Affect plays a central role in perception and action. We register how good or bad we feel about objects in our environment at the moment of perception. These associations can guide decisions between different courses of action. And how we feel about those decisions influences subsequent affective states, and therefore subsequent decisions. A consistent set of brain regions has been implicated in affect and decision-making – including regions of medial prefrontal cortex, striatum, and insula – but their respective roles in interfacing between affect, valuation and choice are debated. One region in particular, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex/medial orbitofrontal cortex (vmPFC/mOFC), finds itself at the center of both affective and seemingly non-affective phenomena, in ways that can be either central or peripheral to the decision at hand. The current studies use functional MRI to explore the role of these different circuits during the process of generating automatic affective associations (Parts 1 and 3), integrating those affective associations into value-based decisions (Parts 2 and 3), and then integrating the experience of choosing into its own affective association (Part 3). Part 1 shows that the same region of vmPFC/mOFC automatically tracks the associations an object has with an affective valence (i.e., how unpleasant/pleasant it is) as well as with other objects in memory. Part 2 shows that affective associations for abstract but morally salient outcomes (hypothetical lives saved vs. sacrificed) can be integrated into a common value to guide moral judgments. The neural circuits involved in this process were consistent with those that have played similar roles when decisions were instead between food or monetary rewards. Part 3 shows that decisions between multiple rewarding options (i.e., "win-win" choices) activate separate neural circuits involved in evaluating (a) expected rewards and (b) the difficulty of making a choice, with the consequence being a simultaneously (a) positive and (b) anxiety-provoking affective experience. The vmPFC/mOFC played an important role in each of the three studies, in a manner consistent with a proposed role in integrating affective experience with other representations in memory in order to inform feelings and behavior. Together, these findings help to better elucidate the roles of different neural circuits in translating affective experience into choice and choices into affective experiences. / Psychology

Με τη συνεχώς αυξανόμενη παρουσία αυτόματων συστημάτων στην καθημερινότητά μας, εισέρχεται και το βάρος της αλληλεπίδρασης με αυτά τα συστήματα εξαιτίας της έλλειψης συναισθηματικής νοημοσύνης από την πλευρά των μηχανών [45]. Η συναισθηματική πληροφορία που μεταδίδεται μέσω της ανθρώπινης ομιλίας αποτελεί σημαντικό παράγοντα στις ανθρώπινες επικοινωνίες και αλληλεπιδράσεις. Όταν οι άνθρωποι αλληλεπιδρούν με μηχανές ή υπολογιστικά συστήματα υπάρχει ένα κενό μεταξύ της πληροφορίας που μεταδίδεται και αυτής που γίνεται αντιληπτή. Η εργασία αυτή επικεντρώνεται στον τρόπο με τον οποίο ένα υπολογιστικό σύστημα μπορεί να αντιληφθεί την συναισθηματική πληροφορία που υποβόσκει στην ανθρώπινη ομιλία. Γίνεται μελέτη ενός συστήματος αναγνώρισης της συναισθηματικής κατάστασης του ομιλητή, και πιο συγκεκριμένα επικεντρωνόμαστε στην προεπεξεργασία του σήματος ομιλίας και την εξαγωγή των κατάλληλων παραμέτρων, οι οποίες θα μπορέσουν να χαρακτηρίσουν μονοσήμαντα κάθε συναισθηματική κατάσταση. Διεξάγουμε πειραματικές μετρήσεις εξάγοντας μια σειρά στατιστικών τιμών από παραμέτρους που χαρακτηρίζουν τόσο την προσωδία όσο και την ποιότητα της φωνής. Τα αποτελέσματά μας υποδεικνύουν το βέλτιστο σύνολο παραμέτρων ομιλίας για αξιόπιστη αναγνώριση συναισθημάτων πάνω στη συναισθηματική βάση του Βερολίνου. / With the continuously increasing presence of automatic systems in our everyday routine, enters also the weight of interaction with these systems [exaitias] the lack of sentimental intelligence from the side of machines [45]. The sentimental information that is transmitted via the human speech constitutes important factor in the human communications and interactions. When the persons [allilepidroyn] with machines or calculating systems it exists a void between the information that is transmitted and the one that becomes perceptible. This work is focused in the way with which a calculating system can perceive the sentimental information that [ypoboskei] in the human speech. Becomes study of system of recognition of sentimental situation of speaker, and we were more concretely focused in the pretreatment of signal of speech and the export of suitable parameters, that might characterize one-track each sentimental situation. We conduct experimental measurements exporting a line of statistical prices from parameters that characterize so much the prosody what the quality of voice. Our results indicate the most optimal total of parameters of speech for reliable recognition of sentiments on the sentimental base of Berlin.

Interaction analyses of challenge episodes were used to investigate the role of student coping behavior in their socially shared regulation of learning (SSRL) and emotion during small group activities. Two groups each of third grade and fifth grade students were audio-recorded as they completed three fraction activities during their math class. Initial analysis of group recordings using the Group Behavior Checklist observation system identified points in the group activity were students struggled to complete the task. Next, analyses of group member interactions were completed to (a) determine if challenges were academic or social in nature, (b) identify student challenge management and coping strategies, and (c) determine how these strategies related to group SSRL and academic achievement. Results revealed that the sources of challenge episodes for this sample were academic in nature. However, academic challenges were exacerbated by the social complexities of working with others. Group management and coping strategies that focused members' attention on either negative academic emotions or avoiding negative academic emotions were related to relatively low group academic achievement. Group management strategies that focused students' attention on the task and fostered SSRL behaviors such as joint attention, shared problem-solving, and positive emotion were related to relatively moderate to high group academic achievement. This study demonstrates the necessity of investigating both academic and affective factors when considering students' socially shared regulation of learning during small group activities where the expectation is that students will work collaboratively.

Emotion regulation plays an important role in emotional well-being, as well as in the protection against and recovery from mood and anxiety disorders. Previous studies of the functional neuroanatomy of emotion regulation have reported greater activity in prefrontal control-related regions during active regulation. These activations are accompanied by decreases in activity in emotion-responsive regions such as the amygdala and insula. These findings are widely interpreted as consistent with models of cognitive control that implicate top-down, negative influences from prefrontal cortex upon emotion-related processing in other regions. However, no studies to date have used measures of effective connectivity to investigate the likely influence of prefrontal control regions upon emotion-responsive regions in the context of effortful emotion regulation. In the present study, participants alternated between responding naturally to negative emotional stimuli and reinterpreting the negative stimuli with the goal of reducing their experienced negative affect. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure whole-brain blood-oxygen level dependent signal throughout the task. fMRI data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) and structural equations modeling (SEM) to test for differences in effective connectivity between natural and regulated emotional responding. Results indicate that three paths significantly distinguish between regulation and non-regulation negative conditions. The path from inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) to anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) was significantly less positive during regulation than natural responding. In addition, the reciprocal paths between ACC and insula were more negative during regulation than natural responding. Taken as a whole, these changes in effective connectivity are consistent with assumptions of top-down modulation during effortful emotion regulation. In addition, these changes suggest a pivotal role for the influence of IFG upon ACC and the ACC-insula loop in emotion regulation. The processes represented by these changes and implications for future research are discussed.

This daily diary study investigated the emotional experiences and relationship behaviors of married couples coping with the husband's Type 2 diabetes, and how those experiences and behaviors affected his blood glucose levels. Repeated measures multilevel models examined the effects of husbands' and wives' absolute levels of positive and negative emotional experiences, balance of positive to negative emotional experiences, absolute levels of positive and negative behaviors, and balance of positive to negative behaviors on husbands' glucose. Husbands' negative emotional experience and wives' positive balance of relationship behaviors predicted lower blood glucose levels. For husbands who were younger, in poorer general health, and whose wives were more satisfied with their marriage, husbands' positive emotional experience predicted lower blood glucose levels. For husbands in better general health, wives' reports of a higher balance of positive as opposed to negative emotional experience also predicted lower blood glucose levels. Overall, results indicate that positive emotional experience and a balance of emotional experience and relationship behavior that is predominantly positive predicts positive diabetes outcomes as measured by lower daily blood glucose levels.

Experiential avoidance (EA) is an emotion-regulation strategy used to control or avoid unpleasant internal experiences. Experimental studies, however, have shown that EA is associated with an ironic increase in unpleasant experiences. While single manipulation laboratory experiments can demonstrate the immediate ironic detrimental effects of EA, a different methodology is needed to establish how such ironic processes unfold over time in the natural environment. The current study uses a longitudinal design and daily-diary methodology to examine daily associations between EA and negative affect (NA) over a three-week period among college-students who initially reported high levels of psychological distress. A daily measure of state EA based on several avoidant behaviors (thought suppression, emotion suppression, distraction, reflective pondering, and lack of experiential acceptance) was developed for this study. Before and after making daily web-based reports of EA and NA for 21 consecutive days, participants completed a standardized checklist of psychological symptoms, with pre-post change scores on this measure serving as an index of symptomatic improvement. Multilevel modeling analyses showed that, as predicted, symptomatic improvement was associated with decreasing trajectories of EA and NA during the 21-day study period. More symptomatic improvement was associated with weakening (decoupling) of same-day EA-NA links over time. Contrary to predictions, same-day and one-day lagged associations between NA and EA were not associated with symptomatic change. Additional multilevel analyses showed that symptomatic worsening was associated with more daily EA, over and above what was accounted for by daily NA. Likewise, traditional between-person regression analyses showed that overall mean levels of daily EA (aggregated across days) predicted symptomatic worsening, even after statistically accounting for mean levels of daily NA. The results of this study provide partial support for the hypothesis that EA and NA are related to each other in an ironic positive feedback loop that unfolds over time and that symptomatic improvement may involve a process by which EA and NA both decrease and decouple from each other over time. These findings emphasize the importance of using methodologies that track the relationship between EA and its consequences over time using within-person analyses, rather than solely relying on between-person designs.

Denna uppsats belyser empati ur ett troligen helt nytt perspektiv genom att likna empatiprocessen vid den suggestibla som ”den andres” förmedlande av stimu¬lus, vilket av målpersonen mottages, processas och därefter ofta resulterar i en, hos målpersonen, genuint upplevd känsla eller uppfattning. I uppsatsen förslås vidare att empati och suggestibilitet skiljer sig ifrån övrig form av var¬seblivning genom det radikala internaliserandet av stimulus som de ofta ska¬par hos målpersonen. Studiens syfte var att, baserat på detta förslag, utreda om det finns ett samband mellan empati och suggesti¬bilitet. En studie utförd med 42 per¬soner påvisade en tendens till samband mellan suggestibilitet och empati samt att kvinnor var signifikant mer suggestibla än män. Framtida forskning bör fortsatt testa om suggestibilitet kan förklara empati.

Lifespan theories of emotion suggest that the ability to regulate emotion improves with age. The supporting evidence, however, is indirect: older adults pay less attention to negative events, remember less negative information, and report fewer experiences of negative emotion. Few studies directly measure emotion regulation by explicitly instructing older adults to modulate their feelings while exposed to emotion-evoking stimuli. The purpose of this thesis was to directly compare younger and older adults in their ability to modulate feelings to investigate whether aging results in decline, stability, or improvement in emotion regulation and also to examine potential mechanisms underlying regulation skills. The study employed a startle modulation paradigm to measure both emotional reactivity and regulation. Two experimental tasks (Stroop colour-word interference, reversal learning) were also administered to explore the relationship between emotion regulation and two theoretically-relevant processes: (a) cognitive control and (b) modification of learned emotional associations. There were three main findings: (1) emotional reactivity was preserved in older adults. Both age groups showed emotion-modulated startle (negative > neutral) during the pre-regulation viewing period; (2) age-related decline in emotion regulation was evident on an objective measure of emotion regulation (startle eyeblink reflex) but not on a subjective measure (self-ratings). Specifically, for older adults, startle eyeblink was not enhanced or attenuated following increase and decrease instructions, respectively. In contrast, both groups showed similar modulation of valence and arousal ratings by regulation instruction (increase > look > decrease); (3) for older adults, reversal learning performance correlated positively with the degree of reappraisal-related startle attenuation in the decrease condition, suggesting a possible mechanism for impaired down-regulation. These findings suggest that even when emotional reactivity is similar, older adults are less effective at modulating their physiological responses.

Spoken language conveys two forms of information: transactional (content, what is said) and interactional (how it is said). The transactional message shared during spoken communication has been studied extensively in different listening conditions and in people of all ages using standardized tests of speech intelligibility. However, research into interactional aspects of speech has been more limited. One specific aspect of interactional communication that warrants further investigation is the communication of emotion in speech, also called affective prosody. A series of experiments examined how younger and older adults produce affective prosody, recognize emotion in speech, and understand emotional speech in noise. The emotional valence and arousal properties of target words from an existing speech intelligibility test were rated by younger and older adults. New stimuli based on those words were recorded by a younger female and an older female using affective prosody to portray seven emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, pleasant surprise, sadness, neutral). Similar to previous studies, the acoustical parameter that best differentiated the emotions was fundamental frequency (F0). Specifically, discriminant analysis indicated that emotional category membership was best predicted by the mean and range of F0. Overall, recognition of emotion and intelligibility were high. While older listeners made more recognition errors and had poorer intelligibility overall, their patterns of responding did not differ significantly from those of the younger listeners on either measure. Of note, angry and sad emotions were recognized with the highest degree of accuracy, but intelligibility was highest for items spoken to portray fear or pleasant surprise. These results may suggest that there is a complementarity between the acoustic cues used to recognize emotions (how words are said) and those used to understand words (what is said). Alternatively, the effect of emotion on intelligibility may be modulated primarily by attentional rather than acoustical factors, with higher performance associated with alerting emotions.

Facial expression has been used as a measure of pain in clinical and experimental studies. The Sociocommunications Model of Pain (T. Hadjistavropoulos, K. Craig, & S. Fuchs-Lacelle, 2004) characterizes facial movements during pain as both expressions of inner experience and communications to other people that must be considered in the social contexts in which they occur. While research demonstrates that specific facial movements may be outward manifestations of pain states, less attention has been paid to the extent to which contextual factors influence facial movements during pain. Experimenters are an inevitable feature of research studies on facial expression during pain and study of their social impact is merited. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of experimenter presence on participants’ facial expressions during pain. Healthy young adults (60 males, 60 females) underwent painful stimulation induced by a cold pressor in three social contexts: alone; alone with knowledge of an experimenter watching through a one-way mirror; and face-to-face with an experimenter. Participants provided verbal self-report ratings of pain. Facial behaviours during pain were coded with the Facial Action Coding System (P. Ekman, W. Friesen, & J. Hager, 2002) and rated by naïve judges. Participants’ facial expressions of pain varied with the context of the pain experience condition but not with verbally self-reported levels of pain. Participants who were alone were more likely to display facial actions typically associated with pain than participants who were being observed by an experimenter who was in another room or sitting across from them. Naïve judges appeared to be influenced by these facial expressions as, on average, they rated the participants who were alone as experiencing more pain than those who were observed. Facial expressions shown by people experiencing pain can communicate the fact that they are feeling pain. However, facial expressions can be influenced by factors in the social context such as the presence of an experimenter. The results suggest that facial expressions during pain made by adults should be viewed at least in part as communications, subject to intrapersonal and interpersonal influences, rather than direct read-outs of experience.