Instructions to mimic improve facial emotion recognition in people with sub-clinical autism traits

The effect of non-verbal mimicry on evaluations in interactions with cognitively (dis)similar individuals

Non-verbal mimicry (i.e., being posturally similar by copying another person's body language) has been shown to increase evaluations of the mimicker. Concurrently, extensive research in social psychology has demonstrated a negative effect on interpersonal evaluations when one perceives others as cognitively dissimilar, often resulting in interpersonal conflicts. Across two experiments (Experiment 1: N = 159, Experiment 2: N = 144), we tested our hypotheses that mimicry, compared with no mimicry, will make mimickers come across as more likable and competent regardless of whether they were perceived as cognitively dissimilar or not (Experiment 1) and regardless of the extent to which they were perceived as cognitively dissimilar (Experiment 2). Broadly, we found support for our hypotheses, and via mediation sensitivity analyses, we found that the effect of mimicry, at least for likability, was mediated by participants' perceived personal similarity to the mimicker. Non-verbal mimicry may thus be one way of alleviating interpersonal conflicts via increasing perceptions of personal similarity regardless of initial cognitive dissimilarity.

Toward the detection of reduced emotion expression intensity: an autism sibling study

INTRODUCTION

Expressing emotions through spontaneous facial expression is an important nonverbal social communication skill. In our study, we aimed to demonstrate that both children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD have deficits in this skill.

METHOD

In this study, we analyzed the six core facial emotion expressions of three distinct groups of children - those diagnosed with ASD (n = 60), non-ASD siblings (n = 60), and typically developed children (n = 60). To analyze facial expressions, we employed a computer vision program that uses machine learning algorithms to detect facial features and conducted an evidence-based task that involved assessing participants' ability to recognize facial emotion expressions.

RESULTS

Deficits in spontaneous emotion expression were shown in the children with ASD and in non-ASD siblings when compared with typically developed children. Interestingly, it was determined that these deficits were not related to the severity of the autism symptoms in the ASD group.

CONCLUSIONS

The results of the study suggest that computer-based automated analysis of facial expressions with contextual social scenes task holds potential for measuring limitations in the ability to express emotions, and they supplement the traditional clinical assessment of social phenotypical behavior deficits. This applies both to children with ASD and especially, to the non-ASD siblings of children with ASD. This study adds a novel approach to previous literature examining the emotion expression skills.

A Utilização da Imitação Facial em Tarefas de Reconhecimento de Expressões Emocionais

Resumo A imitação facial é um comportamento involuntário capaz de facilitar a transmissão de informações não verbais relevantes em diferentes contextos sociais. Este estudo teve por objetivo analisar a capacidade de reconhecimento de expressões emocionais enquanto o observador tensiona a própria face ou imita a face-alvo. A hipótese utilizada foi a de que indivíduos que tensionam a própria face terão menor probabilidade de acertos na execução das tarefas de reconhecimento de expressões emocionais e aqueles que imitam a expressão terão uma maior probabilidade de acertos na execução das mesmas tarefas. A amostra foi composta por 30 participantes, divididos em dois grupos experimentais: o Grupo Imitação (GI) e o Grupo Ruído (GR), ambos com 18 participantes do sexo feminino e 12 do sexo masculino. O experimento consistiu em apresentar fotos de atores expressando facialmente uma emoção básica por 10 segundos. Neste período, os participantes deveriam, então, observar ou intervir facialmente, imitando ou tensionando a própria face (de acordo com o grupo alocado, Imitação ou Ruído). Após os 10 segundos executando a instrução (observar, imitar ou interferir), o participante deveria responder - entre as opções alegria, tristeza, nojo, raiva, surpresa e medo - a emoção correspondente à imagem. Os resultados apresentaram diferenças significativas quando comparadas as tarefas de tensionar ou imitar a face-alvo, sugerindo que a alteração da própria face do observador pode influenciar durante o desempenho de uma tarefa de reconhecimento de emoções em faces.

The association of negative mood with automatic and effortful facial expression mimicry

The natural process of mimicking the facial expressions of others is well established, as are the deficits in this reflexive behavior for individuals with clinical disorders such as depression. This study examines the extent of this deficit in non-clinical individuals with high transient negative mood, and whether it extends to both automatic and effortful emotion expression behavior. One hundred and thirty-six participants were shown happy, sad, and neutral faces, while electromyography (EMG) recorded facial muscle responses. Automatic (reflexive) mimicry was assessed while participants simply viewed facially expressive photographs, while effortful mimicry was monitored when individuals were told to intentionally copy the expressions in the photographs. Results indicated that high levels of negative mood were primarily associated with deficits in effortful mimicry of happy expressions, although some similar evidence was found in automatic mimicry of happy faces. Surprisingly, there were also ties between negative moods and inaccuracies in effortful mimicry of sad expressions (but not automatic mimicry). Inaccurate automatic and effortful mimicry were also tied with lower self-reported social support and greater loneliness. These results indicate that even in healthy individuals, transient and minor changes in negative mood are tied to deficiencies in facial mimicry at both the automatic and effortful level.

Reading and reacting to faces, the effect of facial mimicry in improving facial emotion recognition in individuals with antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits

Individuals with antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits are characterized by deficits in processing facial expressions, which results in poor social adaptation and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships. However, it is not clear how individuals with varying levels of these traits differ in this emotional impairment and if these deficits are due to correctly identifying or reacting appropriately to facial expressions. The aim of the study was to examine how individuals with these traits recognized and responded to affective facial expressions by using FaceReader software (which analyses footage of faces) across different experimental conditions (imitation, suppression, and control). Imitating facial expressions was introduced to examine whether it could direct participants’ attention to the facial cues and improve participants’ performance on the facial task. A total of 643 individuals from the community were pre-screened and a sample (N = 107; M age = 21.08, SD = 1.55), differentiated on levels of antisocial personality disorder (APD) symptoms and psychopathic (PSY) traits, who were selected based on extreme scores (high/low), were invited to participate in the study. Individuals with higher levels of APD symptoms and PSY traits (APD + PSY) expressed more anger than other groups, while those in the APD-only group expressed more sadness, compared to other groups. Overall, participants were compliant in following the instructions to imitate facial expressions. However, only the group with predominantly APD symptoms and the group with combined symptoms (APD + PSY) showed improvement in their accuracy ratings specifically when instructed to imitate facial expressions, compared to when no instructions were provided. The study offers a promising direction for targeting deficits in facial emotion recognition, suggesting that the deficits found in individuals with behavioral problems (with and without psychopathic traits) can be improved by asking them to imitate facial expressions.

The structural neural correlates of atypical facial expression recognition in autism spectrum disorder

Previous studies have demonstrated that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are worse at recognizing facial expressions than are typically developing (TD) individuals. The present study investigated the differences in structural neural correlates of emotion recognition between individuals with and without ASD using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). We acquired structural MRI data from 27 high-functioning adults with ASD and 27 age- and sex-matched TD individuals. The ability to recognize facial expressions was measured using a label-matching paradigm featuring six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise). The behavioural task did not find deficits of emotion recognition in ASD after controlling for intellectual ability. However, the VBM analysis for the region of interest showed a positive correlation between the averaged percent accuracy across six basic emotions and the grey matter volume of the right inferior frontal gyrus in TD individuals, but not in individuals with ASD. The VBM for the whole brain region under each emotion condition revealed a positive correlation between the percent accuracy for disgusted faces and the grey matter volume of the left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex in individuals with ASD, but not in TD individuals. The different pattern of correlations suggests that individuals with and without ASD use different processing mechanisms for recognizing others' facial expressions.

Altering Facial Movements Abolishes Neural Mirroring of Facial Expressions

People tend to automatically imitate others' facial expressions of emotion. That reaction, termed "facial mimicry" has been linked to sensorimotor simulation-a process in which the observer's brain recreates and mirrors the emotional experience of the other person, potentially enabling empathy and deep, motivated processing of social signals. However, the neural mechanisms that underlie sensorimotor simulation remain unclear. This study tests how interfering with facial mimicry by asking participants to hold a pen in their mouth influences the activity of the human mirror neuron system, indexed by the desynchronization of the EEG mu rhythm. This response arises from sensorimotor brain areas during observed and executed movements and has been linked with empathy. We recorded EEG during passive viewing of dynamic facial expressions of anger, fear, and happiness, as well as nonbiological moving objects. We examine mu desynchronization under conditions of free versus altered facial mimicry and show that desynchronization is present when adult participants can freely move but not when their facial movements are inhibited. Our findings highlight the importance of motor activity and facial expression in emotion communication. They also have important implications for behaviors that involve occupying or hiding the lower part of the face.

The Impact of a Novel Mimicry Task for Increasing Emotion Recognition in Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Alexithymia: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

Impaired facial emotion expression recognition (FEER) has typically been considered a correlate of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Now, the alexithymia hypothesis is suggesting that this emotion processing problem is instead related to alexithymia, which frequently co-occurs with ASD. By combining predictive coding theories of ASD and simulation theories of emotion recognition, it is suggested that facial mimicry may improve the training of FEER in ASD and alexithymia.

Objective

This study aims to evaluate a novel mimicry task to improve FEER in adults with and without ASD and alexithymia. Additionally, this study will aim to determine the contributions of alexithymia and ASD to FEER ability and assess which of these 2 populations benefit from this training task.

Methods

Recruitment will primarily take place through an ASD community group with emphasis put on snowball recruiting. Included will be 64 consenting adults equally divided between participants without an ASD and participants with an ASD. Participants will be screened online using the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K-10; cut-off score of 22), Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ-10), and Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) followed by a clinical interview with a provisional psychologist at the Federation University psychology clinic. The clinical interview will include assessment of ability, anxiety, and depression as well as discussion of past ASD diagnosis and confirmatory administration of the Autism Mental Status Exam (AMSE). Following the clinical interview, the participant will complete the Bermond-Vorst Alexithymia Questionnaire (BVAQ) and then undertake a baseline assessment of FEER. Consenting participants will then be assigned using a permuted blocked randomization method into either the control task condition or the mimicry task condition. A brief measure of satisfaction of the task and a debriefing session will conclude the study.

Results

The study has Federation University Human Research Ethics Committee approval and is registered with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials. Participant recruitment is predicted to begin in the third quarter of 2021.

Conclusions

This study will be the first to evaluate the use of a novel facial mimicry task condition to increase FEER in adults with ASD and alexithymia. If efficacious, this task could prove useful as a cost-effective adjunct intervention that could be used at home and thus remove barriers to entry. This study will also explore the unique effectiveness of this task in people without an ASD, with an ASD, and with alexithymia.

Trial Registration

Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry ACTRN12619000705189p; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=377455

International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)

PRR1-10.2196/24543

Imitation and recognition of facial emotions in autism: a computer vision approach

Background

Imitation of facial expressions plays an important role in social functioning. However, little is known about the quality of facial imitation in individuals with autism and its relationship with defining difficulties in emotion recognition.

Methods

We investigated imitation and recognition of facial expressions in 37 individuals with autism spectrum conditions and 43 neurotypical controls. Using a novel computer-based face analysis, we measured instructed imitation of facial emotional expressions and related it to emotion recognition abilities.

Results

Individuals with autism imitated facial expressions if instructed to do so, but their imitation was both slower and less precise than that of neurotypical individuals. In both groups, a more precise imitation scaled positively with participants’ accuracy of emotion recognition.

Limitations

Given the study’s focus on adults with autism without intellectual impairment, it is unclear whether the results generalize to children with autism or individuals with intellectual disability. Further, the new automated facial analysis, despite being less intrusive than electromyography, might be less sensitive.

Conclusions

Group differences in emotion recognition, imitation and their interrelationships highlight potential for treatment of social interaction problems in individuals with autism.

Facial Imitation Improves Emotion Recognition in Adults with Different Levels of Sub-Clinical Autistic Traits

We used computer-based automatic expression analysis to investigate the impact of imitation on facial emotion recognition with a baseline-intervention-retest design. The participants: 55 young adults with varying degrees of autistic traits, completed an emotion recognition task with images of faces displaying one of six basic emotional expressions. This task was then repeated with instructions to imitate the expressions. During the experiment, a camera captured the participants’ faces for an automatic evaluation of their imitation performance. The instruction to imitate enhanced imitation performance as well as emotion recognition. Of relevance, emotion recognition improvements in the imitation block were larger in people with higher levels of autistic traits, whereas imitation enhancements were independent of autistic traits. The finding that an imitation instruction improves emotion recognition, and that imitation is a positive within-participant predictor of recognition accuracy in the imitation block supports the idea of a link between motor expression and perception in the processing of emotions, which might be mediated by the mirror neuron system. However, because there was no evidence that people with higher autistic traits differ in their imitative behavior per se, their disproportional emotion recognition benefits could have arisen from indirect effects of imitation instructions

Sensor-Based Technology for Social Information Processing in Autism: A Review

The prevalence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) has increased strongly over the past decades, and so has the demand for adequate behavioral assessment and support for persons affected by ASD. Here we provide a review on original research that used sensor technology for an objective assessment of social behavior, either with the aim to assist the assessment of autism or with the aim to use this technology for intervention and support of people with autism. Considering rapid technological progress, we focus (1) on studies published within the last 10 years (2009–2019), (2) on contact- and irritation-free sensor technology that does not constrain natural movement and interaction, and (3) on sensory input from the face, the voice, or body movements. We conclude that sensor technology has already demonstrated its great potential for improving both behavioral assessment and interventions in autism spectrum disorders. We also discuss selected examples for recent theoretical questions related to the understanding of psychological changes and potentials in autism. In addition to its applied potential, we argue that sensor technology—when implemented by appropriate interdisciplinary teams—may even contribute to such theoretical issues in understanding autism.

Recognition of Emotion Intensities Using Machine Learning Algorithms: A Comparative Study

Over the past two decades, automatic facial emotion recognition has received enormous attention. This is due to the increase in the need for behavioral biometric systems and human-machine interaction where the facial emotion recognition and the intensity of emotion play vital roles. The existing works usually do not encode the intensity of the observed facial emotion and even less involve modeling the multi-class facial behavior data jointly. Our work involves recognizing the emotion along with the respective intensities of those emotions. The algorithms used in this comparative study are Gabor filters, a Histogram of Oriented Gradients (HOG), and Local Binary Pattern (LBP) for feature extraction. For classification, we have used Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), and Nearest Neighbor Algorithm (kNN). This attains emotion recognition and intensity estimation of each recognized emotion. This is a comparative study of classifiers used for facial emotion recognition along with the intensity estimation of those emotions for databases. The results verified that the comparative study could be further used in real-time behavioral facial emotion and intensity of emotion recognition.

Atypical Reward-Driven Modulation of Mimicry-Related Neural Activity in Autism

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by deficits in social functioning and difficulties in forming social bonds. According to the social motivation theory of ASD, people with ASD fail to attend social stimuli because they do not experience them as rewarding, resulting in deficits in social cognition. In neurotypical (NT) individuals, more rewarding faces have been shown to elicit greater spontaneous facial mimicry. This association between reward and mimicry is reduced in people with high autistic traits, suggesting that altered reward processing might explain the deficits in spontaneous facial mimicry observed in individuals with ASD. In a previous study, we observed that learned reward value of a face modulates mimicry-related neural response to it and that this modulation is reduced in people with high autistic traits. Using an identical evaluative conditioning paradigm where neutral faces were conditioned with high and low rewards, we tested the modulating effect of reward value on mimicry-related brain activity in a group of adults with and without ASD. We focused on the activity in a cluster within the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) identified through an independent meta-analysis of 139 neuroimaging studies of mimicry, in response to passively viewing videos of the conditioned faces. The blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response contrast of high- vs. low-reward faces was reduced in participants with ASD compared to NT controls. The extent of reward-driven modulation was negatively correlated with autistic traits across the whole sample. Our results indicate that the mimicry-related brain response is less modulated by learned reward value in individuals with ASD when compared to NT controls. In previous studies, we found in a similar sample that being mimicked by faces was associated with less reward-related brain response in individuals ASD compared to an NT sample, suggesting that the link between reward and mimicry is affected in both directions in ASD. Together, this reduced bidirectional link between reward and mimicry can point to a potential mechanism underlying some of the social cognitive features of ASD.

The interactions between botulinum-toxin-based facial treatments and embodied emotions

Botulinum toxin (BTX) injections reduce muscle mobility and are commonly used to treat the appearance of glabellar frown lines. Research shows that this cosmetic treatment leads to a reduction in depression. This reduction is consistent with the theory of embodied emotions because patients have a reduced ability to frown and so receive less negative feedback associated with this action. The current research explored this effect and three further hypotheses for the effects of cosmetic BTX injections based on embodied emotions. It was hypothesised that treatment of crow's feet (or laughter lines) would reduce mood as patients' Duchenne smiles would be impaired. It was hypothesised that facial BTX treatments would impair emotional expression recognition because the ability to mimic emotions would be reduced. Finally, it was hypothesised that, as BTX treatments prevent facial expressions associated with sexual excitement, sexual function would be impaired after treatment. Twenty four BTX-treated and twelve matched participants (all female) were tested before and after treatment. Results found that BTX treatment of laughter lines was associated with increased depression scores. Further, BTX treatment was associated with reduced emotion recognition ability and sexual function. The current results add to our knowledge of the psychological effects of injections of powerful neurotoxins and broaden the scope of the embodiment of emotions.

Beholders' sensorimotor engagement enhances aesthetic rating of pictorial facial expressions of pain

The present study addresses a novel issue by investigating whether beholders' sensorimotor engagement with the emotional content of works of art contributes to the formation of their objective aesthetic judgment of beauty. To this purpose, participants' sensorimotor engagement was modulated by asking them to overtly contract the Corrugator Supercilii facial muscles or to refrain from any voluntary facial movement while judging the aesthetic value of painful and neutral facial expressions in select examples of Renaissance and Baroque paintings. Results demonstrated a specific increase in the aesthetic rating of paintings showing painful facial expressions during the congruent activation of the Corrugator Supercilii muscles. Furthermore, participants' empathetic traits and expertise in art were found to correlate directly with the amplitude of the motor enactment effect on aesthetic judgments. For the first time, we show the role of bottom-up bodily driven sensorimotor processes in the objective aesthetic evaluation of works of art.