The Autonomic Signature of Guilt in Children: A Thermal Infrared Imaging Study

Abstract

So far inferences on early moral development and higher order self conscious emotions have mostly been based on behavioral data. Emotions though, as far as arguments support, are multidimensional notions. Not only do they involve behavioral actions upon perception of an event, but they also carry autonomic physiological markers. The current study aimed to examine and characterise physiological signs that underlie self-conscious emotions in early childhood, while grounding them on behavioral analyses. For this purpose, the “mishap paradigm” was used as the most reliable method for evoking feelings of “guilt” in children and autonomic facial temperature variation were detected by functional Infrared Imaging (fIRI). Fifteen children (age: 39–42 months) participated in the study. They were asked to play with a toy, falsely informed that it was the experimenter's “favourite”, while being unaware that it was pre-planned to break. Mishap of the toy during engagement caused sympathetic arousal as shown by peripheral nasal vasoconstriction leading to a marked temperature drop, compared to baseline. Soothing after the mishap phase induced an increase in nose temperature, associated with parasympathetic activity suggesting that the child's distress was neutralized, or even overcompensated. Behavioral analyses reported signs of distress evoked by the paradigm, backing up the thermal observation. The results suggest that the integration of physiological elements should be crucial in research concerning socio-emotional development. fIRI is a non invasive and non contact method providing a powerful tool for inferring early moral emotional signs based on physiological observations of peripheral vasoconstriction, while preserving an ecological and natural context.

Genetic predispositions and parental bonding interact to shape adults’ physiological responses to social distress

“…A carriers with a history of good paternal care showed a trend in increasing nose temperature, whereas those with poor paternal care showed a trend in decreasing nose temperature. Overall, A carriers with better early interactional patterns with their caregiver in childhood, represented by lower paternal overprotection and higher paternal care, reacted to social distress with calming physiological responses (Bradley, 2009; Ioannou et al, 2013; Manini et al, 2013). …”

“…Temperature fluctuations also indicate participants’ promptness to action. Previous studies have shown significant decreases in nose skin temperature in response to stress-eliciting stimuli in adults, infants, and non-human primates (Kuraoka & Nakamura, 2011; Ioannou et al, 2013; Manini et al, 2013). Therefore, we expected to find only in A carriers exposed to poorer parental behaviors a greater decrease in nose temperature in response to prolonged stress-eliciting stimuli, underlying poorer coping abilities, but we expected a greater increase in nose temperature in response to the same stimuli in A carriers exposed to better parental behaviors.…”

“…Here we focus on Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) activation to investigate how gene*environment interaction moderates automatic physiological development. We evaluate heart rate changes and peripheral skin temperature (on the nose) to better assess the activation of both the parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of the ANS (Ioannou et al, 2013; Kothgassner et al, 2016; Manini et al, 2013; Quas et al, 2000). …”

Nasal temperature drop in response to a playback of conspecific fights in chimpanzees: A thermo-imaging study

“…Pain (Merla & Romani, 2007), startle (Naemura, Tsuda, & Suzuki, 1993), social pressure [e.g. public speech (Vinkers et al, 2013), accidental breaking of somebody"s toy (Ioannou et al, 2013)], play (Ioannou et al, 2013;Nakanishi & ImaiMatsumura, 2008), empathy [e.g. seeing the person in a stress (Ebisch et al, 2012)], and the stress associated with task execution [e.g.…”

The augmented narrative

“…Based on literature review on reading experience our hypothesis are 1) boredom can be detected by high blink-frequencies and other eyegaze features [5] ; 2) engagement -a higher mental workloadcan be detected in the drop of the nose temperature [4] ; 3) heart rate can distinguish between both [2].…”