Dynamic emotion perception and prior expectancy

Abstract

Social interactions require the ability to rapidly perceive emotion from various incoming dynamic, multisensory cues. Prior expectations reduce incoming emotional information and direct attention to cues that are aligned with what is expected. Studies to date have investigated the prior expectancy effect using static emotional images, despite the fact that dynamic stimuli would represent greater ecological validity. The objective of the study was to create a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm to examine the influence of prior expectations on naturalistic emotion perception. For this purpose, we developed a dynamic emotion perception task, which consisted of audio-visual videos that carry emotional information congruent or incongruent with prior expectations. The results show that emotional congruency was associated with activity in prefrontal regions, amygdala, and putamen, whereas emotional incongruency was associated with activity in temporoparietal junction and mid-cingulate gyrus. Supported by the behavioural results, our findings suggest that prior expectations are reinforced after repeated experience and learning, whereas unexpected emotions may rely on fast change detection processes. The results from the current study are compatible with the notion that the ability to automatically detect unexpected changes in complex dynamic environments allows for adaptive behaviours in potentially advantageous or threatening situations.

The neuroimaging and genetics of emotion perception in schizophrenia

“…We investigated the functional connectivity of the vmPFC, rAMY and rTPJ, with strong evidence for involvement of these brain regions in emotion perception influenced by prior expectations (Barbalat et al, 2013;Doty et al, 2014;Dzafic et al, 2016). In line with our hypotheses, our findings show that facilitation of response to threat congruent with prior expectations was associated with a subcortical network functionally connected to rAMY.…”

“…In our study, the selection of the seed voxels was both data-driven (please see Dzafic et al, 2016), and literature driven (Bishop, 2008;Vuilleumier & Pourtois, 2007;Marstaller et al, 2016;Corbetta, Patel, analyses, we correlated activity in the vmPFC, rAMY, and rTPJ with activity in the rest of the brain and with accurate RTs of the participants in the congruent and incongruent conditions. One participant was removed from the final analysis due to being an outlier (z-score < 3.25).…”

“…Participants completed the Dynamic Emotion Perception (DEP) Task cue also contained white text above the picture, instructing participants to make an "index finger press" when the emotion in the video was concordant with the instruction cue emotion ('congruent' emotion), or to make a "middle finger press" when the emotion in the video was not concordant with the instruction cue emotion ('incongruent' emotion; for more details, see Dzafic et al, 2016).…”

“…Specifically, the underlying circuitry that enables rapid detection of expected threat compared to threat that is not expected. What we do know is that there are regional activation differences in specific areas, such as ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), right amygdala (rAMY) and parietal cortex -in particular right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) -between emotions congruent and incongruent with prior expectations, respectively (Bermpohl et al, 2006;Browning and Harmer, 2012;Dzafic et al, 2016;Ueda et al, 2003), but the functional circuitry has been relatively unexplored. In regards to incongruency with expectations, seminal work by Corbetta et al (2008), has established that 'reorienting' to relevant, unexpected events, such as potentially threatening humans, involves a right ventral frontoparietal network, dubbed the ventral attention network (Corbetta and Shulman, 2002).…”

“…The 'Predictive Coding' theory of cognition proposes that prior expectations facilitate emotion perception by directing attentional focus onto relevant emotional information, based on our prior experience (Barbalat et al, 2013;Brown and Brune, 2012). For example, prior expectations have been found to improve speed and accuracy during emotion perception in healthy individuals (Barbalat et al, 2013;Dzafic et al, 2016). Within the Predictive Coding theory, SCZ has been conceptualized as a disorder of reduced precision (increase in uncertainty) in prior expectations (Adams et al, 2016;Adams et al, 2013), meaning that individuals with SCZ have less confidence in their expectations, leading to inefficient directing of attention and nosier incoming sensory information.…”