Updating the cognitive model of humour perception: a potential implicit processing pathway?

ABSTRACTThe model of humour comprehension-elaboration postulates that the feeling of amusement follows serially upon humour comprehension. Yet, in clinical practice, patients with impaired humour comprehension may show typical happy facial expressions, suggesting a preservation of amusement feeling. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis of a potential implicit processing pathway to add to the explicit pathway described in the model. Twenty healthy participants and two patients with cerebral tumour (LM and JM) completed a task of humour judgment during which their face was filmed. Two independent blinded raters quantified the happy facial expressions produced. The accuracy scores for humour judgment reflected humour comprehension while the number of happy facial expressions assessed amusement feeling. Patients' results showed a case contrast. In accordance with the cognitive model of humour comprehension, JM's scores for humour comprehension were not statistically different from those of the control group; however, he presented impaired facial expressions. LM, on the contrary, showed typical happy facial expressions despite humour comprehension deficits. This profile suggests the existence of a potential implicit pathway to feelings of amusement. A revision of the cognitive model is proposed by adding a potential implicit processing pathway to the explicit one already described.

Facial emotional congruence in healthy adults and patients suffering from a psychiatric or neurological disorder.

The production of facial emotions is an important conveyor of social communication. The present review of the literature concerns the congruence of facial emotions, that is the facial muscular activation that takes place in response to the emotional facial expression perceived in others. Although scientific interest in facial emotions has increased exponentially in the last few years, the production of facial emotions is still underexplored as compared to emotional perception. Several studies, mainly conducted with electromyography, have shown that facial emotional congruence exists in a robust way, largely for anger and happiness. While facial emotional congruence was long considered as innate and automatic, recent work has demonstrated that several sociocultural factors may influence or reduce this ability, challenging its automaticity. From a neuroanatomical point of view, studies have clearly highlighted the implication of mirror neurons but our knowledge is still limited because of the few methodologies assessing this system and the lack of homogeneity between the protocols used. Many explanatory, and probably not mutually exclusive, theories of emotional facial congruence have been put forward. In experimental neuropsychology, emotional facial congruence has seldom been investigated but the few available results suggest an impairment in psychiatric and neurological patients. In view of the important role of emotional facial productions in human relations and social interactions, new methods for easy clinical assessment need to be designed for the diagnosis and the cognitive care of these abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Happy facial emotional congruence in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

BACKGROUND: Emotion categorization has often been studied in the relapsing-remitting form of multiple sclerosis (RR-MS), suggesting an impairment in the recognition of emotions. The production of facial emotional expressions in RR-MS has not been considered, despite their importance in non-verbal communication. METHOD: Twenty-five RR-MS patients and twenty-five matched controls completed a task of emotional categorization during which their faces were filmed. The stimuli were dynamic (sound or visual), expressed by adults (women or men), and expressing happy (laughing or smiling) or negative emotion. Two independent blinded raters quantified the happy facial expressions produced. The categorization task was used as a proxy for emotional categorization, while the happy facial expressions produced assessed the production of emotions. RESULTS: The main analysis indicated impaired categorization of RR-MS for happy stimuli selectively, whereas their happy facial expressions were not statistically different from those of the control group. More specifically, this group effect was found for smiles (and not laughter) and for happy stimuli produced by men. Analysis of individual patient profiles suggested that 77% of patients with impaired judgments produced normal facial expressions, suggesting a high prevalence of this dissociation. Only 8% of our samples showed reverse dissociation, with happy facial expressions significantly different from those of the control group and normal emotional judgments. CONCLUSION: These results corroborated the high prevalence of emotional categorization impairment in RR-MS but not for negative stimuli, which can probably be explained by the methodological specificities of the present work. The unusual impairment found for happy stimuli (for both emotional categorization and facial congruence) may be linked to the intensity of the perceived happy expressions but not to the emotional valence. Our results also indicated a mainly preserved production of facial emotions, which may be used in the future sociocognitive care of RR-MS patients with impaired emotional judgments.

Explicit and implicit abilities in humor processing in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

Sociocognitive impairment is well known in the relapsing-remitting form of multiple sclerosis (RR-MS). The purpose of the present study was to assess explicit and implicit humor abilities in this population. Based on clinical observation and contrary to the current cognitive model, we hypothesized that implicit performances (happy facial expressions) would be better than explicit ones (humor judgment assessed by explicit humor comprehension, subjective feeling of amusement as a conscious appreciation of funniness, and verbal justifications of funniness). Twenty-five RR-MS patients and twenty-five healthy participants completed the tasks. Their face was filmed during humor ratings. Patients' results suggest that 32% of them showed an impairment in explicit humor comprehension, with normal facial expressions. Both groups found great difficulty in justifying the cause of their amusement. All these results may suggest the existence of a supplementary implicit pathway in humor processing. The preservation of this implicit pathway may be advantageous for future remediation. Contrary to the current model, we found that the subjective feeling of amusement was preserved when comprehension was impaired. Further studies will be needed to clarify this component, and adjust the theoretical modeling.

Social norms in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis: Impairment of the moral/conventional distinction?

In multiple sclerosis, conflicting results have been reported between social impairment and relatively preserved moral judgments, mainly tested with moral dilemmas. Some results even yet suggest signs of "ultra-morality" in these patients. The objective of the present study was to test this hypothesis with the moral/conventional distinction task, investigating the knowledge of social norms and the judgment of moral versus conventional transgressions. In the first condition, the permissibility of social situations was estimated. If the participant judged the situation as wrong, he had to estimate the seriousness of the transgression, to give verbal justifications and to re-estimate the permissibility when the law authorizes the act (generalization condition) and when a social authority recommends the act (dependency condition). Forty-six multiple sclerosis patients matched to healthy controls completed this task. Contrary to our hypotheses, patients showed less permissibility for moral transgressions or a higher seriousness but, unexpectedly, for conventional transgressions. Most importantly, abnormal justifications were observed (strictly moral arguments for conventional transgressions and vice versa). This suggests a lack of distinction between conventional and moral judgment in multiple sclerosis. This confusion may explain the "ultra-morality" sometimes reported, if patients base their judgment mainly on social knowledge and not on emotional processing.