Stefania Balzarotti

Emotional suppression in early marriage: Actor, partner, and similarity effects on marital quality

Although habitual use of suppression has been consistently linked to adverse consequences for overall social functioning, little is known about the implications of using this emotion regulation strategy in the context of romantic relationships. The current longitudinal study tests whether husbands’ and wives’ habitual use of suppression, as well as couple similarity in the use of this strategy, influence marital quality over the first couple of years of marriage. A total of 229 newlywed couples reported their habitual use of suppression and perceived marital quality at two time points, 5 months and 2 years after marriage. Results showed that husbands’ habitual use of suppression was the most consistent predictor of (lower) marital quality over time. Couples showed significant levels of similarity in suppression at the initial assessment, consistent with positive assortment, and this similarity was a significant predictor of higher marital quality as reported by wives regardless of overall levels of suppression use. These findings suggest that husbands’ use of suppression is more harmful for marital satisfaction than wives’ use and wives are more sensitive to their partners’ use of suppression as well as to couple similarity.

Cardiac vagal control as a marker of emotion regulation in healthy adults: A review

In the last two decades, a growing body of theory and research has targeted the role of cardiac vagal control (CVC) in emotional responding. This research has either focused on resting CVC (also denoted as cardiac vagal tone) or phasic changes in CVC (also denoted as vagal reactivity) in response to affective stimuli. The present paper is aimed at reporting a review of the papers published between 1996 and 2016, and focused on the results of 135 papers examining cardiac vagal control as a physiological marker of emotion regulation in healthy adults. The review shows that studies have employed a wide array of methodologies and measures, often leading to conflicting results. High resting CVC has been associated with better down-regulation of negative affect, use of adaptive regulatory strategies, and more flexible emotional responding. Concerning phasic changes, research has consistently found decreased CVC in response to stress, while CVC increases have been shown to reflect either self-regulatory efforts or recovery from stress. Despite conflicting results, we conclude that existing literature supports the use of CVC as a noninvasive, objective marker of emotion regulation.

From Signals to Emotions: Applying Emotion Models to HM Affective Interactions

In 1997 Rosalind Picard defined Affective Computing as the «computing that relates to, arises from, or deliberately influences emotions». Since then, research has developed to provide machines and computers with emotional skills similar to those of human users: among others, emotion recognition and expression. Within this approach, emotions are thought to constitute key components to achieve more effective Human Computer Interaction (HCI): «machines may never need all of the emotional skills that people need; however, there is evidence that machines will require at least some of these skills to appear intelligent when interacting with people» (Picard, Vyzas, & Healey, 2001). The core idea is that in the same way as emotion is crucial for human intelligent and rational functioning – as most recent psychology and neuroscience research has pointed out (Bechara & Damasio, 2005) – emotional abilities should be considered also in the development of intelligent computer systems. Within the broad research area of Affective Computing, it is possible to distinguish two main work areas: on one side, emotion simulation is aimed at implementing artificial human-like autonomous agents able to interact with the user reproducing human facial and/or vocal emotional expressions, e.g. avatars, robots and ECAs (Breazeal, 2002; de Rosis et al., 2003; Lisetti et al., 2004); on the other side, emotional decoding is meant to design interfaces able to recognize the user’s emotional responses from real-time capturing and processing of multiple signals (Lisetti et al., 2003). Whatever the research goal is – simulation or recognition – researchers have been confronted with the concept of emotion. Modelling emotions in HCI has revealed a complex challenge and different computational models have been developed to support its complexity and the multimodal richness of human face-to-face communication (Bianchi-Berthouze & Lisetti, 2002; Kort, Reilly, & Picard, 2001). Although the psychological study of emotion has brought to the development of different definitions of this construct, in the last years a widespread consensus has grown in psychological literature on the complexity of the emotional process and in particular on its componential nature (Scherer, 2005). All major theorists have stressed the need to analyze multiple response systems, such as physiology, behaviour and experience (Levenson, 2003). In this chapter, we’ll mainly focus on emotional decoding, i.e. the task to construct new generation interfaces able to sense and to respond to the user’s affective feedback (Picard, Vyzas, & Healey, 2001). In particular, the major purpose of the chapter is to provide hints

Effects of Unilateral Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation of Left Prefrontal Cortex on Processing and Memory of Emotional Visual Stimuli.

The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is generally thought to be involved in affect and emotional processing; however, the specific contribution of each hemisphere continues to be debated. In the present study, we employed unilateral tDCS to test the unique contribution of left DLPFC in the encoding and retrieval of emotional stimuli in healthy subjects. Forty-two right handed undergraduate students received either anodal, cathodal or sham stimulation of left DLPFC while viewing neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant pictures. After completing a filler task, participants were asked to remember as many pictures as possible. Results showed that participants were able to remember a larger amount of emotional (both pleasant and unpleasant) pictures than of neutral ones, regardless of the type of tDCS condition. Participants who received anodal stimulation recalled a significantly higher number of pleasant images than participants in the sham and cathodal conditions, while no differences emerged in the recall of neutral and unpleasant pictures. We conclude that our results provide some support to the role of left prefrontal cortex in the encoding and retrieval of pleasant stimuli.

Psychology-Aware video-enabled workplace

The ability to recognize, interpret and express emotions plays a key role in human communication. Current computer interfaces have become able to ”see”, thanks to advanced video sensors and video processing algorithms; however, until recently they could not plausibly ”guess” user intentions, because available feature extraction techniques could not provide the adequate level of service needed to support sophisticated interpretation capabilities. Our approach relies on a set of novel face and posture recognition techniques efficient and robust enough to be at the basis of a fully video-enabled intelligent pervasive workplace, capable of providing value added services based on the real time of facial and postural data. We propose to build on our current work in this area to create an infrastructure for lightweight facial and posture analysis allowing a variety of extended interactions between users and their work, market and entertainment environments.

The influence of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex on attentional behavior and decision making. A t-DCS study on emotionally vs. functionally designed objects.

Prior research has shown that right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex may be crucial in cognitive control of affective impulses during decision making. The present study examines whether modulation of r-DLPFC with transcranial direct current stimulation influences attentional behavior and decision-making in a purchase task requiring participants to choose either emotional/attractive or functional/useful objects. 30 participants were shown sixteen pairs of emotionally or functionally designed products while their eye-movements were recorded. Participants were asked to judge aesthetics and usefulness of each object, and to decide which object of each pair they would buy. Results revealed that participants decided to buy the functionally designed objects more often regardless of condition; however, participants receiving anodal stimulation were faster in decision making. Although stimulation of r-DLPFC did not affect the actual purchasing choice and had little effect on visual exploration during decision making, it influenced perceived usefulness and attractiveness, with temporary inhibition of r-DLPFC leading to evaluate functional objects as less attractive. Finally, anodal stimulation led to judge the objects as more useful. The implications of these results are discussed.

Using a Reminiscence-based Approach to Investigate the Cognitive Reserve of a Healthy Aging Population

ABSTRACT Objectives: The concept of Cognitive Reserve (CR) has been used to account for brain plasticity in older adults that may underlie the resilience against the effects of aging or pathology on cognitive abilities. This study aims at exploring the proxies of CR in a sample of healthy older adults by analyzing their spontaneous reminiscence through a discourse analysis approach. Method: Fifteen community-dwelling older adults were asked to participate in a video-recorded, spontaneous reminiscence interview. Interviews were transcribed according to Conversation Analysis, and two judges classified the interview content identifying five main markers of CR: enriched environment, cognitively stimulating activities, education, physical activity, and social interaction. Results: Reminiscence allowed to identify markers of CR. Sharing stories that are linked to CR markers promote positive emotion, coherent sense of self, and cognitive evaluation of the importance of the social network. Conclusions: Reminisce looks like a possible approach not only to indirect evaluate the CR, but also to promote it. Clinical Implications: The reminisce approach can be used as a clinical tool to assess and increase the CR, help the clinical population to experience more positive emotions, maintain a more defined sense of self, and value more the social resources available.

Autobiographical narration as a tool for the empowerment of older adults’ subjective and psychological well-being in nursing homes

ABSTRACT Objectives: Conceiving narration as a resource to promote older people’s wellbeing, the present work aimed to implement a narrative-based intervention to empower the subjective and psychological wellbeing of older adults living in nursing homes. Methods: Twenty-one nursing-home residents took part in a narrative training experience consisting of three weekly interview sessions. During each interview, a psychologist helped the participants to construct an autobiographical narrative about their present life in the nursing home based on a Deconstruction-Reconstruction technique. Subjective and psychological wellbeing variables were assessed before and after the intervention. Results: Subjective but not psychological wellbeing increased over the course of the intervention. The participants reported to appreciate the intervention. Conclusions: Although preliminary, the results suggest that brief narrative training based on narrative therapy can positively affect nursing-home residents’ subjective wellbeing. Clinical Implications: Brief narrative interventions implementing deconstruction-reconstruction techniques are feasible for long-term care residents.

Individual Differences in Cognitive Reappraisal Predict Emotional Experience Prior to Achievement Situations

In the present study, we examined whether individual differences in the use of cognitive reappraisal predict the experience of more positive and less negative emotions prior to an evaluative task, as well as whether reappraisal is associated with better performance. In a longitudinal design, 130 students were asked to report their spontaneous use of reappraisal as well as the emotions experienced at three time points prior to an academic exam. Results showed that the use of cognitive reappraisal measured when students began to study predicted less negative and more positive emotions in the following two weeks. Further, positive and negative affect were significant predictors of the grade achieved. Finally, cognitive reappraisal had a significant indirect effect on the grade students achieved. These findings suggest that cognitive reappraisal can be effective in regulating emotions while approaching evaluative stressors.