The influence of prior expectations on facial expression discrimination in schizophrenia

Barbalat, Guillaume; Rouault, Marion; Bazargani, Narges; Shergill, Sukhwinder S.; Blakemore, Sarah‐Jayne

doi:10.1017/s0033291712000384

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Previous studies have found that prior expectations facilitate perception of emotions, presented in static images, by improving speed and accuracy to discriminate emotions congruent with prior expectations (Barbalat et al, 2013;Barbalat et al, 2012). In the current work, I explored the influence of prior expectations during naturalistic emotion perception, using dynamic, audio-visual videos displaying anger, happy and neutral expressions.…”

Section: Contributions To the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, there are some inconsistencies in the prior expectancy literature regarding the nature of aberrancy in SCZ. For example, a study by Barbalat et al (2012) examined the influence that prior expectations have on emotion perception. In their paradigm, expectations were induced by using cues to instruct participants to identify a specific emotion in a sequence of static emotional faces.…”

Section: Prior Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors found that individuals with SCZ were particularly impaired when perceiving an angry or fearful face that was preceded by an incongruent angry or fearful cue. Barbalat et al (2012) argued that this was associated with an overdependence on prior expectations for threat in SCZ. The aforementioned study's paradigm relied on static representations of emotion.…”

Section: Prior Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In social situations in which threat is expected, allocation of attention towards aggressive cues in order to enable faster reaction to danger is paramount (Barbalat et al, 2012). Conversely, in seemingly innocuous social situations threat may appear unexpectedly, requiring a rapid shift of attention towards aggressive cues (Ohman et al, 2001;Schmidt-Daffy, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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. The effect of prior expectations on emotion perception in SCZ has only been investigated using static emotion displays (Barbalat et al, 2012), despite the fact that sensory information in emotional expressions is dynamic in nature and often changes rapidly in social situations. Naturalistic emotion displays may better capture the complex neural processes associated with emotion perception (Arsalidou et al, 2011) and better identify the underlying aberrant processes during emotion perception in SCZ.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The neuroimaging and genetics of emotion perception in schizophrenia

Dzafic¹

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Impaired emotion perception is a core deficit in schizophrenia (SCZ) that is robustly associated with poor functional outcome. Studies to date have failed to delineate the critical cognitive, neural and genetic factors that underlie 'naturalistic' emotion perception deficits in SCZ. Recently it has been proposed that in SCZ reduced precision in prior expectations impairs perception. Normal perception relies on predictive processing from precise prior expectations, which prioritise attention to context-relevant stimuli. However, no studies to date have explored the aberrancy of prior expectations during naturalistic emotion perception in SCZ and the underlying abnormal neural circuitry or involvement of SCZ genes. The present thesis aims to develop a novel dynamic emotion perception (DEP) task, in order to examine (1) the influence of prior expectations on naturalistic emotion perception in healthy individuals, and (2) emotion perception impairment in SCZ by investigating aberrancy in prior expectations, neural circuitry, and genetics.The aim of Study 1 was to create a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) paradigm to examine the mechanisms of prior expectations and delineate the spatiotemporal activity of brain regions that contribute to emotion perception. The newly developed and validated fMRI DEP task has improved ecological validity, using dynamic, audio-visual videos, instead of static pictures as stimuli. The improved method provided new behavioural and neuroimaging insights into the influence of prior expectations on naturalistic emotion perception. Prior expectations facilitated emotion perception after repeated exposure and learning over the course of the experiment, engaging prefrontal regions and right amygdala. In contrast, emotions incongruent with prior expectations engaged neural correlates of automatic change detection, which in a complex dynamic environment allows for adaptive behaviours in potentially advantageous or threatening situations.In Study 2, the DEP task was utilised to delineate, in the healthy brain, the functional networks that subserve rapid recognition of threatening emotions in situations either congruent or incongruent with prior expectations. The results showed that fast detection of threat congruent with prior expectations engaged a right amygdala subcortical network, which has been previously implicated in fear conditioning and coarse processing of emotion. In contrast, there was a trend association between fast detection of threat incongruent with prior expectations and activity in inferior frontoparietal network connected to the right temporoparietal junction; this has been previously implicated in rapid reorienting of attention to Finally, in Study 4, the association between SCZ polygenic risk score (PRS) and brain activity during the DEP task in healthy adults was investigated in order to assess emotion perception as an endophenotype for SCZ. The results demonstrate that PRS is associated with higher recruitment of regions involved in emotion regulat...

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Section: Contributions To the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prior Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Prior Expectationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The neuroimaging and genetics of emotion perception in schizophrenia

Dzafic¹

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Stria terminalis, amygdala, and temporoparietal junction networks facilitate efficient emotion processing under expectations

Dzafic

Oestreich

Martin

et al. 2019

Human Brain Mapping

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Rapid emotion processing is an ecologically essential ability for survival in social environments in which threatening or advantageous encounters dynamically and rapidly occur. Efficient emotion recognition is subserved by different processes, depending on one's expectations; however, the underlying functional and structural circuitry is still poorly understood. In this study, we delineate brain networks that subserve fast recognition of emotion in situations either congruent or incongruent with prior expectations. For this purpose, we used multimodal neuroimaging and investigated performance on a dynamic emotion perception task. We show that the extended amygdala structural and functional networks relate to speed of emotion processing under threatening conditions. Specifically, increased microstructure of the right stria terminalis, an amygdala white‐matter pathway, was related to faster detection of emotion during actual presentation of anger or after cueing anger. Moreover, functional connectivity of right amygdala with limbic regions was related to faster detection of anger congruent with cue, suggesting selective attention to threat. On the contrary, we found that faster detection of anger incongruent with cue engaged the ventral attention “reorienting” network. Faster detection of happiness, in either expectancy context, engaged a widespread frontotemporal‐subcortical functional network. These findings shed light on the functional and structural circuitries that facilitate speed of emotion recognition and, for the first time, elucidate a role for the stria terminalis in human emotion processing.

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Applications in Clinical Psychology

Frank

2019

Determinism and Self-Organization of Human Perception and Performance

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The influence of prior expectations on facial expression discrimination in schizophrenia

Abstract: Overall, the present data suggest an overdependence on prior expectations for threatening stimuli, reflecting belief inflexibility, in schizophrenia.

Cited by 15 publications

References 38 publications

The neuroimaging and genetics of emotion perception in schizophrenia

The neuroimaging and genetics of emotion perception in schizophrenia

Stria terminalis, amygdala, and temporoparietal junction networks facilitate efficient emotion processing under expectations

Applications in Clinical Psychology

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