Emotional Mimicry: Why and When We Mimic Emotions

The goal of this review was to provide a brief overview of recent developments in the domain of emotional mimicry research. We argue that emotional signals are intrinsically meaningful within a social relationship, which is crucial for understanding the functionality and boundary conditions of emotional mimicry. On the basis of a review of the literature on facial mimicry of emotion displays, we conclude that the classic matched motor hypothesis does not hold for emotional mimicry. We alternatively propose a contextual view of emotional mimicry, which states that emotional mimicry depends on the social context: we only mimic emotional signals that are interpreted to promote affiliation goals and not necessarily what we see. As a further consequence, we are less likely to mimic strangers and we do not mimic people we do not like nor emotions that signal antagonism.     

From face to face: the contribution of facial mimicry to cognitive and emotional empathy

ABSTRACT

Despite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between mimicry and cognitive and emotional empathy. To assess mimicry, facial electromyography was recorded for 70 participants while they completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, which presents complex context-embedded emotional expressions. As predicted, inter-individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were associated with the level of facial mimicry. For positive emotions, the intensity of the mimicry response scaled with the level of state emotional empathy. Mimicry was stronger for the emotional empathy task compared to the cognitive empathy task. The specific empathy condition could be successfully detected from facial muscle activity at the level of single individuals using machine learning techniques. These results support the view that mimicry occurs depending on the social context as a tool to affiliate and it is involved in cognitive as well as emotional empathy.     

Characterizing the Musical Phenotype in Individuals With Williams Syndrome

Williams Syndrome (WS), a neurodevelopmental genetic disorder, is characterized by peaks and valleys in mental function: substantial impairments in cognitive domains such as reasoning, arithmetic ability, and spatial cognition, alongside relatively preserved skills in social domains, face processing, language, and music. We report the results of a comprehensive survey on musical behaviors and background administered to the largest sample of individuals with WS to date (n = 118, mean age = 20.4), and compare the results to those obtained from a control group of typically developing normal individuals (n = 118, mean age = 20.9) and two groups of individuals with other neurodevelopmental genetic disorders, Autism (n = 30, mean age = 18.2) and Down Syndrome (n = 40, mean age = 17.2). Individuals with WS were found to be rated higher in musical accomplishment, engagement, and interest than either of the comparison groups, and equivalent on most measures to the control group. Compared to all other groups including the controls, the WS individuals displayed greater emotional responses to music, manifested interest in music at an earlier age, and spent more hours per week listening to music. In addition, the effects of music listening (whether positive or negative) tended to last longer in the WS group. A factor analysis extracted seven principal components that characterize the musical phenotype in our sample, and discriminant function analysis of those factors was able to successfully predict group membership for the majority of cases. We discuss the neurobiological implications of these findings.     

Association between Inhibitory Control Capacity and Body Weight in Overweight and Obese Children and Adolescents: Dependence on Age and Inhibitory Control Component

It has been assumed that overweight individuals show weak inhibitory control capacity leading to a failure to resist external cues for palatable food and that this deficit underlies the recently reported empirical association between obesity and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). In childhood and adolescence, empirical research on this issue is scarce. Here, the hypothesis is tested that high body weight is associated with weak inhibitory control performance and that this association is moderated by age.

The sample included 177 overweight and obese children and adolescents (BMI: M = 29.2, SD = 4.33; BMI-SDS: M = 2.45, SD = 0.43) between 8 and 15 years. Inhibitory control was assessed by a Go/No-Go task and an Interference Task. A principal component analysis yielded two components: impulsivity (fast but invalid responses) and inattention (highly variable reaction times).

While controlling for age, gender, and maternal education level, we found that more obese children/adolescents showed more inattention. As indicated by a significant interaction effect, exclusively at younger ages, high impulsivity was associated with high body weight.

The results thus confirm a link between low inhibitory control capacity and high body weight and might point to a developmental period with heightened significance of impulsivity for weight gain.     

Replies to Donald Wiebe on the world academy of religion

W. Owen Cole ed., Comparative religions—A modern textbook, London, Blandford Press 1982, 256 pp. £6.95

Ake Hultkrantz, Belief and worship in native North America, edited, with an introduction, by Christopher Vecsey. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press 1981, xxvii + 330 pp. $30

Richard C. Martin, Islam: A cultural perspective, Prentice-Hall series in world religions, Prentice-Hall International 1982. 178 pp. £5.95

A. Rosalie David, A guide to religious ritual at Abydos, modern egyptology series, Aris and Philips Ltd. 1981. xiv + 182 pp

W. Owen Cole, The guru in Sikhism, London, Darton Longman and Todd 1982. 128 pp. £3.95     

Emotion and object processing in Parkinson’s disease

The neuropsychological literature on the processing of emotions in Parkinson’s disease (PD) reveals conflicting evidence about the role of the basal ganglia in the recognition of facial emotions. Hence, the present study had two objectives. One was to determine the extent to which the visual processing of emotions and objects differs in PD. The other was to assess the impact of cognitive load on the processing of these types of information. Thirty-one patients with idiopathic PD (IPD) under dopamine replacement therapy (DRT) were compared to 30 control subjects on emotion and object recognition tasks. Recognition of objects was more accurate and faster than recognition of facial expressions of emotion, for both groups of subjects. In a second experiment using an N-back procedure with the same stimuli—a more demanding task with a higher cognitive load—patients with IPD were as accurate as control subjects in detecting the correct sequential presentation of stimuli, but were much slower in their decision responses. This indicates that IPD patients under DRT are not impaired in encoding emotion or object information, but that they have difficulty with the processing demands of the N-back task. Thus, patients with IPD appear to be more sensitive to cognitive load than to type of information, whether facial emotions or objects. In this perspective, one must consider that a deafferented dopaminergic system has problems processing more complex information before one can posit the existence of deficits affecting a specific type of information.     

On the Overuse and Misuse of Mediation Analysis: It May Be a Matter of Timing

Kenny (2008) credited Hyman (1955 Hyman, H. (1955). Survey design and analysis: Principles, cases and procedures. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. [Google Scholar]) with originally discussing mediation analysis under the name elaboration. Of importance, Hyman's elaboration required a time-ordered relationship among variables, such that the mediator must always intervene in time between the predictor and outcome. However, in the modern discussions of mediation (e.g., Baron & Kenny, 1986 Baron, R., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Preacher & Hayes, 2004 Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2004). SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 36, 717–731. doi:10.3758/bf03206553[Crossref], [PubMed] , [Google Scholar]), this crucial point about time-ordered relationships appears to be underemphasized. This article shows that by employing a conceptual timing criterion for all mediation analyses, the overuse of this technique can be curbed, and, simultaneously, researchers will understand when mediation analyses are appropriate across the behavioral and medical science literatures.     

A differentiating empirical linguistic analysis of dreamer activity in reports of EEG-controlled REM-dreams and hypnagogic hallucinations

We present Activity Analysis as a new method for the quantification of subjective reports of altered states of consciousness with regard to the indicated level of simulated motor activity. Empirical linguistic activity analysis was conducted with dream reports conceived immediately after EEG-controlled periods of hypnagogic hallucinations and REM-sleep in the sleep laboratory. Reports of REM-dreams exhibited a significantly higher level of simulated physical dreamer activity, while hypnagogic hallucinations appear to be experienced mostly from the point of passive observer. This study lays the groundwork for clinical research on the level of simulated activity in pathologically altered states of subjective experience, for example in the REM-dreams of clinically depressed patients, or in intrusions and dreams of patients diagnosed with PTSD.     

The impact of prenatal serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) antidepressant exposure and maternal mood on mother–infant interactions at 3 months of age

Exposure to maternal depression increases risks for altered mother–infant interactions. Serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) antidepressants are increasingly prescribed to manage antenatal maternal illness. The impact of SRIs on early mother–infant interactions was unknown. Three-month-old infants of 32 depressed mothers treated with SRI medications during pregnancy and 43 non-medicated mothers were studied. Using an established face-to-face mother–infant interaction paradigm, dyad interactions were studied with and without a toy. Videotaped sessions yielded 4 measures: maternal sensitivity, dyadic organization, infant readiness to interact, and maternal interruptive behaviors. Even with prenatal SRI treatment, depressed mothers interrupted their infants more during toy play. In the absence of prenatal SRI treatment, maternal postnatal depression adversely influenced infant behavior. Higher levels of maternal depression symptoms at 3 months predicted poorer infant readiness to interact during the toy session. Conversely, in the SRI-exposed group, higher prenatal depression scores predicted greater infant readiness to interact at 3 months. Increased infant readiness with SRI exposure suggests a “fetal programming effect” whereby prenatal maternal mood disturbances shaped a future response to a postnatal depressed maternal environment.