Comparison with others influences encoding and recognition of their faces: Behavioural and ERP evidence.

In daily life, faces are often memorized within contexts involving interpersonal interactions. However, little is known about whether interpersonal interaction-related contexts influence face memory. The present study aimed to understand this question by investigating how social comparison-related context affects face encoding and recognition. To address this issue, 40 participants were informed that they and another player each played a monetary game and were then presented with both of their outcomes (either monetary gain or loss). Subsequently, participants were shown the face of the player whom they were just paired with. After all the faces had been encoded, participants were asked to perform a sudden old/new recognition task involving these faces. The results showed that, during the encoding phase, another player's monetary gain, compared to loss, resulted in more negative responses in the N170 and early posterior negativity (EPN)/N250 to relevant players' faces when participants encountered monetary loss and a smaller late positive potential (LPP) response irrespective of self-related outcomes. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding another player's monetary gain as compared to loss led to better recognition performance and stronger EPN/N250 and LPP responses to the faces of relevant players when participants had lost some amount of money. These findings suggest that the social comparison-related context, particularly self-disadvantageous outcomes in the context, influences the memory of comparators' faces.

Competition influences outcome processing involving social comparison: An ERP study.

In a complicated social context, outcome evaluation involves not only oneself but also others in relation to the self (i.e., social comparison). Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have investigated the processing of social comparison-related outcomes when one's interests are independent of the interests of others (i.e., noncompetition circumstances). However, it is unclear how social comparison-related outcomes are processed in the brain when there are conflicts of interest between oneself and others (i.e., competition circumstances). To address this issue, participants in the current study were asked to perform an attentional task with several peers and were subsequently presented with self-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between the current trial and several preceding trials) and social comparison-related outcomes (i.e., the performance difference between oneself and their peer). Importantly, rewards and punishments were based on social comparison-related outcomes in the competition condition and on self-related outcomes in the noncompetition condition. ERP results revealed that in the competition condition, positive outcomes involving social comparison elicited a greater P300 response than negative outcomes, whereas this effect was not observed in the noncompetition condition. Additionally, there was generally a larger late positive potential (LPP) response to negative outcomes involving social comparison than to positive outcomes only when one obtained a self-related positive outcome in the competition condition. These findings suggest that competition might strengthen outcome processing involving social comparison at late time ranges relying on self-related outcomes to some extent.

Altered Putamen Activation for Social Comparison-Related Feedback in Social Anxiety Disorder: A Pilot Study.

INTRODUCTION: Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by abnormal processing of performance-related social stimuli. Previous studies have shown altered emotional experiences and activations of different sub-regions of the striatum during processing of social stimuli in patients with SAD. However, whether and to what extent social comparisons affect behavioural and neural responses to feedback stimuli in patients with SAD is unknown. MATERIALS AND METHODS: To address this issue, emotional ratings and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) responses were assessed while patients suffering from SAD and healthy controls (HC) were required to perform a choice task and received performance feedback (correct, incorrect, non-informative) that varied in relation to the performance of fictitious other participants (a few, half, or most of others had the same outcome). RESULTS: Across all performance feedback conditions, fMRI analyses revealed reduced activations in bilateral putamen when feedback was assumed to be received by only a few compared to half of the other participants in patients with SAD. Nevertheless, analysis of rating data showed a similar modulation of valence and arousal ratings in patients with SAD and HC depending on social comparison-related feedback. CONCLUSIONS: This suggests altered neural processing of performance feedback depending on social comparisons in patients with SAD.

Current and lasting effects of affect labeling on late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes elicited by negative events.

INTRODUCTION: Labeling the emotional aspect of self-unrelated stimuli (i.e., affect labeling) is a crucial strategy for implicit emotion regulation. However, it is uncertain whether affect labeling influences event-related potential (ERP) responses (e.g., the late positive potential, LPP) to negative stimuli in comparison with control conditions in which attention is shifted to the emotional content of the stimuli (e.g., affect matching). Additionally, it is unknown whether affect labeling has a lasting effect on the processing of negative stimuli. METHODS: Participants were required to label the emotion (negative or neutral) of target pictures with two words, to match the emotion with alternative pictures or to merely view the target pictures. Target pictures were presented again immediately after the regulation task. After all the target pictures had been labeled, matched and viewed, the pictures were re-exposed for the third time. RESULTS: The results showed that negative pictures elicited larger late LPP responses during the affect labeling task than during other tasks. However, the LPP responses were smaller for negative pictures in the affect labeling condition than in the other conditions when target pictures were re-exposed immediately after the task. When target pictures were re-presented again long after the regulation tasks, the LPP responses were smaller for negative stimuli with a history of affect labeling than viewing, whereas this effect did not differ between the affect labeling and matching conditions. CONCLUSION: The current findings suggest that affect labeling has current effects and, to some extent, has lasting effects on negative stimulus processing.

The influence of childhood emotional neglect on emotional face processing in young adults.

Childhood emotional neglect (CEN) refers to a failure to meet the basic emotional needs of a child, which can seriously impact interpersonal communication and psychological health in young adults. Emotional face processing is critical in interpersonal communication; however, whether CEN affects this processing in young adults has not been investigated. Therefore, the current study aimed to explore the effects of CEN on emotional face processing in young adults. Using the Child Trauma Questionnaire, an online survey was conducted with 5010 students from four universities in Tianjin, China. After online interviews and diagnosis by professional doctors, we obtained 20 participants with CEN (CEN group) and 20 without CEN (control group). None of the participants had any mental diseases. A 2 × 4 mixed design was used to investigate the differences in accuracy and response time when identifying the valence of the emotional faces. Compared to the control group, the CEN group identified the valence of all emotional faces more slowly, but there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of accuracy. CEN caused delayed emotional face processing in young adults, which may be related to unresponsive, unavailable, and limited emotional interaction patterns between parents and their children.

The priming effects of emotional vocal expressions on face encoding and recognition: An ERP study.

Previous studies have suggested that emotional primes, presented as visual stimuli, influence face memory (e.g., encoding and recognition). However, due to stimulus-associated issues, whether emotional primes affect face encoding when the priming stimuli are presented in an auditory modality remains controversial. Moreover, no studies have investigated whether the effects of emotional auditory primes are maintained in later stages of face memory, such as face recognition. To address these issues, participants in the present study were asked to memorize angry and neutral faces. The faces were presented after a simple nonlinguistic interjection expressed with angry or neutral prosodies. Subsequently, participants completed an old/new recognition task in which only faces were presented. Event-related potential (ERP) results showed that during the encoding phase, all faces preceded by an angry vocal expression elicited larger N170 responses than faces preceded by a neutral vocal expression. Angry vocal expression also enhanced the late positive potential (LPP) responses specifically to angry faces. In the subsequent recognition phase, preceding angry vocal primes reduced early LPP responses to both angry and neutral faces and late LPP responses specifically to neutral faces. These findings suggest that the negative emotion of auditory primes influenced face encoding and recognition.

Behavioral and ERP effects of encoded facial expressions on facial identity recognition depend on recognized facial expressions.

Behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that the expressions of a face displayed in the encoding phase (encoded facial expressions) influences identity recognition of this face in a later recognition phase. As facial expressions displayed in the recognition phase (recognized facial expressions) might also influence facial identity recognition, the current study investigated whether the effect of encoded facial expressions on facial identity recognition changed depending on recognized facial expressions. Therefore, participants were asked to learn facial identities displaying angry, happy or neutral expressions during the encoding phase. In the subsequent recognition phase, participants were presented with the learned identities and several novel identities and asked to judge whether the prompted identities had been learned. Each identity displayed angry, happy and neutral expressions. The results showed that d' scores were smaller for happy-recognized identities (i.e., learned identities displaying happy expressions during the recognition phase) in the angry-encoded (i.e., learned identities that had displayed angry expressions during the preceding encoding phase) condition than in the neutral-encoded condition and for neutral-recognized identities in the angry-encoded condition than in the happy-encoded condition. ERP results showed that angry-encoded identities elicited less negative responses in the P200 and early posterior negativity (EPN)/N250 components and less positive responses in the late positive potential (LPP) component than happy-encoded identities. For neutral-recognized identities, LPP responses were reduced in the angry-encoded condition compared with those in the neutral-encoded condition. These findings might contribute to understanding the influence of previous and current facial expressions on facial identity recognition.

Study on the antigens and antibodies of Mur and Mia blood groups in southern China.

BACKGROUND: The frequency of Mur and Mia blood group antigens in Asian population is much higher than that in Caucasian population. However, due to the scarcity and high price of commercial detection reagents, there are few studies on antigen and antibody detection and comparative analysis in large samples. OBJECTIVE: To study the occurrence frequency, antigen correlation and antibody properties of Mur and Mia antigens and their corresponding antibodies in southern China. METHODS: Mur and Mia antigens and antibodies in local blood donors and patients were detected by routine serological microplate method. Statistical methods were used to calculate the incidence of two antigens and antibodies and analyze their correlation. RESULTS: Among blood donors, the positive rates of Mur and Mia antigens were 6.4 % and 6.5 % respectively, with no significant difference (P > 0.05). In this region, the incidence of anti-"Mur" and anti-"Mia" was 0.65 % and 0.45 % respectively. But significant difference existed between blood donors and patients (P < 0.05). Among the anti-"Mur" and anti-"Mia" positive patients, most of the antibodies were IgM or IgM + IgG mixed type and had saline activity. CONCLUSION: Mur and Mia antigens and their corresponding antibodies have a high frequency in the population of southern China. In the routine clinical detection of irregular antibodies, Mur or Mia positive (GP.Mur) should be added to screen erythrocytes. Moreover, given the high correlation between Mur and Mia antigens expression on red blood cells, using monoclonal antibodies against Mia could predict the presence of Mur antigen.

The Effect of Malicious Envy on Schadenfreude When Schadenfreude Is Elicited Through Social Comparisons.

Previous studies have investigated whether envy, particularly malicious envy, increases feelings of schadenfreude and whether this effect is evident in both gain and loss frames. However, as a social-comparison-based emotion, schadenfreude was not investigated through social comparisons in these previous studies. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether malicious envy influences schadenfreude when schadenfreude is elicited in the context of precise and ambiguous social comparisons. To address this issue, participants in the present study were asked to play a monetary game with several other players. In the experimental condition, participants gained less or lost more than the other player; in the control condition, both the participants and the player gained little or lost much. Subsequently, the participants observed that the player encountered a misfortune, that is, gained less or lost more money than the participant. The results showed that when participants knew the exact amount of monetary gained and lost by themselves and the other player (i.e., precise social comparisons), malicious envy increased feelings of schadenfreude only in the loss frame rather than in the gain frame. More importantly, malicious envy turned out to reduce feelings of schadenfreude in both gain and loss frames, when participants did not know the exact amount (i.e., ambiguous social comparisons). The findings provide novel evidence that malicious envy does not always increase schadenfreude particularly when schadenfreude is elicited through social comparisons.

Working memory load reduces the processing of outcome evaluation involving others but not oneself: Event-related potential evidence.

Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies have suggested that self-related and non-self-related outcomes are processed simultaneously. However, the studies investigated situations in which individuals had sufficient attentional/cognitive resources to process both of the outcomes. It is unknown whether self-related and non-self-unrelated outcomes could still be processed simultaneously when resources are limited. To address this issue, 32 female participants in the present study were asked to perform a working memory task. To manipulate the amount of available attentional/cognitive resources, participants were asked to memorize a letter in the low load condition and five letters in the high load condition. During letter consolidation, participants were informed that they and another player each performed a gambling task and were subsequently presented with both of the outcomes. ERP results showed that others' monetary loss elicited larger P200 and late positive potential amplitudes than others' monetary gain under a low working memory load, whereas a high load reduced these effects. However, working memory load did not influence the effect of self-outcome on ERP responses. Therefore, the findings suggest that the amount of available attentional/cognitive resources alters the evaluation of non-self-related but not self-related outcomes.

Trait anxiety predicts amygdalar responses during direct processing of threat-related pictures.

Previous studies on the associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses to threat stimuli have resulted in mixed findings, possibly due to sample characteristics, specific tasks, and analytical methods. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study aimed to investigate linear or non-linear associations between trait anxiety and amygdalar responses in a sample of participants with low, medium, and high trait anxiety scores. During scanning, participants were presented with threat-related or neutral pictures and had either to solve an emotional task or an emotional-unrelated distraction task. Results showed that only during the explicit task trait anxiety was associated with right amygdalar responses to threat-related pictures as compared to neutral pictures. The best model was a cubic model with increased amygdala responses for very low and medium trait anxiety values but decreased amygdala activation for very high trait anxiety values. The findings imply a non-linear relation between trait anxiety and amygdala activation depending on task conditions.

ERP Effects of Malicious Envy on Schadenfreude in Gain and Loss Frames.

Previous behavioral and neural studies have shown the effects of malicious envy on schadenfreude. However, it is unclear whether these effects are modulated by contextual frames (e.g., gain and loss frames). Thus, the present study aimed to investigate whether behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) effects of malicious envy on schadenfreude were different in gain and loss frames. To address this issue, the participants in the present study believed they were playing a monetary game with several other players. In the malicious envy condition, the participants won less money than the player in the gain frame and lost more money in the loss frame; in the control condition, both participants and the player gained little money in the gain frame and lost much in the loss frame. Subsequently, the participants were informed that the player encountered a misfortune, i.e., gained little in the gain frame and lost much in the loss frame. Results showed that malicious envy increased feelings of schadenfreude and ERP responses when the player encountered a misfortune. Moreover, increased ERP responses by malicious envy occurred at the feedback-related negativity (FRN), and early late positive potential (LPP) time ranges in the gain frame but at the late LPP time range in the loss frame. The findings might suggest that malicious envy affects schadenfreude and corresponding neural activity, whereas the neural effects occur at comparatively early time ranges in the gain frame but at a later time range in the loss frame.

Effects of experienced regret on risky decision making are dependent on risky degree.

We investigated whether experienced regret influences risky decision making in future dissimilar situations and whether this effect is affected by risky degree. Therefore, participants (N = 39 and 54 in Experiment 1 and 2, respectively) were asked to select one of the two options. In the experienced regret condition, the selected option was worse than the unselected option; in the control condition, the information about the unselected option was unknown to the participants. Subsequently, participants were required to either keep the selected option or to gamble. Additionally, Experiment 2 varied in risky degree of the gamble from low to high. Results showed that experienced regret enhanced possibilities of gamble under low risk (Experiment 1 and 2). Under high risk, however, the effect of experienced regret was reversed (Experiment 2). The findings might suggest that experienced regret affects risky decision making in future dissimilar situations dependently on risky degree.

Recognition of Contextually Threat-Related Scenes is Enhanced by Preceding Emotionally Incongruent Facial Expression.

Previous studies on intentional and incidental face memory have investigated the effects of emotional facial expression on facial recognition itself. However, it is still uncertain whether facial expression influences later recognition of other emotional stimuli, such as emotional scenes. To address this issue, participants during the encoding phase were presented with emotional scenes together with facial expressions. The emotion of the scenes was either congruent or incongruent with that of the facial expression. In order to increase the attention towards faces/facial expressions, the task was related to faces rather than scenes, for example, the participants were asked either to memorize the facial identities (intentional face learning, Experiment 1) or to identify the gender of the faces (incidental face learning, Experiment 2). Subsequently, the participants were asked to perform an unexpected old/new recognition task regarding the scene pictures. In general, the results showed that recognition of threat-related scenes was enhanced by a preceding emotionally incongruent facial expression irrespective of intentional or incidental face learning. The findings indicate that facial expression influences recognition of contextual threat-related scenes.

Cue Valence Influences the Effects of Cue Uncertainty on ERP Responses to Emotional Events.

Individuals often predict consequences, particularly emotional consequences, according to emotional or non-emotional signals conveyed by environmental cues (i.e., emotional and non-emotional cues, respectively). Some of these cues signify the consequences with certainty (i.e., certain cues), whereas others do not (i.e., uncertain cues). Several event-related potential (ERP) studies regarding non-emotional cues have suggested that the effects of cue uncertainty on attention to emotional events occur in both perception and evaluation processes. However, due to the limitations of previous studies, it is unclear what the effects of cue uncertainty would be in an emotional cue condition. Moreover, it is uncertain whether the effects of cue uncertainty are affected by cue valence (i.e., emotional and non-emotional cues). To address these questions, we asked participants to view cues and then to view emotional (positive or negative) pictures. The cues either did or did not indicate the emotional content of the picture. In the emotional cue condition, happy and fearful faces were used as certain cues indicating upcoming positive and negative pictures, respectively, and neutral faces were used as uncertain cues. In the non-emotional cue condition, scrambled faces outlined in red and blue indicated upcoming positive and negative pictures, respectively, and scrambled faces outlined in green served as uncertain cues. The results showed that for negative pictures, ERP responses in a time range between 60 and 1,000 ms were shifted to a more negative direction in a certain condition than in the uncertain condition when the cues were emotional. However, the effect was the reverse for positive pictures. This effect of cue uncertainty was similar in the non-emotional cue-negative condition. In contrast, there was no effect of cue uncertainty in the non-emotional cue-positive condition. Therefore, the findings indicate that cue uncertainty modulates attention toward emotional events when the events are signified by emotional cues. The findings may also suggest that cue valence modulates the effects of cue uncertainty on attention to emotional events.

Stimulus arousal drives amygdalar responses to emotional expressions across sensory modalities.

The factors that drive amygdalar responses to emotionally significant stimuli are still a matter of debate - particularly the proneness of the amygdala to respond to negatively-valenced stimuli has been discussed controversially. Furthermore, it is uncertain whether the amygdala responds in a modality-general fashion or whether modality-specific idiosyncrasies exist. Therefore, the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study systematically investigated amygdalar responding to stimulus valence and arousal of emotional expressions across visual and auditory modalities. During scanning, participants performed a gender judgment task while prosodic and facial emotional expressions were presented. The stimuli varied in stimulus valence and arousal by including neutral, happy and angry expressions of high and low emotional intensity. Results demonstrate amygdalar activation as a function of stimulus arousal and accordingly associated emotional intensity regardless of stimulus valence. Furthermore, arousal-driven amygdalar responding did not depend on the visual and auditory modalities of emotional expressions. Thus, the current results are consistent with the notion that the amygdala codes general stimulus relevance across visual and auditory modalities irrespective of valence. In addition, whole brain analyses revealed that effects in visual and auditory areas were driven mainly by high intense emotional facial and vocal stimuli, respectively, suggesting modality-specific representations of emotional expressions in auditory and visual cortices.

Negative expectations influence behavioral and ERP responses in the subsequent recognition of expectancy-incongruent neutral events.

Previous studies have shown that expectancy incongruence in emotional stimuli influences the encoding (i.e., the first stage of memory processing) of the stimuli. However, it is unknown about whether expectancy incongruence influences later stages of memory processing, such as recognition. To this end, expectancy cues were presented prior to emotional pictures. Most often, the cues accurately indicated the emotional consequences of the pictures, but in some cases the consequence was incongruent with the expectations, and a picture from another emotional category was presented. Afterward, participants completed an unexpected recognition task in which old and novel pictures were not preceded by expectancy cues. The results showed that, in the encoding phase, expectancy incongruence reduced response accuracy when categorizing pictorial emotions, and the effect was smaller for neutral pictures than for negative pictures. ERP results showed stronger and weaker responses to expectancy incongruent pictures compared to congruent pictures in time ranges related to the encoding-related early and middle late positive potential (LPP), respectively. In the subsequent recognition phase, d' scores were higher for incongruent neutral pictures than for congruent ones. Expectancy incongruence enlarged the P2 response but reduced the recognition-related early LPP response for neutral pictures. However, effects of expectancy incongruence were not seen for negative pictures. Therefore, the findings in the present study indicate that negative expectations influence the later recognition of expectancy incongruent neutral events, whereas negative events are more resistant to the effects of expectation incongruence.

[Research progress in the heatstroke-induced myocardial injury].

OBJECTIVE: Heat stroke is the most serious type of heat-related diseases, and the induced multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is an important cause of death for heat stroke patients. The cardiovascular system is one of the important targets of heat injury. Studies have reported that heat stress can lead to myocardial inhibition, abnormal heart conduction and blood flow redistribution, thus changing the hemodynamic state, leading to obvious abnormalities in electrocardiogram, echocardiography, myocardial injury biological markers and hemodynamic indicators of patients with heat stroke. In this article, the pathophysiological and histological changes and clinical manifestations of heatstroke-induced myocardial injury are reviewed, aiming to provide references for further understanding and research of myocardial damage caused by hyperthermia.

Learning to play badminton altered resting-state activity and functional connectivity of the cerebellar sub-regions in adults.

Previous studies have shown that sport experts are different from novices in functions and structures of the cerebellar sub-regions and the functional connectivity (FC) associated with the cerebellum, suggesting the role of the cerebellum on motor skill learning (MSL). However, the manipulation of individuals with different motor skills fails to exclude the effects of innate talents. In addition, individuals with higher motor skills often start with the MSL in their young ages. It is still unclear whether the effects regarding the cerebellum would be shown at one's adult age. The present study was to directly alter individuals' motor skills to investigate whether MSL (taking learning to play badminton as an example) in adulthood influences resting-state activity in the cerebellum. To this end, young adults without ball training experience were recruited as participants and were assigned randomly into the experimental group and the control group. Participants in the experimental group were asked to attend a badminton training course for 12 weeks, while the control group did not regularly attend any ball sports during this period. Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was recorded before and after the training. Results showed that compared to the control group, the experimental group had smaller amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation (ALFF) in right cerebellar hemispheric VI and left VIII after training. For the experimental group, right hemispheric VIII had a stronger FC with left hemispheric IV-V, cerebellar vermal IX, left middle cingulate gyrus and right hippocampus after training. Taken together, these findings suggested that MSL, at least learning to play badminton in adulthood, reduces resting-state activity in different sub-regions in the cerebellum but increases FC between sub-regions of the cerebellum as well as between sub-regions of the cerebellum and cerebral cortices (e.g., middle cingulate cortex and hippocampus).

Contextual effects of angry vocal expressions on the encoding and recognition of emotional faces: An event-related potential (ERP) study.

It has been shown that stimulus memory (e.g., encoding and recognition) is influenced by emotion. In terms of face memory, event-related potential (ERP) studies have shown that the encoding of emotional faces is influenced by the emotion of concomitant context, when contextual stimuli were input from a visual modality. Behavioral studies also investigated the effect of contextual emotion on subsequent recognition of neutral faces. However, there might be no studies ever investigating the context effect on face encoding and recognition, when contextual stimuli were input from other sensory modalities (e.g., an auditory modality). Additionally, it may be unknown about the neural mechanisms underlying context effects on recognition of emotional faces. Therefore, the present study aimed to use vocal expressions as contexts to investigate whether contextual emotion influences ERP responses during face encoding and recognition. To this end, participants in the present study were asked to memorize angry and neutral faces. The faces were presented concomitant with either angry or neutral vocal expressions. Subsequently, participants were asked to perform an old/new recognition task, in which only faces were presented. In the encoding phase, ERP results showed that compared to neutral vocal expression, angry vocal expressions led to smaller P1 and N170 responses to both angry and neutral faces. For angry faces, however, late positive potential (LPP) responses were increased in the angry voice condition. In the later recognition phase, N170 responses were larger for neutral-encoded faces that had been presented with angry compared to neutral vocal expressions. Preceding angry vocal expression increased FN400 and LPP responses to both neutral-encoded and angry-encoded faces, when the faces showed the encoded expression. Therefore, the present study indicates that contextual emotion with regard to vocal expression influences neural responses during face encoding and subsequent recognition.