Anger and hostility: are they different? An analytical exploration of facial-expressive differences, and physiological and facial-emotional responses

Behavioral (reaction time) and prefrontal cortex response revealed differences in grief vs. sadness perception

Research on basic emotions has expanded beyond the traditional six categories, identifying over 20 distinct emotional states. However, differentiating some emotions remained challenging due to partially overlapping facial expressions. Grief and sadness are two such emotions that are difficult to distinguish. This study investigated the behavioral and neural mechanisms of grief perception in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), comparing it with sadness. Participants categorized and rated emotional facial images in grief and sadness conditions on valence, arousal, and dominance scales. While participants perceiving emotional facial images prefrontal cortex (PFC) hemodynamic activities were measured using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). Explicit behavioral responses showed no significant differences, however implicit measures (reaction times) revealed distinctions between grief and sadness perception. Further fNIRS results indicated increased oxy-Hb in the right dorsolateral PFC for grief condition images compared to sadness condition images. Additionally, cultural differences were observed, with Asian participants showing higher oxy-Hb responses in the dorsal PFC for unpleasant facial stimuli in grief conditions. These findings support cultural variability in emotion perception and regulation. The combination of behavioral reaction time and neuroimaging data suggests distinct implicit perceptual and neural processing mechanisms for grief and sadness. This indicates separate automatic implicit mechanisms for these emotions.

"Sentio ergo est": Unmasking the psychological realities of emotional misperception

Perception is an important aspect of our personal lives, interpersonal interactions and professional activities and performance. A large body of psychological research has been dedicated to exploring how perception happens, whether and when it involves conscious awareness and what are the physiological correlates, such as skin-conductance and heart-rate responses, that occur when we perceive particularly emotional elicitors. A more recent and less explored question in psychological science is how and when misperception happens, and what are the physiological characteristics of the misperception of emotion. Therefore, in the current study, for the first time in relevant research, we recruited participants using trial-contour power calculations for false-positive responses, such as incorrectly reporting that a brief backward masked face was presented and thoroughly explored these responses. We reported that false-positive responses for backward masked emotional faces were characterised by pre-trial arousal, and post-trial arousal increases, high confidence ratings, and corresponding to stimulus-type misperception valence and arousal participant ratings. These outcomes were most pronounced for false-positive responses for fearful faces. Based on these findings, we discussed the possibility of a mechanism for partial self-encapsulated emotional-experiential apperception and the possibility of a fear primacy socio-emotional response module during combined visual ambiguity and high psychophysiological arousal.

Application of a human-centered design for embedded machine learning model to develop data labeling software with nurses: Human-to-Artificial Intelligence (H2AI)

BACKGROUND

Nurses are essential for assessing and managing acute pain in hospitalized patients, especially those who are unable to self-report pain. Given their role and subject matter expertise (SME), nurses are also essential for the design and development of a supervised machine learning (ML) model for pain detection and clinical decision support software (CDSS) in a pain recognition automated monitoring system (PRAMS). Our first step for developing PRAMS with nurses was to create SME-friendly data labeling software.

PURPOSE

To develop an intuitive and efficient data labeling software solution, Human-to-Artificial Intelligence (H2AI).

METHOD

The Human-centered Design for Embedded Machine Learning Solutions (HCDe-MLS) model was used to engage nurses. In this paper, HCDe-MLS will be explained using H2AI and PRAMS as illustrative cases.

FINDINGS

Using HCDe-MLS, H2AI was developed and facilitated labeling of 139 videos (mean = 29.83 min) with 3189 images labeled (mean = 75 s) by 6 nurses. OpenCV was used for video-to-image pre-processing; and MobileFaceNet was used for default landmark placement on images. H2AI randomly assigned videos to nurses for data labeling, tracked labelers' inter-rater reliability, and stored labeled data to train ML models.

CONCLUSIONS

Nurses' engagement in CDSS development was critical for ensuring the end-product addressed nurses' priorities, reflected nurses' cognitive and decision-making processes, and garnered nurses' trust for technology adoption.

Learning emotional dialects: A British population study of cross-cultural communication

The aim of the current research was to explore whether we can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces in British participants. We tested several methods for improving the recognition of freely-expressed emotional faces, such as different methods for presenting other-culture expressions of emotion from individuals from Chile, New Zealand and Singapore in two experimental stages. In the first experimental stage, in phase one, participants were asked to identify the emotion of cross-cultural freely-expressed faces. In the second phase, different cohorts were presented with interactive side-by-side, back-to-back and dynamic morphing of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional faces, and control conditions. In the final phase, we repeated phase one using novel stimuli. We found that all non-control conditions led to recognition improvements. Morphing was the most effective condition for improving the recognition of cross-cultural emotional faces. In the second experimental stage, we presented morphing to different cohorts including own-to-other and other-to-own freely-expressed cross-cultural emotional faces and neutral-to-emotional and emotional-to-neutral other-culture freely-expressed emotional faces. All conditions led to recognition improvements and the presentation of freely-expressed own-to-other cultural-emotional faces provided the most effective learning. These findings suggest that training can improve the recognition of cross-cultural freely-expressed emotional expressions.

Social Functioning in Individuals Affected by Childhood Maltreatment: Establishing a Research Agenda to Inform Interventions

Childhood maltreatment (CM) is linked to impairments in various domains of social functioning. Here, we argue that it is critical to identify factors that underlie impaired social functioning as well as processes that mediate the beneficial health effects of positive relationships in individuals exposed to CM. Key research recommendations are presented, focusing on: (1) identifying attachment-related alterations in specific inter- and intrapersonal processes (e.g., regulation of closeness and distance) that underlie problems in broader domains of social functioning (e.g., lack of perceived social support) in individuals affected by CM; (2) identifying internal (e.g., current emotional state) and external situational factors (e.g., cultural factors, presence of close others) that modulate alterations in specific social processes; and (3) identifying mechanisms that explain the positive health effects of intact social functioning. Methodological recommendations include: (1) assessing social processes through interactive and (close to) real-life assessments inside and outside the laboratory; (2) adopting an interdisciplinary, lifespan perspective to assess social processes, using multi-method assessments; (3) establishing global research collaborations to account for cultural influences on social processes and enable replications across laboratories and countries. The proposed line of research will contribute to globally develop and refine interventions that prevent CM and further positive relationships, which - likely through buffering the effects of chronic stress and corresponding allostatic load - foster resilience and improve mental and physical health, thereby reducing personal suffering and the societal and economic costs of CM and its consequences. Interventions targeting euthymia and psychological well-being are promising therapeutic concepts in this context.

"There Is No (Where a) Face Like Home": Recognition and Appraisal Responses to Masked Facial Dialects of Emotion in Four Different National Cultures

The theory of universal emotions suggests that certain emotions such as fear, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise and happiness can be encountered cross-culturally. These emotions are expressed using specific facial movements that enable human communication. More recently, theoretical and empirical models have been used to propose that universal emotions could be expressed via discretely different facial movements in different cultures due to the non-convergent social evolution that takes place in different geographical areas. This has prompted the consideration that own-culture emotional faces have distinct evolutionary important sociobiological value and can be processed automatically, and without conscious awareness. In this paper, we tested this hypothesis using backward masking. We showed, in two different experiments per country of origin, to participants in Britain, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore, backward masked own and other-culture emotional faces. We assessed detection and recognition performance, and self-reports for emotionality and familiarity. We presented thorough cross-cultural experimental evidence that when using Bayesian assessment of non-parametric receiver operating characteristics and hit-versus-miss detection and recognition response analyses, masked faces showing own cultural dialects of emotion were rated higher for emotionality and familiarity compared to other-culture emotional faces and that this effect involved conscious awareness.

The Recognition of Cross-Cultural Emotional Faces Is Affected by Intensity and Ethnicity in a Japanese Sample

Human faces convey a range of emotions and psychobiological signals that support social interactions. Multiple factors potentially mediate the facial expressions of emotions across cultures. To further determine the mechanisms underlying human emotion recognition in a complex and ecological environment, we hypothesized that both behavioral and neurophysiological measures would be influenced by stimuli ethnicity (Japanese, Caucasian) in the context of ambiguous emotional expressions (mid-happy, angry). We assessed the neurophysiological and behavioral responses of neurotypical Japanese adults (N = 27, 13 males) involved in a facial expression recognition task. Results uncover an interaction between universal and culturally-driven mechanisms. No differences in behavioral responses are found between male and female participants, male and female faces, and neutral Japanese versus Caucasian faces. However, Caucasian ambiguous emotional expressions which require more energy-consuming processing, as highlighted by neurophysiological results of the Arousal Index, were judged more accurately than Japanese ones. Additionally, a differential Frontal Asymmetry Index in neuronal activation, the signature of an approach versus avoidance response, is found in male participants according to the gender and emotional valence of the stimuli.

"The Harder One Tries …": Findings and Insights From the Application of Covert Response Pressure Assessment Technology in Three Studies of Visual Perception

In this article, we present a force measuring method for assessing participant responses in studies of visual perception. We present a device disguised as a mouse pad and designed to measure mouse-click-pressure and click-press-to-release-time responses by unaware, as regards to the physiological assessment, participants. The aim of the current technology, in the current studies, was to provide a physiological assessment of confidence and task difficulty. We tested the device in three experiments. The studies comprised of a gender-recognition study using morphed male and female faces, a visual suppression study using backwards masking, and a target-search study that included deciding whether a letter was repeated in a subsequently presented letter string. Across all studies, higher task difficulty was associated with higher click-release-time responses. Higher task difficulty was, intriguingly, also associated with lower click pressure. Higher confidence ratings were consistently associated with higher click pressure and shorter click-release time across all experiments. These findings suggest that the current technology can be used to assess responses relating to task difficulty and participant confidence in studies of visual perception. We suggest that the assessment of release times can also be implemented using standard equipment, and we provide manual and easy-to-use code for the implementation.