Susanne Kaiser
When emotional contagion meets deficits in perspective taking: A pilot study on schizophrenic patients
Authors
Susanne Kaiser (University of Geneva
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Thomas Wehrle (University of Geneva)
Decety and his collegues (e.g., Decety & Lamm, 2006) propose a three-columned model of empathy, including automatic sharing of feelings (facial mimicry, mirror neurons), awareness of a distinction between self and the other (perspective taking), and emotion regulation. Interestingly, in the psychological literature, researchers studying the link between facial mimicry and empathy (e.g., Hess & Blairy, 2001) and those working on emotion regulation do not really integrate their respective results (e.g., John & Gross). This paper aims at integrating the different domains under the perspective of componential appraisal theory, claiming that facial expressions reflect directly the results of underlying appraisal processes (e.g., Kaiser & Wehrle 2000) and/or action tendencies (e.g., Frijda & Tscherkassov, 1997). Results from studying facial expression recognition in schizophrenic patients will be presented (Tronje & Kaiser, 2000). The results indicate that schizophrenic patients react with strong emotional contagion to emotional expressions but show a deficit in differentiating between self and the other. In addition, surprise and fear were mainly confused with anger by the schizophrenic patients, and they also perceived action tendencies in the portrayed persons typical for anger such as “boiling inwards” and a will to attack somebody. So, interestingly, the labeling “errors” appear quite reasonable and logic when considering the inferred action tendencies.
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Christian Maggiori
Affectivity in daily life in elderly people and adults: An ambulatory monitoring study using a new computer-based monitoring system
Authors
Christian Maggiori (University of Fribourg )
Michaël Reicherts (University of Fribourg)
Virginie Salamin (University of Fribourg )
This study, using a new ambulatory self-monitoring system (Learning Affect Monitor LAM; Reicherts, Salamin, Maggiori & Pauls, 2005), investigated daily affective states of young-olds in comparison with adults. The relationship between affective experiences and quality of life’s (QoL) dimensions in young-olds was also assessed.
The LAM is a computer-based monitoring system for the subjective assessment of affective experience in daily life which integrate a quantitative evaluation using three basic dimensions (valence, perceived physiological, intensity) with a qualitative description according to basic emotions (a list of 30 descriptors of emotions).
The study presents a pre-post-monitoring design and the sample consisted of 75 young-olds and 51 adults. Monitoring took place during a week, with 6-8 recordings per day. Participants also answered a number of self-report questionnaires,e.g., on QoL, social integration and loneliness and depression.
Based on 5500 records, parameters of the LAM indicate a well-preserved affective experience in young-olds: their affective experiences were similar to those of adult subjects in terms of intensity and perceived bodily activation; however, older people evaluated their affective experience as being more positive. Concerning older participants, valence of daily affectivity was positively correlated with compared general and physical self-reported health and psychological and global QoL but negatively related with loneliness and isolation
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Noortje Vriends
Self-focused attention in social anxiety is culture-specific
Authors
Noortje Vriends (University of Basel)
Olivia Bolt (University of Basel)
Frank H. (University of Basel)
Self-focused attention plays a central role in clinical models of the maintenance of social anxiety disorder (e.g. Clark & Wells, 1995). However, this internal attention bias may depend on the self-concept that differs in collectivistic versus individualistic cultures. In collectivistic cultures (e.g. Asia) the self is typically more interdependent which may reduce self-focused attention in social evaluative situations. The present study investigates self-focused attention in social evaluative stress situations in European (Swiss, N=25) and Asian (N=25) individuals. Participants filled out questionnaires about cultural variables. A probe detection reaction time task aimed at measuring the balance of attention to internal and external events (Mansell, Clark & Ehlers, 2003). Half of the participants of each culture were given a social evaluative stress induction (giving a speech about controversial topic recorded by video, rated by experts). Asian participants were characterized by an increased interdependent self. As expected, results showed a significant Culture x Evaluation interaction for the internal attention bias. While European participants shifted their attention to internal events in the evaluation condition, Asian participants did not. Results indicate that Asian participants do not show an internal attention bias under social evaluative stress and that extreme self-focused attention in social anxiety may not be universal.
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Hans Menning
Differential pre-attentive activation in traumatised subjects as compared to healthy controls to affective sounds and films
Authors
Hans Menning (University of Zurich )
Andreas Maercker (University of Zurich)
To date, there is only small empirical evidence that (positive or negative) affective sounds and film scenes are processed differentially. Mismatch-Negativity (MMN) reflects pre-attentive processing of sensory deviations. Fast emotional reactions are supposed to influence MMN dramatically. We hypothesize that “Posttraumatic Stress Disorder” (PTSD) with symptoms like hyperarousal, emotional pressure, numbing and avoidance, leads to a very fast automatic “fine-tuning” process of the sensory acuity in order to protect the system against over-stimulation. We tested this with an optimized MMN design in 4 experiments. In the first study, a group of traumatised subjects with PTSD was compared with a non-traumatised healthy group in reaction to neutral sinusoidal sounds (discriminative parameters were frequency, intensity, duration, direction and a gap within the tone). In the second study, the same two groups listened to an alternating “oddball” sequence of specifically adapted negative (scratch, shot, hit, weapon load) and neutral sounds (tap, train, accord, and chirp). In the third study, the MMN was recorded during the background stimulation with a neutral film. In the fourth study, short negative or positive film scenes were presented. In the first two studies, the PTSD group revealed significantly reduced amplitudes of the MMN. Preliminary results of the last two studies suggest that the PTSD group reacts more sensitive to negative film sequences as the other two groups.
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Mara Kottlow
Does the combined presentation of emotional pictures and music influence their expectation?
Authors
Mara Kottlow (Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich and University of Zurich)
R Willi (University of Zurich )
G Tanner (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich )
Thomas Baumgartner (University of Zurich )
Lutz Jäncke (University of Zurich )
Uwe Herwig (Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich and University of Ulm (D))
The goal of the present EEG study is to find out, whether the presentation of emotional sad and happy pictures combined with music of the same valence influences their expectation.
Previous studies have found the combined presentation of emotional pictures and music to enhance the emotional experience. This study now wants to reveal the expectation of announced stimuli changing dependent on the following presentation.
The experiment consists of 24 stimulation blocks of 44s duration containing either 9 pictures or 9 pictures combined with music. Pictures are presented for 4.8s. Each stimulation block is preceded by an expectation period and announced by a specific cue. The duration of expectation lasts from 6 to 10s. The music excerpts consist of happy or sad classical music. Subjects are instructed to expect and then perceive the announced emotional events and to prepare for the following emotion. After each emotional block a rating for valence and empathy of the experienced event follows.
Alpha power is analyzed above the whole head and frontal, posterior, and lateral electrode clusters are formed. In a further analysis the data is localized by means of sLORETA.
We expect larger activations represented by lower alpha power during the expectation of combined emotional pictures and music as compared to the expectation of only pictures. This finding should be seen in happy and sad conditions and represents an important contribution to the knowledge of neural emotion processing
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