The mutual influences between working memory and empathy for pain: the role of social distance.

Understanding the mechanisms behind the interaction of empathy for pain (EfP) and working memory (WM), particularly how they are influenced by social factors like perceived social distance (SD), is vital for comprehending how humans dynamically adapt to the complexities of social life. However, there is very little known about these mechanisms. Accordingly, we recruited 116 healthy participants to investigate the bidirectional influence and electrophysiological responses between WM and EfP, including the role of SD.

Effect of facial emotion recognition learning transfers across emotions.

Introduction: Perceptual learning of facial expression is shown specific to the train expression, indicating separate encoding of the emotional contents in different expressions. However, little is known about the specificity of emotional recognition training with the visual search paradigm and the sensitivity of learning to near-threshold stimuli.

Methods: In the present study, we adopted a visual search paradigm to measure the recognition of facial expressions.

Mindfulness training modifies attentional bias to facial emotion and emotional symptoms.

Background: Mindfulness training has been shown to improve emotional symptoms such as anxiety and depressive symptoms. However, its cognitive-behavioral mechanism is still unclear. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of mindfulness training on attention to emotional faces and its role in the improvement in emotional symptoms.

Individualized prediction of trait self-control from whole-brain functional connectivity.

Self-control is a core psychological construct for human beings and it plays a crucial role in the adaptation to society and achievement of success and happiness for individuals. Although progress has been made in behavioral studies examining self-control, its neural mechanisms remain unclear. In this study, we employed a machine-learning approach-relevance vector regression (RVR) to explore the potential predictive power of intrinsic functional connections to trait self-control in a large sample (N = 390).

Cognitive deficits for facial emotions among male adolescent delinquents with conduct disorder.

According to the social-cognitive theory and the social-information-processing theory, individuals with conduct disorder, a persistent and repetitive pattern of problematic behavior, might have cognitive biases toward hostile facial expressions. However, according to the optimal stimulation/arousal theory, the stimulation-seeking theory and the fearlessness theory, individuals with conduct disorder might have less fear and show less response to hostile or threatening facial expressions. To reconcile the discrepancy, we examined the cognitive biases including attentional processing and working memory processing to emotional faces among adolescents with conduct disorder.

Prediction of Facial Emotion Recognition Ability in Patients With First-Episode Schizophrenia Using Amplitude of Low-Frequency Fluctuation-Based Support Vector Regression Model.

Objective: There were few studies that had attempted to predict facial emotion recognition (FER) ability at the individual level in schizophrenia patients. In this study, we developed a model for the prediction of FER ability in Chinese Han patients with the first-episode schizophrenia (FSZ).

Materials And Methods: A total of 28 patients with FSZ and 33 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited.

The impact of mindfulness training on supportive communication, emotional intelligence, and human caring among nursing students.

Purpose: This study was aimed to investigate the impact of mindfulness training on supportive communication and human caring ability among nursing students.

Design And Methods: Sixty nursing students were randomly divided into the mindfulness group who accepted 8-week mindfulness training and the control group who attended two 2-h lectures about mindfulness in 8 weeks. All of them completed the Supporting Communication Scale (SCS), Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS), and Caring Ability Inventory (CAI) before training (T1), after it (T2), and at 3-month follow-up (T3).

Widowhood Impairs Emotional Cognition Among Elderly.

Background: The negative impacts of spousal bereavement on the emotional health of the elderly (e.g., depression and anxiety) have been revealed.

The Effect of Empathy on the Attentional Processing of Painful and Emotional Stimuli.

Background: Empathy is shown to affect the attentional processing of painful stimuli and emotional stimuli. However, whether the attentional effects on emotional stimuli depend on emotional valence and the nature of the relationship between the attentional effects on different stimuli are still unknown.

Methods: In the present study, 25 high-empathy (HE) participants and 25 low-empathy (LE) participants were recruited to perform dot-probe tasks on painful stimuli and emotional stimuli.

Cortical Pathways or Mechanism in the Face Inversion Effect in Patients with First-Episode Schizophrenia.

Objective: Impaired face perception is considered as a hallmark of social disability in schizophrenia. It is widely believed that inverted faces and upright faces are processed by distinct mechanisms. Previous studies have identified that individuals with schizophrenia display poorer face processing than controls.

Face and object visual working memory deficits in first-episode schizophrenia correlate with multiple neurocognitive performances.

Background: Working memory (WM) deficit is considered a core feature and cognitive biomarker in patients with schizophrenia. Several studies have reported prominent object WM deficits in patients with schizophrenia, suggesting that visual WM in these patients extends to non-spatial domains. However, whether non-spatial WM is similarly affected remains unclear.

How Does Fearful Emotion Affect Visual Attention?

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner's spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe.

Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Drives the Prioritization of Self-Associated Stimuli in Working Memory.

Humans show a pervasive bias for processing self- over other-related information, including in working memory (WM), where people prioritize the maintenance of self- (over other-) associated cues. To elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying this self-bias, we paired a self- versus other-associated spatial WM task with fMRI and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) of human participants of both sexes. Maintaining self- (over other-) associated cues resulted in enhanced activity in classic WM regions (frontoparietal cortex), and in superior multivoxel pattern decoding of the cue locations from visual cortex.

Childhood Maltreatment Is Associated With Aggression Among Male Juvenile Delinquents in China: The Mediating Effects of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Self-Control.

Aggression is an important risk factor for delinquency and crime in adolescents. Previous studies have indicated that childhood maltreatment plays an important role in the development of aggression. However, whether the effect could be mediated by other factors is still unknown.

Visual Attentional Bias Induced by Face Direction.

The effect of spatial cueing on eye gaze has been confirmed by a large number of studies, but the effect of spatial cueing on face direction and the impact of eye gaze on this effect are less known. In four experiments, we investigated the attentional bias induced by face direction. A modified paradigm of spatial cueing was adopted with stimuli that were static faces rotated by 90 or 45° to the left or right from the frontal view.

Mechanisms for the Cognitive Processing of Attractiveness in Adult and Infant Faces: From the Evolutionary Perspective.

Research on the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness has mainly focused on adult faces. Recent studies have revealed that the cognitive processing of facial attractiveness in infant faces is not the same as that in adult faces. Therefore, it is necessary to summarize the evidence on the processing of facial attractiveness in each kind of face and compare their underlying mechanisms.

Temporal variability of brain networks predicts individual differences in bistable perception.

When ambiguous visual stimuli are presented to the eyes, conscious perception can spontaneously alternate across the competing interpretations - which was known as bistable perception. The spontaneous alternation of perception might indicate a connection between bistable perception and the dynamic interaction of brain networks. Here, we hypothesized that individual differences in perceptual dynamics may be reflected in dynamics of spontaneous neural activities.

The Effect of Visual Working Memory Training Could Transfer Across Stimuli.

Background: Working memory, as a fundamental cognitive ability, has been shown to improve with learning. However, little is known about the learning effect of visual working memory training and its generalization to other stimuli and tasks.

Methods: In the present study, we utilized a delayed match-to-sample task to measure the working memory of faces and houses.

Why Do Most Restrained Eaters Fail in Losing Weight?: Evidence from an fMRI Study.

Background: Restraint dieting is a key step in the avoidance of obesity and other eating problems, but why some restraint eaters (REs) succeed and some fail in dieting is unknown. The difference between successful REs (S-REs) and unsuccessful REs (US-REs) is still unknown. This is the first study to compare the fMRI reactivity among US-REs, S-REs and unrestrained eaters (UREs) in a food-related Go/NoGo paradigm.

The Different Brain Mechanisms of Object and Spatial Working Memory: Voxel-Based Morphometry and Resting-State Functional Connectivity.

In working memory (WM), the ability to concurrently integrate different types of information and to maintain or manipulate them promotes the flow of ongoing tasks. WM is a key component of normal human cognition. In this study, we applied a combined voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis to investigate the relationship between the ability of object and spatial working memory (WM), and regional gray matter density (GMD), as well as intrinsic functional connectivity.

Modulations of emotional attention and spatial attention on human visual cortical activities.

Spatial attention could enhance the neural activities of attended locations in human visual cortex. As a salient stimulus, emotional image could enhance the responses in amygdala and visual areas. However, few studies examined the interaction of the attentional effects induced by emotional stimuli and spatial cues on the neural responses in visual areas.

Selective attentional biases towards a self-related facial feature among orthognathic patients.

The present study aimed to determine what kind of face and which area of the face (eyes or mouth) rapidly capture attention among patients with dentomaxillofacial deformities (DDs). In the present experiments, faces were categorized as highly or lowly attractive (HA and LA, respectively) and as a face with dentomaxillofacial deformities (DD face). A dot-probe task and a change-detection task were utilized to examine the attentional bias to the faces and facial features, respectively.

Stimuli may have little impact on the deficit of visual working memory accuracy in first-episode schizophrenia.

Purpose: Working memory (WM) deficits have been observed in people with schizophrenia (SZ) and are considered a core cognitive dysfunction in these patients. However, little is known about how stimuli and memory load influence visual WM deficits.

Patients And Methods: In the present study, we adopted a match-to-sample task to examine the visual WM in 18 first-episode patients with SZ and 18 healthy controls (HCs).

[Processing mechanism of social cues in faces].

The purpose of the present paper was to review the processing mechanisms of social cues in faces. We summarized researches relative to social cues in faces and discussed the processing mechanism of these cues from the aspects of facial expression, facial attractiveness, gaze and face direction, and lipreading. First, we discussed the general neural mechanism of face information processing and summarized the functions of face areas in the fusiform gyrus, posterior superior temporal sulcus and inferior occipital gyrus.

Effect of task difficulty on blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal: A functional magnetic resonance imaging study in a motion discrimination task.

There is much evidence that neural activity in the human brain is modulated by task difficulty, particularly in visual, frontal, and parietal cortices. However, some basic psychophysical tasks in visual perception do not give rise to this expected effect, at least not in the visual cortex. In the current study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to record brain activity while systematically manipulating task difficulty in a motion discrimination task, by varying the angular difference between the motion direction of random dots and a reference direction.