Davidson (1992)

Davidson, R. (1992)

Anterior cerebral asymmetry and the nature of Emotion

Brain and Cognition, 20, 125-151

Cf cognition Emotion is observable by others and often accompanied by frank biological changes that are readily perceived by the individual concerned.

Theory that motivates the research - role of cerebral hemispheres in emotional processing

p 126 ' approach and withdrawal are fundamental motivational dimensions which may be found at any level of phylogeny where behaviour itself is present.

Damage to left frontal p127 'results in behaviour an experience which might best be characterised as a deficit in approach. (KRO ? Right hemisphere modulation of emotional experience predominates)

'during the experimental arousal of withdrawal -reared emotional sates ( e.g. Fear and disgust) the right frontal and anterior temporal regions are selectively activated. In addition, subjects with baseline tonic activation in these regions show a propensity to respond with accentuated withdrawal related negative affect to appropriate emotional elicitors'

Anterior activation asymmetry (?kro as a trait) functions as a diathesis which predisposes an individual to respond with predominately positive or negative affect, given an appropriate emotion elicitor.

Methods description

p 130 time resolution

sub zero to several minutes ' many of the core phenomena of emotion are brief  and therefore require measures that have a very fast time resolution'. 'periods of peak emotional intensity are unpredictable' 'It is also important to be able to record physiological activity over much long time intervals. This is needed when subjects are presented with affect elicitors that last several minutes, requiring physiology to be integrated over the entire period of the eliciting stimulus'

Non invasive less like that PET, fMRI, to cause emotion related states such as anxiety

Can synchronise with behavioural signs

P 152 ' The principal measure extracted from the EEG in the studies I present in this article is power in the alpha band....... A wealth of evidence indicates that power in this frequency band is inversely related to activation in adults (e.g.  Shagass, 1972)....... Our measures. Of band power are computed from the output of the FFT which decomposes the brain activity into its underlying sine wave components ( KRO why not cosine as well).

From another Davidson article and based on   Schaffer, C.E., Davidson, R.J., and Saron, C. (1983) Frontal and parietal asymmetries in depressed and non-depressed subjects, Biological Psychiatry, 18, 753-762

Resting EEG was recorded for both eyes open and eyes closed for 30 sec periods prior to the administration of various cognitive and affective tasks. Alpha activity from left and right frontal and left and right parietal regions (F3, F4,P3, P4) referenced to a common vertex (Cz) was extracted from all artefact-free epochs. The results revealed no group differences. For either frontal or parietal EEG during the eyes open base-line period. However for the eyes-closed resting period, a significant (0.5) Group effect was obtained on a measure of frontal alpha asymmetry (R-L/R+L. Alpha power; higher numbers on this index reflect greater relative left-sided activation). Depressed subjects show greater relative right-frontal activation than do non-depressed subjects

Research on anterior asymmetries associated with the phasic arousal of emotion

IDs in baseline asymmetry and affective reactivity

Anterior asymmetries during the experimental arousal of approach and withdrawal related emotion

p 132 ' adult subjects were exposed to short film clips designed to induce approach-related positive emotion and withdrawal-related negative emotion'

' when two or more emotions are compared for their effects on either physiological or behavioural dependent variables the intensity of the elicited emotion must be comparable,. If the emotions differ in intensity, then  any differences found between them could be attributed to intensity per se , rather than to the qualitative nature of the emotions aroused.'

-matched intensity determined by self report!

FACs scoring of concurrent video recording used to termite onset of happy and disgust facial expressions

EEG during the periods was Fourier transformed and power in different frequency bands was calculated. p 133 'Based upon on the theory evidence reviewed above, we hypothesised that the disgust periods would be associated with greater right sided anterior activation that would happy periods and that the happy periods would be associated with greater left- sided activation than would disgust periods.

Davidson takes the mean log-transformed alpha power and with this transformation ' more negative numbers indicate less alpha power. The negative numbers are a function of the log transformation.  Lower  numbers  ( i.e. more negative ) are associated with increased activation' (KRO ???? implies that less alpha power is associated with increased activation)  The results p 133-134 ' disgust is associated with less alpha power I.e. more activation, in the right frontal lead than is happiness, while happiness is associated with less alpha power in the left frontal lead than is disgust. '  Also found at temporal electrodes but not at the parietal.

For asymmetry index p 134 ' log right minus log left alpha power. Higher numbers on this scale denote greater relative left sided activation' all subjects showed a lowers ore on is index during the disgust rather than happy phase. 'We also found at there were large IDs among individuals in their average asymmetry scores. ( across emotion conditions ). The difference between happy and disgust conditions appears to be superimposed upon subjects' basal levels of asymmetry.'  When comparisons were made without preselects on of EEG based on facial expression the means were in the expected direction but   a statistically significant difference could not be  confirmed for the asymmetry measures.

Studies in infants: Important because it compares spontaneous  and voluntary smiling

Used taste to investigate whether asymmetries are present at birth - yes.

Spontaneous - both zygomatic and orbicularis oculi - felt happiness (Duchenne)

Voluntary zygomatic

Darwin (1872) suggested that the duration of each smile type differed. Ie spontaneous longer.  Confirmed by Ekman, Davidson & Frieson, 1990 self report of emotion and relative activation of the appropriate facial muscles was correlated.

Facial behaviour coded by EM FACs system (streamlined version of the FACs)

Stimulus - approach of either a stranger or the mother. Results p 138  'We specifically predicted that smiles with orbicularis activity would be accompanied by more relative left - sided frontal activation than the other smile.  ..... Data strongly supported this hypothesis.'  more left frontal activation with spontaneous smiling  has been confirmed in adults. (Ekman, Davidson & Friesen, 1990)

Individual differences in anterior symmetry: A neural substrate for affective style.

Davidson sees any response to emotional stimuli as  p 139 ' superimposed upon large individual differences in the overall magnitude and direction of asymmetry. In other research, we have found that a subject's overall (across task) EEG asymmetry during task performance  is highly correlated with their asymmetry during a resting baseline. ( e.g. Davidson, Taylor and Sharon, 1979)  and that anterior asymmetries during resting baselines are stable over time ( Tomarken et al, 1990). With test- retreat correlations ranging between 0.66 and 0.73 for different measures of anterior activation asymmetry

Scaffer, Davidson & Saron, 1983 -depressed subjects had less left frontal activation than the non depressed  subjects. p 140 ' An important question concerning these findings with depressives is the degree to which they are state - dependent. Is the decrease in left frontal activation a marker of the state of depression or  is a more trait like characteristic which marks an individual' s vulnerability to depression'

Results from an experiment to investigate that question  ' The results indicate that the decreased left anterior activation which is characteristic of depression remains. Even when the depression is remitted. In turn, these findings suggest that 'depressogenic' asymmetry patterns may be a  state -independent marker that indexes risk for depression.'

In a further study p 141 ' We hypothesised that subjects with greater right sided frontal activation at rest would report more intense negative affect in spouse to film clips signed to elicit fear and disgust. ...... W found that measures of frontal activations asymmetry recorded prior to the presentation of the film clips accounted fro a significant variance in subjects' self-reports of  negative affect in response to the clips. Subjects with greater relative right-sided frontal activation reported. More intense negative affect to the clips.'

Demaree et al (2005)

Demaree, H.A., Everhart, D.E., Youngstrom,E.A., and Harrison, D.W. (2005)

Brain lateralisation of emotional processing: historical roots and a future incorporating 'dominance'.

Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev, 4, 3, 3-20

Quite a lot of information included from a psychiatric perspective, mostly ignored in this summary.

Historically 4 sequential theories, hemisphere specialisation, valence, approach/avoidance and dominance.  Ideas of emotional dominance should be explored further. Valence ideas mostly subsumed, by these authors at least, into an approach/avoidance model.

Hemisphere specialisation (and then) the Valence model

Right hemisphere specialisation for the perception of emotional expressions. Work based mainly on the study of emotions with negative valence eg sadness. (some more recent reports suggest that the left hemisphere is specialised for positive emotions and the right for negative emotions ie the valence theory. Furthermore a variant of this hypothesis contends that differential specialisation exists for the expression and the experience of emotion as a function of valence. Anterior regions of each hemisphere being specialised for the expression and experience of emotion (- or +) depending on valence whilst the posterior regions are specialised for perception of emotion

Most of the evidence  refers to either emotional facial expression or affective prosody.

Evidence from patients with right hemisphere lesions ( Adolphs, Damasio, Tranel &Damasio, 1996) eg aprosodia ( both sensory and motor) typically observed following right hemisphere lesions

Experimental evidence from participants who do not have hemisphere damage ie left visual field superiority for discriminating emotional faces

'consistent findings have been documented among patients undergoing intracarotid sodium Amytal procedures ...... Affective faces rated as less emotionally intense (compared to a base line) when shown to the anaesthetised right hemisphere, but not when shown to the anaesthetised left hemisphere

Electro physiological

'fMRI studies have found evidence of the specialisation of right hemisphere structures for the perception of emotion'

Left half of the face is more active than the right during emotional expression . The lower proportion of the face is predominately innervated by the contra lateral hemisphere...... suggesting right hemisphere control of facial expression (49 studies).

See bottom left paragraph of page 5 for the debate about the spontaneous versus posed neural pathways.

Experience of emotion (mood and affect)

Sodium Amytal, right carotid, indifferent, left carotid, catastrophic.

Patients with right hemisphere lesions tend to lack prosody

Experimental studies combined with electrophysiological monitoring

The approach- avoidance model

Overlap with the valence model is extensive ie most negative emotions leads to avoidance.  Therefore left for approach and right for avoidance

Lots of EEG evidence, (asymmetry between left and right) collected using all kinds of experimental paradigms.

Compared baseline frontal EEG activity to show that ' affective style (social initiation, positive affect versus isolated, onlooking behaviour) is correlated with the expected frontal asymmetry based on the location of approach/avoidance hemisphere specialisation

Anger studies - interesting because although a negative emotion it leads to approach type behaviours. Frontal asymmetries (left greater than right) recorded in children with impulsive disorders and also experimentally induced anger in adults)

Ideas about dominance

p12 ' the current authors believe that the approach-withdrawal model is compelling not only for its excellent fit to the available data but also it's theoretical importance (ie  to  species survival and procreation  ). At the same time, however, we believe that the designation of discrete emotions as 'approach' or 'withdrawal' is somewhat cumbersome. and the strengths of the motivational impulse can be quite difficult to quantify. In this last section, we make an argument for using 'dominance' as an important state construct underlying frontal asymmetry.

Circumflex model is relevant ' at least two dimensions are required to describe affective experience. Valence ( + or -  ) and arousal (low, high) most emotions can be distinguished from each other using this model. Many emotion researchers use the valence model to characterise emotional experience. (affective state). Authors, and others, argue for a third dimension, dominance, 'feeling of control and influence over everyday day situations. It would differentiate between fear and anger ( both high arousal with negative valence) but each with a distinct neural pathway.  This idea would fit with approach (emotional dominance) and avoid ( low emotional dominance - aka submission)

Foster & Harrison (2002)

Foster, P.S. and Harrison, D.W. (2002)

The relationship between magnitude of cerebral activation and intensity of emotional arousal

International Journal Neuroscience, 112, 1463-1477

P 1465 ‘Very little know about the cerebral representation of subjective emotional intensity’

P1466 ‘ numerous investigations have implicated the temporal lobes in the experience of both positively and negatively valenced emotions’.

Hypothesis ‘increased subjective intensity of angry memories would be associated with increasing cerebral activation’  especially of low beta (13-21) and high beta (21-32) Hz.  But doesn’t say why beta is targeted

Method

Monopolar QEEG recordings , linked ear references. Sampling rate 256 Hz frequencies below 2 Hz eliminated.

Target frequencies

Alpha (8-13 Hz)

High beta (21-32 Hz)

Low beta (13-21) Hz

Eyes closed throughout

Procedure

1. Base line measure : 46 1 sec epochs
2. 5-6 mins to relax
3. instructed to recall a memory to which they had responded with anger – 46 secs. Therefore collected 46 1 sec epochs during recall of an emotional (angry) event

Participants asked to rate memory on intensity from 1 to 7.

Data reduction

P1486 ‘ Change scores were created for the purpose of calculating correlations between changes in cerebral activation, as measured by EEG, and the ratings of subjective intensity of angry memories’.

Change score average mv ( memory condition) – average mV (baseline) after artefact removal.  Male and female analysed separately.

Results

Males

Alpha – no correlation

High beta - FP1, FP2, F8, T6, P3, O1

Low beta -                   F8, T5, T6, PZ,P4,O1,O2

Females

Alpha - no correlation

High beta – T6

Low beta – no correlation

Discussion

Results are consistent with research that sees the right hemisphere as being implicated in emotion processing, particularly negative emotions, and that laterality effects are stronger in men.

Hook HCI (2008)

Knowing, Communicating, and Experiencing through Body and Emotion

Kristina Höök (2008)

IEEE Transactions on Learning Technologies

OCTOBER-DECEMBER 2008 (Vol. 1, No. 4) pp. 248-259

1939-1382/08/$26.00 © 2008 IEEE

Published by the IEEE Computer Society

Three trends

·      New wearable technologies

·      Third wave HCI

·      New approach in learning research  -emotion and cognition  are interrelated.

Second wave of HCI

P248 ‘To deal with the complexities of collaboration, sociologists and ethnographers were consulted, providing richer descriptions of what people do when they work ‘together.

Third wave of HCI: ‘a movement that aims to design for experiences involving users emotionally, bodily, and providing for aesthetic experiences.

P248 ‘The goal of this new movement is to try and design for experiential values rather than efficiency, for entertainment and fun rather than work. This has brought a whole new dimension to the field……….. HCI researchers now have to deal with highly elusive, subjective, and holistic qualities of interaction—qualities that are hard to design for, but also hard to validate through traditional measurements. How can you, for example, measure the tenderness of a touch?’

Three examples of third wave HCI that are ‘non reductioist, do not try to measure emotion and respond with a technological intervention

(1) eMoto

Backgrounds for text messages

The user writes the text message and then chooses which expression to have in the background from a big palette of expressions mapped on a circle. The expressions are designed to convey emotional content along two axes: arousal and valence. For example, aggressive expressions have high arousal and negative valence and are portrayed as sharp, edgy shapes, in strong red colors, with quick, sharp animated movements. Calm expressions have low arousal and positive valence which is portrayed as slow, billowing movements of big, connected shapes in calm blue-green colors. To move around in the circle, the user has to perform a set of gestures using the stylus pen (that comes with some mobile phones) which we had extended with sensors that could pick up on pressure and shaking movements.

Studies of eMoto showed that the circle was not used in a simplistic one-emotion-one-expression manner, mapping emotions directly to what you are experiencing at the time of sending an emoto [ ⁵⁰ ]. Instead, the graphical expressions were appropriated and used innovatively to convey mixed emotions, empathy, irony, expectations of future experiences, surrounding environment (expressing the darkness of the night), and, in general, a mixture of their total embodied experiences of life and, in particular, their friendship. The "language" of colors, shapes, and animations juxtapositioned against the text of the message was open-ended enough for our users to understand them and express themselves and their personality with them. There was enough expressivity in the colors, shapes, and animations to convey meaning, but at the same time, their interpretation was open enough to allow our participants to convey a whole range of messages. We look upon the colors, shapes, and animations as an open "surface" that users may ascribe meaning to.

(ii) Affector

Affector is a distorted video window connecting the neighboring offices of two friends (and colleagues). A camera located under the video screen captures video as well as "filter" information  (Senger et al)

‘While the designers originally intended for this to communicate the emotional moods of the two participants to one another, it turned out that what was needed and what they ended up designing throughout the two-year process was to communicate something else. It became a tool for companionable awareness of the other in an aesthetically pleasing and creative way. It was not a simple identification of the partner's emotional mood, but a complex reading of what was going on in the other person's office, highlighting bodily movements, figuring out how this related to what they already knew about each others work life, and interpreting this.’

‘The distortions of the video became the "surface" that was open enough to invite creative use, and allowed the two participants to put meaning to the expressions based perhaps not only on the visual expression, but also on all the other knowledge they had of each other's work life. Pressing deadlines, late night work, getting papers accepted, or knowledge of each other's private life was mixed into their interpretation and meaning-making processes in using

(iii) Affective Diary: A Personal Logging System

‘As a person starts her day, she puts on the body sensor armband. During the day, the system collects time-stamped sensor data picking up movement and arousal. At the same time, the system logs various activities on the mobile phone: text messages sent and received, photographs taken, and the presence of Bluetooth in other devices nearby. Once the person is back at home, she can transfer the logged data into her Affective Diary. The collected sensor data as shown in Fig. 4 is presented as somewhat abstract, ambiguously shaped, and colored characters placed along a timeline’.

e.g. For Ulrica ( one of the participants)  then, her reflections using the diary provided an explanation of why people sometimes misunderstood her and her emotional reactions. Further, it led her to conclude that she should let more of her inner feelings be expressed in the moment. In short, Ulrica used the diary to reflect on her past actions and, as a consequence, to decide to change some of her behaviors; a process of reflection, learning, and change appeared to result from using the diary.

Themes and lessons learned

All three examples make use of sensor technologies as a means to capture something else than what we normally express through written text.

‘None of the systems try to represent these emotion processes inside the system or diagnose users' emotions based on their facial expressions or some other human emotion expression. Instead, they build upon the users own capabilities as meaning making, intelligent, active coconstructors of meaning, emotional processes, and bodily and social practices. In that sense, they are nonreductionist.’

‘An important lesson from these designs is that they have all left space, or "inscribable surfaces," open for users to fill with content [ ²¹ ]. If users recognize themselves or others through the activities they perform at the interface—if they look familiar to the user through the social or bodily practice they convey—they can learn how to appropriate these open surfaces. The activities of others need to be visible and what can be expressed users should be allowed to shape over time.’

Emotion in HCI: Three Design Approaches

(1) Affective Computing

‘The most discussed and widespread approach in the design of affective computing applications is to construct an individual cognitive model of affect from first principles and implement it in a system that attempts to recognize users' emotional states through measuring the signs and signals we emit in face, body, voice, skin, or what we say related to the emotional processes going on in inside. Emotions, or affect, are seen as identifiable states. Based on the recognized emotional state of the user, the aim is to achieve an as life-like or human-like interaction as possible, seamlessly adapting to the user's emotional state and influencing it through the use of various affective expressions. This model has its limitations, both in its requirement for simplification of human emotion in order to model it, and its difficult approach into how to infer the end-users emotional states through interpreting our sign and signals. This said, it still provides for a very interesting way of exploring intelligence, both in machines and in people.’

(ii) Hedonistic Usability

(iii) The Interactional Approach ( the approach adopted for the above three examples

‘An interactional approach to design tries to avoid reducing human experience to a set of measurements or inferences made by the system to interpret users' emotional states. While the interaction of the system should not be awkward, the actual experiences sought might not only be positive ones. eMoto may allow you to express negative feelings about others. Affector may communicate your negative mood. Affective Diary might make negative patterns in your own behavior painfully visible to you. An interactional approach is interested in the full range of human experience possible in the world’