A Chinese Face Dataset with Dynamic Expressions and Diverse Ages Synthesized by Deep Learning.

Facial stimuli have gained increasing popularity in research. However, the existing Chinese facial datasets primarily consist of static facial expressions and lack variations in terms of facial aging. Additionally, these datasets are limited to stimuli from a small number of individuals, in that it is difficult and time-consuming to recruit a diverse range of volunteers across different age groups to capture their facial expressions. In this paper, a deep-learning based face editing approach, StyleGAN, is used to synthesize a Chinese face dataset, namely SZU-EmoDage, where faces with different expressions and ages are synthesized. Leverage on the interpolations of latent vectors, continuously dynamic expressions with different intensities, are also available. Participants assessed emotional categories and dimensions (valence, arousal and dominance) of the synthesized faces. The results show that the face database has good reliability and validity, and can be used in relevant psychological experiments. The availability of SZU-EmoDage opens up avenues for further research in psychology and related fields, allowing for a deeper understanding of facial perception.

Disruptions of salience network during uncertain anticipation of conflict control in anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Anxiety has been characterized by disrupted processing of conflict control, while little is known about anticipatory processing of conflicts in anxiety. Anticipation is the key factor in both anxiety and cognitive control, especially under uncertain conditions. The current study therefore examined neurocomputational mechanisms of uncertain anticipation of conflict control in anxiety. METHODS: Twenty-six participants with high-trait anxiety and twenty-nine low-trait anxiety participants completed a cue-flanker task with functional magnetic resonance imaging. The hierarchical drift diffusion model (HDDM) was used to measure the cognitive computations during the task. To identify the neurocomputational mechanism of anticipatory control in anxiety, mediation analysis and dynamic causal modelling (DCM) analysis were conducted to examine the relationship between functional connectivity of brain networks and the parameters of HDDM. RESULTS: We found influences of regulatory signals from the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex to dorsal anterior cingulate cortex on decision threshold in low-trait anxiety (LTA), but not in high-trait anxiety (HTA), especially for the condition with uncertain cues. The results indicate deficient top-down anticipatory control of upcoming conflicts in anxious individuals. DCM and HDDM analyses revealed that lower decision threshold was associated with higher intrinsic connectivity of salience network (SN) in anxious individuals, suggesting that dysfunctional SN disrupts anticipation of conflict control under uncertainty in anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest hyperfunction of the SN underlies the deficient information accumulation during uncertain anticipation of upcoming conflicts in anxiety. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms of anticipation processing and the psychopathology of anxiety.

Facial attractiveness in the eyes of men with high arousal.

INTRODUCTION: Individuals differ in how they judge facial attractiveness. However, little is known about the role of arousal level and gender differences in individuals' facial attractiveness judgments. METHODS: We used resting-state electroencephalogram (EEG) to investigate this issue. A total of 48 men (aged 22.5 ± 3.03 years [mean ± SD], range: 18-30 years) and 27 women (aged 20.3 ± 2.03 years [mean ± SD], range: 18-25 years) participated in the experiment. After the EEG was collected, participants were instructed to complete a facial attractiveness judgment task. Connectome-based predictive modeling was used to predict individual judgment of facial attractiveness. RESULTS: Men with high arousal judged female faces as more attractive (M = 3.85, SE = 0.81) than did men with low arousal (M = 3.33, SE = 0.81) and women (M = 3.24, SE = 1.02). Functional connectivity of the alpha band predicted judgment of female facial attractiveness in men but not in women. After controlling for the age and variability, the prediction effect was still significant. CONCLUSION: Our results provide neural evidence for the enhancement of the judgment of facial attractiveness in men with high arousal levels, which supports the hypothesis that individuals' spontaneous arousal contributes to variations in facial attractiveness preferences.

The influence of facial attractiveness and personal characteristics on imitation.

Imitation plays a crucial role in learning and communication, although a little is known whether individuals imitate each other based on particular personality traits. Facial features and personal characteristics are the major components of personal impressions. This study adopted the color paradigm to explore the effect of the two factors on imitation. Experiment 1 examined the effect of facial attractiveness and face gender on imitation. The results showed that woman who appeared attractive drove imitation more than woman who did not. However, men who appeared attractive and unattractive differed insignificantly. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of facial attractiveness and personal characteristics on imitation. The results of Experiment 1 were verified, stating that positive personal characteristics drove imitation more than negative personal characteristics. The study found that facial attractiveness still affected imitation when characteristics information appeared. Regarding negative personal characteristics, individuals who appeared attractive drove imitation more than individuals who did not. The results indicate that imitation is automated, influenced not only by face types but also by personal characteristics.

Self-awareness protects working memory in people under chronic stress: An ERP study.

Chronic stress impairs working memory (WM), but few studies have explored the protective factors of the impairment. We aimed to investigate the effect of self-awareness on WM processing in people under chronic stress. Participants under chronic stress completed an n-back task after a self-awareness priming paradigm during which electroencephalograms were recorded. The behavioral results showed that participants whose self-awareness was primed reacted faster and more accurately than the controls. Event-related potentials (ERPs) revealed the following (1) P2 was more positive in the self-awareness group than in the controls, indicating that self-awareness enhanced allocation of attention resources at the encoding stage. (2) N2 was attenuated in the self-awareness group compared with the controls, indicating that smaller attention control efforts were required to complete WM tasks adequately after self-awareness priming; and (3) enhanced late positive potential (LPP) was evoked in the self-awareness group compared with the controls, suggesting self-awareness enabled participants to focus attention resources on the information at the maintenance stage. Critically, mediational analyses showed that LPP mediated the relationship between self-awareness and WM response times. This result suggests that the fact that participants whose self-awareness was primed were able to achieve better behavioral performances may be attributed to their mobilization of sustained attention resources at the maintenance stage. In summary, self-awareness exerted a protective effect on WM in those under chronic stress, which may be due to the enhancements in the allocation and mobilization of attention. These results could be used to develop more specific coping strategies for people under chronic stress.

Comparisons make faces more attractive: An ERP study.

Facial attractiveness judgment largely depends on the characteristics of the facial structure and the personality of the observer. However, little is known about the influence of contextual variations on facial attractiveness. In this electroencephalogram study, participants judged the attractiveness of faces presented individually or in pairs with either a higher-attractive face (HAF) or lower-attractive face (LAF). The attractiveness judgment rating of the target face was significantly higher when presented in pairs with HAFs or LAFs than when presented individually and was accompanied by a larger late positive complex. These results suggest that contextual faces enhance the attractiveness judgment of target faces. Microstate analyses revealed that the global field power (GFP) of state 3 was significantly correlated with the attractiveness judgment in the HAF condition whereas the GFP of state 2 was significantly correlated with the attractiveness judgment in the LAF condition. Interestingly, the GFP of state 2 mediated the relationship between narcissism and facial attractiveness judgment in the context of LAFs. Source location analyses showed that states 3 and 2 activated the superior and middle frontal gyrus, which are involved in emotion processing. Our findings suggest that facial attractiveness can be enhanced by contextual comparison with other faces, subject to personality of the observer.

Neural dynamics and coupling underlying uncertain anticipatory conflicts in anxious individuals.

Anticipation plays an important role in cognitive control and related psychiatric disorders such as anxiety. However, anticipation processing of conflicts in anxious individuals and the underlying brain mechanisms remain unknown. Using a newly designed cue-flanker task, we observed faster responses to congruent flankers with certain cues in individuals with high trait anxiety (HTA) than those with low trait anxiety (LTA). Microstate analyses revealed less occurrence of cue-evoked microstates in HTA than LTA. Importantly, the less occurrence of specific state was correlated to the larger flanker effect in HTA, suggesting that deficient conflict control in anxiety is associated with abnormal vigilance-related dynamic processing during anticipation. Delta-beta coupling at anticipation stage mediated the association between the level of anxiety and reaction time in conflict processing with uncertain cues in HTA, suggesting the mediatory role of delta-beta coupling in anticipatory conflict processing of anxious individuals. These results suggest hyperactive anticipatory processing of goal-relevant information for the upcoming conflict in anxious individuals. Our findings provide neurocognitive evidence for altered anticipatory cognitive control in anxious individuals and have important implications for diagnosis and treatment of anxiety-related disorders.

Group membership moderates the process of making trust judgments based on facial cues.

Trust is a foundation of interpersonal communication. Faces have a significant impact on trust judgments, and separate research demonstrates that group membership also influences trust judgments. However, it remains unclear whether and how group membership moderates the effect of face trustworthiness on trust judgments and investment decisions. In the present research, two experiments were conducted to explore the moderating effect of group membership (i.e., in-group vs. out-group) on perceptions of facial trustworthiness and trust judgments. Results showed that participants invested significantly more money on trials with trustworthy faces than trials with untrustworthy faces. Additionally, there was a significant interaction between group membership and facial trustworthiness; the investment difference between trustworthy faces and untrustworthy faces was greater for trials with in-group member faces than out-group member faces. These findings indicate that top-down and bottom-up cues jointly influence behavioral decisions.

From structure to concepts: The two stages of facial expression recognition.

Facial expressions are the dominant way of human emotional and social communications. However, it remains unclear that how can perceivers extract emotion from the face. In the present study, we adopted a repetition-priming paradigm in combine with event-related potentials (ERP) to examine neurocognitive processing stages of facial expression perception. Results showed that emotional words were recognized faster than emotional faces, when both of which were primed by emotional faces, indicating the involvement of concepts processes in facial expression recognition. ERP results showed that all emotional faces could evoke responses of N170, while there was no significant difference between positive and negative emotional faces, suggesting that geometrical configurations of faces rather than emotional concepts of faces are processed at the stage of N170. In contrast, both emotional words and faces showed larger P2 in response to anger than happiness, which suggests that emotional concepts are extracted from faces at the stage of P2. To examine the underlying dynamic causal connectivity between facial structure and emotional conception, we conducted information flow analysis, which showed significant decreases of information flow from the fusiform gyrus to dorsal anterior cingulate cortex/dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and increases of information flow from the fusiform gyrus to posterior insula. These results revealed neural mechanisms underlying processes from physical structure to emotional concepts. Our findings suggest that facial expression recognition consists of two stages from geometrical structure of faces to emotional concepts of facial expressions, which provides evidence for facial expression processing and has important implications in the diagnosis and treatment of emotion recognition related disorders.

Why do you attract me but not others? Retrieval of person knowledge and its generalization bring diverse judgments of facial attractiveness.

Judgments of facial attractiveness play an important role in social interactions. However, it still remains unclear why these judgments are malleable. The present study aimed to understand whether the retrieval of person knowledge leads to different judgments of attractiveness of the same face. Event-related potentials and learning-recognition tasks were used to investigate the effects of person knowledge on facial attractiveness. The results showed that compared with familiar faces that were matched with negative person knowledge, those matched with positive person knowledge were evaluated as more attractive and evoked a larger early posterior negativity (EPN) and late positive complex (LPC). Additionally, positive similar faces had the same behavioral results and evoked large LPC, while unfamiliar faces did not have any significant effects. These results indicate that the effect of person knowledge on facial attractiveness occurs from early to late stage of facial attractiveness processing, and this effect could be generalized based on the similarity of the face structure, which occurred at the late stage. This mechanism may explain why individuals form different judgments of facial attractiveness.

Effect of intranasal oxytocin administration on self-other distinction: Modulations by psychological distance and gender.

Preliminary evidence indicates that intranasal oxytocin (OT) administration modulates one's ability to distinguish oneself from others (i.e., self-other distinction). However, previous findings on this topic are contradictory. The current study addressed this issue by (i) using a novel perceptual matching task examining self-other distinction compared to both close and distant others, and (ii) tentatively exploring potential modulations by gender. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized OT administration study, 100 participants (50 males and 50 females) were randomized to receive intranasal spray of 24 IU OT or placebo (PL). Afterwards, participants completed a geometry perceptual matching task in which different shapes were paired to the self, a friend, or a stranger. Participants were then asked to judge whether each pair of shapes and labels was correctly matched. The results revealed that compared to PL administration, OT facilitated distinction between the self and a friend in males but not in females. These findings provide insights for debates on the role of OT in self-other distinction by revealing modulations by psychological distance and gender, which have implications for the potential clinical applications of OT.

Repeated exposure makes attractive faces more attractive: Neural responses in facial attractiveness judgement.

Facial attractiveness affects social interaction and decisions. Previous studies have shown people automatically judge facial attractiveness upon first impression. However, how facial attractiveness changes with repeated exposure is still unknown. The event related potential technique was used to examine the underlying neural processing of the repeated exposure effect on facial attractiveness. The results showed that for high attractive faces, attractiveness judgement increased significantly with repeated exposure, underpinned by smaller N170 and larger LPP. The duration of microstate C was negatively correlated with attractiveness judgement. Source location revealed that with repeated exposure, microstate C activated the supramarginal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus, which are related to attention and emotion processing, respectively. These results suggest repeated exposure affects the cognitive and affective brain systems when processing high attractive faces. Concerning middle attractive faces, with repeated exposure, these were also seen as more attractive, yielding larger EPN. The occurrence of microstate C was positively correlated with attractiveness judgement. Source location revealed that microstate C during repeated exposure activated the middle frontal gyrus. These results indicate repeated exposure affects the emotional brain system when processing middle attractive faces. Our findings suggest the cognitive and affective brain systems play an important role in the changes of facial attractiveness judgement.

The language context effect in facial expressions processing and its mandatory characteristic.

Background visual scenes in which faces are perceived provide contextual information for facial expression processing. One type of background information, the language context, has a vital influence on facial expression processing. The current study is aimed to investigate the effect of the language context on facial expression processing by recording event-related potentials (ERPs). Experiment one adopted the facial expression categorization task to investigate the effects of different language contexts on emotional and non-emotional facial processing. Experiment two adopted the task-irrelevant paradigm to investigate whether the language context effect on facial expression processing was mandatory. The results found that (1) the language context affected facial expression processing. Facial expression processing was promoted when the language context was emotionally congruent with faces. Moreover, the language context had an evoking effect on neutral faces. To be detailed, neutral facial expressions were evoked to be judged as positive in the positive language context while as negative in the negative language context. (2) The language context effect still affected facial expression processing in a task-irrelevant paradigm. When the language context was emotionally incongruent with facial expressions, larger N170 and LPP amplitudes were elicited, indicating the inhibition of incongruent emotions. These findings prove that the language context effect on facial expression processing is mandatory.

Social Interaction Patterns of the Disabled People in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas.

The social participation of the disabled people is unsatisfactory and low, one of the reasons often overlooked but of great importance may lie in the disparate patterns of social interaction between the disabled people and the abled people. The current study respectively recruited 41 and 80 disabled people in two experiments and adopted give-some games and public good dilemma to explore social interaction patterns between the disabled abled people. The results were as follows: (1) the disabled people preferred to interact with the disabled people and the abled people preferred to interact with the abled people. (2) The disabled abled people had higher cooperation, satisfaction and sense of justice when interacting with the disabled people than interacting with the abled people. (3) Advantage in the number of the disabled people could reverse their disadvantage in the identity. These results are of important practical value, which provides related theoretical support for the disabled people's federation and communities when carrying out activities for the disabled people.