Emotion-dependent language featuring depression.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Understanding language features of depression contributes to the detection of the disorder. Considering that depression is characterized by dysfunctions in emotion and individuals with depression often show emotion-dependent cognition, the present study investigated the speech features and word use of emotion-dependent narrations in patients with depression. METHODS: Forty depression patients and forty controls were required to narrate self-relevant memories under five basic human emotions (i.e., sad, angry, fearful, neutral, and happy). Recorded speech and transcribed texts were analyzed. RESULTS: Patients with depression, as compared to non-depressed individuals, talked slower and less. They also performed differently in using negative emotion, work, family, sex, biology, health, and assent words regardless of emotion manipulation. Moreover, the use of words such as first person singular pronoun, past tense, causation, achievement, family, death, psychology, impersonal pronoun, quantifier and preposition words displayed emotion-dependent differences between groups. With the involvement of emotion, linguistic indicators associated with depressive symptoms were identified and explained 71.6% variances of depression severity. LIMITATIONS: Word use was analyzed based on the dictionary which does not cover all the words spoken in the memory task, resulting in text data loss. Besides, a relatively small number of depression patients were included in the present study and therefore the results need confirmation in future research using big emotion-dependent data of speech and texts. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that consideration of different emotional contexts is an effective means to improve the accuracy of depression detection via the analysis of word use and speech features.

The baby schema effect in adolescence and its difference from that in adulthood.

The baby schema effect induced by particular features of baby faces acts as an innate releasing mechanism that evokes positive emotions and instinctual behavioral responses. Our prior research in adults has revealed that this effect initially found in infancy extends into child faces. Adolescence is an important period involving development in various aspects of cognition, including face perception. Here, we investigated whether the extended baby schema effect we previously found in adult observers develops earlier-in adolescence-and how different it appears in adolescents as compared with in adults. In the current study, 76 adolescents and 77 adults were asked to judge the likeability of 148 neutral faces of infants and children (0.08-6.5 years of age) on 7-point scales. Results showed that both adolescents and adults perceived the faces of both infants and children younger than 4.6 years as more likeable relative to those of older children, indicating that the baby schema effect previously found in adulthood also occurs in adolescence. However, adolescents rated lower than adults toward the infant and child faces across all face ages, suggesting that this effect might be under development in adolescence. Overall, our findings provide new evidence for the development of face perception in adolescence and demonstrate age-related changes in innate releasing mechanisms in our protective and caretaking responses toward infants and children.

Intraparenchymal schwannoma of the medulla oblongata. Case report.

A 48-year-old man presented with a rare intraparenchymal schwannoma of the medulla oblongata. After he underwent gamma knife surgery, the patient's condition deteriorated and the mass, which at the time was thought to be a glioma, became larger on magnetic resonance images. The mass was resected through a suboccipital craniectomy via the transcerebellomedullary fissure approach. The tumor, which was moderately firm but distinct from the surrounding parenchyma, was removed totally. Postoperative histological and immunohistochemical examinations confirmed the diagnosis of a benign schwannoma. Brainstem schwannomas can be cured by microneurosurgery. It is important to distinguish these tumors from glioma. The main theories on the cause(s) of this lesion are briefly reviewed.