Emotion

Leppänen, Jukka M.; Hietanen, Jari K.

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.315pmid: 14674826

Previous choice reaction time studies have provided consistent evidence for faster recognition of positive (e.g., happy) than negative (e.g., disgusted) facial expressions. A predominance of positive emotions in normal contexts may partly explain this effect. The present study used pleasant and unpleasant odors to test whether emotional context affects the happy face advantage. Results from 2 experiments indicated that happiness was recognized faster than disgust in a pleasant context, but this advantage disappeared in an unpleasant context because of the slow recognition of happy faces. Odors may modulate the functioning of those emotion-related brain structures that participate in the formation of the perceptual representations of the facial expressions and in the generation of the conceptual knowledge associated with the signaled emotion.

Fenske, Mark J.; Eastwood, John D.

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.327pmid: 14674827

Three experiments evaluated whether facial expression can modulate the allocation of focused attention. Identification of emotionally expressive target faces was typically faster when they were flanked by identical (compatible) faces compared with when they were flanked by different (incompatible) faces. This flanker compatibility effect was significantly smaller when target faces expressed negative compared with positive emotion (see Experiment 1A); however, when the faces were altered to disrupt emotional expression, yet retain feature differences, equal flanker compatibility effects were observed (see Experiment 1B). The flanker-compatibility effect was also found to be smaller for negative target faces compared with neutral target faces, and for both negative and neutral target faces compared with positive target faces (see Experiment 2). These results suggest that the constriction of attention is influenced by facial expressions of emotion.

Ferrer, Emilio; Nesselroade, John R.

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.344pmid: 14674828

An intraindividual variability design, including application of dynamic factor models, was used to examine the affective processes of a husband–wife dyad over 182 consecutive days. Structural equation analyses indicated differences in the affective structure between the husband and the wife, and these differences were characterized in terms of their factorial configuration and temporal organization. Examination of the dyad's affective dynamics revealed unidirectional (i.e., from the husband to the wife) interpersonal influences with a defined structure over time.

Lischetzke, Tanja; Eid, Michael

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.361pmid: 14674829

This research examined the functionality of attention to feelings for affective well-being. The authors found that mood regulation, but not clarity of feelings, moderated the attention–well-being relationship. For individuals with high mood regulation scores, attention was beneficial to affective well-being, whereas for individuals with low mood regulation scores, attention was detrimental to affective well-being. This finding was corroborated by self- and peer reports in Study 1 and replicated in Study 2. The validity of the scales was established by the convergence of self- and peer ratings. Moreover, Study 2 showed that dysfunctional and functional self-consciousness scales suppressed variance in attention to feelings, thereby revealing that attention incorporates both adaptive and maladaptive aspects.

Kensinger, Elizabeth A.; Corkin, Suzanne

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.378pmid: 14674830

In long-term memory, negative information is better remembered than neutral information. Differences in processes important to working memory may contribute to this emotional memory enhancement. To examine the effect that the emotional content of stimuli has on working memory performance, the authors asked participants to perform working memory tasks with negative and neutral stimuli. Task accuracy was unaffected by the emotional content of the stimuli. Reaction times also did not differ for negative relative to neutral words, but on an n-back task using faces, participants were slower to respond to fearful faces than to neutral faces. These results suggest that although emotional content does not have a robust effect on working memory, in some instances emotional salience can impede working memory performance.

Heerey, Erin A.; Keltner, Dacher; Capps, Lisa M.

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.394pmid: 14674831

Self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment and shame are associated with 2 aspects of theory of mind (ToM): (a) the ability to understand that behavior has social consequences in the eyes of others and (b) an understanding of social norms violations. The present study aimed to link ToM with the recognition of self-conscious emotion. Children with and without autism identified facial expressions of self-conscious and non-self-conscious emotions from photographs. ToM was also measured. Children with autism performed more poorly than comparison children at identifying self-conscious emotions, though they did not differ in the recognition of non-self-conscious emotions. When ToM ability was statistically controlled, group differences in the recognition of self-conscious emotion disappeared. Discussion focused on the links between ToM and self-conscious emotion.

Schmidt, Louis A.; Cote, Kimberly A.; Santesso, Diane L.; Milner, Catherine E.

doi: 10.1037/1528-3542.3.4.401pmid: 14674832

Electroencephalogram (EEG) alpha (8–12 Hz) asymmetries were collected from the mid-frontal and central regions during presleep wakefulness and Stage 1, Stage 2, and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in 11 healthy right-handed participants who were free of psychiatric, neurological, and sleep problems. The authors found significant correlations between presleep wakefulness and different stages of sleep in the frontal, but not central, EEG alpha asymmetry measure. The strongest correlation was between presleep waking and REM sleep, replicating and extending earlier work to a normal population. The high degree of association between presleep waking and REM sleep may be a result of high cortical activation common to these states and may reflect a predisposition to different styles of emotional reactivity.