Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2024-06-21
Abstract： Faces and gaze direction are essential cues in interpersonal interactions. Examining how infants, especially newborns, process faces and gaze direction enhances our understanding of the origins and development of human social abilities. A review of existing literature shows that neonates (0~28 days old) generally prefer human faces and direct gaze, while infants around 3 months old begin to follow gaze direction. Brain imaging studies have revealed that infants older than 3 months exhibit neural responses to faces and gaze processing similar to those of adults. Future research could further explore neonatal preference for face and direct gaze, as well as gaze following in infants, using various brain imaging techniques, particularly novel magnetoencephalography, to uncover the neural basis of infants’ innate sensitivity to human faces and eye gaze, and the cognitive mechanisms influenced by acquired experience.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2024-06-14
Abstract： The emotional information conveyed through phonological prosody and facial expressions forms the foundation for human interpretation of others’ emotions and facilitates interpersonal interactions. Investigating how infants perceive, discriminate, and evaluate emotions embedded in these two modalities deepens our understanding of infants’ cognitive development and neural mechanisms. This paper comprehensively reviews emotion processing in infants, revealing that the temporal and frontal cortex play crucial roles in processing emotional speech and facial expressions. Although emotional processing involves both brain hemispheres, infants initially show a right-hemisphere advantage similar to adults. Within the first week after birth, infants can distinguish emotional information and exhibit a processing bias toward positive emotions. The bias gradually shifts to favor negative emotions around six months of age. By twelve months, infants’ negative emotional biases stabilize, and they can understand and respond to emotional cues from speech and facial expressions. Based on these findings, we propose the Developmental Theory of Emotional Bias. Importantly, cross-modal visual-auditory information significantly enhances infants’ ability to discern and understand specific emotions.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2023-03-28 Cooperative journals: 《心理科学进展》
Abstract： Speech processing is the core function of language cognition, and the brain mechanism of speech processing are an important topic in linguistics and cognitive psychology. However, it is unclear that how the newborn's brain perceives speech. The purpose of this review is to investigate the brain mechanism of speech perception in newborns. We found that human beings have a relatively well-developed speech processing mechanism during the neonatal period. While the left frontal lobe (especially the inferior frontal gyrus) plays an important role in detecting speech structure, the bilateral temporal lobes are responsible for detecting speech deviation. In addition, the left hemisphere has an advantage in mother tongue perception.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Emotional expressions of others embedded in speech prosodies are important for social interactions. Affective prosody refers to a way to express and convey emotions through the dynamic changes of various acoustic cues such as pitch, intensity, stress, and intonation in speech, without relying on vocabulary and grammatical structure. Previous studies have shown that STC, IFG, OFC, and other cerebral cortex and subcortical structures are involved in emotional prosody processing, and gradually formed a hierarchical model. However, existing studies on the neural mechanism of emotional prosody processing mostly focus on the difference between non-neutral emotional prosody and neutral prosody, while the comparison between various non-neutral emotional prosody is less investigated. Besides, the differences involved in brain regions of emotional prosody processing under explicit and implicit tasks are still not clear. Furthermore, it is necessary to further accumulate experimental evidence based on noise-free brain imaging technology, such as the noise-free features of fNIRS are especially suitable for speech processing research.This study used functional near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate how speech prosodies of different emotional categories are processed in the cortex under different task conditions. A group of 25 college students participated in this study with a 3 (emotion: anger vs. fearful vs. happy) by 2 (task focus: explicit vs. implicit) within-participant factorial design. We manipulated task focus by adopting two different tasks, with emotional discrimination task as explicit condition and sex discrimination task as implicit condition. Ten phonological materials for each of anger, fearful, and happy prosody were selected from the Chinese Speech Emotion Database and consisted of the corresponding emotional prosodies and neutral prosodies. The emotional explicit task was to count the emotional and neutral sentences contained in each 10-second speech, and the emotional implicit task was to count the sentences played by two women in each 10-second speech. A multi-channel fNIRS system was used to record brain activity in a continuous waveform. According to existing literature, the brain regions observed in this study are the bilateral frontal and temporal lobes. Therefore, we used 13 emitters and 15 detectors to form 37 effective observation channels.We first adopted NirSpark-2442 software to preprocess the data, and then conducted general linear model analyses to calculate the cortical activation related to the task. The results showed that the brain activation was significantly higher when anger was contrasted to fearful and happy prosody in left frontal pole / orbitofrontal cortex, and when happy was contrasted to fearful and anger prosody in left inferior frontal gyrus, and when fearful was contrasted to anger and happy prosody in right supramarginal gyrus. Importantly, there was an interaction between emotion and task. In the explicit task, cortex activity in the right supramarginal gyrus was more sensitive to fearful than to anger and happy prosodies. But no similar results were found under anger and happy prosody. In addition, the brain activation in temporopolar, superior temporal gyrus, and middle temporal gyrus with the explicit task was greater than that in the implicit task.The present study demonstrated the specific brain regions for processing angry, fearful and happy prosody were left frontal pole/orbitofrontal cortex, right supramarginal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus respectively, and the important role of right superior temporal gyrus and right supramarginal gyrus in emotional explicit task. These findings partially support the hierarchical model of emotional prosody and question the third level of the model.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Increasing evidence shows that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) plays an important role in emotion regulation, especially for social-relevant negative emotions. Negative interpersonal experiences and social events contribute largely to the occurrence of depression. Meanwhile, patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder are characterized by impaired social functions. Previous studies have revealed that depressed patients frequently show impaired emotional regulation for social pain. Recently, the work of our lab found that using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to activate the rVLPFC significantly reduced the subjects’ negative emotional feelings and improved their emotional regulation ability for down-regulating social pain. In order to improve the emotional regulation ability in depressed patients when they are in front of negative social events, this study examined the changed emotional regulation ability in depression following the activation of the rVLPFC using the TMS.A total of 127 patients who were diagnosed with major depressive disorder were recruited in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental (n= 64) or control group (n = 63) while their age, gender, depressive level, social anxious level, rejection sensitivity and empathy ability were counterbalanced between the two groups. During the experiment, the participants were required to view pictures containing social exclusion events or reinterpret the situation using reappraisal strategy, followed by rating their negative emotional feeling on a 9-point scale. The experiment had two conditions, i.e., a passive viewing block and a cognitive reappraisal block.The results showed that the main effect of the task was significant: the negative emotional intensity reported by participants was lower during cognitive reappraisal when compared to that during passive viewing, indicating a successful manipulation of explicit emotional regulation. Meanwhile, the main effect of the group was significant: the negative emotional intensity reported by the experimental group was significantly reduced compared to that reported by the control group, suggesting the critical role of rVLPFC in emotional regulation. More importantly, the interaction between task and group was significant: while the two groups reported comparable distressful feelings during the passive view block, the experimental group reported decreased negative feelings compared to the control group during the cognitive reappraisal block. This result indicated that enhanced activation of the rVLPFC could effectively improve the ability of explicit down-regulating social pain using the cognitive reappraisal strategy in depressed patients.The current findings provide strong evidence for the causal relationship between the VLPFC and explicit emotional regulation using the cognitive reappraisal strategy. Also this study provides a potential neural target for clinical treatments of emotional regulation impairment in patients with social dysfunctions including individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Future studies are suggested to use other paradigms (e.g., Cyberball, Chat Rooms, Online Ostracism, and Island Getaway) to induce a “first-hand” social pain and exclude the potential influence of empathy. Furthermore, optimized multi-session TMS protocols are required to enhance and prolong the TMS effects observed in this study. Also, the TMS-based treatment effects in depression should be compared between the left and the right part of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and across different emotional regulation strategies including cognitive reappraisal, distraction, distancing, etc.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： People tend to give priority to negative information and allocate more cognitive resources such as perception, attention and memory to negative, compared to positive, information. This phenomenon is called “negativity bias”, which is well established across toddlers, children, adolescents and adults. However, this emotional bias remains controversial in infants, especially in young infants that are less than six months old. Furthermore, it is still unclear whether the emotional bias changes from no bias or positivity bias to negativity bias during infants’ development in the first year of life. In this study, we used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine the neural responses to angry and happy prosodies in 45 neonates (0 month old) and 45 infants (one year old). The experiment was conducted in the neonatal ward of Peking University First Hospital. NIRS data were recorded when the infants were at active sleeping or staying quietly. Using a passive listening task, we investigated the brain functional connectivity during automatic processing of emotional prosodies of anger and happiness. The experiment was divided into three emotional blocks (using angry, happy and neutral prosodies, respectively). The order of the three blocks was counterbalanced among the participants. Each block contained 10 sentences, which were repeated six times, that is, 60 sentences were presented during the experiment in a random order. The results showed that emotion category had a significant main effect on 60 pairs of functional connectivity, which revealed that angry and happy prosodies evoked stronger functional connectivity than neutral prosody, whereas there was no significant difference between the angry and happy conditions. The observed significant functional connectivity was mainly distributed within the right hemisphere or across bilateral hemispheres. More importantly, there was an interaction between emotion category and group in the functional connectivity of frontal, temporal and parietal lobe of the right hemisphere. In the neonate group, the functional connectivity in the happy prosody condition was stronger than that in the angry prosody condition. By contrast, the functional connectivity in the infant group showed stronger connectivity in the angry compared to the happy condition. By examining the neural response to emotional prosodies at two time points (0 and 1 year old), this study revealed for the first time the changes of emotional bias in a developmental perspective. We found that emotional processing has a positive bias at the beginning of postnatal period, revealed by the stronger functional connectivity for happy than for angry prosodies at the right hemisphere of the superior temporal gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus, and the angular gyrus. However, the emotional processing bias reverses in 1-year-old infants, that is, the brain functional connectivity within the above mentioned brain regions is stronger for angry than that for happy prosodies. Therefore, the reliable phenomenon of “negativity bias” is not innate, although it is always observed in adults and children. Instead, we propose that there is a developmental change from positivity bias to negativity bias in the first year of human life.
Subjects: Psychology >> Developmental Psychology submitted time 2022-12-26
Abstract：
People tend to give priority to negative information and allocate more cognitive resources such as perception, attention and memory to negative, compared to positive, information. This phenomenon is called "negativity bias", which is well established across toddlers, children, adolescents and adults. However, this emotional bias remains controversial in infants, especially in young infants that are less than six months old. Furthermore, it is still unclear whether the emotional bias changes from no bias or positivity bias to negativity bias during infants’ development in the first year of life. In this study, we used near-infrared spectroscopy to examine the neural responses to angry and happy prosodies in 45 neonates (0 month old) and 45 infants (one year old). The experiment was conducted in the neonatal ward of Peking University First Hospital. NIRS data were recorded when the infants were at active sleeping or staying quietly. Using a passive listening task, we investigated the brain functional connectivity during automatic processing of emotional prosodies of anger and happiness. The experiment was divided into three emotional blocks (using angry, happy and neutral prosodies, respectively). The order of the three blocks was counterbalanced among the participants. Each block contained 10 sentences, which were repeated six times, that is, 60 sentences were presented during the experiment in a random order. The results showed that emotion category had a significant main effect on 60 pairs of functional connectivity, which revealed that angry and happy prosodies evoked stronger functional connectivity than neutral prosody, whereas there was no significant difference between the angry and happy conditions. The observed significant functional connectivity was mainly distributed within the right hemisphere or across bilateral hemispheres. More importantly, there was an interaction between emotion category and group in the functional connectivity of frontal, temporal and parietal lobe of the right hemisphere. In the neonate group, the functional connectivity in the happy prosody condition was stronger than that in the angry prosody condition. By contrast, the functional connectivity in the infant group showed stronger connectivity in the angry compared to the happy condition. By examining the neural response to emotional prosodies at two time points (0 and 1 year old), this study revealed for the first time the changes of emotional bias in a developmental perspective. We found that emotional processing has a positive bias at the beginning of postnatal period, revealed by the stronger functional connectivity for happy than for angry prosodies at the right hemisphere of the superior temporal gyrus, the inferior frontal gyrus, the supramarginal gyrus, and the angular gyrus. However, the emotional processing bias reverses in 1-year-old infants, that is, the brain functional connectivity within the above mentioned brain regions is stronger for angry than that for happy prosodies. Therefore, the reliable phenomenon of "negativity bias" is not innate, although it is always observed in adults and children. Instead, we propose that there is a developmental change from positivity bias to negativity bias in the first year of human life.
Peer Review Status:
Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2021-01-12
Abstract： Increasing evidence shows that the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (rVLPFC) plays an important role in emotion regulation, especially for social-relevant negative emotions. Negative interpersonal experiences and social events contribute largely to the occurrence of depression. Meanwhile, patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder are characterized by impaired social functions. Previous studies have revealed that depressed patients frequently show impaired emotional regulation for social pain. Recently, the work of our lab found that using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to activate the rVLPFC significantly reduced the subjects’ negative emotional feelings and improved their emotional regulation ability for down-regulating social pain. In order to improve the emotional regulation ability in depressed patients when they are in front of negative social events, this study examined the changed emotional regulation ability in depression following the activation of the rVLPFC using the TMS. A total of 127 patients who were diagnosed with major depressive disorder were recruited in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to experimental (n = 64) or control group (n = 63) while their age, gender, depressive level, social anxious level, rejection sensitivity and empathy ability were counterbalanced between the two groups. During the experiment, the participants were required to view pictures containing social exclusion events or reinterpret the situation using reappraisal strategy, followed by rating their negative emotional feeling on a 9-point scale. The experiment had two conditions, i.e., a passive viewing block and a cognitive reappraisal block. The results showed that the main effect of the task was significant: the negative emotional intensity reported by participants was lower during cognitive reappraisal when compared to that during passive viewing, indicating a successful manipulation of explicit emotional regulation. Meanwhile, the main effect of the group was significant: the negative emotional intensity reported by the experimental group was significantly reduced compared to that reported by the control group, suggesting the critical role of rVLPFC in emotional regulation. More importantly, the interaction between task and group was significant: while the two groups reported comparable distressful feelings during the passive view block, the experimental group reported decreased negative feelings compared to the control group during the cognitive reappraisal block. This result indicated that enhanced activation of the rVLPFC could effectively improve the ability of explicit down-regulating social pain using the cognitive reappraisal strategy in depressed patients. The current findings provide strong evidence for the causal relationship between the VLPFC and explicit emotional regulation using the cognitive reappraisal strategy. Also this study provides a potential neural target for clinical treatments of emotional regulation impairment in patients with social dysfunctions including individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, and autism spectrum disorder. Future studies are suggested to use other paradigms (e.g., Cyberball, Chat Rooms, Online Ostracism, and Island Getaway) to induce a “first-hand” social pain and exclude the potential influence of empathy. Furthermore, optimized multi-session TMS protocols are required to enhance and prolong the TMS effects observed in this study. Also, the TMS-based treatment effects in depression should be compared between the left and the right part of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, and across different emotional regulation strategies including cognitive reappraisal, distraction, distancing, etc. "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2020-09-18
Abstract： "
Peer Review Status:Awaiting Review
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