Dataset Information

Neuroelectric Correlates of Pragmatic Emotional Incongruence Processing: Empathy Matters.

ABSTRACT: The emotions people feel can be simulated internally based on emotional situational contexts. In the present study, we assessed the behavioral and neuroelectric effects of seeing an unexpected emotional facial expression. We investigated the correct answer rate, response times and Event-Related Potential (ERP) effects during an incongruence paradigm between emotional faces and sentential contexts allowing emotional inferences. Most of the 36 healthy participants were recruited from a larger population (1 463 subjects), based on their scores on the Empathy Questionnaire (EQ). Regression analyses were conducted on these ratings using EQ factors as predictors (cognitive empathy, emotional reactivity and social skills). Recognition of pragmatic emotional incongruence was less accurate (P < .05) and slower (P < .05) than recognition of congruence. The incongruence effect on response times was inversely predicted by social skills. A significant N400 incongruence effect was found at the centro-parietal (P < .001) and centro-posterior midline (P < .01) electrodes. Cognitive empathy predicted the incongruence effect in the left occipital region, in the N400 time window. Finally, incongruence effects were also found on the LPP wave, in frontal midline and dorso-frontal regions, (P < .05), with no modulation by empathy. Processing pragmatic emotional incongruence is more cognitively demanding than congruence (as reflected by both behavioral and ERP data). This processing shows modulation by personality factors at the behavioral (through self-reported social skills) and neuroelectric levels (through self-reported cognitive empathy).

SUBMITTER: Dozolme D

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4465748 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Neuroelectric Correlates of Pragmatic Emotional Incongruence Processing: Empathy Matters.

Dozolme Dorian D Brunet-Gouet Eric E Passerieux Christine C Amorim Michel-Ange MA

PloS one 20150611 6

The emotions people feel can be simulated internally based on emotional situational contexts. In the present study, we assessed the behavioral and neuroelectric effects of seeing an unexpected emotional facial expression. We investigated the correct answer rate, response times and Event-Related Potential (ERP) effects during an incongruence paradigm between emotional faces and sentential contexts allowing emotional inferences. Most of the 36 healthy participants were recruited from a larger popu ...[more]

PMID: 26067672

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Project description:Empathy is characterized by the ability to understand and share an emotional experience with another person and is closely tied to compassion and concern for others. Consequently, this increased emotional awareness and sensitivity may also be related to increased anxiety. Taken from another perspective, higher general anxiety may translate into increased concern for others, or concern for how one's actions might affect others, and therefore may be linked to increased empathy. Furthermore, self-reflection is positively related to perspective-taking and empathic concern, while rumination is closely tied to anxiety, thus providing an additional connecting point between empathy and anxiety through enhanced internally generated thought. While previous literature suggests a relationship between empathy and anxiety, this has yet to be empirically studied using neuroimaging tools aimed at investigating the underlying neural correlates that may support these convergent responses. We therefore conducted an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study (N = 49) in which participants viewed fearful and neutral human faces and rated how the faces made them feel, to promote introspection. Participants also completed questionnaires assessing empathy Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ), trait anxiety State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), worry Penn State Worry Questionnaire (PSWQ) and rumination Ruminative Responses Scale (RRS). Behaviorally, empathy positively correlated with worry, worry and rumination positively correlated with anxiety, and significant indirect relationships were found between empathy and anxiety through worry and rumination. Using the neuroimaging face processing task as a backdrop on which the neurobiological mechanisms of empathy and anxiety may interact, regressions of questionnaires with brain activations revealed that empathy related to activation in the temporoparietal junction (TPJ), anxiety related to bilateral insula activation, and worry related to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) activation, while rumination showed increased engagement of all three aforementioned regions. Functional connectivity (FC) analyses showed increased communication between the left amygdala and insula related to higher empathy, worry and rumination. Finally, whole-brain analysis using median split groups from questionnaires revealed that the lower halves of anxiety, worry and rumination exhibited increased activation in top-down attentional networks. In sum, empathy, worry and rumination related to enhanced bottom-up processing, while worry, rumination and anxiety exhibited decreased top-down attentional control, suggesting an indirect relationship between empathy and anxiety through the ruminative tendencies of worry.

Project description:When we observe a dynamic emotional facial expression, we usually automatically anticipate how that expression will develop. Our objective was to study a neurocognitive biomarker of this anticipatory process for facial pain expressions, operationalized as a mismatch effect. For this purpose, we studied the behavioral and neuroelectric (Event-Related Potential, ERP) correlates, of a match or mismatch, between the intensity of an expression of pain anticipated by the participant, and the intensity of a static test expression of pain displayed with the use of a representational momentum paradigm. Here, the paradigm consisted in displaying a dynamic facial pain expression which suddenly disappeared, and participants had to memorize the final intensity of the dynamic expression. We compared ERPs in response to congruent (intensity the same as the one memorized) and incongruent (intensity different from the one memorized) static expression intensities displayed after the dynamic expression. This paradigm allowed us to determine the amplitude and direction of this intensity anticipation by measuring the observer's memory bias. Results behaviorally showed that the anticipation was backward (negative memory bias) for high intensity expressions of pain (participants expected a return to a neutral state) and more forward (memory bias less negative, or even positive) for less intense expressions (participants expected increased intensity). Detecting mismatch (incongruent intensity) led to faster responses than detecting match (congruent intensity). The neuroelectric correlates of this mismatch effect in response to the testing of expression intensity ranged from P100 to LPP (Late Positive Potential). Path analysis and source localization suggested that the medial frontal gyrus was instrumental in mediating the mismatch effect through top-down influence on both the occipital and temporal regions. Moreover, having the facility to detect incongruent expressions, by anticipating emotional state, could be useful for prosocial behavior and the detection of trustworthiness.

Dataset Information

Neuroelectric Correlates of Pragmatic Emotional Incongruence Processing: Empathy Matters.

Publications

Neuroelectric Correlates of Pragmatic Emotional Incongruence Processing: Empathy Matters.

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