Reading faces: differential lateral gaze bias in processing canine and human facial expressions in dogs and 4-year-old children

Sensitivity to the emotions of others provides clear biological advantages. However, in the case of heterospecific relationships, such as that existing between dogs and humans, there are additional challenges since some elements of the expression of emotions are species-specific. Given that faces provide important visual cues for communicating emotional state in both humans and dogs, and that processing of emotions is subject to brain lateralisation, we investigated lateral gaze bias in adult dogs when presented with pictures of expressive human and dog faces. Our analysis revealed clear differences in laterality of eye movements in dogs towards conspecific faces according to the emotional valence of the expressions. Differences were also found towards human faces, but to a lesser extent. For comparative purpose, a similar experiment was also run with 4-year-old children and it was observed that they showed differential processing of facial expressions compared to dogs, suggesting a species-dependent engagement of the right or left hemisphere in processing emotions

The effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation for dysphagia in opercular syndrome: a case study

A 76-year-old man with opercular syndrome characterized by complete bilateral loss of voluntary control of facial, lingual, pharyngeal and masticatory muscles is presented with focus on the severe dysphagia. Three years earlier the patient had experienced two strokes resulting in opercular syndrome with severe dysphagia. Despite initial logopedic dysphagia treatment, swallowing did not improve. A new treatment for dysphagia, consisting of neuromuscular electrical stimulation was applied on the patient. He returned to oral feeding. Clinical and treatment observations are reported

Neural correlates of enhanced visual short-term memory for angry faces: An fMRI study

Copyright: © 2008 Jackson et al.Background: Fluid and effective social communication requires that both face identity and emotional expression information are encoded and maintained in visual short-term memory (VSTM) to enable a coherent, ongoing picture of the world and its players. This appears to be of particular evolutionary importance when confronted with potentially threatening displays of emotion - previous research has shown better VSTM for angry versus happy or neutral face identities.Methodology/Principal Findings: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, here we investigated the neural correlates of this angry face benefit in VSTM. Participants were shown between one and four to-be-remembered angry, happy, or neutral faces, and after a short retention delay they stated whether a single probe face had been present or not in the previous display. All faces in any one display expressed the same emotion, and the task required memory for face identity. We find enhanced VSTM for angry face identities and describe the right hemisphere brain network underpinning this effect, which involves the globus pallidus, superior temporal sulcus, and frontal lobe. Increased activity in the globus pallidus was significantly correlated with the angry benefit in VSTM. Areas modulated by emotion were distinct from those modulated by memory load.Conclusions/Significance: Our results provide evidence for a key role of the basal ganglia as an interface between emotion and cognition, supported by a frontal, temporal, and occipital network.The authors were supported by a Wellcome Trust grant (grant number 077185/Z/05/Z) and by BBSRC (UK) grant BBS/B/16178

Right-Wing Politicians Prefer the Emotional Left

Physiological research suggests that social attitudes, such as political beliefs, may be partly hard-wired in the brain. Conservatives have heightened sensitivity for detecting emotional faces and use emotion more effectively when campaigning. As the left face displays emotion more prominently, we examined 1538 official photographs of conservative and liberal politicians from Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States for an asymmetry in posing. Across nations, conservatives were more likely than liberals to display the left cheek. In contrast, liberals were more likely to face forward than were conservatives. Emotion is important in political campaigning and as portraits influence voting decisions, conservative politicians may intuitively display the left face to convey emotion to voters

Processing of inconsistent emotional information: an fMRI study

Previous studies investigating the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) have relied on a number of tasks which involved cognitive control and attentional demands. In this fMRI study, we tested the model that ACC functions as an attentional network in the processing of language. We employed a paradigm that requires the processing of concurrent linguistic information predicting that the cognitive costs imposed by competing trials would engender the activation of ACC. Subjects were confronted with sentences where the semantic content conflicted with the prosodic intonation (CONF condition) randomly interspaced with sentences which conveyed coherent discourse components (NOCONF condition). We observed the activation of the rostral ACC and the middle frontal gyrus when the NOCONF condition was subtracted from the CONF condition. Our findings provide evidence for the involvement of the rostral ACC in the processing of complex competing linguistic stimuli, supporting theories that claim its relevance as a part of the cortical attentional circuit. The processing of emotional prosody involved a bilateral network encompassing the superior and medial temporal cortices. This evidence confirms previous research investigating the neuronal network that supports the processing of emotional information

Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Episodic Memory Related to Emotional Visual Stimuli

The present study investigated emotional memory following bilateral transcranial electrical stimulation (direct current of 1 mA, for 20 minutes) over fronto-temporal cortical areas of healthy participants during the encoding of images that differed in affective arousal and valence. The main result was a significant interaction between the side of anodal stimulation and image emotional valence. Specifically, right anodal/left cathodal stimulation selectively facilitated the recall of pleasant images with respect to both unpleasant and neutral images whereas left anodal/right cathodal stimulation selectively facilitated the recall of unpleasant images with respect to both pleasant and neutral images. From a theoretical perspective, this double dissociation between the side of anodal stimulation and the advantage in the memory performance for a specific type of stimulus depending on its pleasantness supported the specific-valence hypothesis of emotional processes, which assumes a specialization of the right hemisphere in processing unpleasant stimuli and a specialization of the left hemisphere in processing pleasant stimuli. From a methodological point of view, first we found tDCS effects strictly dependent on the stimulus category, and second a pattern of results in line with an interfering and inhibitory account of anodal stimulation on memory performance. These findings need to be carefully considered in applied contexts, such as the rehabilitation of altered emotional processing or eye-witness memory, and deserve to be further investigated in order to understand their underlying mechanisms of action

Who's Afraid of the Boss: Cultural Differences in Social Hierarchies Modulate Self-Face Recognition in Chinese and Americans

Human adults typically respond faster to their own face than to the faces of others. However, in Chinese participants, this self-face advantage is lost in the presence of one's supervisor, and they respond faster to their supervisor's face than to their own. While this “boss effect” suggests a strong modulation of self-processing in the presence of influential social superiors, the current study examined whether this effect was true across cultures. Given the wealth of literature on cultural differences between collectivist, interdependent versus individualistic, independent self-construals, we hypothesized that the boss effect might be weaker in independent than interdependent cultures. Twenty European American college students were asked to identify orientations of their own face or their supervisors' face. We found that European Americans, unlike Chinese participants, did not show a “boss effect” and maintained the self-face advantage even in the presence of their supervisor's face. Interestingly, however, their self-face advantage decreased as their ratings of their boss's perceived social status increased, suggesting that self-processing in Americans is influenced more by one's social status than by one's hierarchical position as a social superior. In addition, when their boss's face was presented with a labmate's face, American participants responded faster to the boss's face, indicating that the boss may represent general social dominance rather than a direct negative threat to oneself, in more independent cultures. Altogether, these results demonstrate a strong cultural modulation of self-processing in social contexts and suggest that the very concept of social positions, such as a boss, may hold markedly different meanings to the self across Western and East Asian cultures

The Influence of Social Comparison on Visual Representation of One's Face

Can the effects of social comparison extend beyond explicit evaluation to visual self-representation—a perceptual stimulus that is objectively verifiable, unambiguous, and frequently updated? We morphed images of participants' faces with attractive and unattractive references. With access to a mirror, participants selected the morphed image they perceived as depicting their face. Participants who engaged in upward comparison with relevant attractive targets selected a less attractive morph compared to participants exposed to control images (Study 1). After downward comparison with relevant unattractive targets compared to control images, participants selected a more attractive morph (Study 2). Biased representations were not the products of cognitive accessibility of beauty constructs; comparisons did not influence representations of strangers' faces (Study 3). We discuss implications for vision, social comparison, and body image

It's not what you say but the way that you say it: an fMRI study of differential lexical and non-lexical prosodic pitch processing

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This study aims to identify the neural substrate involved in prosodic pitch processing. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to test the premise that prosody pitch processing is primarily subserved by the right cortical hemisphere.</p> <p>Two experimental paradigms were used, firstly pairs of spoken sentences, where the only variation was a single internal phrase pitch change, and secondly, a matched condition utilizing pitch changes within analogous tone-sequence phrases. This removed the potential confounder of lexical evaluation. fMRI images were obtained using these paradigms.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Activation was significantly greater within the right frontal and temporal cortices during the tone-sequence stimuli relative to the sentence stimuli.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study showed that pitch changes, stripped of lexical information, are mainly processed by the right cerebral hemisphere, whilst the processing of analogous, matched, lexical pitch change is preferentially left sided. These findings, showing hemispherical differentiation of processing based on stimulus complexity, are in accord with a 'task dependent' hypothesis of pitch processing.</p