How sexual objectification marks the brain: fMRI evidence of self-objectification and its harmful emotional consequences.

Female Sexual Objectification refers to perceiving and treating women based on their body appearance. This phenomenon may serve as a precursor for dysfunctional behaviors, particularly among females prone to self-objectification and experiencing shame emotions. Understanding this challenging trajectory by disclosing its neural consequences may be crucial for comprehending extreme psychopathological outcomes. However, investigations in this sense are still scarce. The present study explores the neural correlates of female participants' experiences of being objectified and their relationship with self-objectification, emotional responses and individual dispositions in self-esteem, emotion regulation abilities and self-conscious emotion proneness. To this aim, 25 female participants underwent an fMRI experimental session while they were exposed to interpersonal encounters with objectifying or non-objectifying men. Participants' experienced emotions and levels of attention shifted toward their bodies (self-objectification) was reported after each interaction. The results revealed increased brain activity in objectifying contexts, impacting cortical (frontal, occipital and temporal cortex) and subcortical regions (thalamus, and hippocampus) involved in visual, emotion, and social processing. Remarkably, the inferior temporal gyrus emerged as a crucial neural hub associated in opposite ways with self-esteem and the self-conscious emotion of shame, highlighting its role in self-referential processing during social dynamics. This study points out the importance of adopting a neuroscientific perspective for a deeper understanding of sexual objectification, and to shed light on its possible neural consequences.

The Sexual OBjectification and EMotion database: A free stimulus set and norming data of sexually objectified and non-objectified female targets expressing multiple emotions.

Sexual objectification - perceiving or treating a woman as a sexual object - is a widespread phenomenon. Studies on sexual objectification and its consequences have grown dramatically over the last decades covering multiple and diverse areas of research. However, research studying sexual objectification might have limited internal and external validity due to the lack of a controlled and standardized picture database. Moreover, there is a need to extend this research to other fields including the study of emotions. Therefore, in this paper we introduce the SOBEM Database, a free tool consisting of 280 high-resolution pictures depicting objectified and non-objectified female models expressing a neutral face and three different emotions (happiness, anger, and sadness) with different intensity. We report the validation of this dataset by analyzing results of 134 participants judging pictures on the six basic emotions and on a range of social judgments related to sexual objectification. Results showed how the SOBEM can constitute an appropriate instrument to study both sexual objectification per se and its relation with emotions. This database could therefore become an important instrument able to improve the experimental control in future studies on sexual objectification and to create new links with different fields of research.

Physiological and behavioral reactivity to social exclusion: a functional infrared thermal imaging study in patients with psoriasis.

Recent studies have shown that sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity can be heavily impacted not only by basic threats to survival but also by threats to social bonds. In this study we explored the behavioral and physiological consequences of social exclusion/inclusion in patients with psoriasis, a disease frequently associated with the experience of being ostracized and with deficient emotion regulation skills. We employed a virtual ball-tossing game (Cyberball) to induce the experience of social exclusion/inclusion. We then used a Trust Game to measure the effects of this social modulation on trust. During Cyberball, infrared thermal imaging was used to record participants' facial temperature and thus obtain an online measure of SNS activation. Behavioral data showed that social exclusion shifted participants' trust toward unfamiliar players who had not previously excluded them. Physiological data indicated that in control participants, social exclusion triggered higher SNS activation than inclusion. No such effect was found in patients with psoriasis, whose SNS activity was the same during inclusion as it was during exclusion, suggesting that they benefit less from inclusive experiences than control participants. In addition, in patients but not in controls, higher SNS activation during social exclusion was linked to higher monetary investment toward unfamiliar players, a result in keeping with the social reconnection hypothesis, according to which emotions triggered by social rejection can be regulated by investing in new social interactions. We also found that an increase in periorbital temperature is accompanied by a decrease in happiness ratings after social exclusion was experienced during the Cyberball game. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Previous research on emotional processes in psoriasis has mainly employed self-report measures. In this study we used thermal imaging to obtain an online measure of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activity during social exclusion and tested how this experience influenced subsequent trust. We found that being included was a less positive experience for patients compared with controls and that SNS activity during exclusion had a stronger influence on subsequent trust in patients than in controls.

Cognitive load and emotional processing in psoriasis: a thermal imaging study.

Psoriasis is a chronic dermatologic disease which is frequently associated with psychological distress. Although studies suggest a relationship between this condition and difficulties in emotion regulation, behavioral and physiological evidence about this link is scarce. We measured implicit emotion regulation abilities of psoriasis patients and a healthy control group by examining the impact of distracting emotional (positive, negative or neutral) images on a working memory task ("Emotional N-Back") which could present high (2-back) or low (1-back) cognitive workload. Moreover, we used Functional Infrared Thermal Imaging to record participants' facial temperature and obtain a measure of the activation of the autonomic system. Rising of temperature over the peri-orbital areas and the nose tip are believed to reflect the activation and the de-activation of the sympathetic system, respectively. Patients scored higher than controls on the "Lack of emotional clarity" sub-scale of the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. Compared to controls, who performed much better in the low vs. high cognitive load condition, patients showed a smaller accuracy difference between the two conditions. Moreover, patients showed less sympathetic (lower peri-orbital and higher nasal tip temperature) activity (especially in the negative and neutral blocks) during the high vs. low cognitive load condition, suggesting that the former condition might be less emotionally demanding for them. Patients benefit more than controls from the load-dependent interference effect when dealing with emotional information; thus, therapeutic techniques aiming at teaching how to use cognitive strategies to downregulate emotions might be particularly appropriated for them.

Reduced GM-WM concentration inside the Default Mode Network in individuals with high emotional intelligence and low anxiety: a data fusion mCCA+jICA approach.

The concept of emotional intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to recognize and regulate emotions to appropriately guide cognition and behaviour. Unfortunately, studies on the neural bases of EI are scant, and no study so far has exhaustively investigated grey matter (GM) and white matter (WM) contributions to it. To fill this gap, we analysed trait measure of EI and structural MRI data from 128 healthy participants to shed new light on where and how EI is encoded in the brain. In addition, we explored the relationship between the neural substrates of trait EI and trait anxiety. A data fusion unsupervised machine learning approach (mCCA + jICA) was used to decompose the brain into covarying GM-WM networks and to assess their association with trait-EI. Results showed that high levels trait-EI are associated with decrease in GM-WM concentration in a network spanning from frontal to parietal and temporal regions, among which insula, cingulate, parahippocampal gyrus, cuneus and precuneus. Interestingly, we also found that the higher the GM-WM concentration in the same network, the higher the trait anxiety. These findings encouragingly highlight the neural substrates of trait EI and their relationship with anxiety. The network is discussed considering its overlaps with the Default Mode Network.

Electrophysiological, emotional and behavioural responses of female targets of sexual objectification.

Sexual objectification and the interiorized objectifying gaze (self-objectification) are dangerous phenomena for women's psychological wellness. However, their specific effects on women's socio-affective reactions are still poorly understood, and their neural activity has never been explored before. In the present study, we investigated women's emotional and electrophysiological responses during simulated computer-based objectifying social interactions, and we examined consequent punishing behaviours towards the perpetrator using the ultimatum game. Behavioural results (N = 36) showed that during objectifying encounters women generally felt angrier/disgusted and tended to punish the perpetrator in later interactions. However, the more the women self-objectified, the more they felt ashamed (p = 0.011) and tended to punish the perpetrators less (p = 0.008). At a neural level (N = 32), objectifying interactions modulated female participants' neural signal elicited during the processing of the perpetrator, increasing early (N170) and later (EPN, LPP) ERP components. In addition, only the amplitude of the LPP positively correlated with shame (p = 0.006) and the level of self-objectification (p = 0.018). This finding provides first evidence for the specific time-course of sexual objectification, self-objectification and its associated shame response, and proves that emotional and social consequences of sexual objectification in women may depend on their tendency to self-objectify.

Comparing reappraisal and acceptance strategies to understand the neural architecture of emotion regulation: a meta-analytic approach.

Introduction: In the emotion regulation literature, the amount of neuroimaging studies on cognitive reappraisal led the impression that the same top-down, control-related neural mechanisms characterize all emotion regulation strategies. However, top-down processes may coexist with more bottom-up and emotion-focused processes that partially bypass the recruitment of executive functions. A case in point is acceptance-based strategies. Method: To better understand neural commonalities and differences behind different emotion regulation processes, in the present study, we applied the Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) method to perform a meta-analysis on fMRI studies investigating task-related activity of reappraisal and acceptance. Both increased and decreased brain activity was taken into account in the contrast and conjunction analysis between the two strategies. Results: Results showed increased activity in left-inferior frontal gyrus and insula for both strategies, and decreased activity in the basal ganglia for reappraisal, and decreased activity in limbic regions for acceptance. Discussion: These findings are discussed in the context of a model of common and specific neural mechanisms of emotion regulation that support and expand the previous dual-routes models. We suggest that emotion regulation may rely on a core inhibitory circuit, and on strategy-specific top-down and bottom-up processes distinct for different strategies.

Neural dynamics of vicarious physical pain processing reflect impaired empathy toward sexually objectified versus non-sexually objectified women.

Sexually objectified women are perceived as dehumanized. This may affect the behavioral and neural responses underlying the observer's empathic reactions for their physical pain, although this hypothesis still lacks empirical support. In the present study, we measured the electrophysiological activity of 30 participants (14 females and 16 males), in an empathy for physical pain paradigm in which pictures of sexualized and non-sexualized women were presented in painful and non-painful situations. The behavioral results revealed that sexualized women were evaluated as experiencing less pain than non-sexualized women. Neural evidence corroborated this finding showing that the perception of vicarious physical pain is lacking for sexualized women in both event-related potentials (ERPs) and brain oscillation domains. Specifically, the P2 component and the event-related synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD) on the mu frequency band differed between painful and non-painful stimulation exclusively when women were not sexualized. Our results provide the first evidence that the neurophysiological responses to the vicarious experience of physical pain are dampened or even absent for sexualized women. These findings expand our understanding of the neurophysiological signatures of empathic processes and highlight the detrimental effect of a sexual-objectification bias in everyday contexts.

Resting-state BOLD temporal variability in sensorimotor and salience networks underlies trait emotional intelligence and explains differences in emotion regulation strategies.

A converging body of behavioural findings supports the hypothesis that the dispositional use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies depends on trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) levels. Unfortunately, neuroscientific investigations of such relationship are missing. To fill this gap, we analysed trait measures and resting state data from 79 healthy participants to investigate whether trait EI and ER processes are associated to similar neural circuits. An unsupervised machine learning approach (independent component analysis) was used to decompose resting-sate functional networks and to assess whether they predict trait EI and specific ER strategies. Individual differences results showed that high trait EI significantly predicts and negatively correlates with the frequency of use of typical dysfunctional ER strategies. Crucially, we observed that an increased BOLD temporal variability within sensorimotor and salience networks was associated with both high trait EI and the frequency of use of cognitive reappraisal. By contrast, a decreased variability in salience network was associated with the use of suppression. These findings support the tight connection between trait EI and individual tendency to use functional ER strategies, and provide the first evidence that modulations of BOLD temporal variability in specific brain networks may be pivotal in explaining this relationship.

Structural Features Related to Affective Instability Correctly Classify Patients With Borderline Personality Disorder. A Supervised Machine Learning Approach.

Previous morphometric studies of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) reported inconsistent alterations in cortical and subcortical areas. However, these studies have investigated the brain at the voxel level using mass univariate methods or region of interest approaches, which are subject to several artifacts and do not enable detection of more complex patterns of structural alterations that may separate BPD from other clinical populations and healthy controls (HC). Multiple Kernel Learning (MKL) is a whole-brain multivariate supervised machine learning method able to classify individuals and predict an objective diagnosis based on structural features. As such, this method can help identifying objective biomarkers related to BPD pathophysiology and predict new cases. To this aim, we applied MKL to structural images of patients with BPD and matched HCs. Moreover, to ensure that results are specific for BPD and not for general psychological disorders, we also applied MKL to BPD against a group of patients with bipolar disorder, for their similarities in affective instability. Results showed that a circuit, including basal ganglia, amygdala, and portions of the temporal lobes and of the orbitofrontal cortex, correctly classified BPD against HC (80%). Notably, this circuit positively correlates with the affective sector of the Zanarini questionnaire, thus indicating an involvement of this circuit with affective disturbances. Moreover, by contrasting BPD with BD, the spurious regions were excluded, and a specific circuit for BPD was outlined. These results support that BPD is characterized by anomalies in a cortico-subcortical circuit related to affective instability and that this circuit discriminates BPD from controls and from other clinical populations.

Fearful expressions of rapidly presented hybrid-faces modulate the lag 1 sparing in the attentional blink.

There is evidence that emotional stimuli impair attention for subsequent stimuli when presented in rapid visual succession. We investigated whether non-visible emotions of hybrid faces showing either happy or afraid expressions only in their Low Spatial Frequencies (LSF) and neutral expressions in their High Spatial Frequencies (HSF) modulate temporal selective attention. In a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) paradigm, two target-faces (T1 and T2) were presented briefly at different temporal distances (lags) in a stream of inverted distractor-faces: T1s were either neutral, happy-hybrid or afraid-hybrid faces; T2s were always neutral faces. When participants reported T1 and T2 gender, performance was impaired across all early lags, especially after afraid-hybrid faces. When participants reported T1 orientation and T2 gender, results showed that the LSF emotion of T1s affected temporal selective attention engendering a longer AB (over lag 2 and lag 3) than neutral T1s. Interestingly, only afraid-hybrid T1s improved processing of T2 at lag 1 (i.e., sparing). Our findings show that some core emotional content is implicitly processed from the LSF of hybrid T1s since the effects on temporal selective attention are emotion specific.