Jari K. Hietanen

Depression biases the recognition of emotionally neutral faces

Functional abnormalities in emotion-related brain systems have been implicated in depression, and depressed patients may therefore attribute emotional valence to stimuli that are normally interpreted as emotionally neutral. The present study examined this hypothesis by comparing recognition of different facial expressions in patients with moderate to severe depression. Eighteen depressed patients and 18 matched healthy controls made a forced-choice response to briefly presented neutral, happy, and sad faces. Recognition accuracy and response time were measured. Twelve patients were retested after showing signs of symptom remission. Depressed patients and controls were equally accurate at recognizing happy and sad faces. Controls also recognized neutral faces as accurately as happy and sad faces, but depressed patients recognized neutral faces less accurately than either happy or sad faces. Depressed patients were also particularly slow to recognize neutral faces. The impairment in processing of neutral faces was still evident after symptom remission. Error analyses showed that depressed patients attributed not only sadness, but also happiness (in remission), to neutral faces. These results suggest that, unlike healthy subjects, depression-prone individuals do not seem to perceive neutral faces as unambiguous signals of emotional neutrality.

Face-selective processing in human extrastriate cortex around 120 ms after stimulus onset revealed by magneto- and electroencephalography

Quick recognition of faces is crucial to a variety of human interactions, and highly specialized pathways may be involved in the processing of faces. To reveal selectivity to faces in early cortical processing, whole-scalp magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) were used to record event-related responses to faces and degraded faces and their inverted counterparts. We observed increases in the peak latency and amplitude of the early 120-ms component (P120) for the inverted faces. These effects were enhanced for the 1 70-ms component (N170). For the degraded counterparts, a significant effect of the inversion was observed only for the N170, which was strongly delayed. Source modelling suggested that the early response originated at the posterior occipital areas whereas the later response was generated anterior and lateral to this location. We conclude that under sufficiently good conditions face-selective activity may be taking place during the P120.

Bodily maps of emotions

Significance Emotions coordinate our behavior and physiological states during survival-salient events and pleasurable interactions. Even though we are often consciously aware of our current emotional state, such as anger or happiness, the mechanisms giving rise to these subjective sensations have remained unresolved. Here we used a topographical self-report tool to reveal that different emotional states are associated with topographically distinct and culturally universal bodily sensations; these sensations could underlie our conscious emotional experiences. Monitoring the topography of emotion-triggered bodily sensations brings forth a unique tool for emotion research and could even provide a biomarker for emotional disorders. Emotions are often felt in the body, and somatosensory feedback has been proposed to trigger conscious emotional experiences. Here we reveal maps of bodily sensations associated with different emotions using a unique topographical self-report method. In five experiments, participants (n = 701) were shown two silhouettes of bodies alongside emotional words, stories, movies, or facial expressions. They were asked to color the bodily regions whose activity they felt increasing or decreasing while viewing each stimulus. Different emotions were consistently associated with statistically separable bodily sensation maps across experiments. These maps were concordant across West European and East Asian samples. Statistical classifiers distinguished emotion-specific activation maps accurately, confirming independence of topographies across emotions. We propose that emotions are represented in the somatosensory system as culturally universal categorical somatotopic maps. Perception of these emotion-triggered bodily changes may play a key role in generating consciously felt emotions.

Does your gaze direction and head orientation shift my visual attention

The effects of another persons gaze direction and head orientation on the observers attentional processes were investigated. Subjects responded to visual, laterally presented reaction signals. The presentation of the reaction signal was preceded by a facial cue stimulus signaling a direction which was either congruent, neutral, or incongruent with the laterality of the reaction signal. A head (front and profile views) with an averted gaze affected the response times in comparison to the front view of a face with a straight gaze. In contrast, a profile view of a head with a compatible gaze direction did not result in such an effect. The results indicate that visual information from the other individuals gaze direction and head orientation is integrated, and the integrated information is fed to the brain areas subserving visual attention orienting.

Does facial expression affect attention orienting by gaze direction cues

In 6 experiments, the authors investigated whether attention orienting by gaze direction is modulated by the emotional expression (neutral, happy, angry, or fearful) on the face. The results showed a clear spatial cuing effect by gaze direction but no effect by facial expression. In addition, it was shown that the cuing effect was stronger with schematic faces than with real faces, that gaze cuing could be achieved at very short stimulus onset asynchronies (14 ms), and that there was no evidence for a difference in the strength of cuing triggered by static gaze cues and by cues involving apparent motion of the pupils. In sum, the results suggest that in normal, healthy adults, eye direction processing for attention shifts is independent of facial expression analysis.

Facial and emotional reactions to Duchenne and non-Duchenne smiles

The purpose of the study was to investigate facial and emotional reactions while viewing two different types of smiles and the relation of emotional empathy to these reactions. Facial EMG was recorded from the orbicularis oculi and zygomaticus major muscle regions while subjects individually watched two blocks of stimuli. One block included posed facial expressions of the Duchenne smile (a felt smile) and a neutral face, the other block included expressions of another type of smile called non-Duchenne smile (an unfelt smile) and a neutral face. Emotional experiences were asked after each stimulus block. Finally, a measure of empathy was given. Facial EMG reactions differentiated between the neutral face and the Duchenne smile but not between the neutral face and the non-Duchenne smile. The Duchenne smile block induced experience of pleasure for the subjects who saw it as the first stimulus block. Empathy was correlated to the rated experiences of pleasure and interest after the Duchenne smile block.

Seeing direct and averted gaze activates the approach-avoidance motivational brain systems.

Gaze direction is known to be an important factor in regulating social interaction. Recent evidence suggests that direct and averted gaze can signal the senders motivational tendencies of approach and avoidance, respectively. We aimed at determining whether seeing another persons direct vs. averted gaze has an influence on the observers neural approach-avoidance responses. We also examined whether it would make a difference if the participants were looking at the face of a real person or a picture. Measurements of hemispheric asymmetry in the frontal electroencephalographic activity indicated that another persons direct gaze elicited a relative left-sided frontal EEG activation (indicative of a tendency to approach), whereas averted gaze activated right-sided asymmetry (indicative of avoidance). Skin conductance responses were larger to faces than to control objects and to direct relative to averted gaze, indicating that faces, in general, and faces with direct gaze, in particular, elicited more intense autonomic activation and strength of the motivational tendencies than did control stimuli. Gaze direction also influenced subjective ratings of emotional arousal and valence. However, all these effects were observed only when participants were facing a real person, not when looking at a picture of a face. This finding was suggested to be due to the motivational responses to gaze direction being activated in the context of enhanced self-awareness by the presence of another person. The present results, thus, provide direct evidence that eye contact and gaze aversion between two persons influence the neural mechanisms regulating basic motivational-emotional responses and differentially activate the motivational approach-avoidance brain systems.

Face-Specific responses from the human inferior occipito-temporal cortex

Whole-head neuromagnetic responses were recorded from seven subjects to pictures of faces and to various control stimuli. Four subjects displayed signals specific to faces. The combination of functional information from magnetoencephalography and anatomical data from magnetic resonance images suggests that the face-specific activity was generated in the inferior occipitotemporal cortex. All four subjects showed the face-specific response in the right hemisphere, one of them also in the left. Our results, together with recent position emission tomography and lesion studies, suggest a right-hemisphere preponderance of face processing in the inferior occipitotemporal cortex.

Automatic attention orienting by social and symbolic cues activates different neural networks: An fMRI study

Visual attention can be automatically re-oriented by another persons non-predictive gaze as well as by symbolic arrow cues. We investigated whether the shifts of attention triggered by biologically relevant gaze cues and biologically non-relevant arrow cues rely on the same neural systems by comparing the effects of gaze-cued and arrow-cued orienting on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal in humans. Participants detected laterally presented reaction signals preceded by centrally presented non-predictive gaze and arrow cues. Directional gaze cues and arrow cues were presented in separate blocks. Furthermore, two separate control blocks were run in which non-directional cues (straight gaze or segment of a line) were used. The BOLD signals during the control blocks were subtracted from those during the respective blocks with directional cues. Behavioral data showed that, for both cue types, reaction times were shorter on congruent than incongruent trials. Imaging data revealed three foci of activation for gaze-cued orienting: in the left inferior occipital gyrus and right medial and inferior occipital gyri. For arrow-cued orienting, a much more extensive network was activated. There were large postcentral activations bilaterally including areas in the medial/inferior occipital gyri and medial temporal gyri and in the left intraparietal area. Interestingly, arrow cuing also activated the right frontal eye field and supplementary eye field. The results suggest that attention orienting by gaze cues and attention orienting by arrow cues are not supported by the same cortical network and that attention orienting by symbolic arrow cues relies on mechanisms associated with voluntary shifts of attention.

Affect and face perception: odors modulate the recognition advantage of happy faces.

Previous choice reaction time studies have provided consistent evidence for faster recognition of positive (e.g., happy) than negative (e.g., disgusted) facial expressions. A predominance of positive emotions in normal contexts may partly explain this effect. The present study used pleasant and unpleasant odors to test whether emotional context affects the happy face advantage. Results from 2 experiments indicated that happiness was recognized faster than disgust in a pleasant context, but this advantage disappeared in an unpleasant context because of the slow recognition of happy faces. Odors may modulate the functioning of those emotion-related brain structures that participate in the formation of the perceptual representations of the facial expressions and in the generation of the conceptual knowledge associated with the signaled emotion.