The dependence of the emotional state of 8- to 9-year-old children on the conditions of play]

Dependence was studied of emotional state of children, aged 8-9, on the terms of computer play: without additional instruction (with a strategy typical of the child), at time deficiency and at demonstration of techniques of play without limitation in time. Prior to and during the play the following parameters were recorded: heart rate (HR); frequency of basis tone (Fb.t.) and evaluation of frequency of the first formant (n(0] of the vowel "a" in the word "da" pronounced by the child during the play in response to acoustic signal; reaction time (RT) to acoustic signal; parameters of playing activity and also spontaneous verbal expressions of children. Increase of emotional stress during the play at time deficiency was accompanied by the most expressed changes of HR, RT, Fb.t., worsening of playing activity and the increase of the number of negative emotional reactions. When playing without additional instruction, the children showed the best results of playing activity, accompanied by the least expressed changes of HR and Fb.t. in comparison with the background at the greatest expressiveness of the n(0) change, and predominantly positive emotional reactions. The analysis of the correlation of the motivational and informational characteristics of the studied playing activity allowed to make a conclusion about preferential connection of HR and Fb.t. with the motivational and n(0) with informational components of the playing activity.     

The mental developmental level of 5- to 7-year-old children and the reflection of their emotional status in speech

In 22 children aged 5-7 during the play "make up a square" negative (1st step) and positive (2nd and 3rd steps) emotions were formed. General behaviour and speech expressions of children were recorded during the play. Before beginning of the play, intellectual development of children was tested, and two groups were singled out: with low (A) and high (B) levels of tasks solution. Changes of verbal values Fot and n(0) in children from two groups were compared during the play. Fot was most sensitive to the appearance of the emotional state. Emotional states were more expressed in children from group A: percentage of significant changes in Fot and n(0) values in comparison with the background was higher in the group A than in the group B. In children of the group A the negative emotion formed at the 1st step of the experiment caused a decrease of level of motivation to fulfillment of the task to make up a "difficult" square. In children of the group B the negative emotion did not cause any distinct decrease of motivation level. Fot reflects the change of motivational attitude to task) and n(0)--of informational (actualization of knowledge, reasoning etc.) components of the emotional reaction connected with the process of task solution.     

Dependence of the perception of emotional information of speech on the acoustic parameters of the stimulus in children of various ages

The effect on the perception of the emotional prosody of a vocal signal of the acoustic parameters of the stimulus in children of various ages (7–10, 11–13, and 14–17 years) was studied. Considerable differences in recognition of positive and negative valences of the vocal signal against the background of noise and in its absence were demonstrated. The ontogenetic specific features of the dependence of recognition of the emotional valence on the acoustic parameters of a vocal signal were determined. The most important acoustic characters (the fundamental frequency F0 and the frequency of the first formant F1) that ensure the perception of the emotional prosody of a vocal signal against the background of noise at different age stages were found.     

Age Changes of Semantic Composition of Associative Reactions and Effect on Them of Emotional Sign of the Verbal Stimulus

Using method of the directed associative experiment, age changes of the semantic composition of the lexicon was studied in the 4–8-year old children. The emotional evaluation by the children of each of the presented verbal stimuli was taken into account. It was shown that the main role in formation of the verbal consciousness in the 4–8-year old children was played by the right hemispheric mechanisms of cognition and that it is for these mechanisms, with their very actual strategy of the comparison and contraposition, that of great importance were the emotional characteristics of the perceived information.     

Geomagnetic Field Effect on Affective and Cognitive Competence in Preschool

The goal of our research was to study the effect of geomagnetic field (GMF) disturbances, in terms of K, K_p, A_k, A_p, and SK indices, on children's affective (emotional) and cognitive competence during different forms of organization of pretend play. We studied two forms of management of the playing process: 1) teacher‐directed frontal play with simultaneous involvement of all children in the classroom and 2) child‐directed play in various small groups. Twenty‐six observations were performed on 51 children in two mixed‐age classrooms. The mean age of the children was 4.6 years, with age span from 3 to 6 years. We found a significant increase in cognitive behavior during child‐directed play in groups compared with frontal, teacher‐directed management of the lesson. During child‐directed play children's behavior was negatively correlated with geomagnetic disturbance in both affective and cognitive domains (R = ? 0.47, p < 0.029, n = 21) as compared with teacher‐directed play where there was no significant interaction. We believe the dependence of the GMF effect on the type of the organization of the educational process is explained by the less‐stressful environment of the child‐directed playing conditions compared with teacher‐directed in which the directive role of the teacher can mask a possible GMF effect.     

Localization of cortical lesions of the human brain and features of recognition of emotional expression

The quantity of correct and erroneous identifications of human emotions was compared according to their intonational and mimical cues in the group of healthy persons (31 persons) and in the group of patients with lesions of different cortical parts of the left and right cerebral hemispheres (54 patients). It was established that the intactness of the temporal parts of both hemispheres is important for non-verbal recognition (choosing of appropriate photograph by the observer) of emotions by mimics. Correct verbal identification of emotions by mimics requires the integrity of the fronto-parietal parts of the left hemisphere while verbal identification of emotional intonation needs the intactness of the fronto-parietal parts of the right hemisphere. The significance of the temporal areas (especially of the right hemisphere) increases in case when the emotional colouring of the presented verbal communication does not coincide with its contents.     

Gender Differences in Owners Interacting with Pet Dogs: An Observational Study

Many studies show that people form strong affectional bonds with their dogs, treating them like family members or children. The present study investigates differences between women and men owners during interactions with their dogs, in a situation designed to investigate attachment and, thus, to promote emotional and affective responses: the Ainsworth's Strange Situation. Twenty‐five dog owners, 10 men and 15 women, were observed during free interactions with their pets in an adapted version of the ‘strange situation procedure’. Their behaviour towards their pets was videorecorded. Talking to the dog was evaluated together with the occurrence of affiliative and play behaviours. The owner's level of attachment to the dog was assessed using a questionnaire. Women and men differed in the use of verbal communication. Women talked more than men and had a shorter latency in starting talking. Their utterances resembled more closely infant‐directed speech or ‘motherese’. In contrast, there were no clear gender differences in affiliative and play behaviours. Both women and men engaged in play with their dogs and provided physical comfort. No differences emerged in the level of attachment reported by women and men owners in the questionnaire. These data support the hypothesis that the behaviour of modern pet owners towards their dogs is an interspecific parental behaviour, and suggest that behaviours evolved to provide care and comfort to human infants have been co‐opted for interacting with other social partners. The difference in verbal communication between women and men is in agreement with an evolutionary scenario suggesting a greater pre‐disposition in women to use language as a relational tool.     

Hearing function and auditory evoked potentials in children with spastic forms of cerebral palsy

We studied auditory short-latency brainstem and long-latency cortical evoked potentials (EP)in 62 healthy children and 126 children with spastic forms of childrens cerebral palsy, CP (spastic tetraparesis, spastic diplegia, and left-and right-side hemiplegias). An increase in the thresholds of audibility (independently of the CP form) was the most typical disturbance of the function of hearing revealed by the analysis of EP recorded in children suffering from CP. Disturbances in transmission of afferent impulsation in the brain-stem structures of the auditory system and disorders in the perception of different tones within the speech frequency range were also rather frequent. Modifications of the brainstem and cortical auditory EP typical of different CP forms, in particular hemiplegias, are described. It is demonstrated that recording and analysis of EP allow one to diagnose in children with CP those disorders in the hearing function that, in many cases, are of a subclinical nature. This technique allows clinicians to examine the youngest children (when verbal contact with the child is difficult or impossible), to study brainstem EP, and to obtain more objective data; these are significant advantages, as compared with subjective audiometry.Neirofiziologiya/Neurophysiology, Vol.36, No.4, pp.306–312, July-August, 2004.     

A Shared Neural Substrate for Mentalizing and the Affective Component of Sentence Comprehension

Using event-related fMRI in a sample of 42 healthy participants, we compared the cerebral activity maps obtained when classifying spoken sentences based on the mental content of the main character (belief, deception or empathy) or on the emotional tonality of the sentence (happiness, anger or sadness). To control for the effects of different syntactic constructions (such as embedded clauses in belief sentences), we subtracted from each map the BOLD activations obtained during plausibility judgments on structurally matching sentences, devoid of emotions or ToM. The obtained theory of mind (ToM) and emotional speech comprehension networks overlapped in the bilateral temporo-parietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex, right anterior temporal lobe, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and in the left inferior frontal sulcus. These regions form a ToM network, which contributes to the emotional component of spoken sentence comprehension. Compared with the ToM task, in which the sentences were enounced on a neutral tone, the emotional sentence classification task, in which the sentences were play-acted, was associated with a greater activity in the bilateral superior temporal sulcus, in line with the presence of emotional prosody. Besides, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was more active during emotional than ToM sentence processing. This region may link mental state representations with verbal and prosodic emotional cues. Compared with emotional sentence classification, ToM was associated with greater activity in the caudate nucleus, paracingulate cortex, and superior frontal and parietal regions, in line with behavioral data showing that ToM sentence comprehension was a more demanding task.     

Seeing emotion with your ears: emotional prosody implicitly guides visual attention to faces

Interpersonal communication involves the processing of multimodal emotional cues, particularly facial expressions (visual modality) and emotional speech prosody (auditory modality) which can interact during information processing. Here, we investigated whether the implicit processing of emotional prosody systematically influences gaze behavior to facial expressions of emotion. We analyzed the eye movements of 31 participants as they scanned a visual array of four emotional faces portraying fear, anger, happiness, and neutrality, while listening to an emotionally-inflected pseudo-utterance (Someone migged the pazing) uttered in a congruent or incongruent tone. Participants heard the emotional utterance during the first 1250 milliseconds of a five-second visual array and then performed an immediate recall decision about the face they had just seen. The frequency and duration of first saccades and of total looks in three temporal windows ([0-1250 ms], [1250-2500 ms], [2500-5000 ms]) were analyzed according to the emotional content of faces and voices. Results showed that participants looked longer and more frequently at faces that matched the prosody in all three time windows (emotion congruency effect), although this effect was often emotion-specific (with greatest effects for fear). Effects of prosody on visual attention to faces persisted over time and could be detected long after the auditory information was no longer present. These data imply that emotional prosody is processed automatically during communication and that these cues play a critical role in how humans respond to related visual cues in the environment, such as facial expressions.     

Gender, sex role orientation, and dream recall frequency.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 20(3) of Dreaming (see record 2010-17362-006). In the article, a third author was not listed in the byline and some acknowledgment information was also missing: Third Co-Author: Anja S. G?ritz, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany Additional Acknowledgment: We thank the operators of the sites www.panopia.de, www.yougov.de, and www.studivz.net for providing participants. This work was in part supported by DFG grant GO 1107/4-1 to G?ritz. The online version of the article has been corrected.] Recently, a large meta-analysis showed that women tend to recall their dreams more often than men. Despite this robust finding, studies focused on explaining the gender difference in dream recall frequency are scarce. The present findings of an online survey indicate that sex role orientation—expressivity/femininity—was related to dream recall frequency but did not fully explain the gender difference in dream recall frequency. Future studies should investigate other variables—in addition to sex role orientation—like verbal memory, recall of emotional experiences, and/or frequency of talking about emotional matters that might play a role in explaining the gender difference in dream recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time course of the involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum in emotional prosody perception

In verbal communication, not only the meaning of the words convey information, but also the tone of voice (prosody) conveys crucial information about the emotional state and intentions of others. In various studies right frontal and right temporal regions have been found to play a role in emotional prosody perception. Here, we used triple-pulse repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to shed light on the precise time course of involvement of the right anterior superior temporal gyrus and the right fronto-parietal operculum. We hypothesized that information would be processed in the right anterior superior temporal gyrus before being processed in the right fronto-parietal operculum. Right-handed healthy subjects performed an emotional prosody task. During listening to each sentence a triplet of TMS pulses was applied to one of the regions at one of six time points (400-1900 ms). Results showed a significant main effect of Time for right anterior superior temporal gyrus and right fronto-parietal operculum. The largest interference was observed half-way through the sentence. This effect was stronger for withdrawal emotions than for the approach emotion. A further experiment with the inclusion of an active control condition, TMS over the EEG site POz (midline parietal-occipital junction), revealed stronger effects at the fronto-parietal operculum and anterior superior temporal gyrus relative to the active control condition. No evidence was found for sequential processing of emotional prosodic information from right anterior superior temporal gyrus to the right fronto-parietal operculum, but the results revealed more parallel processing. Our results suggest that both right fronto-parietal operculum and right anterior superior temporal gyrus are critical for emotional prosody perception at a relatively late time period after sentence onset. This may reflect that emotional cues can still be ambiguous at the beginning of sentences, but become more apparent half-way through the sentence.     

Influence of the Emotional Factor on EEG Correlates of the Recognition of a Significant Light Stimulus

Spatiotemporal EEG characteristics of an operator were analyzed at different stages of visual recognition of letters under conditions of exposure to negative emotional factors: the threat of electrodermal stimulation and an information deficit produced by a decrease in the time of stimulus presentation. It was shown that, during exposure to the emotional factors under study, recognition sensorimotor performance was associated with decreased intra- and interhemispheric crosscorrelation coefficients. The most prominent changes in this parameter were observed under the conditions of an information deficit. Under these complicated conditions, the stimulus recognition was characterized by differently directed redistributions of potentials in the - and frequency ranges in the rostral and caudal regions of the brain. It is suggested that, under the influence of emotional factors, a functional system with decreased interrelation of the brain structures is formed. Such a system provides optimal sensorimotor performance during exposure to emotional factors.     

Empathy in Cooperative Versus Non-cooperative Situations: The Contribution of Self-Report Measures and Autonomic Responses

Shared representations, emotion comprehension, and emotion regulation constitute the basic macro components of social empathy. The present study integrated two different measures of empathic behavior in a social context: verbal self-report measures (empathic response, emotional involvement and emotional significance, and valence), and autonomic responses (facial expression-corrugator supercilii and zygomaticus major muscle-, SCR-skin conductance-, and HR-heart rate-). Participants (N?=?thirty-five) were presented with different interpersonal scene types (cooperation, non-cooperation, conflict, indifference). Different empathic sensitivity to these interpersonal situations was verified, since self-rating on empathy, emotional involvement and valence varied as a function of interpersonal context. Situation rated as more empathically significant were considered also as the most positive (cooperation) and negative (non cooperation and conflictual) and emotionally significant (high emotional significance of the scenes) in comparison with neutral scenes. Nevertheless, subjective empathic response and personal emotional involvement were found to be dissociated measures in non-cooperative condition. On the autonomic level, facial mimicry was linked to and coherent with the empathic response in cooperative, non-cooperative and conflictual conditions, whereas SCR and HR were increased only in response to cooperative and conflictual situation, rated as more involving by the subject. The convergence of these multidimensional measures was discussed: empirical evidences are far from able to warrant claims that processes of emotional contagion and simulation provide the sole, primary important way by which we come to know what others are feeling.     

“Gender, sex role orientation and dream recall frequency”: Correction.

Reports an error in "Gender, sex role orientation, and dream recall frequency" by Michael Schredl and Olaf Lahl (Dreaming, 2010[Mar], Vol 20[1], 19-24). In the article, a third author was not listed in the byline and some acknowledgment information was also missing: Third Co-Author: Anja S. G?ritz, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany. The name appears in this record. Additional Acknowledgment: We thank the operators of the sites www.panopia.de, www.yougov.de, and www.studivz.net for providing participants. This work was in part supported by DFG grant GO 1107/4-1 to G?ritz. The online version of the article has been corrected. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2010-05656-002.) Recently, a large meta-analysis showed that women tend to recall their dreams more often than men. Despite this robust finding, studies focused on explaining the gender difference in dream recall frequency are scarce. The present findings of an online survey indicate that sex role orientation—expressivity/femininity—was related to dream recall frequency but did not fully explain the gender difference in dream recall frequency. Future studies should investigate other variables—in addition to sex role orientation—like verbal memory, recall of emotional experiences, and/or frequency of talking about emotional matters that might play a role in explaining the gender difference in dream recall. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Electroencephalographic Correlates of Mental Performance of Emotional Personal and Scenic Situations: I. Characteristics of Local Synchronization

An electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded in 19 standard derivations in two groups of subjects (student actors and nonactors) during emotionally positive and negative mental recalls of personal experiences (test 1) or mental reproduction of scenic situations (test 2), as well as during mental count of time. Statistical comparison of EEG spectral power estimations in the frequency bands , , ₁, ₂, ₁, and ₂ showed that the induction of emotionally positive and emotionally negative states led to statistically significant changes in the EEG absolute power (local synchronization) simultaneously in many derivations and frequency bands. Analysis of all possible comparisons and changes in frequency bands showed that bilateral prefrontal and temporal cortical areas are most active during the internal induction of emotional states. Emotionally positive states were characterized, predominantly, by higher local EEG power than emotionally negative states. The EEG power changes accompanying internal induction of emotionally negative and positive states were of the same order in the case of reproduction of a presented situation (scenic material), whereas, in the case of recall of personal experience, emotionally negative states were accompanied by substantially weaker EEG spectral changes than emotionally positive states. The internal induction of emotional states on the basis of scenic material was accompanied by a pronounced increase in the power of the EEG range over the whole cortical surface. EEG reactions to induction of emotional states were generally stronger in actors than in nonactors. In case of emotional induction on the basis of scenic material, qualitative differences in the EEG reactions were also revealed between the groups. The findings are discussed in comparison with known data of investigations into regional cerebral blood flow during internal emotional induction and EEG studies of internal and external emotional induction.     

Motherhood and the “Madness of Hunger”: <Emphasis Type="Italic">“…Want Almal Vra vir My vir ‘n Stukkie Brood”</Emphasis> (“…Because Everyone Asks Me for a Little Piece of Bread”)

It is widely assumed that the social and economic conditions of poverty can be linked to common mental disorders in low-, middle- and high-income countries. Despite the considerable increase in quantitative studies investigating the link between poverty and mental health, the nature of the connection between poverty and emotional well-being/distress is still not fully comprehended. In this qualitative study, exploring how one group of Coloured South African women, diagnosed with depression and residing in a semi-rural low-income South African community, subjectively understand and experience their emotional distress, data was collected by means of in-depth semi-structured interviews and social constructionist grounded theory was used to analyse the data. We will attempt to show (1) that the depressed women in this group of respondents frequently refer to the emotional distress caused by hungry children and (2) that the emotional distress described by the respondents included emotions typically associated with depression (such as sadness, hopelessness and guilt), but also included emotions not necessarily associated with depression (such as anxiety, anger and anomie). In our attempt to understand (both psychologically and politically) the complex emotional response of mothers to their children’s hunger, we argue that powerful gender and neo-liberal discourses within which mothers are interpellated to care for children, and more specifically, to make sure that children are not hungry, mean that the mothers of hungry children felt that they were not fulfilling their responsibilities and thus felt guilty and ashamed. This shame seemed, in turn, to lead to anger and/or anomie, informing acting out behaviours ranging from verbal and physical aggression to passive withdrawal. A vicious cycle of hunger, sadness and anxiety, shame, anger and anomie, aggression and withdrawal, negative judgement, and more shame, are thus maintained. As such, the unbearable rebukes of hungry children can be thought of as evoking a kind of “madness” in low-income mothers.     

Verbal cues modulate hedonic perception of odors in 5-year-old children as well as in adults

The judgment of pleasantness/unpleasantness is the prominent reaction to the olfactory world. In human adults, the hedonic valence of odor perception is affected by various factors, among which is an individual's lexical knowledge about smells. The present study examined whether such top-down effects of lexical knowledge on hedonic judgment of olfactory input are similar in children (5-6 years) and adults (20-25 years). In both groups, the lexical knowledge was found to influence the perception of the least emotional (or most neutral) odors: the pleasantness of the smells of banana and mint was enhanced when participants were given the corresponding odor label before olfactory sensation. These results lend support to the notion that, during childhood, smells are not only encoded perceptually but that verbal encoding also steers contextual effects that may be prominent factors in the early memorization and categorization of odors.     

Aggression in low functioning children and adolescents with autistic disorder

Background

Parents, caregivers and mental health professionals have often reported violence and aggression in children or adolescents with autistic disorder. However, most of these observations derived from anecdotal reports, and studies on frequency and characterization of aggression in autism remain limited. Our objective was to better characterize and understand the different types of aggressive behaviors displayed by a large group of individuals with autism in different observational situations.

Methodology/Findings

The study was conducted on 74 children and adolescents with autism and 115 typically developing control individuals matched for sex, age and pubertal stage. Other-Injurious Behaviors (OIB) were assessed in three observational situations (parents at home, two caregivers at day-care, a nurse and a child psychiatrist during blood drawing) using validated scales. The frequency of OIB was significantly higher in individuals with autism compared to typically developing control individuals during the blood drawing (23% vs. 0%, P<0 .01). The parents observed significantly less OIB in their children than caregivers (34% vs. 58%, P<0.05). In addition, the most frequent concurrent behaviors occurring just before the appearance of OIB in individuals with autism were anxiety-related behaviors and excitation according to the parental as well as the caregiver observation.

Conclusions/Significance

The results suggest that in a stressful situation, such as the blood drawing, individuals with autism release their stress through behaviors such as OIB, whereas typically developing individuals regulate and express their stress through cognitive skills such as mental coping strategies, symbolization skills with representation and anticipation of the stressful situation, social interaction and verbal or non-verbal communication. The findings underline also the key role of the environment in assessing OIB and developing therapeutic perspectives, with an individual who modulates his/her behavior according to the environment, and an environment that perceives this behavior and reacts to it with different tolerance thresholds according to the observers.     

Cytogenetic effects in children and mothers exposed to air pollution assessed by the frequency of micronuclei and fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH): a family pilot study in the Czech Republic

A family pilot study was conducted in the Czech Republic to test the hypothesis that exposure to air pollution with particulate matter (PM) in children results in detectable effects indicated by a number of biomarkers of exposure and early effects. The frequency of micronuclei (MN) in peripheral blood lymphocytes (PBLs) was analysed to assess the cytogenetic effects in children and mothers living in two different areas. From each area two groups of children from a total of 24 families (mean age: 6.0+/-0.6 and 9.0+/-1.2 years) in a total of 47 children and 19 mothers (mean age: 33.6+/-3.9 years) participated. Chromosome aberrations determined with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) painting for chromosomes #1 and #4 were analysed in 39 children and 20 parents. Teplice, a mining district, in Northern Bohemia was selected for the analyses of the effects in a population exposed to high levels of air pollution, especially during winter, and compared with a population from the rural area of Prachatice in Southern Bohemia. Significant higher frequencies of MN were found in the younger children living in the Teplice area as compared with those living in the Prachatice area (7.0+/-2.3 per thousand versus 4.9+/-2.0 per thousand, p=0.04). Higher levels of MN were also measured in the older children and the mothers from the Teplice area (9.2+/-3.7 per thousand versus 6.6+/-4.4 per thousand) and (12.6+/-3.4 per thousand versus 10.1+/-4.0 per thousand). The increased MN frequency may be associated with elevated carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (c-PAHs) concentration of the PM(2.5) measured in the ambient Teplice air, but other factors like genotoxic compounds from the diet or protective effect of micronutrients, which was not addressed in this pilot study, may also differ between the two areas. MN frequencies were found to increase with age in children. Lower MN frequency was found in boys as compared to girls. The result of the FISH analyses showed a low number of individuals with detectable levels of aberrations and no significant increases in genomic frequency of stable chromosome exchanges (F(G)/100) were found in children or parents from the Teplice area in comparison with those from the Prachatice area. The family pilot study indicates that MN is a valuable and sensitive biomarker for early biological effect in children and adults living in two different areas characterised with significant exposure differences in c-PAHs concentrations during winter.