Minding one’s emotions: Mindfulness training alters the neural expression of sadness.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 10(2) of Emotion (see record 2010-06281-006). The DOI printed in the article was incorrect. The correct DOI should be as follows: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0017151.supp.] Recovery from emotional challenge and increased tolerance of negative affect are both hallmarks of mental health. Mindfulness training (MT) has been shown to facilitate these outcomes, yet little is known about its mechanisms of action. The present study employed functional MRI (fMRI) to compare neural reactivity to sadness provocation in participants completing 8 weeks of MT and waitlisted controls. Sadness resulted in widespread recruitment of regions associated with self-referential processes along the cortical midline. Despite equivalent self-reported sadness, MT participants demonstrated a distinct neural response, with greater right-lateralized recruitment, including visceral and somatosensory areas associated with body sensation. The greater somatic recruitment observed in the MT group during evoked sadness was associated with decreased depression scores. Restoring balance between affective and sensory neural networks—supporting conceptual and body based representations of emotion—could be one path through which mindfulness reduces vulnerability to dysphoric reactivity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social context effects on facial activity in a negative emotional setting.

Evidence for A. J. Fridlund's (e.g., 1994) "behavioral ecology view" of human facial expression comes primarily from studies of smiling in response to positive emotional stimuli. Smiling may be a special case because it clearly can, and often does serve merely communicative functions. The present study was designated (a) to assess the generalizability of social context effects to facial expressions in response to negative emotional stimuli and (b) to examine whether these effects are mediated by social motives, as suggested by the behavioral ecology view. Pairs of friends or strangers viewed film clips that elicited different degrees of sad affect, in either the same or a different room; a control group participated alone. Dependent variables included facial activity, subjective emotion, and social motives. Displays of sadness were influenced by stimulus intensity and were lower in all social conditions than in the alone condition. Unexpectedly, social context effects were also found for smiling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

基于便携式脑电设备的快乐和悲伤情绪分类

驾驶员情绪状态的识别对车辆主动安全技术的研究具有重要的应用价值.本研究通过情绪视频诱发的方法采集17位被试前额双通道脑电信号,提取不同情绪的脑电特征,并对数据进行降维处理后采用多种分类器进行情绪分类.结果显示,与单核分类器和集成学习分类器相比,基于梯度提升决策树（GBDT）算法得到快乐和悲伤的识别准确率最高.本研究为驾驶员情绪状态的实时监测和识别提供新方法,为提高行车的安全性提供了理论保障.     

关于骚体界定的新思考

目前学界对骚体的界定过于偏重体式特征,而从中国文体论的古今差异来看,科学的文体定义应当包含作品体式和风格两个要素;历代骚体作品的评论也主要以风格论为主。因此科学的骚体界定应当兼顾作品风格和体式,"悲怨"精神和"兮""些"等带有楚地风格的语助词共同构成科学的骚体定义。     

Modeling Unipolar Depression as a Chaotic Process.

This study inspected the deterministic structure of unipolar depression. Two women self-monitored sadness hourly 10 times a day for 6 months. One woman had a recurrent history of unipolar depression, and the other did not. Data were analyzed by visual inspection, examination of the Fourier transforms of the time plots, and the correlation dimension. Results suggested that in addition to a strong periodic component that existed only within the depressed subject's mood time series, a low-dimensional chaotic process might have been operating. In the nondepressed control subject, no such periodicity or process could be identified. The findings support maladaptive deterministic theories of mood disorders and have implications for the assessment of unipolar depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Right frontal brain activity, cortisol, and withdrawal behavior in 6-month-old infants.

Although several studies have examined anterior asymmetric brain electrical activity and cortisol in infants, children, and adults, the direct association between asymmetry and cortisol has not systematically been reported. In nonhuman primates, greater relative right anterior activation has been associated with higher cortisol levels. The current study examines the relation between frontal electroencephalographic (EEG) asymmetry and cortisol (basal and reactive) and withdrawal-related behaviors (fear and sadness) in 6-month-old infants. As predicted, the authors found that higher basal and reactive cortisol levels were associated with extreme right EEG asymmetry. EEG during the withdrawal-negative affect task was associated with fear and sadness behaviors. Results are interpreted in the context of the previous primate work, and some putative mechanisms are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sadness and amusement reactivity differentially predict concurrent and prospective functioning in major depressive disorder.

Depressed individuals often fail to react to emotionally significant stimuli. The significance of this pattern of emotional dysregulation in depression is poorly understood. In the present study, depressed and nondepressed participants viewed standardized neutral, sad, fear, and amusing films; and experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses to each film were assessed. Compared with nondepressed controls, depressed participants reported sadness and amusement in a flattened, context-insensitive manner. Those depressed participants who reported the least reactivity to the sad film exhibited the greatest concurrent impairment. Prospectively, the depressed participant who exhibited the least behavioral and heart rate reactivity to the amusing film were the least likely to recover from depression. Loss of the context-appropriate modulation of emotion in depression may reflect a core feature of emotion dysregulation in this disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Tie That Binds? Coherence Among Emotion Experience, Behavior, and Physiology.

Emotion theories commonly postulate that emotions impose coherence across multiple response systems. However, empirical support for this coherence postulate is surprisingly limited. In the present study, the authors (a) examined the within-individual associations among experiential, facial behavioral, and peripheral physiological responses during emotional responding and (b) assessed whether emotion intensity moderates these associations. Experiential, behavioral, and physiological responses were measured second-by-second during a film that induced amusement and sadness. Results indicate that experience and behavior were highly associated but that physiological responses were only modestly associated with experience and behavior. Intensity of amusement experience was associated with greater coherence between behavior and physiological responding; intensity of sadness experience was not. These findings provide new evidence about response system coherence in emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

重阳诗:诗人悲戚与快感的双重倾泻

诗人看重重阳显然与对自然之秋情有独钟有关,因为一年四季的自然转换中秋的特质不是单一的,在展示自然物衰败凋零的同时,也预示着成熟与收获。诗人惜时重时再度利用生命的执著意念与重阳相遇时,不能不从内心深处腾涌出一种或劲健或悲慨精神的格调。因遇重阳而伤别叹老是重阳诗中习见的情感反应模式。     

"Affect bursts: Dynamic patterns of facial expressions": Correction to Krumhuber and Scherer (2011).

Reports an error in "Affect bursts: Dynamic patterns of facial expression" by Eva G. Krumhuber and Klaus R. Scherer (Emotion, 2011, np). There were several errors in Table 1, and in Table 4 spaces were omitted from the rows between data for anger, fear, sadness, joy, and relief. All versions of this article have been corrected, and the corrections to Table 1 are provided in the erratum. (The following abstract of the original article appeared in record 2011-12872-001.) Affect bursts consist of spontaneous and short emotional expressions in which facial, vocal, and gestural components are highly synchronized. Although the vocal characteristics have been examined in several recent studies, the facial modality remains largely unexplored. This study investigated the facial correlates of affect bursts that expressed five different emotions: anger, fear, sadness, joy, and relief. Detailed analysis of 59 facial actions with the Facial Action Coding System revealed a reasonable degree of emotion differentiation for individual action units (AUs). However, less convergence was shown for specific AU combinations for a limited number of prototypes. Moreover, expression of facial actions peaked in a cumulative-sequential fashion with significant differences in their sequential appearance between emotions. When testing for the classification of facial expressions within a dimensional approach, facial actions differed significantly as a function of the valence and arousal level of the five emotions, thereby allowing further distinction between joy and relief. The findings cast doubt on the existence of fixed patterns of facial responses for each emotion, resulting in unique facial prototypes. Rather, the results suggest that each emotion can be portrayed by several different expressions that share multiple facial actions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)