Nonverbal communication deficits and response to performance feedback in depression.

Evaluated aspects of recent behavioral and cognitive theories of depression. Social-skill concepts were conceived as involving 2 component processes, termed receptive and expressive communication, and the ability of depressed Ss to engage in these behaviors was studied within a nonverbal communication paradigm. Three groups of 10 females—depressed, psychiatric control, and normal control—had their facial expressions videotaped while exposed to a differential classical conditioning procedure, with pictorial stimuli following 1 CS, auditory stimuli following a 2nd CS, and a neutral event following a 3rd CS. In a 2nd session, the Ss observed the videotapes of other Ss, one from each diagnostic group, and judged which type of conditioning trial the observed S was undergoing, in addition to predicting their anticipated performance prior to each set of judgments. Results indicate that the depressed Ss were the most difficult to judge correctly; this deficit did not seem to be attributable to idiosyncratic response predispositions on the part of the depressives. This finding is interpreted as consistent with P. M. Lewinsohn's (see PA, Vol 53:7587) theory. Predictions of performance did not differ significantly between groups, failing to support one aspect of A. T. Beck's (1967) theory. For all groups, changes in Ss' ratings of their anticipated performance were highly correlated with the discrepancy between predicted and actual performance on previous trials. This finding is contrary to a prediction derived from M. E. Seligman's (see record 1973-06430-001) model of depression. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hostility and facial expression in young men and women: Is social regulation more important than negative affect?

Behavioral differences may clarify the link between hostility and health. This study examined facial expression. Seventy-two low- and high-hostile undergraduates underwent the Type A Structured Interview (SI) and a test of social anxiety. Facial behavior was measured with the Facial Action Coding System. Low-hostile participants displayed non-Duchenne smiles more frequently than high-hostile participants during the SI. There were no group differences in the expression of disgust. The results identify differences in the nonverbal behavior of hostile people. Restricted use of non-Duchenne smiles may reflect limited use of appeasement, contributing to uncomfortable interpersonal relations and limited social support. The findings are consistent with a behavioral ecology perspective and suggest that social regulation may be as important as negative affect in determining the consequences of hostility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Painful Face - Pain Expression Recognition Using Active Appearance Models

Pain is typically assessed by patient self-report. Self-reported pain, however, is difficult to interpret and may be impaired or in some circumstances (i.e., young children and the severely ill) not even possible. To circumvent these problems behavioral scientists have identified reliable and valid facial indicators of pain. Hitherto, these methods have required manual measurement by highly skilled human observers. In this paper we explore an approach for automatically recognizing acute pain without the need for human observers. Specifically, our study was restricted to automatically detecting pain in adult patients with rotator cuff injuries. The system employed video input of the patients as they moved their affected and unaffected shoulder. Two types of ground truth were considered. Sequence-level ground truth consisted of Likert-type ratings by skilled observers. Frame-level ground truth was calculated from presence/absence and intensity of facial actions previously associated with pain. Active appearance models (AAM) were used to decouple shape and appearance in the digitized face images. Support vector machines (SVM) were compared for several representations from the AAM and of ground truth of varying granularity. We explored two questions pertinent to the construction, design and development of automatic pain detection systems. First, at what level (i.e., sequence- or frame-level) should datasets be labeled in order to obtain satisfactory automatic pain detection performance? Second, how important is it, at both levels of labeling, that we non-rigidly register the face?     

Observer judgments of acute pain: Facial action determinants.

Identified facial reactions to a series of painful and nonpainful electric shocks and examined the impact of these as discrete facial cues for observer judgments of acute pain. 30 17–28 yr old female volunteers were videotaped and reported their discomfort in response to electric shocks after earlier exposure to 1 of 3 social influence conditions: a tolerant model, an intolerant model, or neutral peer presence. Videotapes were coded for facial activity using the facial action coding system developed by P. Ekman and W. V. Friesan (1978), and peer judges rated them for painful discomfort. Ss exposed to a tolerant model reported no more discomfort than did Ss exposed to an intolerant model, despite receiving more intense levels of shock, but were judged by observers to be in more pain. Analyses of facial activity yielded consistent findings: Tolerant-model Ss, though reporting discomfort equivalent to that reported in other groups, displayed more pain-related facial activity (brow lowering, narrowing of the eye aperture from below, raising the upper lip, and blinking). There was a substantial direct relation between observer judgments of distress and discrete, pain-related facial actions (mean multiple R?=?.74 for the various shock levels rated). Data indicate that nonverbal expression yields information about the response to noxious stimulation that is nonredundant with self-report. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Painful monitoring: Automatic pain monitoring using the UNBC-McMaster shoulder pain expression archive database

In intensive care units in hospitals, it has been recently shown that enormous improvements in patient outcomes can be gained from the medical staff periodically monitoring patient pain levels. However, due to the burden/stress that the staff are already under, this type of monitoring has been difficult to sustain so an automatic solution could be an ideal remedy. Using an automatic facial expression system to do this represents an achievable pursuit as pain can be described via a number of facial action units (AUs). To facilitate this work, the “University of Northern British Columbia-McMaster Shoulder Pain Expression Archive Database” was collected which contains video of participant's faces (who were suffering from shoulder pain) while they were performing a series of range-of-motion tests. Each frame of this data was AU coded by certified FACS coders, and self-report and observer measures at the sequence level were taken as well. To promote and facilitate research into pain and augmentcurrent datasets, we have publicly made available a portion of this database, which includes 200 sequences across 25 subjects, containing more than 48,000 coded frames of spontaneous facial expressions with 66-point AAM tracked facial feature landmarks. In addition to describing the data distribution, we give baseline pain and AU detection results on a frame-by-frame basis at the binary-level (i.e. AU vs. no-AU and pain vs. no-pain) using our AAM/SVM system. Another contribution we make is classifying pain intensities at the sequence-level by using facial expressions and 3D head pose changes.     

Social modeling influences on sensory decision theory and psychophysiological indexes of pain.

Ss exposed to social models dissimulating tolerance or intolerance generally exhibit matching behavior in their verbal ratings of painful stimulation. It has been unclear, however, whether these changes reflect voluntary alteration of evidence or genuine changes in distress. The present study examined nonpalmar skin potential in addition to palmar skin conductance and heart rate (HR) indexes of psychophysiological response to electric shock and evaluated verbal expressions of pain with sensory decision theory methodology. Of 20 female undergraduate volunteers, 10 served as controls, and 10 were exposed to a tolerant female model. Both the S and the model verbalized ratings of discomfort provoked by a series of electric shocks of increasing intensity. Ss then underwent a series of preselected random shocks. Sensory decision theory analyses revealed lower discriminability of the shocks among Ss exposed to a tolerant model. Several indexes of nonpalmar skin potential and HR reactivity exhibited lower reactivity in the tolerant group. Tolerant modeling was also associated with decreases in subjective stess. The results are consistent with the position that changes in pain indexes associated with exposure to a tolerant model represent variations in fundamental characteristics of painful experiences as opposed to suppression of information. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judging nonverbal expressions of pain.

Examined the impact of pain-relevant, biasing information on judgments of the pain expressed in facial displays. 15 male and 15 female Ss (mean age 19.5 yrs) judged the videotaped expressions of females experiencing low, medium, and high intensity electric shocks. Ss were informed either that the shocked females had been exposed to a hypersensitivity or analgesic treatment, or the Ss received no prior information. The shocked females also had been exposed previously to either a tolerant social modeling or a no influence control condition, so that the impact of a social influence strategy on nonverbal expressions of pain could be examined. Sensory decision theory analyses of Ss' ratings indicated that the hypersensitivity instruction led to reports of greater observed pain in the absence of an effect on the ability to discriminate pain displays. Exposure of the shocked females to the tolerant modeling influence strategy dampened the pain display, making discriminations among the differing severities of electric shock more difficult. Results indicate that providing judges with information extrinsic to another person's distress can alter the severity of pain attributed to the other person. The discriminability analyses supported the conclusion that modeling influences are fundamental determinants of a broad range of reactions to pain, including nonverbal behavior. (French abstract) (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparison of three theories relating facial expressiveness to blood pressure in male and female undergraduates.

Examined differing predictions of how emotional expressions and blood pressure are related. Spontaneous positive and negative facial expressions, resting systolic blood pressure (SBP), and reactive SBP were each measured for 148 male and female undergraduates. The discharge theory of emotions proposes that few expressions will predict higher baseline SBP, and this was found for men. A mismatch theory of emotions proposes that an imbalance between positive and negative expressions will predict higher baseline SBP, and this was supported for women. Finally, coactivation theory proposes that many expressions will predict higher reactive SBP, and this was found for both men and women. These results reconcile previous conflicting findings by clarifying the conditions under which each of these theories may be supported. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)