People convey their emotional state in their face and voice. We present an audio-visual data set uniquely suited for the study of multi-modal emotion expression and perception. The data set consists of facial and vocal emotional expressions in sentences spoken in a range of basic emotional states (happy, sad, anger, fear, disgust, and neutral). 7,442 clips of 91 actors with diverse ethnic backgrounds were rated by multiple raters in three modalities: audio, visual, and audio-visual. Categorical emotion labels and real-value intensity values for the perceived emotion were collected using crowd-sourcing from 2,443 raters. The human recognition of intended emotion for the audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual data are 40.9%, 58.2% and 63.6% respectively. Recognition rates are highest for neutral, followed by happy, anger, disgust, fear, and sad. Average intensity levels of emotion are rated highest for visual-only perception. The accurate recognition of disgust and fear requires simultaneous audio-visual cues, while anger and happiness can be well recognized based on evidence from a single modality. The large dataset we introduce can be used to probe other questions concerning the audio-visual perception of emotion.
BackgroundAberrant amygdala-prefrontal interactions at rest and during emotion processing are implicated in the pathophysiology of generalized social anxiety disorder (gSAD), a common disorder characterized by fears of potential scrutiny. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is first-line psychotherapy for gSAD and other anxiety disorders. While CBT is generally effective, there is a great deal of heterogeneity in treatment response. To date, predictors of success in CBT for gSAD include reduced amygdala reactivity and increased activity in prefrontal regulatory regions (e.g., anterior cingulate cortex, “ACC”) during emotion processing. However, studies have not examined whether tonic (i.e., at rest) coupling of amygdala and these prefrontal regions also predict response to CBT.ResultsTwenty-one patients with gSAD participated in resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) before 12 weeks of CBT. Overall, symptom severity was significantly reduced after completing CBT; however, the patients varied considerably in degree of symptom change. Whole-brain voxel-wise findings showed symptom improvement after CBT was predicted by greater right amygdala-pregenual ACC (“pgACC”) connectivity and greater left amygdala-pgACC coupling encompassing medial prefrontal cortex. In support of their predictive value, area under receiver operating characteristic curve was significant for the left and right amygdala-pgACC in relation to treatment responders.ConclusionsImprovement after CBT was predicted by enhanced resting-state bilateral amygdala-prefrontal coupling in gSAD. Preliminary results suggest baseline individual differences in a fundamental circuitry that may underlie emotion regulation contributed to variation in symptom change after CBT. Findings offer a new approach towards using a biological measure to foretell who will most likely benefit from CBT. In particular, the departure from neural predictors based on illness-relevant stimuli (e.g., socio-emotional stimuli in gSAD) permits the development of biomarkers that reflect commonalities in the neurobiology of anxiety and mood disorders.
HIV’s effects on episodic memory have not been compared systematically between male and female substance-dependent individuals. We administered the Brief Visuospatial Memory Test–Revised (BVMT–R) to 280 substance-dependent HIV+ and HIV− men and women. Groups were comparable on demographic, substance use, and comorbid characteristics. There were no significant main effects of sex or HIV serostatus on BVMT–R performance, but HIV+ women performed significantly more poorly on delayed recall. This effect was most prominent among cocaine-dependent HIV+ women. Our findings are consistent with recent speculation that memory impairment may be more common among HIV+ women, particularly those with a history of cocaine dependence.
Spatial learning and memory are critically dependent on the integrity of hippocampal systems. Functional MRI and neuropathological studies show that hippocampal circuitry is prominently affected among HIV-seropositive individuals, but potential spatial learning and memory deficits have not been studied in detail in this population. We investigated the independent and interactive effects of sex and HIV serostatus on performance of a spatial learning and memory task in a sample of 181 individuals with a history of cocaine dependence. We found that men showed faster times to completion on immediate recall trials compared with women and that delayed recall was significantly poorer among HIV-infected compared with HIV-uninfected participants. Additionally, a sex × serostatus effect was found on the total number of completed learning trials. Specifically, HIV-infected men successfully completed more learning trials compared with HIV-infected women. Results are discussed in the context of recent reports of sex and HIV serostatus effects on episodic memory performance.
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