Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown increased activation in visual and cortex limbic are... more Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown increased activation in visual and cortex limbic areas. However, differences in visual features of such images could confound these findings. In order to manipulate valence of stimuli while keeping visual features largely unchanged, we took advantage of an "expressional transfiguration" (ET) effect of faces. In addition, we used repetition effects, which enabled us to test more incisively the impact of the ET effect. Using the ET manipulation, we have shown that the activation in lateral occipital complex (LOC) was unaffected by valence attributes, but produced significant modulation of fMR adaptation. Contrary to LOC, amygdala activation was increased by ET manipulation unrelated to the adaptation. A correlation between amygdala and LOC adaptation points to a possible modulatory role of the amygdala upon visual cortex short-term plasticity.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2015
Self-relevant information is associated with facilitation of perceptual and memory processes. In ... more Self-relevant information is associated with facilitation of perceptual and memory processes. In two experiments, participants verified the number of dots within a virtual room that were visible to a given perspective, corresponding to participants’ own first-person perspectives or the third-person perspectives for self- and other-associated avatars. Perspectives were either congruent or incongruent with respect to the number of dots visible to each. In Experiment 1, we examined perspective-taking for self- and other-associated avatars relative to one another; both avatars appeared simultaneously in the virtual room, and participants made judgments based on the prompted avatar’s perspective. In Experiment 2, we examined perspective-taking for each avatar relative to the first-person perspective; only one avatar was visible in the virtual room (Self or Other, varying by trial), and participants made judgments based on their first-person view or the avatar’s perspective. Experiment 2 ...
Facial features differ in the amount of expressive information they convey. Specifically, eyes ar... more Facial features differ in the amount of expressive information they convey. Specifically, eyes are argued to be essential for fear recognition, while smiles are crucial for recognising happy expressions. In three experiments, we tested whether expression modulates the perceptual saliency of diagnostic facial features and whether the feature's saliency depends on the face configuration. Participants were presented with masked facial features or noise at perceptual conscious threshold. The task was to indicate whether eyes (experiments 1-3A) or a mouth (experiment 3B) was present. The expression of the face and its configuration (i.e. spatial arrangement of the features) were manipulated. Experiment 1 compared fearful with neutral expressions, experiments 2 and 3 compared fearful versus happy expressions. The detection accuracy data was analysed using Signal Detection Theory (SDT), to examine the effects of expression and configuration on perceptual precision (d') and response bias (c), separately. Across all three experiments, fearful eyes were detected better (higher d') than neutral and happy eyes. Eyes were more precisely detected than mouths, whereas smiles were detected better than fearful mouths. The configuration of the features had no consistent effects across the experiments on the ability to detect expressive features. But facial configuration affected consistently the response bias. Participants used a more liberal criterion for detecting the eyes in canonical configuration and fearful expression. Finally, the power in low spatial frequency of a feature predicted its discriminability index. The results suggest that expressive features are perceptually more salient with a higher d' due to changes at the low-level visual properties, with emotions and configuration affecting perception through top-down processes, as reflected by the response bias.
Critchley et al., 2000a), as well as the association be-Weizmann Institute for Science tween visu... more Critchley et al., 2000a), as well as the association be-Weizmann Institute for Science tween visual cortex and amygdala activation during Rehovot emotional stimulation (Dolan and Morris, 2000). Israel By contrast, lesion studies in humans demonstrated double dissociation between visual perception and the related emotional processes (Young et al., 1993; Summary Adolphs et al., 1995; Aggleton and Young, 2000). Thus, face recognition could be impaired with no impairment Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown inin the ability to recognize the related emotional exprescreased activation in visual and cortex limbic areas. sion as shown in prosopagnostic (Sergent and Villemure, However, differences in visual features of such images 1989; de Gelder et al., 2000; Bauer, 1984; Tranel and could confound these findings. In order to manipulate Damasio, 1988) or hemifield blind-sight patient (de valence of stimuli while keeping visual features largely Gelder et al., 1999). In equivalent vein, emotional deficits unchanged, we took advantage of an "expressional did not entail visual deficits in patients with amygdala transfiguration" (ET) effect of faces. In addition, we lesions (Adolphs et al., 1994, 1995; Young et al., 1995, used repetition effects, which enabled us to test more 1996; Calder et al., 1996; Bechara et al., 1995). Finally, incisively the impact of the ET effect. Using the ET single cell recordings in primates showed that magnimanipulation, we have shown that the activation in tude of neuronal activation in the inferior temporal cortex lateral occipital complex (LOC) was unaffected by vawas not affected by the associated valence of the stimlence attributes, but produced significant modulation uli, generated by reward (Rolls et al., 1977). Similarly, of fMR adaptation. Contrary to LOC, amygdala activafunctional brain imaging in humans showed that negation was increased by ET manipulation unrelated to tively conditioned faces did not elicit different activation the adaptation. A correlation between amygdala and in the visual cortex compared to unconditioned faces LOC adaptation points to a possible modulatory role of (Buchel et al., 1998). Thus, emotional context alone does the amygdala upon visual cortex short-term plasticity. not seem to affect visual cortex activation. One possible explanation for the above discrepancy D. (2000a). Explicit and implicit neural mechanisms for processing of social information from facial expressions: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Hum. Brain Mapp. 9, 93-105. Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A.R. (1994). Impaired recognition of emotion in facial expressions following bilat-Critchley, H.D., Elliott, R., Mathias, C., and Dolan, R. (2000b). Neural eral damage to the human amygdala. Nature 372, 669-672. activity relating to generation and representation of galvanic skin conductance responses: a functional magnetic resonance imaging Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A.R. (1995). Fear study. J. Neurosci. 20, 3033-3040. and the human amygdala. J. Neurosci. 15, 5879-5891. Davis, M. (1992). The role of the amygdala in fear and anxiety. Annu. Aggleton, J.P., and Young, A.W. (2000). The enigma of the amygdala: Rev. Neurosci. 15, 353-375. on its contribution to human emotion.
to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging dep... more to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging depends not only on knowing the traffic rules (i.e., the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center value of options), but also on our willingness to ignore 6 Weizmann Street them and take a risk (i.e., the value of outcome). In this Tel Aviv 64239 case, either stopping at the yellow light (i.e., wasting 2 Sackler Faculty of Medicine time but obeying the law) or crossing the intersection 3 School of Computer Science (i.e., saving time but risking negative consequences) will Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences be accompanied by a characteristic affective response. Tel Aviv University Based on lesion studies in animals and humans, it Ramat Aviv has been suggested that an intact amygdala is essential Tel Aviv 69978 for making motivational (i.e., affective) choices. In ani-Israel mals, studies using reinforced goal-directed behavioral 4 Division of Neurosurgery and paradigms showed that lesions to the amygdala inter-Department of Psychiatry and fere with learning to avoid an aversive outcome Davis, Fanselow and LeDoux, 1999), and with adjustment to Los Angeles, California 90095 varying values of reinforcement (monkeys: Malkova et al., 1997; rats: Hatfield et al., 1996). In humans, it was shown that a lesion to the medial temporal lobe inter-Summary feres with affective choice behavior, as indicated by the lack of a conditioned skin conductance response (SCR) Can brain activity reveal a covert choice? Making a to visual stimuli paired with aversive sounds (LaBar et choice often evokes distinct emotions that accompany al. , 1995, 1998). More specifically, patients with bilateral decision processes. Amygdala has been implicated amygdala damage did not develop anticipatory SCRs in choice behavior that is guided by a prospective when they faced a risky choice or following a negative negative outcome. However, its specific involvement outcome during a gambling task (Bechara et al., 1995, in emotional versus cognitive processing of choice 1999). People and animals with bilateral amygdala dambehavior has been a subject of controversy. In this age also demonstrate poor judgment in their overall study, the human amygdala was monitored by funcbehavior. For example, monkeys with such lesions have tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subincreased tendency to approach risky objects in their jects were playing in a naturalistic choice paradigm environment (Kluver and Bucy, 1939; Zola-Morgan et against the experimenter. In order to win, players had al., 1991). Humans were found to have impaired social to occasionally choose to bluff their opponent, risk behavior (Tranel and Hyman, 1990) and were unable to "getting caught," and suffer a loss. A critical period, recognize negative facial expressions, a crucial skill in when choice has been made but outcome was still judging risky social situations and evaluating prospecunknown, activated the amygdala preferentially foltive interactions . lowing the choice that entailed risk of loss. Thus, the Functional brain imaging provides a tool for studying response of the amygdala differentiated between subthe intact human amygdala and, thus, for examining its ject's covert choice of either playing fair or foul. These role in choice behavior. Several studies have demonresults support a role of the amygdala in choice behavstrated amygdala involvement in processing the negaior, both in the appraisal of inherent value of choice tive valence of stimuli (Morris et al., 1996, 1999; Breiter and the signaling of prospective negative outcomes. et al., 1996; Phillips et al., 1997; Schneider et al., 1997; Whalen et al., 1998; Rotshtein et al., 2001). Imaging stud-Introduction ies that have directly examined the role of amygdala in choice behavior have primarily employed classical Choices often involve risk and uncertainty. To what exconditioning or gambling paradigms. Using a conditiontent making a choice incorporates affective processing ing paradigm in fMRI, it was shown that activation in the has been long debated in decision theory (Mellers et al., amygdala was greatest at the initial phase of acquisition 1997, 1999; Damasio, 1994). Making a choice calls for and at extinction of emotional learning (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998). The rapid habituation obappraisal of the expected outcome relating to different served in this paradigm led to the suggestion that the options. Such evaluation prior to and immediately folamygdala is most sensitive to the novel affective aspect lowing a choice usually evokes distinct affect. This can of a signal, such as in the initial stage of learning a conditioned choice behavior. Recently, it has been 5 Correspondence: talma@tasmc.health.gov.il shown that the amygdala could be activated by the 6 Present address: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, threat of a negative outcome, suggesting that it is not Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. only related to the learning phase but rather to actual Neuron 984 expression of a fear-conditioned response (Phelps et the opponent's response (show or no-show) (Figure 1D). al., 2001). Similarly, it has been demonstrated that the Note that only for a nonmatch choice the player can amygdala is involved in evaluating the value and likelisuffer an actual loss. Therefore, a nonmatch chip can hood of a monetary or abstract outcome (Breiter et al., be regarded as a foul choice, while a match chip can be 2001; Zalla et al., 2000, respectively). regarded as a fair choice. The present game paradigm is Evaluation of a prospective negative outcome and the unique, as it required that the subject actively make response to its occurrence are not exclusively mediated choices that determined the progress of the situation, by the amygdala. Rather, these processes involve sevand then required an ongoing involvement of the experieral other brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex, menter in imposing uncertainty about the consequence anterior cingulate, parietal cortex, hippocampus, and of each choice. Our specific interest was whether the ventral striatum (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998; amygdala response following each choice-but before Critchley et al., 2001; Knutson et al., 2000; Breiter et al., the outcome was known-would reveal the subject's 2001; O'Doherty et al., 2001; Knight et al., 1999; Zalla covert choice. We hypothesized that amygdala activaet al., 2000; Rogers et al., 1999; Elliott et al., 1997, 2000; tion would reflect affective states related to both the Leon and Shadlen, 1999). Recently, a disconnection value of the choice acted upon and the prospective study in monkeys indicated that motivational choice beopponent's response. havior, guided by the value of the outcome, is primarily dependent on the effective interaction between the Results amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex (Baxter et al.,
To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A strikin... more To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A striking example of emotional impact on sensation is manifested in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a severe emotional trauma produces recurrent and vivid unpleasant sensory recollections. Here we report on an fMRI study exploring the sensory processing of trauma-related pictures in the visual cortex and amygdala in respect to PTSD. The impact of traumatic experience on brain responses was tested in relation to stimuli content and its level of recognition in a parametric factorial design. Twenty combat veterans, 10 with and 10 without PTSD, viewed backward-masked images of combat and noncombat content, presented at below, near, and above recognition thresholds. The response to combat content evoked more activation in the visual cortex in PTSD subjects than in non-PTSD subjects, only when images were presented at below recognition threshold. By contrast, the amygdala demonstrated increased activation in PTSD subjects irrespective of content and recognition threshold of the images. These intriguing findings are compatible with the notion that in PTSD, emotional traumatic experience could modify visual processing already at the preattentive level. On the other hand, lack of content specificity in the amygdala point to a possible predisposed mechanism for pathological processing of traumatic experience. The differential sensitivity of the amygdala and visual cortex to traumatic context implies distinct roles of limbic and sensory regions in the registration and recollection of emotional experience in the brain.
To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A strikin... more To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A striking example of emotional impact on sensation is manifested in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a severe emotional trauma produces recurrent and vivid unpleasant sensory recollections. Here we report on an fMRI study exploring the sensory processing of trauma-related pictures in the visual cortex and amygdala in respect to PTSD. The impact of traumatic experience on brain responses was tested in relation to stimuli content and its level of recognition in a parametric factorial design. Twenty combat veterans, 10 with and 10 without PTSD, viewed backward-masked images of combat and noncombat content, presented at below, near, and above recognition thresholds. The response to combat content evoked more activation in the visual cortex in PTSD subjects than in non-PTSD subjects, only when images were presented at below recognition threshold. By contrast, the amygdala demonstrated increased activation in PTSD subjects irrespective of content and recognition threshold of the images. These intriguing findings are compatible with the notion that in PTSD, emotional traumatic experience could modify visual processing already at the preattentive level. On the other hand, lack of content specificity in the amygdala point to a possible predisposed mechanism for pathological processing of traumatic experience. The differential sensitivity of the amygdala and visual cortex to traumatic context implies distinct roles of limbic and sensory regions in the registration and recollection of emotional experience in the brain.
to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging dep... more to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging depends not only on knowing the traffic rules (i.e., the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center value of options), but also on our willingness to ignore 6 Weizmann Street them and take a risk (i.e., the value of outcome). In this Tel Aviv 64239 case, either stopping at the yellow light (i.e., wasting 2 Sackler Faculty of Medicine time but obeying the law) or crossing the intersection 3 School of Computer Science (i.e., saving time but risking negative consequences) will Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences be accompanied by a characteristic affective response. Tel Aviv University Based on lesion studies in animals and humans, it Ramat Aviv has been suggested that an intact amygdala is essential Tel Aviv 69978 for making motivational (i.e., affective) choices. In ani-Israel mals, studies using reinforced goal-directed behavioral 4 Division of Neurosurgery and paradigms showed that lesions to the amygdala inter-Department of Psychiatry and fere with learning to avoid an aversive outcome Davis, Fanselow and LeDoux, 1999), and with adjustment to Los Angeles, California 90095 varying values of reinforcement (monkeys: Malkova et al., 1997; rats: Hatfield et al., 1996). In humans, it was shown that a lesion to the medial temporal lobe inter-Summary feres with affective choice behavior, as indicated by the lack of a conditioned skin conductance response (SCR) Can brain activity reveal a covert choice? Making a to visual stimuli paired with aversive sounds (LaBar et choice often evokes distinct emotions that accompany al. , 1995, 1998). More specifically, patients with bilateral decision processes. Amygdala has been implicated amygdala damage did not develop anticipatory SCRs in choice behavior that is guided by a prospective when they faced a risky choice or following a negative negative outcome. However, its specific involvement outcome during a gambling task (Bechara et al., 1995, in emotional versus cognitive processing of choice 1999). People and animals with bilateral amygdala dambehavior has been a subject of controversy. In this age also demonstrate poor judgment in their overall study, the human amygdala was monitored by funcbehavior. For example, monkeys with such lesions have tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subincreased tendency to approach risky objects in their jects were playing in a naturalistic choice paradigm environment (Kluver and Bucy, 1939; Zola-Morgan et against the experimenter. In order to win, players had al., 1991). Humans were found to have impaired social to occasionally choose to bluff their opponent, risk behavior (Tranel and Hyman, 1990) and were unable to "getting caught," and suffer a loss. A critical period, recognize negative facial expressions, a crucial skill in when choice has been made but outcome was still judging risky social situations and evaluating prospecunknown, activated the amygdala preferentially foltive interactions . lowing the choice that entailed risk of loss. Thus, the Functional brain imaging provides a tool for studying response of the amygdala differentiated between subthe intact human amygdala and, thus, for examining its ject's covert choice of either playing fair or foul. These role in choice behavior. Several studies have demonresults support a role of the amygdala in choice behavstrated amygdala involvement in processing the negaior, both in the appraisal of inherent value of choice tive valence of stimuli (Morris et al., 1996, 1999; Breiter and the signaling of prospective negative outcomes. et al., 1996; Phillips et al., 1997; Schneider et al., 1997; Whalen et al., 1998; Rotshtein et al., 2001). Imaging stud-Introduction ies that have directly examined the role of amygdala in choice behavior have primarily employed classical Choices often involve risk and uncertainty. To what exconditioning or gambling paradigms. Using a conditiontent making a choice incorporates affective processing ing paradigm in fMRI, it was shown that activation in the has been long debated in decision theory (Mellers et al., amygdala was greatest at the initial phase of acquisition 1997, 1999; Damasio, 1994). Making a choice calls for and at extinction of emotional learning (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998). The rapid habituation obappraisal of the expected outcome relating to different served in this paradigm led to the suggestion that the options. Such evaluation prior to and immediately folamygdala is most sensitive to the novel affective aspect lowing a choice usually evokes distinct affect. This can of a signal, such as in the initial stage of learning a conditioned choice behavior. Recently, it has been 5 Correspondence: talma@tasmc.health.gov.il shown that the amygdala could be activated by the 6 Present address: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, threat of a negative outcome, suggesting that it is not Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. only related to the learning phase but rather to actual Neuron 984 expression of a fear-conditioned response (Phelps et the opponent's response (show or no-show) (Figure 1D). al., 2001). Similarly, it has been demonstrated that the Note that only for a nonmatch choice the player can amygdala is involved in evaluating the value and likelisuffer an actual loss. Therefore, a nonmatch chip can hood of a monetary or abstract outcome (Breiter et al., be regarded as a foul choice, while a match chip can be 2001; Zalla et al., 2000, respectively). regarded as a fair choice. The present game paradigm is Evaluation of a prospective negative outcome and the unique, as it required that the subject actively make response to its occurrence are not exclusively mediated choices that determined the progress of the situation, by the amygdala. Rather, these processes involve sevand then required an ongoing involvement of the experieral other brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex, menter in imposing uncertainty about the consequence anterior cingulate, parietal cortex, hippocampus, and of each choice. Our specific interest was whether the ventral striatum (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998; amygdala response following each choice-but before Critchley et al., 2001; Knutson et al., 2000; Breiter et al., the outcome was known-would reveal the subject's 2001; O'Doherty et al., 2001; Knight et al., 1999; Zalla covert choice. We hypothesized that amygdala activaet al., 2000; Rogers et al., 1999; Elliott et al., 1997, 2000; tion would reflect affective states related to both the Leon and Shadlen, 1999). Recently, a disconnection value of the choice acted upon and the prospective study in monkeys indicated that motivational choice beopponent's response. havior, guided by the value of the outcome, is primarily dependent on the effective interaction between the Results amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex (Baxter et al.,
We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison proc... more We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison process for detecting feature-binding changes in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants performed a variant of a cued change detection task. They viewed a memory array, a spatial retro-cue, and later a probe array. Their task was to judge whether the cued item had changed between the two arrays. Change type was manipulated to be a color-location binding or a color feature change. The retro-cue onset time in the retention interval was manipulated to be early or late. As a consequence of strong inter-item competition, we found strong prefrontal activation for late cues when contrasting the binding-change with the color-change condition. In contrast, we observed a comparable behavioral and neural effect between the two types of change detection when retro-cue was presented early. More importantly, we demonstrated a significant inter-regional correlation between the prefrontal and parietal regions in both binding-and color-change conditions for late cues. In addition, extensive prefrontal-parietal-visual functional connectivity was showed for detecting binding changes in the late-cueing condition. These results support the critical role in prefrontal-parietal-visual functional coupling for resolving strong inter-item competition during the comparison process in the binding-change condition. We provide direct evidence that attention modulates neural activity associated with perceptual comparison, biasing competition in favour of the task-relevant information in order to detect binding changes.
This study examined the extent to which visual perspective-taking performance is modulated by tra... more This study examined the extent to which visual perspective-taking performance is modulated by trait-level empathy. Participants completed a third-person visual perspective-taking task in which they judged the perspectives of two simultaneously presented avatars, designated "Self" and "Other." Depending on the trial, these avatars either held the same view (i.e., congruent) or a different view (i.e., incongruent). Analyses focused on the relationship between empathy and two perspective-taking phenomena: Selection between competing perspectives (i.e., perspective-congruence effects) and prioritization of the Self avatar's perspective. Empathy was related to improved overall performance on this task and a reduced cost of selecting between conflicting perspectives (i.e., smaller perspective-congruence effects). This effect was asymmetric, with empathy (i.e., empathic concern) levels predicting reduced interference from a conflicting perspective, especially when adopting the Self (vs. Other) avatar's perspective. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of the self-other distinction and mental flexibility components of empathy.
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2015
This study investigated whether age-related sensitivity to self-relevance may benefit perspective... more This study investigated whether age-related sensitivity to self-relevance may benefit perspective-taking, despite generally poorer perspective-taking capacity in older adults. In one perceptual matching task and two visual perspective-taking paradigms, we examined age differences in sensitivity to avatars representing self and other. In the matching task, older (60-83 years) and younger (18-20 years) adults were similarly biased toward the self- versus other-associated avatar. In the perspective-taking tasks, participants viewed these avatars within a virtual room. Task-relevant perspectives were either the same (i.e., congruent) or different (i.e., incongruent). In the 3PP-3PP task, both avatars were present and participants adopted the perspective of one or the other. As in the matching task, young and old were similarly biased toward the self-associated avatar. However, age differences emerged in the 1PP-3PP task, which presented only one avatar per trial (varying between self and other), and participants responded based on their own first-person perspective or the avatar's. In summary, age modulated the ability to take perspectives primarily when participants' own first-person perspective was task-relevant. Relative to younger adults, older adults prioritised the Self (vs. Other) avatar more during initial perspective computation and the first-person (vs. third-person) perspective more when selecting between incongruent perspectives. Supplemental_Tables_1-10 Supplemental_Figure_3.tif Supplemental_Figure_2.tif Supplemental_Figure_1.tif Supplemental_Material.
Early descriptions of psychopathy emphasise fearlessness and a lack of nervousness or anxiety as ... more Early descriptions of psychopathy emphasise fearlessness and a lack of nervousness or anxiety as key characteristics of the disorder. However, conflicting evidence suggests that anxiety may be positively correlated with some aspects of the psychopathy construct. This position may seem somewhat paradoxical when considered alongside impaired processing of fear related stimuli in psychopathic personality. The aim of the current paper was to examine the distinct relations of callous, egocentric, and antisocial psychopathic traits with measures of anxiety and social anxiety in samples of non-offenders (Study 1) and violent offenders (Study 2). In Study 2 we also used an emotion recognition task to examine fearful face recognition. In Studies 1 and 2 we showed distinct and opposite significant relationships of egocentric and antisocial psychopathic traits with trait anxiety. Thus, while trait anxiety was negatively predicted by egocentric traits, it was predicted in a positive direction by antisocial traits in both samples. In Study 2 we found that callous traits were predictive of greater impairments in fearful face recognition. These findings suggest that anxiety and fear are distinguishable constructs in relation to psychopathic personality traits, and are discussed in terms of potentially separable mechanisms for these two constructs.
Psychopathic traits are linked with impairments in emotional facial expression recognition. These... more Psychopathic traits are linked with impairments in emotional facial expression recognition. These impairments may, in part, reflect reduced attention to the eyes of emotional faces. Although reduced attention to the eyes has been noted among children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits, similar findings are yet to be found in relation to psychopathic traits among adult male participants. Here we investigated the relationship of primary (selfish, uncaring) and secondary (impulsive, antisocial) psychopathic traits with attention to the eyes among adult male non-offenders during an emotion recognition task. We measured the number of fixations, and overall dwell time, on the eyes, and the mouth of male and female faces showing the six basic emotions at varying levels of intensity. We found no relationship of primary or secondary psychopathic traits with recognition accuracy. However, primary psychopathic traits were associated with a reduced number of fixations, and low...
In this critique, we review the usefulness of functional localising scans in functional MRI studi... more In this critique, we review the usefulness of functional localising scans in functional MRI studies. We consider their conceptual motivations and the implications for experimental design and inference. Functional localisers can often be viewed as acquiring data from cells that have been removed from an implicit factorial design. This perspective reveals their potentially restrictive nature. We deconstruct two examples from
ABSTRACT The use of functional localizers to constrain the analysis of functional magnetic resona... more ABSTRACT The use of functional localizers to constrain the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data is becoming popular in neuroimaging. This approach entails a separate experiment to localize areas in the brain that serve to guide, constrain, or interpret results from a main experiment. The need and motivation for functional localizers are often not stated explicitly and sometimes unclear. Nevertheless, several colleagues have encountered reviewers who thought that omitting a functional localizer did not conform to good or standard practice. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a reference for people who do not want to use functional localizers and have to defend themselves against the contrary attitudes of reviewers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research with violent offenders has consistently shown impaired recognition of other&... more Research with violent offenders has consistently shown impaired recognition of other's facial expressions of emotion. However, the extent to which similar problems can be observed among sexual offenders remains unknown. Using a computerized task, we presented sexual and violent offenders, and non-offenders, with male and female expressions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, morphed with neutral expressions at varying levels of intensity (10, 55, and 90% expressive). Based on signal detection theory, we used hit rates and false alarms to calculate the sensitivity index d-prime (d') and criterion (c) for each emotional expression. Overall, sexual offenders showed reduced sensitivity to emotional expressions across intensity, sex, and type of expression, compared with non-offenders, while both sexual and violent offenders showed particular reduced sensitivity to fearful expressions. We also observed specific effects for high (90%) intensity female faces, with sexual offenders showing reduced sensitivity to anger compared with non-offenders and violent offenders, and reduced sensitivity to disgust compared with non-offenders. Furthermore, both sexual and violent offenders showed impaired sensitivity to high intensity female fearful expressions compared with non-offenders. Violent offenders also showed a higher criterion for classifying moderate and high intensity male expressions as fearful, indicative of a more conservative response style, compared with angry, happy, or sad. These results suggest that both types of offender show problems in emotion recognition, and may have implications for understanding the inhibition of violent and sexually violent behaviors.
Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown increased activation in visual and cortex limbic are... more Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown increased activation in visual and cortex limbic areas. However, differences in visual features of such images could confound these findings. In order to manipulate valence of stimuli while keeping visual features largely unchanged, we took advantage of an "expressional transfiguration" (ET) effect of faces. In addition, we used repetition effects, which enabled us to test more incisively the impact of the ET effect. Using the ET manipulation, we have shown that the activation in lateral occipital complex (LOC) was unaffected by valence attributes, but produced significant modulation of fMR adaptation. Contrary to LOC, amygdala activation was increased by ET manipulation unrelated to the adaptation. A correlation between amygdala and LOC adaptation points to a possible modulatory role of the amygdala upon visual cortex short-term plasticity.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 2015
Self-relevant information is associated with facilitation of perceptual and memory processes. In ... more Self-relevant information is associated with facilitation of perceptual and memory processes. In two experiments, participants verified the number of dots within a virtual room that were visible to a given perspective, corresponding to participants’ own first-person perspectives or the third-person perspectives for self- and other-associated avatars. Perspectives were either congruent or incongruent with respect to the number of dots visible to each. In Experiment 1, we examined perspective-taking for self- and other-associated avatars relative to one another; both avatars appeared simultaneously in the virtual room, and participants made judgments based on the prompted avatar’s perspective. In Experiment 2, we examined perspective-taking for each avatar relative to the first-person perspective; only one avatar was visible in the virtual room (Self or Other, varying by trial), and participants made judgments based on their first-person view or the avatar’s perspective. Experiment 2 ...
Facial features differ in the amount of expressive information they convey. Specifically, eyes ar... more Facial features differ in the amount of expressive information they convey. Specifically, eyes are argued to be essential for fear recognition, while smiles are crucial for recognising happy expressions. In three experiments, we tested whether expression modulates the perceptual saliency of diagnostic facial features and whether the feature's saliency depends on the face configuration. Participants were presented with masked facial features or noise at perceptual conscious threshold. The task was to indicate whether eyes (experiments 1-3A) or a mouth (experiment 3B) was present. The expression of the face and its configuration (i.e. spatial arrangement of the features) were manipulated. Experiment 1 compared fearful with neutral expressions, experiments 2 and 3 compared fearful versus happy expressions. The detection accuracy data was analysed using Signal Detection Theory (SDT), to examine the effects of expression and configuration on perceptual precision (d') and response bias (c), separately. Across all three experiments, fearful eyes were detected better (higher d') than neutral and happy eyes. Eyes were more precisely detected than mouths, whereas smiles were detected better than fearful mouths. The configuration of the features had no consistent effects across the experiments on the ability to detect expressive features. But facial configuration affected consistently the response bias. Participants used a more liberal criterion for detecting the eyes in canonical configuration and fearful expression. Finally, the power in low spatial frequency of a feature predicted its discriminability index. The results suggest that expressive features are perceptually more salient with a higher d' due to changes at the low-level visual properties, with emotions and configuration affecting perception through top-down processes, as reflected by the response bias.
Critchley et al., 2000a), as well as the association be-Weizmann Institute for Science tween visu... more Critchley et al., 2000a), as well as the association be-Weizmann Institute for Science tween visual cortex and amygdala activation during Rehovot emotional stimulation (Dolan and Morris, 2000). Israel By contrast, lesion studies in humans demonstrated double dissociation between visual perception and the related emotional processes (Young et al., 1993; Summary Adolphs et al., 1995; Aggleton and Young, 2000). Thus, face recognition could be impaired with no impairment Emotionally loaded visual stimuli have shown inin the ability to recognize the related emotional exprescreased activation in visual and cortex limbic areas. sion as shown in prosopagnostic (Sergent and Villemure, However, differences in visual features of such images 1989; de Gelder et al., 2000; Bauer, 1984; Tranel and could confound these findings. In order to manipulate Damasio, 1988) or hemifield blind-sight patient (de valence of stimuli while keeping visual features largely Gelder et al., 1999). In equivalent vein, emotional deficits unchanged, we took advantage of an "expressional did not entail visual deficits in patients with amygdala transfiguration" (ET) effect of faces. In addition, we lesions (Adolphs et al., 1994, 1995; Young et al., 1995, used repetition effects, which enabled us to test more 1996; Calder et al., 1996; Bechara et al., 1995). Finally, incisively the impact of the ET effect. Using the ET single cell recordings in primates showed that magnimanipulation, we have shown that the activation in tude of neuronal activation in the inferior temporal cortex lateral occipital complex (LOC) was unaffected by vawas not affected by the associated valence of the stimlence attributes, but produced significant modulation uli, generated by reward (Rolls et al., 1977). Similarly, of fMR adaptation. Contrary to LOC, amygdala activafunctional brain imaging in humans showed that negation was increased by ET manipulation unrelated to tively conditioned faces did not elicit different activation the adaptation. A correlation between amygdala and in the visual cortex compared to unconditioned faces LOC adaptation points to a possible modulatory role of (Buchel et al., 1998). Thus, emotional context alone does the amygdala upon visual cortex short-term plasticity. not seem to affect visual cortex activation. One possible explanation for the above discrepancy D. (2000a). Explicit and implicit neural mechanisms for processing of social information from facial expressions: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study. Hum. Brain Mapp. 9, 93-105. Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A.R. (1994). Impaired recognition of emotion in facial expressions following bilat-Critchley, H.D., Elliott, R., Mathias, C., and Dolan, R. (2000b). Neural eral damage to the human amygdala. Nature 372, 669-672. activity relating to generation and representation of galvanic skin conductance responses: a functional magnetic resonance imaging Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Damasio, H., and Damasio, A.R. (1995). Fear study. J. Neurosci. 20, 3033-3040. and the human amygdala. J. Neurosci. 15, 5879-5891. Davis, M. (1992). The role of the amygdala in fear and anxiety. Annu. Aggleton, J.P., and Young, A.W. (2000). The enigma of the amygdala: Rev. Neurosci. 15, 353-375. on its contribution to human emotion.
to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging dep... more to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging depends not only on knowing the traffic rules (i.e., the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center value of options), but also on our willingness to ignore 6 Weizmann Street them and take a risk (i.e., the value of outcome). In this Tel Aviv 64239 case, either stopping at the yellow light (i.e., wasting 2 Sackler Faculty of Medicine time but obeying the law) or crossing the intersection 3 School of Computer Science (i.e., saving time but risking negative consequences) will Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences be accompanied by a characteristic affective response. Tel Aviv University Based on lesion studies in animals and humans, it Ramat Aviv has been suggested that an intact amygdala is essential Tel Aviv 69978 for making motivational (i.e., affective) choices. In ani-Israel mals, studies using reinforced goal-directed behavioral 4 Division of Neurosurgery and paradigms showed that lesions to the amygdala inter-Department of Psychiatry and fere with learning to avoid an aversive outcome Davis, Fanselow and LeDoux, 1999), and with adjustment to Los Angeles, California 90095 varying values of reinforcement (monkeys: Malkova et al., 1997; rats: Hatfield et al., 1996). In humans, it was shown that a lesion to the medial temporal lobe inter-Summary feres with affective choice behavior, as indicated by the lack of a conditioned skin conductance response (SCR) Can brain activity reveal a covert choice? Making a to visual stimuli paired with aversive sounds (LaBar et choice often evokes distinct emotions that accompany al. , 1995, 1998). More specifically, patients with bilateral decision processes. Amygdala has been implicated amygdala damage did not develop anticipatory SCRs in choice behavior that is guided by a prospective when they faced a risky choice or following a negative negative outcome. However, its specific involvement outcome during a gambling task (Bechara et al., 1995, in emotional versus cognitive processing of choice 1999). People and animals with bilateral amygdala dambehavior has been a subject of controversy. In this age also demonstrate poor judgment in their overall study, the human amygdala was monitored by funcbehavior. For example, monkeys with such lesions have tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subincreased tendency to approach risky objects in their jects were playing in a naturalistic choice paradigm environment (Kluver and Bucy, 1939; Zola-Morgan et against the experimenter. In order to win, players had al., 1991). Humans were found to have impaired social to occasionally choose to bluff their opponent, risk behavior (Tranel and Hyman, 1990) and were unable to "getting caught," and suffer a loss. A critical period, recognize negative facial expressions, a crucial skill in when choice has been made but outcome was still judging risky social situations and evaluating prospecunknown, activated the amygdala preferentially foltive interactions . lowing the choice that entailed risk of loss. Thus, the Functional brain imaging provides a tool for studying response of the amygdala differentiated between subthe intact human amygdala and, thus, for examining its ject's covert choice of either playing fair or foul. These role in choice behavior. Several studies have demonresults support a role of the amygdala in choice behavstrated amygdala involvement in processing the negaior, both in the appraisal of inherent value of choice tive valence of stimuli (Morris et al., 1996, 1999; Breiter and the signaling of prospective negative outcomes. et al., 1996; Phillips et al., 1997; Schneider et al., 1997; Whalen et al., 1998; Rotshtein et al., 2001). Imaging stud-Introduction ies that have directly examined the role of amygdala in choice behavior have primarily employed classical Choices often involve risk and uncertainty. To what exconditioning or gambling paradigms. Using a conditiontent making a choice incorporates affective processing ing paradigm in fMRI, it was shown that activation in the has been long debated in decision theory (Mellers et al., amygdala was greatest at the initial phase of acquisition 1997, 1999; Damasio, 1994). Making a choice calls for and at extinction of emotional learning (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998). The rapid habituation obappraisal of the expected outcome relating to different served in this paradigm led to the suggestion that the options. Such evaluation prior to and immediately folamygdala is most sensitive to the novel affective aspect lowing a choice usually evokes distinct affect. This can of a signal, such as in the initial stage of learning a conditioned choice behavior. Recently, it has been 5 Correspondence: talma@tasmc.health.gov.il shown that the amygdala could be activated by the 6 Present address: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, threat of a negative outcome, suggesting that it is not Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. only related to the learning phase but rather to actual Neuron 984 expression of a fear-conditioned response (Phelps et the opponent's response (show or no-show) (Figure 1D). al., 2001). Similarly, it has been demonstrated that the Note that only for a nonmatch choice the player can amygdala is involved in evaluating the value and likelisuffer an actual loss. Therefore, a nonmatch chip can hood of a monetary or abstract outcome (Breiter et al., be regarded as a foul choice, while a match chip can be 2001; Zalla et al., 2000, respectively). regarded as a fair choice. The present game paradigm is Evaluation of a prospective negative outcome and the unique, as it required that the subject actively make response to its occurrence are not exclusively mediated choices that determined the progress of the situation, by the amygdala. Rather, these processes involve sevand then required an ongoing involvement of the experieral other brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex, menter in imposing uncertainty about the consequence anterior cingulate, parietal cortex, hippocampus, and of each choice. Our specific interest was whether the ventral striatum (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998; amygdala response following each choice-but before Critchley et al., 2001; Knutson et al., 2000; Breiter et al., the outcome was known-would reveal the subject's 2001; O'Doherty et al., 2001; Knight et al., 1999; Zalla covert choice. We hypothesized that amygdala activaet al., 2000; Rogers et al., 1999; Elliott et al., 1997, 2000; tion would reflect affective states related to both the Leon and Shadlen, 1999). Recently, a disconnection value of the choice acted upon and the prospective study in monkeys indicated that motivational choice beopponent's response. havior, guided by the value of the outcome, is primarily dependent on the effective interaction between the Results amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex (Baxter et al.,
To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A strikin... more To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A striking example of emotional impact on sensation is manifested in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a severe emotional trauma produces recurrent and vivid unpleasant sensory recollections. Here we report on an fMRI study exploring the sensory processing of trauma-related pictures in the visual cortex and amygdala in respect to PTSD. The impact of traumatic experience on brain responses was tested in relation to stimuli content and its level of recognition in a parametric factorial design. Twenty combat veterans, 10 with and 10 without PTSD, viewed backward-masked images of combat and noncombat content, presented at below, near, and above recognition thresholds. The response to combat content evoked more activation in the visual cortex in PTSD subjects than in non-PTSD subjects, only when images were presented at below recognition threshold. By contrast, the amygdala demonstrated increased activation in PTSD subjects irrespective of content and recognition threshold of the images. These intriguing findings are compatible with the notion that in PTSD, emotional traumatic experience could modify visual processing already at the preattentive level. On the other hand, lack of content specificity in the amygdala point to a possible predisposed mechanism for pathological processing of traumatic experience. The differential sensitivity of the amygdala and visual cortex to traumatic context implies distinct roles of limbic and sensory regions in the registration and recollection of emotional experience in the brain.
To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A strikin... more To what extent does emotional traumatic context affect sensory processing in the brain? A striking example of emotional impact on sensation is manifested in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in which a severe emotional trauma produces recurrent and vivid unpleasant sensory recollections. Here we report on an fMRI study exploring the sensory processing of trauma-related pictures in the visual cortex and amygdala in respect to PTSD. The impact of traumatic experience on brain responses was tested in relation to stimuli content and its level of recognition in a parametric factorial design. Twenty combat veterans, 10 with and 10 without PTSD, viewed backward-masked images of combat and noncombat content, presented at below, near, and above recognition thresholds. The response to combat content evoked more activation in the visual cortex in PTSD subjects than in non-PTSD subjects, only when images were presented at below recognition threshold. By contrast, the amygdala demonstrated increased activation in PTSD subjects irrespective of content and recognition threshold of the images. These intriguing findings are compatible with the notion that in PTSD, emotional traumatic experience could modify visual processing already at the preattentive level. On the other hand, lack of content specificity in the amygdala point to a possible predisposed mechanism for pathological processing of traumatic experience. The differential sensitivity of the amygdala and visual cortex to traumatic context implies distinct roles of limbic and sensory regions in the registration and recollection of emotional experience in the brain.
to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging dep... more to cross the intersection. Making a choice in this case 1 Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging depends not only on knowing the traffic rules (i.e., the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center value of options), but also on our willingness to ignore 6 Weizmann Street them and take a risk (i.e., the value of outcome). In this Tel Aviv 64239 case, either stopping at the yellow light (i.e., wasting 2 Sackler Faculty of Medicine time but obeying the law) or crossing the intersection 3 School of Computer Science (i.e., saving time but risking negative consequences) will Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences be accompanied by a characteristic affective response. Tel Aviv University Based on lesion studies in animals and humans, it Ramat Aviv has been suggested that an intact amygdala is essential Tel Aviv 69978 for making motivational (i.e., affective) choices. In ani-Israel mals, studies using reinforced goal-directed behavioral 4 Division of Neurosurgery and paradigms showed that lesions to the amygdala inter-Department of Psychiatry and fere with learning to avoid an aversive outcome Davis, Fanselow and LeDoux, 1999), and with adjustment to Los Angeles, California 90095 varying values of reinforcement (monkeys: Malkova et al., 1997; rats: Hatfield et al., 1996). In humans, it was shown that a lesion to the medial temporal lobe inter-Summary feres with affective choice behavior, as indicated by the lack of a conditioned skin conductance response (SCR) Can brain activity reveal a covert choice? Making a to visual stimuli paired with aversive sounds (LaBar et choice often evokes distinct emotions that accompany al. , 1995, 1998). More specifically, patients with bilateral decision processes. Amygdala has been implicated amygdala damage did not develop anticipatory SCRs in choice behavior that is guided by a prospective when they faced a risky choice or following a negative negative outcome. However, its specific involvement outcome during a gambling task (Bechara et al., 1995, in emotional versus cognitive processing of choice 1999). People and animals with bilateral amygdala dambehavior has been a subject of controversy. In this age also demonstrate poor judgment in their overall study, the human amygdala was monitored by funcbehavior. For example, monkeys with such lesions have tional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subincreased tendency to approach risky objects in their jects were playing in a naturalistic choice paradigm environment (Kluver and Bucy, 1939; Zola-Morgan et against the experimenter. In order to win, players had al., 1991). Humans were found to have impaired social to occasionally choose to bluff their opponent, risk behavior (Tranel and Hyman, 1990) and were unable to "getting caught," and suffer a loss. A critical period, recognize negative facial expressions, a crucial skill in when choice has been made but outcome was still judging risky social situations and evaluating prospecunknown, activated the amygdala preferentially foltive interactions . lowing the choice that entailed risk of loss. Thus, the Functional brain imaging provides a tool for studying response of the amygdala differentiated between subthe intact human amygdala and, thus, for examining its ject's covert choice of either playing fair or foul. These role in choice behavior. Several studies have demonresults support a role of the amygdala in choice behavstrated amygdala involvement in processing the negaior, both in the appraisal of inherent value of choice tive valence of stimuli (Morris et al., 1996, 1999; Breiter and the signaling of prospective negative outcomes. et al., 1996; Phillips et al., 1997; Schneider et al., 1997; Whalen et al., 1998; Rotshtein et al., 2001). Imaging stud-Introduction ies that have directly examined the role of amygdala in choice behavior have primarily employed classical Choices often involve risk and uncertainty. To what exconditioning or gambling paradigms. Using a conditiontent making a choice incorporates affective processing ing paradigm in fMRI, it was shown that activation in the has been long debated in decision theory (Mellers et al., amygdala was greatest at the initial phase of acquisition 1997, 1999; Damasio, 1994). Making a choice calls for and at extinction of emotional learning (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998). The rapid habituation obappraisal of the expected outcome relating to different served in this paradigm led to the suggestion that the options. Such evaluation prior to and immediately folamygdala is most sensitive to the novel affective aspect lowing a choice usually evokes distinct affect. This can of a signal, such as in the initial stage of learning a conditioned choice behavior. Recently, it has been 5 Correspondence: talma@tasmc.health.gov.il shown that the amygdala could be activated by the 6 Present address: Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, threat of a negative outcome, suggesting that it is not Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139. only related to the learning phase but rather to actual Neuron 984 expression of a fear-conditioned response (Phelps et the opponent's response (show or no-show) (Figure 1D). al., 2001). Similarly, it has been demonstrated that the Note that only for a nonmatch choice the player can amygdala is involved in evaluating the value and likelisuffer an actual loss. Therefore, a nonmatch chip can hood of a monetary or abstract outcome (Breiter et al., be regarded as a foul choice, while a match chip can be 2001; Zalla et al., 2000, respectively). regarded as a fair choice. The present game paradigm is Evaluation of a prospective negative outcome and the unique, as it required that the subject actively make response to its occurrence are not exclusively mediated choices that determined the progress of the situation, by the amygdala. Rather, these processes involve sevand then required an ongoing involvement of the experieral other brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex, menter in imposing uncertainty about the consequence anterior cingulate, parietal cortex, hippocampus, and of each choice. Our specific interest was whether the ventral striatum (LaBar et al., 1998; Buchel et al., 1998; amygdala response following each choice-but before Critchley et al., 2001; Knutson et al., 2000; Breiter et al., the outcome was known-would reveal the subject's 2001; O'Doherty et al., 2001; Knight et al., 1999; Zalla covert choice. We hypothesized that amygdala activaet al., 2000; Rogers et al., 1999; Elliott et al., 1997, 2000; tion would reflect affective states related to both the Leon and Shadlen, 1999). Recently, a disconnection value of the choice acted upon and the prospective study in monkeys indicated that motivational choice beopponent's response. havior, guided by the value of the outcome, is primarily dependent on the effective interaction between the Results amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex (Baxter et al.,
We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison proc... more We investigated the neural correlates of attentional modulation in the perceptual comparison process for detecting feature-binding changes in an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment. Participants performed a variant of a cued change detection task. They viewed a memory array, a spatial retro-cue, and later a probe array. Their task was to judge whether the cued item had changed between the two arrays. Change type was manipulated to be a color-location binding or a color feature change. The retro-cue onset time in the retention interval was manipulated to be early or late. As a consequence of strong inter-item competition, we found strong prefrontal activation for late cues when contrasting the binding-change with the color-change condition. In contrast, we observed a comparable behavioral and neural effect between the two types of change detection when retro-cue was presented early. More importantly, we demonstrated a significant inter-regional correlation between the prefrontal and parietal regions in both binding-and color-change conditions for late cues. In addition, extensive prefrontal-parietal-visual functional connectivity was showed for detecting binding changes in the late-cueing condition. These results support the critical role in prefrontal-parietal-visual functional coupling for resolving strong inter-item competition during the comparison process in the binding-change condition. We provide direct evidence that attention modulates neural activity associated with perceptual comparison, biasing competition in favour of the task-relevant information in order to detect binding changes.
This study examined the extent to which visual perspective-taking performance is modulated by tra... more This study examined the extent to which visual perspective-taking performance is modulated by trait-level empathy. Participants completed a third-person visual perspective-taking task in which they judged the perspectives of two simultaneously presented avatars, designated "Self" and "Other." Depending on the trial, these avatars either held the same view (i.e., congruent) or a different view (i.e., incongruent). Analyses focused on the relationship between empathy and two perspective-taking phenomena: Selection between competing perspectives (i.e., perspective-congruence effects) and prioritization of the Self avatar's perspective. Empathy was related to improved overall performance on this task and a reduced cost of selecting between conflicting perspectives (i.e., smaller perspective-congruence effects). This effect was asymmetric, with empathy (i.e., empathic concern) levels predicting reduced interference from a conflicting perspective, especially when adopting the Self (vs. Other) avatar's perspective. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of the self-other distinction and mental flexibility components of empathy.
The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2015
This study investigated whether age-related sensitivity to self-relevance may benefit perspective... more This study investigated whether age-related sensitivity to self-relevance may benefit perspective-taking, despite generally poorer perspective-taking capacity in older adults. In one perceptual matching task and two visual perspective-taking paradigms, we examined age differences in sensitivity to avatars representing self and other. In the matching task, older (60-83 years) and younger (18-20 years) adults were similarly biased toward the self- versus other-associated avatar. In the perspective-taking tasks, participants viewed these avatars within a virtual room. Task-relevant perspectives were either the same (i.e., congruent) or different (i.e., incongruent). In the 3PP-3PP task, both avatars were present and participants adopted the perspective of one or the other. As in the matching task, young and old were similarly biased toward the self-associated avatar. However, age differences emerged in the 1PP-3PP task, which presented only one avatar per trial (varying between self and other), and participants responded based on their own first-person perspective or the avatar's. In summary, age modulated the ability to take perspectives primarily when participants' own first-person perspective was task-relevant. Relative to younger adults, older adults prioritised the Self (vs. Other) avatar more during initial perspective computation and the first-person (vs. third-person) perspective more when selecting between incongruent perspectives. Supplemental_Tables_1-10 Supplemental_Figure_3.tif Supplemental_Figure_2.tif Supplemental_Figure_1.tif Supplemental_Material.
Early descriptions of psychopathy emphasise fearlessness and a lack of nervousness or anxiety as ... more Early descriptions of psychopathy emphasise fearlessness and a lack of nervousness or anxiety as key characteristics of the disorder. However, conflicting evidence suggests that anxiety may be positively correlated with some aspects of the psychopathy construct. This position may seem somewhat paradoxical when considered alongside impaired processing of fear related stimuli in psychopathic personality. The aim of the current paper was to examine the distinct relations of callous, egocentric, and antisocial psychopathic traits with measures of anxiety and social anxiety in samples of non-offenders (Study 1) and violent offenders (Study 2). In Study 2 we also used an emotion recognition task to examine fearful face recognition. In Studies 1 and 2 we showed distinct and opposite significant relationships of egocentric and antisocial psychopathic traits with trait anxiety. Thus, while trait anxiety was negatively predicted by egocentric traits, it was predicted in a positive direction by antisocial traits in both samples. In Study 2 we found that callous traits were predictive of greater impairments in fearful face recognition. These findings suggest that anxiety and fear are distinguishable constructs in relation to psychopathic personality traits, and are discussed in terms of potentially separable mechanisms for these two constructs.
Psychopathic traits are linked with impairments in emotional facial expression recognition. These... more Psychopathic traits are linked with impairments in emotional facial expression recognition. These impairments may, in part, reflect reduced attention to the eyes of emotional faces. Although reduced attention to the eyes has been noted among children with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits, similar findings are yet to be found in relation to psychopathic traits among adult male participants. Here we investigated the relationship of primary (selfish, uncaring) and secondary (impulsive, antisocial) psychopathic traits with attention to the eyes among adult male non-offenders during an emotion recognition task. We measured the number of fixations, and overall dwell time, on the eyes, and the mouth of male and female faces showing the six basic emotions at varying levels of intensity. We found no relationship of primary or secondary psychopathic traits with recognition accuracy. However, primary psychopathic traits were associated with a reduced number of fixations, and low...
In this critique, we review the usefulness of functional localising scans in functional MRI studi... more In this critique, we review the usefulness of functional localising scans in functional MRI studies. We consider their conceptual motivations and the implications for experimental design and inference. Functional localisers can often be viewed as acquiring data from cells that have been removed from an implicit factorial design. This perspective reveals their potentially restrictive nature. We deconstruct two examples from
ABSTRACT The use of functional localizers to constrain the analysis of functional magnetic resona... more ABSTRACT The use of functional localizers to constrain the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data is becoming popular in neuroimaging. This approach entails a separate experiment to localize areas in the brain that serve to guide, constrain, or interpret results from a main experiment. The need and motivation for functional localizers are often not stated explicitly and sometimes unclear. Nevertheless, several colleagues have encountered reviewers who thought that omitting a functional localizer did not conform to good or standard practice. The purpose of this commentary is to provide a reference for people who do not want to use functional localizers and have to defend themselves against the contrary attitudes of reviewers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research with violent offenders has consistently shown impaired recognition of other&... more Research with violent offenders has consistently shown impaired recognition of other's facial expressions of emotion. However, the extent to which similar problems can be observed among sexual offenders remains unknown. Using a computerized task, we presented sexual and violent offenders, and non-offenders, with male and female expressions of anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise, morphed with neutral expressions at varying levels of intensity (10, 55, and 90% expressive). Based on signal detection theory, we used hit rates and false alarms to calculate the sensitivity index d-prime (d') and criterion (c) for each emotional expression. Overall, sexual offenders showed reduced sensitivity to emotional expressions across intensity, sex, and type of expression, compared with non-offenders, while both sexual and violent offenders showed particular reduced sensitivity to fearful expressions. We also observed specific effects for high (90%) intensity female faces, with sexual offenders showing reduced sensitivity to anger compared with non-offenders and violent offenders, and reduced sensitivity to disgust compared with non-offenders. Furthermore, both sexual and violent offenders showed impaired sensitivity to high intensity female fearful expressions compared with non-offenders. Violent offenders also showed a higher criterion for classifying moderate and high intensity male expressions as fearful, indicative of a more conservative response style, compared with angry, happy, or sad. These results suggest that both types of offender show problems in emotion recognition, and may have implications for understanding the inhibition of violent and sexually violent behaviors.
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Papers by Pia Rotshtein