Recent evidence suggests that there may be dissociable systems for recognizing emotional expressions from different media including audio and visual channels, and stillversusmoving displays. In this study, 34 adults with severe traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and 28 adults without brain injuries were assessed for their capacity to recognize emotional expressions from dynamic audiovisual displays, conversational tone alone, moving facial displays, and still photographs. The TBI group were significantly impaired in their interpretation of both audio and audiovisual displays. In addition, eight of the 34 were significantly impaired in their capacity to recognize still facial expressions. In contrast, only one individual was impaired in the recognition of moving visual displays. Information processing speed was not found to play a significant role in producing problems with dynamic emotional expression. Instead the results suggest that visual moving displays may enlist different brain systems to those engaged with still displays, for example, the parietal cortices. Problems with the processing of affective prosody, while present, were not clearly related to other emotion processing problems. While this may attest to the independence of the auditory affective system, it may also reflect problems with the dual demands of listening to conversational meaning and affective tone. (JINS, 2005,11, 392–399.)
A laboratory model was developed to study human avoidance learning. Participants could avoid an electric shock signalled by a 5-s conditioned stimulus (CS) by pressing one of a set of response buttons. Self-reported shock expectancy and skin conductance were recorded during a subsequent 10-s interval before shock. Shock expectancy declined when the correct avoidance response was learned and returned when the response was unavailable. Learning transferred to another shock CS. Parallel effects were observed on skin conductance once performance anxiety was controlled by requiring responding on all trials. Learning was faster when the Pavlovian contingencies were trained before introduction of the instrumental response. The results support a cognitive model of anxiety in which performance of an avoidance response reduces expectancy of an aversive outcome and thereby reduces anxiety.
The authors used affective modulation of the eyeblink startle response to examine the impact of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on emotional reactions to pictures. Participants were 13 individuals with severe TBI and 24 controls. Participants were presented with pictures that differed in affective valence (e.g., mutilated bodies, erotic couples, and household objects) while the eyeblink startle response to an acoustic probe was measured. Startle amplitude was used to assess valence of emotional response, and startle latency was used to index interest in the pictures. Subjective ratings of the affect and arousal elicited by the various pictures were also obtained. TBI impaired startle potentiation to unpleasant pictures but not startle attenuation to pleasant pictures. Further, subjective ratings indicated that TBI participants found unpleasant pictures less arousing than did controls. The results are consistent with recent evidence of differential impairment in negative versus positive emotions after TBI and are discussed in relation to 2 competing explanations of startle modulation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.