantly higher under both experimental conditions than during the preceding pauses. In the control group, no significant changes in mean HR were found from the pause to the stressful situation; during the comic film, mean HR was significantly lower than during the preceding pause. No significant correlations were found for either group between number of emotions expressed, pre- to posttest changes in FEV1, and changes in mean HR.     

Studying the dynamics of autonomic activity during emotional experience

Recent theories emphasize the dynamic aspects of emotions. However, the physiological measures and the methodological approaches that can capture the dynamics of emotions are underdeveloped. In the current study, we investigated whether moment‐to‐moment changes in autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity are reliably associated with the unfolding of emotional experience. We obtained cardiovascular and electrodermal signals from participants while they viewed emotional movies. We found that the ANS signals were temporally aligned across individuals, indicating a reliable stimulus‐driven response. The degree of response reliability was associated with the emotional time line of the movie. Finally, individual differences in ANS response reliability were strongly correlated with the subjective emotional responses. The current research offers a methodological approach for studying physiological responses during dynamic emotional situations.     

Facial and autonomic activity in depression: social context differences during imagery.

Previous research indicates that depressed patients show reduced facial expression as well as a lack of social context differences in frowning in response to sad imagery. The present study examined social context differences in facial electromyogram (EMG), self-reported emotion, skin conductance level and heart rate in 21 depressed and 22 non-depressed women assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory. Subjects were asked to imagine happy and sad situations both with and without visualizing other people. Depressed subjects showed a lack of social context differences in EMG-brow activity during sad imagery while heart rate was increased during sad-social compared to sad-solitary imagery. In contrast, non-depressed subjects showed increased EMG-brow activity during sad-social compared to sad-solitary imagery but no social context differences in heart rate. EMG-cheek activity and heart rate were increased during happy-social compared to happy-solitary imagery in depressed and non-depressed subjects. Skin conductance level was reduced in depressed compared to non-depressed subjects during baseline but failed to respond to imagery. Social context differences in heart rate and a lack thereof of frowning during sad imagery may indicate an altered psychosocial functioning in depression.     

Dependence of autonomic and behavioral reactions to pain-related emotional stress on individual typological characteristics of the autonomic nervous system

It was found that autonomic and behavioral reactions to pain-related emotional stress in the miners of deep coal mines depend on the individual typological characteristics of their autonomic nervous system. The normotonics with an initially high sympathetic and parasympathetic activity were characterized by low resistance to stress-inducing factors, while high resistance to emotional stress was typical of the subjects with the parasympathetic type of autonomic nervous system. The greatest shifts in autonomic indices were observed in the stress-anticipation period rather than on direct exposure to pain stimulus. Translated fromByulleten' Eksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 126, No 12, pp. 621–625, December, 1998     

Unmasking emotion: Exposure duration and emotional engagement

Effects of exposure duration on emotional reactivity were investigated in two experiments that parametrically varied the duration of exposure to affective pictures from 25–6000 ms in the presence or absence of a visual mask. Evaluative, facial, autonomic, and cortical responses were measured. Results demonstrated that, in the absence of a visual mask (Experiment 1), emotional content modulated evaluative ratings, cortical, autonomic, and facial changes even with very brief exposures, and there was little evidence that emotional engagement increased with longer exposure. When information persistence was reduced by a visual mask (Experiment 2), differences as a function of hedonic content were absent for all measures when exposure duration was 25 ms but statistically reliable when exposure duration was 80 ms. Between 25–80 ms, individual differences in discriminability were critical in observing affective reactions to masked pictures.     

Mediated paths to over-reactive discipline: mothers' experienced emotion, appraisals, and physiological responses

The present investigation was designed to evaluate whether mothers' emotion experience, autonomic reactivity, and negatively biased appraisals of their toddlers' behavior and toddlers' rates of misbehavior predicted over-reactive discipline in a mediated fashion. Ninety-three community mother-toddler dyads were observed in a laboratory interaction, after which mothers' emotion experience and appraisals of their toddler's behavior were measured via a video-recall procedure. Autonomic physiology and over-reactive discipline were measured during the interactions. Mothers' negatively biased appraisals mediated the relation between emotion experience and over-reactive discipline. Heart rate reactivity predicted discipline independent of this mediation. Toddler misbehavior appeared to be an entry point into the above process. Interventions that more actively target physiological and experiential components of mothers' emotion may further reduce their over-reactive discipline.     

Nonconscious control of autonomic responses: a role for Pavlovian conditioning?

This paper reviews data demonstrating nonconscious control of autonomic responses and emotional processes. After briefly having considered theoretical attempts to encompass such processes within Pavlovian conditioning frameworks, it goes on the examine theories and evidence for nonconscious control of emotional processes. The phenomena covered include affective discrimination, neurophysiological mechanisms in the control of conditioned emotional responses, and attentional biases in anxiety disorders. The main section of the paper examines evidence for nonconscious, automatic control of autonomic responses. Such control is demonstrated by data on skin conductance responses to nonattended stimuli, by skin conductance responses in prosopagnosic patients, and by skin conductance responses to masked conditioned stimuli. There are also some data suggesting that responses can be learned to nonconsciously presented in stimuli. In the discussion, it is argued that controlled processing may be dissociated from awareness. That is to say, stimuli may be processed at a controlled level without being accessible for conscious awareness. The relevance of these findings for Pavlovian conditioning is discussed.     

Depression, implicit memory, and self: a revised memory model of emotion

Cognitive constructs are explored for clinical psychologists interested in cognitive phenomena in depression. Both traditional and modern memory constructs are outlined and described with attention to their contribution to understanding depression. In particular, the notions of memory construction, self-schemas, and autobiographical memory (per [Conway, M.A. (2001). Sensory-perceptual episodic memory and its context: Autobiographical memory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London: Biological Sciences, 356, 1375-1384.]) are discussed. Then, the phenomenon of implicit memory is described as a way to bring these constructs together to understand depression. The Rehm and Naus (1990) [Rehm, L.P., and Naus, M.J. (1990). A memory model of emotion. In Ingram, R.E. (Ed.), Contemporary Psychological Approaches to Depression (pp. 23-35). New York: Plenum Press.] memory model of emotion is updated and expanded to include these cognitive constructs, and depression is viewed from the perspective of understanding interactions between explicit and implicit memory processes.     

The pupil as a measure of emotional arousal and autonomic activation

Pupil diameter was monitored during picture viewing to assess effects of hedonic valence and emotional arousal on pupillary responses. Autonomic activity (heart rate and skin conductance) was concurrently measured to determine whether pupillary changes are mediated by parasympathetic or sympathetic activation. Following an initial light reflex, pupillary changes were larger when viewing emotionally arousing pictures, regardless of whether these were pleasant or unpleasant. Pupillary changes during picture viewing covaried with skin conductance change, supporting the interpretation that sympathetic nervous system activity modulates these changes in the context of affective picture viewing. Taken together, the data provide strong support for the hypothesis that the pupil's response during affective picture viewing reflects emotional arousal associated with increased sympathetic activity.     

The effect of sleep deprivation and restriction on mood,emotion, and emotion regulation: three meta-analyses in one

Study ObjectivesNew theory and measurement approaches have facilitated nuanced investigation of how sleep loss impacts dimensions of affective functioning. To provide a quantitative summary of this literature, three conceptually related meta-analyses examined the effect of sleep restriction and sleep deprivation on mood, emotion, and emotion regulation across the lifespan (i.e. from early childhood to late adulthood).MethodsA total of 241 effect sizes from 64 studies were selected for inclusion, and multilevel meta-analytic techniques were used when applicable.ResultsThere was a moderate, positive effect of sleep loss on negative mood (g = 0.45), which was stronger for studies with younger samples, as well as a large, negative effect of sleep loss on positive mood (g = −0.94). For negative mood only, studies that used total sleep deprivation had larger effect sizes than studies that restricted sleep. After correcting for publication bias, a modest but significant negative effect for sleep loss on emotion (g = −0.11) was found; the valence of emotional stimuli did not change the direction of this effect, and type of sleep manipulation was also not a significant moderator. Finally, sleep restriction had a small, negative effect on adaptive emotion regulation (g = −0.32), but no significant impact on maladaptive emotion regulation (g = 0.14); all studies on adaptive emotion regulation were conducted with youth samples.ConclusionsSleep loss compromises optimal affective functioning, though the magnitude of effects varies across components. Findings underscore the importance of sleep for healthy affective outcomes.     

Temperament and emotion regulation: the role of autonomic nervous system reactivity

The aim of the present study was to examine the moderating role of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system functioning on the relationship between child temperament and emotion regulation. Sixty-two 4.5-year olds (31 females) were rated by their parents on temperamental surgency. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and pre-ejection period (PEP) were measured at baseline and in reaction to an interaction with an unfamiliar person and a cognitive test. The preschoolers' ability to self-regulate emotion was assessed in response to a disappointment. Results revealed little or no PEP reactivity to the unfamiliar person to be related to poorer emotion regulation for children high in surgency, indicating that the lack of sympathetic activation may be a risk factor for behavioral maladjustment. Reciprocal sympathetic activation, or increases in sympathetic activity accompanied by decreases in parasympathetic activity, was associated with better regulation of emotion for all levels of temperamental surgency supporting previous work that reciprocal activation is an adaptive form of autonomic control.     

The effects of sleep loss on medical residents' emotional reactions to work events: a cognitive-energy model

STUDY OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the relationship between sleep loss and emotional reactivity in medical residents. We hypothesized that this relationship is shaped by the effect of sleep loss on cog-nitive-energy resources required for coping with goal-disruptive events or for capitalizing on new opportunities offered by goal-enhancing events. SETTINGS: 15 medical wards in 4 large hospitals in Israel. PARTICIPANTS: 78 medical residents, 67% men, aged 26 to 39 years. DESIGN: Actigraphic sleep-wake cycles were measured for 5- to 7-day periods, surrounding nightshifts, every 6 months, covering the first 2 years of residency. During each study period, emotional reactivity was investigated using the experience-sampling methodology by which residents received 3 phone calls at random times during their working day for 3 consecutive days. These calls reminded them to fill out brief questionnaires concerning change of circumstances over the previous 15 minutes and to rate their emotional response to these circumstances using the Positive Affect and Negative Affect Scales. Fatigue at those times was measured by a subscale of the Profile of Mood States. MEASUREMENTS AND RESULTS: Multilevel regression analysis was used to determine the influence of sleep duration and sleep fragmentation on the emotional reactions to goal-disruptive and goal-enhancing daytime events. We found that sleep loss intensified negative emotions and fatigue following daytime disruptive events, while positive emotion was mitigated following goal-enhancing events. Sleep loss also resulted in an overall elevated baseline for positive emotion. CONCLUSIONS: Sleep loss amplifies the negative emotive effects of disruptive events while reducing the positive effect of goal-enhancing events. Methodologically, the study highlights the utility and advantages of event-level analysis as opposed to the current practice of random sampling of emotion states during waking hours, disregarding contextual factors associated with purposeful, goal-oriented behavior episodes.     

Display rules versus display autonomy: emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and task performance in a call center simulation

"Service with a smile" is satisfying for the customer, but such display rules may be costly to the employee and the organization. Most previous research on such costs has used self-reported and cross-sectional designs. The authors use an experimental approach to test tenets of resource depletion theories; specifically, whether the self-regulation of emotions required by display rules depletes energy and attentional resources during a service encounter. Using a call center simulation with three "customer" interactions, the authors found that participants given positive display rules (e.g., be enthusiastic and hide frustration) reported more postsimulation exhaustion and made more errors on the order form compared to those with display autonomy. Customer hostility during one of the calls also increased exhaustion overall and the number of errors during that specific call, though proposed interactions with display rules were not supported. Surface-level emotion regulation, but not deep-level, was the mechanism for the energy depletion effect of display rules, while display rules had a direct effect on performance decrements. Theoretical and practical implications for display rules as part of job requirements are discussed.