The Motivational Power of the Happy Face

Nikitin, Jana; Freund, Alexandra M.

doi:10.3390/brainsci9010006

Cited by 27 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…In the gamma band, as expected for the TD group, we observed a pattern of connectivity in a network known to be involved in emotion processing, which included orbital frontal and limbic regions ( Pessoa, 2017 ). We also observed greater connectivity strength for happy compared to angry faces in the TD group, also as expected from the extensive literature showing a happy face advantage (e.g., Kirita and Endo, 1995 ) in that happy faces are preferred, engaging, invitational and approachable (e.g., Becker et al, 2011 ; Nikitin and Freund, 2019 ). The ADHD group showed a similar pattern to the TD; however, the ASD showed the opposite effect with angry faces inducing greater connectivity in this network than happy faces.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Shared and Distinct Patterns of Functional Connectivity to Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Children

et al. 2022

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Impairments in emotional face processing are demonstrated by individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs), including autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), which is associated with altered emotion processing networks. Despite accumulating evidence of high rates of diagnostic overlap and shared symptoms between ASD and ADHD, functional connectivity underpinning emotion processing across these two neurodevelopmental disorders, compared to typical developing peers, has rarely been examined. The current study used magnetoencephalography to investigate whole-brain functional connectivity during the presentation of happy and angry faces in 258 children (5–19 years), including ASD, ADHD and typically developing (TD) groups to determine possible differences in emotion processing. Data-driven clustering was also applied to determine whether the patterns of connectivity differed among diagnostic groups. We found reduced functional connectivity in the beta band in ASD compared to TD, and a further reduction in the ADHD group compared to the ASD and the TD groups, across emotions. A group-by-emotion interaction in the gamma frequency band was also observed. Greater connectivity to happy compared to angry faces was found in the ADHD and TD groups, while the opposite pattern was seen in ASD. Data-driven subgrouping identified two distinct subgroups: NDD-dominant and TD-dominant; these subgroups demonstrated emotion- and frequency-specific differences in connectivity. Atypicalities in specific brain networks were strongly correlated with the severity of diagnosis-specific symptoms. Functional connectivity strength in the beta network was negatively correlated with difficulties in attention; in the gamma network, functional connectivity strength to happy faces was positively correlated with adaptive behavioural functioning, but in contrast, negatively correlated to angry faces. Our findings establish atypical frequency- and emotion-specific patterns of functional connectivity between NDD and TD children. Data-driven clustering further highlights a high degree of comorbidity and symptom overlap between the ASD and ADHD children.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Shared and Distinct Patterns of Functional Connectivity to Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Children

et al. 2022

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“…Although it was not the focus of Experiment 2, it is interesting to note that the response bias towards happy over angry face is in line with previous studies showing that whereas happy faces elicit an approach response, angry faces elicit an avoid response (Marsh et al, 2005;Nikitin & Freund, 2019;Phaf et al, 2014;Stins et al, 2011). It is likely that this effect is mainly visible when participants are unsure of their responses, that is in guess responses.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

Competition between emotional faces in visuo-spatial working memory

Poncet¹,

Jackson²

2020

Preprint

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In this study we investigated how differing emotional faces presented in heterogenous displays compete at encoding to influence identity-location binding. Participants were shown four faces and asked to remember their identity and location while their eye-movements were recorded. Two faces carried one emotion while the other two faces carried a different emotion (angry, fear, happy, or sad; emotion was task irrelevant). Participants relocated a single neutrally expressive test face to its original position using a touchscreen. VSWM for emotional faces was modulated by the emotional context. Competition effects were complex and not based on eye-fixation time during the encoding period, stimulus factors (intensity or valence), or on perceptual or response biases. Thus, how emotional faces compete in VSWM appears to rely on more than simple arousal- or valence- biased mechanisms.

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“…On the contrary, the focus of the participants on the putative region of the Head when looking at Happy bodily postures is in line with the human, and non-human primates, well-established tendency to look at the face, and specifically at the eyes, during positive and affiliative interactions (i.e. approach; see Nikitin & Freund, 2019;Kret et al, 2017;McFarland et al, 2013). This predisposition may be underpinned by a network of interconnected cortical regions comprising the frontal oculomotor region, the temporal sectors encoding the emotional content of facial stimuli ("the dorsal stream for faces"; Bernstein & Yovel, 2015), and a sector of the anterior cingulate cortex recently demonstrated to be active during the production and the perception of smile/ laughter expression ("mirror mechanism" for laughter; Caruana et al, 2017Caruana et al, , 2018.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Visual exploration of emotional body language: a behavioural and eye-tracking study

Calbi

Langiulli

Siri

et al. 2020

Psychological Research

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Bodily postures are essential to correctly comprehend others' emotions and intentions. Nonetheless, very few studies focused on the pattern of eye movements implicated in the recognition of emotional body language (EBL), demonstrating significant differences in relation to different emotions. A yet unanswered question regards the presence of the "left-gaze bias" (i.e. the tendency to look first, to make more fixations and to spend more looking time on the left side of centrally presented stimuli) while scanning bodies. Hence, the present study aims at exploring both the presence of a left-gaze bias and the modulation of EBL visual exploration mechanisms, by investigating the fixation patterns (number of fixations and latency of the first fixation) of participants while judging the emotional intensity of static bodily postures (Angry, Happy and Neutral, without head). While results on the latency of first fixations demonstrate for the first time the presence of the left-gaze bias while scanning bodies, suggesting that it could be related to the stronger expressiveness of the left hand (from the observer's point of view), results on fixations' number only partially fulfil our hypothesis. Moreover, an opposite viewing pattern between Angry and Happy bodily postures is showed. In sum, the present results, by integrating the spatial and temporal dimension of gaze exploration patterns, shed new light on EBL visual exploration mechanisms.

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The Motivational Power of the Happy Face

Cited by 27 publications

References 87 publications

Shared and Distinct Patterns of Functional Connectivity to Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Children

Shared and Distinct Patterns of Functional Connectivity to Emotional Faces in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Children

Competition between emotional faces in visuo-spatial working memory

Visual exploration of emotional body language: a behavioural and eye-tracking study

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