Pecchinenda A, Pes M, Ferlazzo F, Zoccolotti P.
Emotion, 8, 628-634
Empirical evidence shows an effect of gaze direction on cueing spatial attention, regardless of the emotional expression shown by a face, whereas a combined effect of gaze direction and facial expression has been observed on individuals' evaluative judgments. In 2 experiments, the authors investigated whether gaze direction and facial expression affect spatial attention depending upon the presence of an evaluative goal. Disgusted, fearful, happy, or neutral faces gazing left or right were followed by positive or negative target words presented either at the spatial location looked at by the face or at the opposite spatial location. Participants responded to target words based on affective valence (i.e., positive/negative) in Experiment 1 and on letter case (lowercase/uppercase) in Experiment 2. Results showed that participants responded much faster to targets presented at the spatial location looked at by disgusted or fearful faces but only in Experiment 1, when an evaluative task was used. The present findings clearly show that negative facial expressions enhance the attentional shifts due to eye-gaze direction, provided that there was an explicit evaluative goal present.
Showing posts with label eye gaze. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eye gaze. Show all posts
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Monday, November 19, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Happy and fearful emotion in cues and targets modulate event-related potential indices of gaze-directed attentional orienting
Harlan M. Fichtenholtz, Joseph B. Hopfinger, Reiko Graham, Jacqueline M. Detwiler and Kevin S. LaBar
Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 2, 323-333
The goal of the present study was to characterize the effects of valence in facial cues and object targets on event-related potential (ERPs) indices of gaze-directed orienting. Participants were shown faces at fixation that concurrently displayed dynamic gaze shifts and expression changes from neutral to fearful or happy emotions. Emotionally-salient target objects subsequently appeared in the periphery and were spatially congruent or incongruent with the gaze direction. ERPs were time-locked to target presentation. Three sequential ERP components were modulated by happy emotion, indicating a progression from an expression effect to a gaze-by-expression interaction to a target emotion effect. These effects included larger P1 amplitude over contralateral occipital sites for targets following happy faces, larger centrally distributed N1 amplitude for targets following happy faces with leftward gaze, and faster P3 latency for positive targets. In addition, parietally distributed P3 amplitude was reduced for validly cued targets following fearful expressions. Results are consistent with accounts of attentional broadening and motivational approach by happy emotion, and facilitation of spatially directed attention in the presence of fearful cues. The findings have implications for understanding how socioemotional signals in faces interact with each other and with emotional features of objects in the environment to alter attentional processes.
Social Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, 2, 323-333
The goal of the present study was to characterize the effects of valence in facial cues and object targets on event-related potential (ERPs) indices of gaze-directed orienting. Participants were shown faces at fixation that concurrently displayed dynamic gaze shifts and expression changes from neutral to fearful or happy emotions. Emotionally-salient target objects subsequently appeared in the periphery and were spatially congruent or incongruent with the gaze direction. ERPs were time-locked to target presentation. Three sequential ERP components were modulated by happy emotion, indicating a progression from an expression effect to a gaze-by-expression interaction to a target emotion effect. These effects included larger P1 amplitude over contralateral occipital sites for targets following happy faces, larger centrally distributed N1 amplitude for targets following happy faces with leftward gaze, and faster P3 latency for positive targets. In addition, parietally distributed P3 amplitude was reduced for validly cued targets following fearful expressions. Results are consistent with accounts of attentional broadening and motivational approach by happy emotion, and facilitation of spatially directed attention in the presence of fearful cues. The findings have implications for understanding how socioemotional signals in faces interact with each other and with emotional features of objects in the environment to alter attentional processes.
Monday, October 08, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Unilateral Amygdala Lesions Hamper Attentional Orienting Triggered by Gaze Direction
Tomoko Akiyama, Motoichiro Kato, Taro Muramatsu, Satoshi Umeda, Fumie Saito and Haruo Kashima
Cerebral Cortex, in press
The newly discovered deficit in a bilateral amygdala-damaged case, of not being able to allocate attention to the critical feature of a face (Adolphs R, Gosselin F, Buchanan TW, Tranel D, Schyns P, Damasio AR. 2005. A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage. Nature. 433:68--72.), has opened a new window into the function of the amygdala. This case implies that the amygdala might be essential in detecting potentially relevant social stimuli, and directing attention accordingly. In this study, we have sought to test this implication by investigating the behavioral performance of 5 unilateral amygdala-damaged subjects on spatial cueing tasks. The tasks employed central gaze and arrow direction as cues to trigger attentional orienting in peripheral target detection. Although age-matched normal controls demonstrated a significant congruency effect such that targets presented congruently to cue direction elicited faster detection, amygdala subjects demonstrated no such congruency effect for gaze cues in the face of a significant congruency effect for arrow cues. The results suggest that the social valence of a stimulus is critical for amygdala involvement in visual processing. The results also support the implicated role of the amygdala in detecting and analyzing relevant social stimuli, and orienting attention accordingly.
Cerebral Cortex, in press
The newly discovered deficit in a bilateral amygdala-damaged case, of not being able to allocate attention to the critical feature of a face (Adolphs R, Gosselin F, Buchanan TW, Tranel D, Schyns P, Damasio AR. 2005. A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage. Nature. 433:68--72.), has opened a new window into the function of the amygdala. This case implies that the amygdala might be essential in detecting potentially relevant social stimuli, and directing attention accordingly. In this study, we have sought to test this implication by investigating the behavioral performance of 5 unilateral amygdala-damaged subjects on spatial cueing tasks. The tasks employed central gaze and arrow direction as cues to trigger attentional orienting in peripheral target detection. Although age-matched normal controls demonstrated a significant congruency effect such that targets presented congruently to cue direction elicited faster detection, amygdala subjects demonstrated no such congruency effect for gaze cues in the face of a significant congruency effect for arrow cues. The results suggest that the social valence of a stimulus is critical for amygdala involvement in visual processing. The results also support the implicated role of the amygdala in detecting and analyzing relevant social stimuli, and orienting attention accordingly.
Friday, September 28, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Self produced and observed actions influence emotion: the roles of action fluency and eye gaze.
Hayes AE, Paul MA, Beuger B, Tipper SP.
Psychological Research, in press
Affective responses to objects can be influenced by cognitive processes such as perceptual fluency. Here we investigated whether the quality of motor interaction with an object influences affective response to the object. Participants grasped and moved objects using either a fluent action or a non-fluent action (avoiding an obstacle). Liking ratings were higher for objects in the fluent condition. Two further studies investigated whether the fluency of another person's actions influences affective response. Observers watched movie clips of the motor actions described above, in conditions where the observed actor could be seen to be looking towards the grasped object, or where the actor's head and gaze were not visible. Two results were observed: First, when the actor's gaze cannot be seen, liking ratings of the objects are reduced. Second, action fluency of observed actions does influence liking ratings, but only when the actor's gaze towards the object is visible. These findings provide supporting evidence for the important role of observed eye gaze in action simulation, and demonstrate that non-emotive actions can evoke empathic states in observers.
Psychological Research, in press
Affective responses to objects can be influenced by cognitive processes such as perceptual fluency. Here we investigated whether the quality of motor interaction with an object influences affective response to the object. Participants grasped and moved objects using either a fluent action or a non-fluent action (avoiding an obstacle). Liking ratings were higher for objects in the fluent condition. Two further studies investigated whether the fluency of another person's actions influences affective response. Observers watched movie clips of the motor actions described above, in conditions where the observed actor could be seen to be looking towards the grasped object, or where the actor's head and gaze were not visible. Two results were observed: First, when the actor's gaze cannot be seen, liking ratings of the objects are reduced. Second, action fluency of observed actions does influence liking ratings, but only when the actor's gaze towards the object is visible. These findings provide supporting evidence for the important role of observed eye gaze in action simulation, and demonstrate that non-emotive actions can evoke empathic states in observers.
Friday, May 25, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Garner interference reveals dependencies between emotional expression and gaze in face perception.
Graham R, Labar KS
Emotion, 7, 296-313
The relationship between facial expression and gaze processing was investigated with the Garner selective attention paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants performed expression judgments without interference from gaze, but expression interfered with gaze judgments. Experiment 2 replicated these results across different emotions. In both experiments, expression judgments occurred faster than gaze judgments, suggesting that expression was processed before gaze could interfere. In Experiments 3 and 4, the difficulty of the emotion discrimination was increased in two different ways. In both cases, gaze interfered with emotion judgments and vice versa. Furthermore, increasing the difficulty of the emotion discrimination resulted in gaze and expression interactions. Results indicate that expression and gaze interactions are modulated by discriminability. Whereas expression generally interferes with gaze judgments, gaze direction modulates expression processing only when facial emotion is difficult to discriminate.
Emotion, 7, 296-313
The relationship between facial expression and gaze processing was investigated with the Garner selective attention paradigm. In Experiment 1, participants performed expression judgments without interference from gaze, but expression interfered with gaze judgments. Experiment 2 replicated these results across different emotions. In both experiments, expression judgments occurred faster than gaze judgments, suggesting that expression was processed before gaze could interfere. In Experiments 3 and 4, the difficulty of the emotion discrimination was increased in two different ways. In both cases, gaze interfered with emotion judgments and vice versa. Furthermore, increasing the difficulty of the emotion discrimination resulted in gaze and expression interactions. Results indicate that expression and gaze interactions are modulated by discriminability. Whereas expression generally interferes with gaze judgments, gaze direction modulates expression processing only when facial emotion is difficult to discriminate.
Friday, May 18, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Gaze fixations predict brain activation during the voluntary regulation of picture-induced negative affect.
Carien M. van Reekuma, Tom Johnstone, Heather L. Urry, Marchell E. Thurow, Hillary S. Schaefer, Andrew L. Alexander and Richard J. Davidson
NeuroImage, in press
Recent studies have identified a distributed network of brain regions thought to support cognitive reappraisal processes underlying emotion regulation in response to affective images, including parieto-temporal regions and lateral/medial regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). A number of these commonly activated regions are also known to underlie visuospatial attention and oculomotor control, which raises the possibility that people use attentional redeployment rather than, or in addition to, reappraisal as a strategy to regulate emotion. We predicted that a significant portion of the observed variance in brain activation during emotion regulation tasks would be associated with differences in how participants visually scan the images while regulating their emotions. We recorded brain activation using fMRI and quantified patterns of gaze fixation while participants increased or decreased their affective response to a set of affective images. fMRI results replicated previous findings on emotion regulation with regulation differences reflected in regions of PFC and the amygdala. In addition, our gaze fixation data revealed that when regulating, individuals changed their gaze patterns relative to a control condition. Furthermore, this variation in gaze fixation accounted for substantial amounts of variance in brain activation. These data point to the importance of controlling for gaze fixation in studies of emotion regulation that use visual stimuli.
NeuroImage, in press
Recent studies have identified a distributed network of brain regions thought to support cognitive reappraisal processes underlying emotion regulation in response to affective images, including parieto-temporal regions and lateral/medial regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). A number of these commonly activated regions are also known to underlie visuospatial attention and oculomotor control, which raises the possibility that people use attentional redeployment rather than, or in addition to, reappraisal as a strategy to regulate emotion. We predicted that a significant portion of the observed variance in brain activation during emotion regulation tasks would be associated with differences in how participants visually scan the images while regulating their emotions. We recorded brain activation using fMRI and quantified patterns of gaze fixation while participants increased or decreased their affective response to a set of affective images. fMRI results replicated previous findings on emotion regulation with regulation differences reflected in regions of PFC and the amygdala. In addition, our gaze fixation data revealed that when regulating, individuals changed their gaze patterns relative to a control condition. Furthermore, this variation in gaze fixation accounted for substantial amounts of variance in brain activation. These data point to the importance of controlling for gaze fixation in studies of emotion regulation that use visual stimuli.
Friday, April 27, 2007
ARTICLE UPDATE - Affective evaluations of objects are influenced by observed gaze direction and emotional expression
Andrew P. Bayliss, Alexandra Frischen, Mark J. Fenske and Steven P. Tipper
Cognition, in press
Gaze direction signals another person’s focus of interest. Facial expressions convey information about their mental state. Appropriate responses to these signals should reflect their combined influence, yet current evidence suggests that gaze-cueing effects for objects near an observed face are not modulated by its emotional expression. Here, we extend the investigation of perceived gaze direction and emotional expression by considering their combined influence on affective judgments. While traditional response-time measures revealed equal gaze-cueing effects for happy and disgust faces, affective evaluations critically depended on the combined product of gaze and emotion. Target objects looked at with a happy expression were liked more than objects looked at with a disgust expression. Objects not looked at were rated equally for both expressions. Our results demonstrate that facial expression does modulate the way that observers utilize gaze cues: Objects attended by others are evaluated according to the valence of their facial expression.
Cognition, in press
Gaze direction signals another person’s focus of interest. Facial expressions convey information about their mental state. Appropriate responses to these signals should reflect their combined influence, yet current evidence suggests that gaze-cueing effects for objects near an observed face are not modulated by its emotional expression. Here, we extend the investigation of perceived gaze direction and emotional expression by considering their combined influence on affective judgments. While traditional response-time measures revealed equal gaze-cueing effects for happy and disgust faces, affective evaluations critically depended on the combined product of gaze and emotion. Target objects looked at with a happy expression were liked more than objects looked at with a disgust expression. Objects not looked at were rated equally for both expressions. Our results demonstrate that facial expression does modulate the way that observers utilize gaze cues: Objects attended by others are evaluated according to the valence of their facial expression.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)