Visual scanning patterns and executive function in relation to facial emotion recognition in aging

ABSTRACT

Objective: The ability to perceive facial emotion varies with age. Relative to younger adults (YA), older adults (OA) are less accurate at identifying fear, anger, and sadness, and more accurate at identifying disgust. Because different emotions are conveyed by different parts of the face, changes in visual scanning patterns may account for age-related variability. We investigated the relation between scanning patterns and recognition of facial emotions. Additionally, as frontal-lobe changes with age may affect scanning patterns and emotion recognition, we examined correlations between scanning parameters and performance on executive function tests. Methods: We recorded eye movements from 16 OA (mean age 68.9) and 16 YA (mean age 19.2) while they categorized facial expressions and non-face control images (landscapes), and administered standard tests of executive function. Results: OA were less accurate than YA at identifying fear (p < .05, r = .44) and more accurate at identifying disgust (p < .05, r = .39). OA fixated less than YA on the top half of the face for disgust, fearful, happy, neutral, and sad faces (p values < .05, r values ≥ .38), whereas there was no group difference for landscapes. For OA, executive function was correlated with recognition of sad expressions and with scanning patterns for fearful, sad, and surprised expressions. Conclusion: We report significant age-related differences in visual scanning that are specific to faces. The observed relation between scanning patterns and executive function supports the hypothesis that frontal-lobe changes with age may underlie some changes in emotion recognition.     

Face processing skills predict faithfulness of portraits drawn by novices

Individuals show astonishing variability in their face recognition abilities, and the causes and consequences of this heterogeneity are unclear. Special expertise with faces, for example in portraitists, is associated with advantages on face processing tasks, especially those involving perceptual abilities. Do face processing skills improve through practice, or does drawing skill reflect pre-existing individual differences? If the latter, then the association between face processing skills and production of faithful portraits should also exist in people without practice in drawing. Two exploratory studies and one follow-up confirmatory study provide support for this hypothesis. Drawing ability of novices was predicted by their performance on face recognition tasks involving perceptual discrimination and visual short-term memory, but not by those that rely more heavily on long-term memory or memory for non-face objects. By examining non-experts, we show that expertise with faces might build upon pre-existing individual differences in face processing skills.     

Are event-related potentials to dynamic facial expressions of emotion related to individual differences in the accuracy of processing facial expressions and identity?

Despite a wealth of knowledge about the neural mechanisms behind emotional facial expression processing, little is known about how they relate to individual differences in social cognition abilities. We studied individual differences in the event-related potentials (ERPs) elicited by dynamic facial expressions. First, we assessed the latent structure of the ERPs, reflecting structural face processing in the N170, and the allocation of processing resources and reflexive attention to emotionally salient stimuli, in the early posterior negativity (EPN) and the late positive complex (LPC). Then we estimated brain–behavior relationships between the ERP factors and behavioral indicators of facial identity and emotion-processing abilities. Structural models revealed that the participants who formed faster structural representations of neutral faces (i.e., shorter N170 latencies) performed better at face perception (r = –.51) and memory (r = –.42). The N170 amplitude was not related to individual differences in face cognition or emotion processing. The latent EPN factor correlated with emotion perception (r = .47) and memory (r = .32), and also with face perception abilities (r = .41). Interestingly, the latent factor representing the difference in EPN amplitudes between the two neutral control conditions (chewing and blinking movements) also correlated with emotion perception (r = .51), highlighting the importance of tracking facial changes in the perception of emotional facial expressions. The LPC factor for negative expressions correlated with the memory for emotional facial expressions. The links revealed between the latency and strength of activations of brain systems and individual differences in processing socio-emotional information provide new insights into the brain mechanisms involved in social communication.     

Short-term memory for emotional faces in dysphoria

The study aimed to determine if the memory bias for negative faces previously demonstrated in depression and dysphoria generalises from long- to short-term memory. A total of 29 dysphoric (DP) and 22 non-dysphoric (ND) participants were presented with a series of faces and asked to identify the emotion portrayed (happiness, sadness, anger, or neutral affect). Following a delay, four faces were presented (the original plus three distractors) and participants were asked to identify the target face. Half of the trials assessed memory for facial emotion, and the remaining trials examined memory for facial identity. At encoding, no group differences were apparent. At memory testing, relative to ND participants, DP participants exhibited impaired memory for all types of facial emotion and for facial identity when the faces featured happiness, anger, or neutral affect, but not sadness. DP participants exhibited impaired identity memory for happy faces relative to angry, sad, and neutral, whereas ND participants exhibited enhanced facial identity memory when faces were angry. In general, memory for faces was not related to performance at encoding. However, in DP participants only, memory for sad faces was related to sadness recognition at encoding. The results suggest that the negative memory bias for faces in dysphoria does not generalise from long- to short-term memory.     

Prior sleep timing and visual recognition of emotional faces in 6-month-old infants

Face recognition is an important mnemonic ability for infants when navigating the social world. While age-related changes in face processing abilities are relatively well documented, less is known about short-term intra-individual fluctuations in this ability. Given that sleep deprivation in adults leads to impairments in information processing, we assessed the role of prior sleep on 6-month-old infants’ (N = 17) visual recognition of faces showing three emotional expressions (neutral, sad, angry). Visual recognition was inferred by assessing novelty preferences for unfamiliar relative to familiarized faces in a visual recognition memory paradigm. In a within-subject design, infants participated once after they had recently woken up from a nap (nap condition) and once after they had been awake for an extended period of time (awake condition). Infants failed to show visual recognition for the neutral faces in either condition. Infants showed recognition for the sad and angry faces when tested in the awake condition, but not in the nap condition. This suggests that timing of prior sleep shapes how effectively infants process emotionally relevant information in their environment.     

自然场景与身体动作对面孔表情识别的影响

本研究以消极情绪间感知相似性较低的厌恶、恐惧面孔表情为材料,提供5个情绪性语言标签减少文字背景对面孔识别的促进作用,通过2个实验对自然场景以及身体动作对面孔表情识别的影响进行了研究,旨在考察面孔表情与自然场景间的情绪一致性对情绪面孔识别和自然场景加工的影响,以及加入与自然场景情绪相冲突的身体动作对面孔表情识别可能产生的影响。研究结果表明:(1)尽管增加了情绪性语言标签选项数量,自然场景的情绪对面孔表情识别的影响依旧显著;(2)当面孔表情与自然场景情绪不一致时,面孔识别需要更多依赖对自然场景的加工,因此对自然场景的加工程度更高;(3)身体动作会在一定程度上干扰自然场景对面孔表情识别的影响,但自然场景依然对情绪面孔的表情识别有重要作用。     

Emotional information in body and background hampers recognition memory for faces

Emotional influences on memory for events have long been documented yet surprisingly little is known about how emotional signals conveyed by contextual cues influence memory for face identity. This study investigated how positively and negatively valenced contextual emotion cues conveyed by body expressions or background scenes influence face memory. The results provide evidence of emotional context influence on face recognition memory and show that faces encoded in emotional (either fearful or happy) contexts (either the body or background scene) are less well recognized than faces encoded in neutral contexts and this effect is larger for body context than for scene context. The findings are compatible with the hypothesis that emotional signals in visual scenes trigger orienting responses which may lead to a less elaborate processing of featural details like the identity of a face, in turn resulting in a decreased facial recognition memory.     

Infant visual recognition memory: independent contributions of speed and attention

Relations between infant visual recognition memory and later cognition have fueled interest in identifying the underlying cognitive components of this important infant ability. The present large-scale study examined three promising factors in this regard--processing speed, short-term memory capacity, and attention. Two of these factors, attention and processing speed (but, surprisingly, not short-term memory capacity), were related to visual recognition memory: Infants who showed better attention (shorter looks and more shifts) and faster processing had better recognition memory. The contributions of attention and processing speed were independent of one another and were similar at all ages studied--5, 7, and 12 months. Taken together, attention and speed accounted for 6%-9% of the variance in visual recognition memory, leaving a considerable, but not unexpected, portion of the variance unexplained.     

Unfamiliar faces are not faces: Evidence from a matching task

It is difficult to match two images of the same unfamiliar face, even under good conditions. Here, we show that there are large individual differences on unfamiliar face matching. Initially, we tried to predict these using tests of visual short-term memory, cognitive style, and perceptual speed. Moderate correlations were produced by various components of these tests. In three other experiments, we found very strong correlations between face matching and inverted face matching on the same test. Finally, we examined potential associations between familiar and unfamiliar face processing. Strong correlations were found between familiar and unfamiliar face processing, but only when the familiar faces were inverted. We conclude that unfamiliar faces are processed for identity in a qualitatively different way than are familiar faces.     

The sibling familiarity effect: Is within-person facial variability shared across siblings?

Humans are experts at familiar face recognition, but poor at unfamiliar face recognition. Familiarity is created when a face is encountered across varied conditions, but the way in which a person’s appearance varies is identity-specific, so familiarity with one identity does not benefit recognition of other individuals. However, the faces of biological siblings share structural similarities, so we explored whether the benefits of familiarity are shared across siblings. Results show that familiarity with one half of a sibling pair improves kin detection (experiment 1), and that unfamiliar face matching is more accurate when targets are the siblings of familiar versus unfamiliar individuals (experiment 2). PCA applied to facial images of celebrities and their siblings demonstrates that faces are generally better reconstructed in the principal components of a same-sex sibling than those of an unrelated individual. When we encounter the unfamiliar sibling of someone we already know, our pre-existing representation of their familiar relation may usefully inform processing of the unfamiliar face. This can benefit both kin detection and identity processing, but the benefits are constrained by the degree to which facial variability is shared.     

Parts and wholes in person recognition: developmental trends

This study's aim is the investigation of short-term visual person recognition in 8- and 10-year-olds and adults, within the part-whole paradigm introduced by. Natural unfamiliar whole persons were contrasted with natural unfamiliar faces to test for differences between person processing and face processing. Two experiments showed advantages of whole face recognition over isolated face feature recognition. Also, these was a complete over part probe advantage (CPA, ) for person recognition in all age groups. Thus, recognition became more accurate between 8 years and adulthood, but no developmental shift in visual information processing was observable with face and whole person recognition. I conclude that person recognition does not rely on processes completely different from those of face recognition and that this holds for 8- and 10-year-olds as well as for adults.     

Social and attention‐to‐detail subclusters of autistic traits differentially predict looking at eyes and face identity recognition ability

This study distinguished between different subclusters of autistic traits in the general population and examined the relationships between these subclusters, looking at the eyes of faces, and the ability to recognize facial identity. Using the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) measure in a university‐recruited sample, we separate the social aspects of autistic traits (i.e., those related to communication and social interaction; AQ‐Social) from the non‐social aspects, particularly attention‐to‐detail (AQ‐Attention). We provide the first evidence that these social and non‐social aspects are associated differentially with looking at eyes: While AQ‐Social showed the commonly assumed tendency towards reduced looking at eyes, AQ‐Attention was associated with increased looking at eyes. We also report that higher attention‐to‐detail (AQ‐Attention) was then indirectly related to improved face recognition, mediated by increased number of fixations to the eyes during face learning. Higher levels of socially relevant autistic traits (AQ‐Social) trended in the opposite direction towards being related to poorer face recognition (significantly so in females on the Cambridge Face Memory Test). There was no evidence of any mediated relationship between AQ‐Social and face recognition via reduced looking at the eyes. These different effects of AQ‐Attention and AQ‐Social suggest face‐processing studies in Autism Spectrum Disorder might similarly benefit from considering symptom subclusters. Additionally, concerning mechanisms of face recognition, our results support the view that more looking at eyes predicts better face memory.     

Processing orientation and emotion recognition

There is evidence that some emotional expressions are characterized by diagnostic cues from individual face features. For example, an upturned mouth is indicative of happiness, whereas a furrowed brow is associated with anger. The current investigation explored whether motivating people to perceive stimuli in a local (i.e., feature-based) rather than global (i.e., holistic) processing orientation was advantageous for recognizing emotional facial expressions. Participants classified emotional faces while primed with local and global processing orientations, via a Navon letter task. Contrary to previous findings for identity recognition, the current findings are indicative of a modest advantage for face emotion recognition under conditions of local processing orientation. When primed with a local processing orientation, participants performed both significantly faster and more accurately on an emotion recognition task than when they were primed with a global processing orientation. The impacts of this finding for theories of emotion recognition and face processing are considered.     

Cerebellum and processing of negative facial emotions: Cerebellar transcranial DC stimulation specifically enhances the emotional recognition of facial anger and sadness

Some evidence suggests that the cerebellum participates in the complex network processing emotional facial expression. To evaluate the role of the cerebellum in recognising facial expressions we delivered transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the cerebellum and prefrontal cortex. A facial emotion recognition task was administered to 21 healthy subjects before and after cerebellar tDCS; we also tested subjects with a visual attention task and a visual analogue scale (VAS) for mood. Anodal and cathodal cerebellar tDCS both significantly enhanced sensory processing in response to negative facial expressions (anodal tDCS, p=.0021; cathodal tDCS, p=.018), but left positive emotion and neutral facial expressions unchanged (p>.05). tDCS over the right prefrontal cortex left facial expressions of both negative and positive emotion unchanged. These findings suggest that the cerebellum is specifically involved in processing facial expressions of negative emotion.     

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning throughout adulthood

The relationship between face recognition ability and socioemotional functioning has been widely explored. However, how aging modulates this association regarding both objective performance and subjective-perception is still neglected. Participants, aged between 18 and 81 years, performed a face memory test and completed subjective face recognition and socioemotional questionnaires. General and social anxiety, and neuroticism traits account for the individual variation in face recognition abilities during adulthood. Aging modulates these relationships because as they age, individuals that present a higher level of these traits also show low-level face recognition ability. Intriguingly, the association between depression and face recognition abilities is evident with increasing age. Overall, the present results emphasize the importance of embedding face metacognition measurement into the context of these studies and suggest that aging is an important factor to be considered, which seems to contribute to the relationship between socioemotional and face-cognitive functioning.     

The impact of beliefs about face recognition ability on memory retrieval processes in young and older adults

This study examined whether beliefs about face recognition ability differentially influence memory retrieval in older compared to young adults. Participants evaluated their ability to recognise faces and were also given information about their ability to perceive and recognise faces. The information was ostensibly based on an objective measure of their ability, but in actuality, participants had been randomly assigned the information they received (high ability, low ability or no information control). Following this information, face recognition accuracy for a set of previously studied faces was measured using a remember–know memory paradigm. Older adults rated their ability to recognise faces as poorer compared to young adults. Additionally, negative information about face recognition ability improved only older adults' ability to recognise a previously seen face. Older adults were also found to engage in more familiarity than item-specific processing than young adults, but information about their face recognition ability did not affect face processing style. The role that older adults' memory beliefs have in the meta-cognitive strategies they employ is discussed.     

An index of prenatal steroid exposure predicts adult face perception skills

Face perception skills are fundamental to social cognition, yet they vary markedly across individuals. This diversity has stimulated controversy over the relative contributions of genetic factors, prenatal environment, and postnatal experience to face perception. Recent twin studies have found that face perception is heritable, highlighting the potential for substantial prenatal determination of these skills. In contrast, previous work on potential influences of the prenatal hormonal environment on social cognition have found no association between 2D:4D, a marker for prenatal androgen exposure, and processing of facial emotional expressions, apparently precluding a major role for prenatal hormones in governing face perception. We propose that substantial predictive relationships between 2D:4D and face perception may have been masked in previous work because the task employed required both face perception and processing of others?? emotions, the latter component being greatly influenced by circulating hormones in adults. To assess prenatal hormone influences on face perception without requiring emotion processing, we related 2D:4D to the face inversion effect (FIE), a measure of the recruitment of specialist face processes to visual perception. The magnitude of the resulting predictive relationship (r = .52) compared surprisingly well with that found between identical twins?? face perception (rs = .27?C.61), suggesting that mechanisms of 2D:4D may account for a substantial proportion of perinatal influences on face processing. Furthermore, we employed 2D:4D as a common scale to map individual differences in the FIE onto prenatal testosterone:estrogen ratios, assayed by Lutchmaya, Baron-Cohen, Raggatt, Knickmeyer, and Manning (Early Human Development 77:23?C28, 2004). The substantial overlap between the two data sets further implicates prenatal steroids in adult face perception skills.     

ADHD Behaviors and Social Functioning in Preschool Children: The Moderating Role of Emotion Recognition

This study examined the moderating role of emotion recognition on the association between preschoolers’ ADHD behaviors and social functioning outcomes. Sixty preschoolers (48.3% female; M_age?=?3.94, SD_age?=?.56) were recruited from Head Start-affiliated classrooms. Teacher-rated ADHD behaviors and an objective measure of children’s emotion recognition were assessed at the beginning of the school year. Teacher ratings of social functioning outcomes were obtained approximately three months after the start of school. Hierarchical regressions examined the unique and interactive effects of ADHD behaviors and emotion recognition on preschoolers’ social functioning outcomes (i.e., oppositional behaviors, peer behavior problems, and social-emotional school readiness). The interaction between ADHD behaviors and emotion recognition predicted oppositional behaviors, peer behavior problems and social-emotional school readiness such that higher levels of emotion recognition appear to buffer the negative association between ADHD behaviors and adaptive social functioning. Preliminary considerations for interventions aimed at promoting preschoolers’ social functioning are discussed.

     

从面孔模块到马赛克──视觉特异性加工的脑机制

“脑功能的模块性”是视觉乃至整个认知神经科学的研究热点。特异性的面孔加工模块被当作是认知模块假说的最好证据。但综述跨学科的正反两方面实验证据表明,视觉加工存在特异性,并没有普遍的模块式的亚单元,而是“马赛克”镶嵌式的组构。