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Female Sexual Objectification refers to perceiving and treating women based on their body appearance. This phenomenon may serve as a precursor for dysfunctional behaviors, particularly among females prone to self-objectification and experiencing shame emotions. Understanding this challenging trajectory by disclosing its neural consequences may be crucial for comprehending extreme psychopathological outcomes. However, investigations in this sense are still scarce. The present study explores the neural correlates of female participants' experiences of being objectified and their relationship with self-objectification, emotional responses and individual dispositions in self-esteem, emotion regulation abilities and self-conscious emotion proneness. To this aim, 25 female participants underwent an fMRI experimental session while they were exposed to interpersonal encounters with objectifying or non-objectifying men. Participants' experienced emotions and levels of attention shifted toward their bodies (self-objectification) was reported after each interaction. The results revealed increased brain activity in objectifying contexts, impacting cortical (frontal, occipital and temporal cortex) and subcortical regions (thalamus, and hippocampus) involved in visual, emotion, and social processing. Remarkably, the inferior temporal gyrus emerged as a crucial neural hub associated in opposite ways with self-esteem and the self-conscious emotion of shame, highlighting its role in self-referential processing during social dynamics. This study points out the importance of adopting a neuroscientific perspective for a deeper understanding of sexual objectification, and to shed light on its possible neural consequences., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no known conflict of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.)

Individuals who deviate from social norms by committing crimes may have reduced facial emotion recognition abilities. Nevertheless, a specific category of offenders - i.e. organised crime (OC) members - is characterised by hierarchically organised social networks and a tendency to manipulate others to reach their illicit goals. Since recognising emotions is crucial to building social networks, OC members may be more skilled in recognising the facial emotion expressions of others to use this information for their criminal purposes. Evidence of a difference between OC and non-organised crime (NOC) offenders in terms of facial emotion recognition is still lacking. To fill this gap in the literature, we tested 50 OC, 50 NOC offenders, and 50 non-offender controls for their ability to identify six basic emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise). All participants underwent a cognitive and psychological evaluation to avoid alternative explanations. Results show that OC members were more able to detect the expression of fear in others as compared to NOC. We interpreted this finding in light of the social context and the behavioural criminal attitude of OC members.

Background: Over the past years, electroencephalography (EEG) studies focused on task-related activity to characterize cortical responses associated with emotion regulation (ER), without exploring the possibility that regulating emotions can leave a trace in the brain by affecting its oscillatory activity. Demonstrating whether the effect of regulation alters the brain activity after the session and whether this reflects an increased cognitive regulatory ability has great relevance., Methods: To address this issue, 5 min of electrical brain activity at rest were recorded before and after (1) one session in which participants perceived and regulated (through distancing) their emotions (regulation session, ReS), and (2) another session in which they only perceived emotions (attend session, AtS). One hundred and sixty visual stimuli were presented, and subjective ratings of valence and arousal of stimuli were recorded., Results: Behavioral results showed the efficacy of the regulation strategy in modulating both arousal and valence. A cluster-based permutation test on EEG data at rest revealed a significant increase in theta and delta activity after the ReS compared to the AtS, suggesting that regulating emotions can alter brain activity after the session., Conclusions: These results allowed us to outline a comprehensive view of the neurophysiological mechanisms associated with ER, as well as some possible implications in psychotherapy., (© 2022 The Authors. Brain and Behavior published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.)

This article presents and defends an integrated view of the placebo effect, termed "affective-meaning-making" model, which draws from theoretical reflection, clinical outcomes, and neurophysiological findings. We consider the theoretical limitations of those proposals associated with the "meaning view" on the placebo effect which (a) leave the general aspects of meaning unspecified, (b) fail to analyze fully the role of emotions and affect, and (c) establish no clear connection between the theoretical, physiological, and psychological aspects of the effect. We point out that a promising way to overcome these limitations is given by grounding the placebo effect on Peirce's theory of meaning, in which the role of the meaning constitution and change is placed in logical and objective structures. We also show the connection between our theoretical proposal and the appraisal theory and integrate it with emotion regulation., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Emotional acceptance is an important emotion regulation strategy promoted by most psychotherapy approaches. We adopted the Activation Likelihood Estimation technique to obtain a quantitative summary of previous fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) studies of acceptance and test different hypotheses on its mechanisms of action. The main meta-analysis included 13 experiments contrasting acceptance to control conditions, yielding a total of 422 subjects and 170 foci of brain activity. Additionally, subgroups of studies with different control conditions (react naturally or focus on emotions) were identified and analysed separately. Our results showed executive areas to be affected by acceptance only in the subgroup of studies in which acceptance was compared to natural reactions. In contrast, a cluster of decreased brain activity located in the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus was associated with acceptance regardless of the control condition. These findings suggest that high-level executive cortical processes are not a distinctive feature of acceptance, whereas functional deactivations in the PCC/precuneus constitute its specific neural substrate. The neuroimaging of emotional acceptance calls into question a key tenet of current neurobiological models of emotion regulation consisting in the necessary involvement of high-level executive processes to actively modify emotional states, suggesting a complementary role for limbic portions of the default system., (© The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Emotion regulation allows humans to successfully modulate their reactions to life events. Whether regulation strategies may alter brain oscillatory activity and how they are influenced by format and emotional dimensions is still under debate. We investigated oscillatory brain dynamics during the implementation of the strategy of Distancing and during the regulation of the emotions elicited by neutral and unpleasant pictures and, for the first time, words. When implementing the strategy, an early increase in theta band in posterior regions was observed (Effect of Strategy). We interpret this effect as a marker of emotion regulation, and we suggest an integrative framework of the role of theta on regulatory processes. When regulating the emotional impact elicited by stimuli, a decrease in the theta and beta bands in posterior regions for pictures, but not for words, was observed (Effect of Regulation). Behaviorally, the Effect of Regulation was evident for both pictures and words and more pronounced for Valence than for Arousal. These results contribute to better understand the neural and behavioral features of Distancing (both Effect of Strategy and of Regulation), and open up the possibility to clarify which strategy works better to modulate specific stimulus types and emotional dimensions., (© 2020 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Emotion regulation plays a crucial role in an individual's well-being, as it is known that deficits in regulating emotions can lead to psychological and psychiatric disorders. Cognitive reappraisal is widely considered to be an adaptive and effective emotion-regulation strategy. People are more or less able to apply it, but it is still not clear how reappraisal affects brain structures and the psychological profile of individuals. In our study we thus aimed to explore the impact of applying reappraisal at both the neural and the psychological level. Source-based morphometry (SBM), a whole-brain multivariate method based on the Independent Component Analysis that extracts patterns of covariation of gray matter ("independent networks"), was applied to the MRI images of 37 participants. In order to enrich their psychological profiles, we measured their experienced affectivity (PANAS) and their empathic abilities (IRI). Based on the frequency of applying reappraisal (ERQ), participants were divided into low and high reappraisers (18 vs. 19). An independent source of gray matter emerged as being different between the groups: specifically, low reappraisers showed more gray matter volume concentration in a network including the frontal, temporal, and parietal regions as compared to high reappraisers. At the psychological level, low reappraisers reported a more strongly experienced negative affect, while no difference among reappraisers emerged with regard to empathic abilities. Capitalizing on a multivariate method for structural analysis that is innovative in this field, this study extends previous observations on individual differences in the ability to regulate emotions, and it describes a plausible impact of reappraisal on brain structures and affectivity.

Background: Whilst there has been extensive study of the mechanisms underlying the regulation for pictures, the ability and the mechanisms beyond the regulation of words remains to be clarified. Similarly, the effect of strategy when applying a regulatory process is still poorly explored. The present study seeks to elucidate these issues comparing the effect of regulation and of strategy to both neutral and emotional words and pictures., Methodology/principal Findings: Thirty young adults applied the strategy of distancing to the emotions elicited by unpleasant and neutral pictures and words while their subjective ratings and ERPs were recorded. At a behavioral level, participants successfully regulated the arousal and the valence of both pictures and words. At a neural level, unpleasant pictures produced an increase in the late positive potential modulated during the regulate condition. Unpleasant linguistic stimuli elicited a posterior negativity as compared to neutral stimuli, but no effect of regulation on ERP was detectable. More importantly, the effect of strategy independently of stimulus type, produced a significant larger Stimulus Preceding Negativity. Dipole reconstruction localized this effect in the middle frontal areas of the brain., Conclusions: As such, these new psychophysiological findings might help to understand how pictures and words can be regulated by distancing in daily life and clinical contexts, and the neural bases of the effect of strategy for which we suggest an integrative model., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

This study evaluated whether the impairment in cooperation that characterizes individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) can be explained by the difficulty to use emotion regulation strategies and to accurately perceive the fairness of others' behavior. Forty-one patients with BPD and 41 sex and age matched healthy controls (HC) played the responder's role in a Modified Ultimatum Game during which they were asked to apply 3 different emotion regulation strategies: look, distancing, and reappraisal. Offer rejection rates were used as an index of punishment behavior. After the experiment, participants also rated the degree of perceived equity of the offers after receiving fair and unfair offers. Reappraisal was effective in decreasing punishment behaviors for unfair offers in both the BPD and HC groups. By contrast, BPD patients displayed a different behavior than HC when making decisions upon fair offers, independently from the regulation strategies adopted. In fact, they rejected higher rates of fair offers than HC. Further, BPD patients judged fair offers as less fair than HC. This indicates an altered judgment and decision making on fair interpersonal exchanges. In conclusion, BPD patients exhibit increased punishment behavior during fair, "favorable" social exchanges, which they tend to perceive as less fair than controls. Thus, BPD patients may be biased toward underestimating positive feedback from others. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Purpose of Review: To give an update on the most recent studies regarding the role of schema therapy in the treatment of emotion dysregulation related to personality disorders., Recent Findings: In personality disorders, a lack of emotion regulation can be found. Schema therapy treats emotion dysregulation with a series of techniques, such as imagery rescripting, limited reparenting, chairwork, and cognitive restructuring to remove dysregulatory mechanism., Summary: Schema therapy is one of the most efficient therapies for personality disorders. However, there is a lack of recent studies on how it treats emotion dysregulation. Although the treatment of emotional dysregulation is not the core of schema therapy, it is certainly important inside this theoretical framework. The mode model helps clinicians address their work toward the reduction of dysfunctional modes, whereas fostering functional modes.

One of the consequences of extensive mindfulness practice is a reduction of anxiety and depression, but also a capacity to regulate negative emotions. In this study, we explored four key questions concerning mindfulness training: (1) What are the processes by which mindfulness regulates our emotions? (2) Can mindfulness be applied to social emotions? (3) Does mindfulness training affect emotionally driven behavior towards others? (4) Does mindfulness alter physiological reactivity? To address these questions, we tested, in two experiments, the ability of mindfulness meditators to regulate interpersonal emotions (Experiment 1) and interactive behaviors (Experiment 2) as compared to naïve controls. To better understand the mechanisms by which mindfulness regulates emotions, we asked participants to apply two strategies: a cognitive strategy (mentalizing, a form of reappraisal focused on the intentions of others) and an experiential strategy derived from mindfulness principles (mindful detachment). Both groups were able to regulate interpersonal emotions by means of cognitive (mentalizing) and experiential (mindful detachment) strategies. In Experiment 1, a simple effect of meditation, independent from the implementation of the strategies, resulted in reduced emotional and physiological reactivity, as well as in increased pleasantness for meditators when compared to controls, providing evidence of baseline regulation. In Experiment 2, one visible effect of the strategy was that meditators outperformed controls in the experiential (mindful detachment) but not in the cognitive (mentalize) strategy, showing stronger modulation of their interactive behavior (less punishments) and providing evidence of a strategic behavioral regulation. Based on these results, we suggest that mindfulness can influence interpersonal emotional reactions through an experiential mechanism, both at a baseline level and a strategic level, thereby altering the subjective and physiological perception of emotions, but also biasing interactive social behavior.

The purpose of this paper is to review some of the psychological and neural mechanisms behind mindfulness practice in order to explore the unique factors that account for its positive impact on emotional regulation and health. After reviewing the mechanisms of mindfulness and its effects on clinical populations we will consider how the practice of mindfulness contributes to the regulation of emotions. We argue that mindfulness has achieved effective outcomes in the treatment of anxiety, depression, and other psychopathologies through the contribution of mindfulness to emotional regulation. We consider the unique factors that mindfulness meditation brings to the process of emotion regulation that may account for its effectiveness. We review experimental evidence that points towards the unique effects of mindfulness specifically operating over and above the regulatory effects of cognitive reappraisal mechanisms. A neuroanatomical circuit that leads to mindful emotion regulation is also suggested. This paper thereby aims to contribute to proposed models of mindfulness for research and theory building by proposing a specific model for the unique psychological and neural processes involved in mindful detachment that account for the effects of mindfulness over and above the effects accounted for by other well-established emotional regulation processes such as cognitive reappraisal.

Kalisch et al. argue that appraisal and reappraisal are key mechanisms promoting resilience; however, experimental findings seem to contradict this simplistic view. We argue that a deeper look at affective neuroscience may provide complementary and stronger evidence on how emotional reactivity and emotion regulation may affect resilience.

According to some theories imitation, defined as an action resonance mechanism, is deficient in autism. In contrast, other theories (e.g., the "top down control of imitation" hypothesis) state that the problem is not in imitation per se but in the way social cues modulate imitative responses. In this study, 15 high-functioning children with autism and 15 matched controls were tested for their ability to imitate finger movements preceded by neutral and emotional facial expressions (primes) in a stimulus-response compatibility task. Hand movements performed after neutral expressions did not differ between the two groups (i.e., they both showed a normal imitative tendency). However, hand movements performed after emotional expressions significantly differed between the two populations, with controls, but not autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), showing enhanced imitation in the emotional condition. This study supports the view that, in ASD, imitation abilities are spared but they are not modulated according to the emotional and social context.

Emotion regulation strategies provide a means by which to modulate our social behavior. In this study, we investigated the effect of using reappraisal to both up- and downregulate social decision making. After being instructed on how to use reappraisal, participants played the Ultimatum Game while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and applied the strategies of upregulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as more negative), down-regulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as less negative), as well as a baseline "look" condition. As hypothesized, when reappraising, decision acceptance rates were altered, with a greater number of unfair offers accepted while down-regulating and a greater number of unfair offers rejected while upregulating, both relative to the baseline condition. At the neural level, during reappraisal, significant activations were observed in the inferior and middle frontal gyrus (MFG), in addition to the medial prefrontal cortex and cingulate gyrus for unfair offers only. Regulated decisions involved left inferior frontal gyrus for upregulation and MFG for down-regulation strategies, respectively. Importantly, the effects of emotion modulation were evident in posterior insula, with less activation for down-regulation and more activation for upregulation in these areas. Notably, we show for the first time that top-down strategies such as reappraisal strongly affect our socioeconomic decisions.

Recent fMRI studies have investigated brain activity involved in the feeling of regret and disappointment by manipulating the feedback participants saw after making a decision to play certain gambles: full-feedback (regret: participant sees the outcomes from both the chosen and unchosen gamble) vs. partial-feedback (disappointment: participant only sees the outcome from chosen gamble). However, regret and disappointment are also characterized by differential agency attribution: personal agency for regret, external agency for disappointment. In this study, we investigate the neural correlates of these two characterizations of regret and disappointment using magnetoencephalography (MEG). To do this, we experimentally induced each emotion by manipulating feedback (chosen gamble vs. unchosen gamble), agency (human vs. computer choice) and outcomes (win vs. loss) in a fully randomized design. At the behavioral level the emotional experience of regret and disappointment were indeed affected by both feedback and agency manipulations. These emotions also differentially affect subsequent choices, with regret leading to riskier behavior. At the neural level both feedback and agency affected the brain responses associated with regret and disappointment, demonstrating differential localization in the brain for each. Notably, feedback regret showed greater brain activity in the right anterior and posterior regions, with agency regret producing greater activity in the left anterior region. These findings extend the evidence for neural activity in processing both regret and disappointment by highlighting for the first time the respective importance of feedback and agency, as well as outlining the temporal dynamics of these emotions., (Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Affect can have a significant influence on decision-making processes and subsequent choice. One particularly relevant type of negative affect is anxiety, which serves to enhance responses to threatening stimuli or situations. In its exaggerated form, it can lead to psychiatric disorders, with detrimental consequences for quality of life, including the ability to make choices. This study investigated, for the first time, how pathological anxiety affects risk-taking behavior. In this study, 20 anxious participants meeting Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, criteria for either generalized anxiety disorder (n = 10) and for panic attack disorder (n = 10), as well as 20 matched nonanxious controls, performed a gambling task. To investigate the tendency toward either a risk-seeking or a risk-averse behavior, we employed a task that did not allow for learning from outcomes. Anxious participants made significantly fewer risky choices than matched nonanxious participants. Specifically, they become risk-avoidant after gains. Moreover, anxious participants not only were less happy after gains but were also less sad after losses, and they also evinced less desire to change their choices after losses than did nonanxious participants. Importantly, whereas the desire to switch choice was followed by actual choice switch for all participants, happiness directly predicted subsequent risky choices, particularly in the nonanxious participants. Further analyses revealed that the anxious participants' risk-avoidance behavior was independent of different types of anxiety disorder (panic attack disorder and generalized anxiety disorder) as well as of the effects of psychotropic drugs treatment. This study demonstrates a specific role for anxiety in individual decision making. In particular, hypersensitivity to potential threats and pessimistic evaluation of future events reduced risk-taking behavior., (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.)

In two experiments, we explored whether emotional context influences imitative action tendencies. To this end, we examined how emotional pictures, presented as primes, affect imitative tendencies using a compatibility paradigm. In Experiment 1, when seen index finger movements (lifting or tapping) and pre-instructed finger movements (tapping) were the same (tapping-tapping, compatible trials), participants were faster than when they were different (lifting-tapping, incompatible trials). This compatibility effect was enhanced when the seen finger movement was preceded by negative primes compared with positive or neutral primes. In Experiment 2, using only negative and neutral primes, the influence of negative primes on the compatibility effect was replicated with participants performing two types of pre-instructed finger movements (tapping and lifting). This emotional modulation of the compatibility effect was independent of the participants' trait anxiety level. Moreover, the emotional modulation pertained primarily to the compatible conditions, suggesting facilitated imitation due to negatively valent primes rather than increased interference. We speculate that negative stimuli increase imitative tendencies as a natural response in potential flight-or-fight situations., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Working memory (WM) and visual selection processes interact in a reciprocal fashion based on overlapping representations abstracted from the physical characteristics of stimuli. Here, we assessed the neural basis of this interaction using facial expressions that conveyed emotion information. Participants memorized an emotional word for a later recognition test and then searched for a face of a particular gender presented in a display with two faces that differed in gender and expression. The relation between the emotional word and the expressions of the target and distractor faces was varied. RTs for the memory test were faster when the target face matched the emotional word held in WM (on valid trials) relative to when the emotional word matched the expression of the distractor (on invalid trials). There was also enhanced activation on valid compared with invalid trials in the lateral orbital gyrus, superior frontal polar (BA 10), lateral occipital sulcus, and pulvinar. Re-presentation of the WM stimulus in the search display led to an earlier onset of activity in the superior and inferior frontal gyri and the anterior hippocampus irrespective of the search validity of the re-presented stimulus. The data indicate that the middle temporal and prefrontal cortices are sensitive to the reappearance of stimuli that are held in WM, whereas a fronto-thalamic occipital network is sensitive to the behavioral significance of the match between WM and targets for selection. We conclude that these networks are modulated by high-level matches between the contents of WM, behavioral goals, and current sensory input.

Shame plays a fundamental role in the regulation of our social behavior. One intriguing question is whether amygdala might play a role in processing this emotion. In the present single-case study, we tested a patient with acquired damage of bilateral amygdalae and surrounding areas as well as healthy controls on shame processing and other social cognitive tasks. Results revealed that the patient's subjective experience of shame, but not of guilt, was more reduced than in controls, only when social standards were violated, while it was not different than controls in case of moral violations. The impairment in discriminating between normal social situations and violations also emerged. Taken together, these findings suggest that the role of the amygdala in processing shame might reflect its relevance in resolving ambiguity and uncertainty, in order to correctly detect social violations and to generate shame feelings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to present recent applications of emotion regulation theory and methods to the field of psychotherapy. The term Emotion Regulation refers to the neurocognitive mechanisms by which we regulate the onset, strength, and the eventual expression of our emotions. Deficits in the regulation of emotions have been linked to most, if not all, psychiatric disorders, with patients presenting either dysregulated emotions, or dysfunctional regulatory strategies. We discuss the implications of regulating emotions from two different theoretical perspectives: the Cognitive Emotion Regulation (CER), and the Experiential-Dynamic Emotion Regulation (EDER) model. Each proposes different views on how emotions are generated, dysregulated and regulated. These perspectives directly influence the way clinicians treat such problems. The CER model views emotional dysregulation as due to a deficit in regulation mechanisms that prioritizes modifying or developing cognitive skills, whilst the EDER model posits emotional dysregulation as due to the presence of dysregulatory mechanisms that prioritizes restoring natural regulatory processes. Examples of relevant techniques for each model are presented including a range of cognitive-behavioral, and experiential (including both dynamic and cognitive) techniques. The aim of the paper is to provide a toolbox from which clinician may gain different techniques to enhance and maintain their patient's capacity for emotional regulation. Finally, the biological mechanisms behind the two models of emotion regulation are discussed as well as a proposal of a dual route model of emotion regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term emotional dysregulation refers to an impaired ability to regulate unwanted emotional states. Scientific evidence supports the idea that emotional dysregulation underlies several psychological disorders as, for example: personality disorders, bipolar disorder type II, interpersonal trauma, anxiety disorders, mood disorders and posttraumatic stress disorder. Emotional dysregulation may derive from early interpersonal traumas in childhood. These early traumatic events create a persistent sensitization of the central nervous system in relation to early life stressing events. For this reason, some authors suggest a common endophenotypical origin across psychopathologies. In the last 20 years, cognitive behavioral therapy has increasingly adopted an interactiveontogenetic view to explain the development of disorders associated to emotional dysregulation. Unfortunately, standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) methods are not useful in treating emotional dysregulation. A CBT-derived new approach called Schema Therapy (ST), that integrates theory and techniques from psychodynamic and emotion focused therapy, holds the promise to fill this gap in cognitive literature. In this model, psychopathology is viewed as the interaction between the innate temperament of the child and the early experiences of deprivation or frustration of the subject’s basic needs. This deprivation may lead to develop early maladaptive schemas (EMS), and maladaptive Modes. In the present paper we point out that EMSs and Modes are associated with either dysregulated emotions or with dysregulatory strategies that produce and maintain problematic emotional responses. Thanks to a special focus on the therapeutic relationship and emotion focused-experiential techniques, this approach successfully treats severe emotional dysregulation. In this paper, we make several comparisons between the main ideas of ST and the science of emotion regulation, and we present how to conceptualize pathological phenomena in terms of failed regulation and some of the ST strategies and techniques to foster successful regulation in patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have reported the effect of emotion regulation (ER) strategies on both individual and social decision-making, however, the effect of regulation on socially driven emotions independent of decisions is still unclear. In the present study, we investigated the neural effects of using reappraisal to both up- and down-regulate socially driven emotions. Participants played the Dictator Game (DG) in the role of recipient while undergoing fMRI, and concurrently applied the strategies of either up-regulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as more negative), down-regulation (reappraising the proposer's intentions as less negative), as well as a baseline "look" condition. Results showed that regions responding to the implementation of reappraisal (effect of strategy, that is, "regulating regions") were the inferior and middle frontal gyrus, temporo parietal junction and insula bilaterally. Importantly, the middle frontal gyrus activation correlated with the frequency of regulatory strategies in daily life, with the insula activation correlating with the perceived ability to reappraise the emotions elicited by the social situation. Regions regulated by reappraisal (effect of regulation, that is, "regulated regions") were the striatum, the posterior cingulate and the insula, showing increased activation for the up-regulation and reduced activation for down-regulation, both compared to the baseline condition. When analyzing the separate effects of partners' behavior, selfish behavior produced an activation of the insula, not observed when subjects were treated altruistically. Here we show for the first time that interpersonal ER strategies can strongly affect neural responses when experiencing socially driven emotions. Clinical implications of these findings are also discussed to understand how the way we interpret others' intentions may affect the way we emotionally react. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the role of emotion in socioeconomic decision making is increasingly recognised, the impact of specific emotional disorders, such as anxiety disorders, on these decisions has been surprisingly neglected. Twenty anxious patients and twenty matched controls completed a commonly used socioeconomic task (the Ultimatum Game), in which they had to accept or reject monetary offers from other players. Anxious patients accepted significantly more unfair offers than controls. We discuss the implications of these findings in light of recent models of anxiety, in particular the importance of interpersonal factors and assertiveness in an integrated model of decision making. Finally, we were able to show that pharmacological serotonin used to treat anxious symptomatology tended to normalise decision making, further confirming and extending the role of serotonin in co-operation, prosocial behaviour, and social decision making. These results show, for the first time, a different pattern of socioeconomic behaviour in anxiety disordered patients, in addition to the known memory, attentional and emotional biases that are part of this pathological condition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Recent research has shown that stimulus–response compatibility (SRC) effects can be modulated by the emotional state of the participant and, more specifically, that the SRC effect is larger when aversive emotional stimulation precedes the seen movement [Rumiati, R. I. & Grecucci, A. (submitted for publication). On the emotional modulation of action]. In the present study, we propose that this effect arises from four assumptions: First, that the cortical representations subserving observation and execution of the same actions overlap and resonate; second, that graded persistence of activation due to observed movement facilitates subsequent movement execution; third, that movement representations that are similar but different compete for activation; and fourth, that aversive emotional states enhance the processing of events. By means of a set of simulations, we demonstrate that each of these assumptions plays a critical role in capturing the compatibility effect and its emotional modulation. We further employ the model to clarify the debate between synergistic and competitive views of cognition/emotion interactions, and demonstrate how emotionally-driven stimulus–response compatibility effects may be modulated by task demands, thus offering a possible resolution to the long-standing debate between synergistic and competitive interactions between emotion and cognition. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Several studies have suggested a correlation between heart rate variability (HRV), emotion regulation (ER), psychopathological conditions, and cognitive functions in the past two decades. Specifically, recent data seem to support the hypothesis that low-frequency heart rate variability (LF-HRV), an index of sympathetic cardiac control, correlates with worse executive performances, worse ER, and specific psychopathological dimensions. The present work aims to review the previous findings on these topics and integrate them from two main cornerstones of this perspective: Porges' Polyvagal Theory and Thayer and Lane's Neurovisceral Integration Model, which are necessary to understand these associations better. For this reason, based on these two approaches, we point out that low HRV is associated with emotional dysregulation, worse cognitive performance, and transversal psychopathological conditions. We report studies that underline the importance of considering the heart-brain relation in order to shed light on the necessity to implement psychophysiology into a broader perspective on emotions, mental health, and good cognitive functioning. This integration is beneficial not only as a theoretical ground from which to start for further research studies but as a starting point for new theoretical perspectives useful in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This meta-analysis explores the neural bases of anger perception and experience. • Anger perception relies on the amygdala, the FFG, the STG and the right IFG. • Anger experience relies on the bilateral insula and ventrolateral PFC. • A common activation of the right IFG may involve emotional conceptualization. The neural bases of anger are still a matter of debate. In particular we do not know whether anger perception and anger experience rely on similar or different neural mechanisms. To study this topic, we performed activation-likelihood-estimation meta-analyses of human neuroimaging studies on 61 previous studies on anger perception and experience. Anger perception analysis resulted in significant activation in the amygdala, the right superior temporal gyrus, the right fusiform gyrus and the right IFG, thus revealing the role of perceptual temporal areas for perceiving angry stimuli. Anger experience analysis resulted in the bilateral activations of the insula and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, thus revealing a role for these areas in the subjective experience of anger and, possibly, in a subsequent evaluation of the situation. Conjunction analyses revealed a common area localized in the right inferior frontal gyrus, probably involved in the conceptualization of anger for both perception and experience. Altogether these results provide new insights on the functional architecture underlying the neural processing of anger that involves separate and joint mechanisms. According to our tentative model, angry stimuli are processed by temporal areas, such as the superior temporal gyrus, the fusiform gyrus and the amygdala; on the other hand, the subjective experience of anger mainly relies on the anterior insula; finally, this pattern of activations converges in the right IFG. This region seems to play a key role in the elaboration of a general meaning of this emotion, when anger is perceived or experienced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AutoTutor is an automated computer tutor that simulates human tutors and holds conversations with students in natural language. Using data collected from AutoTutor, the following determinations were sought: Can we automatically classify affect states from intelligent teaching systems to aid in the detection of a learner's emotional state? Using frequency patterns of AutoTutor feedback and assigned user emotion in a series of pairs, can the next pair of feedback/emotion series be predicted? Through a priori data mining approaches, we found dominant frequent item sets that predict the next set of responses. Thirty-four participants provided 200 turns between the student and the AutoTutor. Two series of attributes and emotions were concatenated into one row to create a record of previous and next set of emotions. Feature extraction techniques, such as multilayer-perceptron and naive Bayes, were performed on the dataset to perform classification for affective state labeling. The emotions 'Flow' and 'Frustration' had the highest classification of all the other emotions when measured against other emotions and their respective attributes. The most common frequent item sets were 'Flow' and 'Confusion'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]