10 results on '"Leppänen, Jukka M."'
Search Results
2. Enhanced cardiac and attentional responding to fearful faces in 7-month-old infants
- Author
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Peltola, Mikko J, Leppänen, Jukka M, Hietanen, Jari K, Yhteiskunta- ja kulttuuritieteiden yksikkö - School of Social Sciences and Humanities, and University of Tampere
- Subjects
children/infants ,Psykologia - Psychology ,heart rate ,emotion - Abstract
Orienting of attention to emotionally negative stimuli is accompanied by rapid heart rate (HR) deceleration, reflecting enhanced attentional and sensory processing. We studied whether similar emotional modulation of cardiac responding is observed in infants. HR and eye movements were recorded from 7-month-old infants while they observed a fearful or happy face that was flanked after 700 ms by a peripheral distractor for 2000 ms. An attentional bias for fearful faces was indicated by less frequent and longer latency saccades toward the distractors during fearful than happy trials. HR deceleration was significantly larger during fearful than happy trials on which infants did not make a distractor-directed saccade. For trials with a distractor-directed saccade, no difference between fearful and happy faces emerged. Thus, the bias to attend preferentially to fearful faces is accompanied by a concomitant increase in the cardiac orienting response.
- Published
- 2011
3. Mothers' pupillary responses to infant facial expressions.
- Author
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Yrttiaho, Santeri, Niehaus, Dana, Thomas, Eileen, and Leppänen, Jukka M.
- Subjects
FACIAL expression ,EMOTIONS ,MOTHERS ,ATTENTION ,PUPILLARY reflex - Abstract
Background: Human parental care relies heavily on the ability to monitor and respond to a child's affective states. The current study examined pupil diameter as a potential physiological index of mothers' affective response to infant facial expressions. Methods: Pupillary time-series were measured from 86 mothers of young infants in response to an array of photographic infant faces falling into four emotive categories based on valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (mild vs. strong). Results: Pupil dilation was highly sensitive to the valence of facial expressions, being larger for negative vs. positive facial expressions. A separate control experiment with luminance-matched non-face stimuli indicated that the valence effect was specific to facial expressions and cannot be explained by luminance confounds. Pupil response was not sensitive to the arousal level of facial expressions. Conclusions: The results show the feasibility of using pupil diameter as a marker of mothers' affective responses to ecologically valid infant stimuli and point to a particularly prompt maternal response to infant distress cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2017
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
4. Emotion-Cognition Interaction in Recognizing Facial Expressions
- Author
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Leppänen, Jukka M., Psykologian laitos - Department of Psychology, Yhteiskuntatieteellinen tiedekunta - Faculty of Social Sciences, and University of Tampere
- Subjects
kognitio ,cognition ,reaction time ,Facial expression ,tunteet ,Psykologia - Psychology ,emotion ,Kasvonilmeet ,reaktioaika - Abstract
Sosiaalinen vuorovaikutus perustuu keskeisesti erilaisten kasvonilmeiden tuottamiseen ja havainnointiin. Kognitiivisen psykologian ja kognitiivisen neurotieteen piirissä on lisääntyvissä määrin alettu tutkia, miten ja millaisen informaation perusteella toisten ihmisten kasvonilmeet tunnistetaan, mitkä ovat havaitsemisen taustalla olevat hermostolliset mekanismit sekä kuinka toisten ilmeet vaikuttavat havaitsijan omiin tunnekokemuksiin ja käyttäytymiseen. Tässä tutkimuksessa selvitettiin hymyilevien eli iloa ilmaisevien kasvojen tunnistamista. Reaktioaikakokeet, joissa koehenkilöitä pyydettiin luokittelemaan tietokoneen näytöllä esitettyjä kasvoja, osoittivat, että hymyilevät kasvot luokiteltiin iloisiksi nopeammin kuin erilaiset negatiiviset kasvonilmeet luokiteltiin niitä vastaavien tunnetilojen (inho/suru/viha) ilmaisuiksi, silloinkin kun kasvonilmeärsykkeet olivat visuaalisilta ominaisuuksiltaan vertailukelpoisia (esim. yhtä monimutkaisia). Tulos selittyy yhtäältä sillä, että ilon ilmaisut ovat hyvin yksiselitteisiä. Ne eivät muistuta fysikaalisilta ominaisuuksiltaan muita tunneilmaisuja ja siksi niiden väärintulkinta on epätodennäköistä. Toisaalta ilon ilmausten nopea luokittelu saattaa kertoa siitä, että ihmiset ovat normaalioloissa erityisen vastaanottavaisia positiiviselle sosiaaliselle informaatiolle. Positiiviset tunnekokemukset, esimerkiksi reaktiona nähtyyn ilon ilmaisuun, vaikuttavat tehostavasti ihmisen havainto- ja ajattelutoimintoihin siten että ilon ilmaisun luokittelu nopeutuu. Tätä selitystä tukee se, että epämiellyttävässä tunneympäristössä, jossa positiivisten tunnekokemusten viriäminen on epätodennäköisempää, ilon ilmausten luokittelu hidastui merkitsevästi. Tunneympäristöä muokattiin tässä tutkimuksessa erilaisia hajuja käyttäen. Tutkimus nostaa esille kaksi mielenkiintoista seikkaa inhimilliseen käyttäytymiseen liittyen. Ensinnäkin omat tunnekokemuksemme vaikuttavat keskeisesti varhaisiin havainto- ja ajattelutoimintoihimme ja siihen kuinka havaitsemme ja tulkitsemme toisten ihmisten kasvonilmeitä. Toiseksi ihminen näyttäisi reagoivan erityisen herkästi toisten ihmisten positiivisiin tunneilmaisuihin, ehkä siksi, että positiivisten tunnekokemusten tehokas kommunikaatio edesauttaa ihmiselle tärkeiden sosiaalisten vuorovaikutussuhteiden syntymistä ja ylläpitoa. Certain facial expressions are universally recognized as signals of discrete emotional states. The recognition of these signals involves perceptual processing of the configuration of key facial features and retrieval of conceptual knowledge linked to the observed expression. These processes may be sensitive to the emotional context. In general, expressions that are congruent with the perceiver s emotional experiences are recognized more efficiently than expressions that are incongruent with the perceiver s emotional experiences. The present series of studies examined the happy face advantage in facial expression recognition. Previous choice-reaction time studies have shown that positive (happy) faces are recognized more efficiently than negative (angry/disgusted/sad) faces. Study I of the present series confirmed this result by showing that happy faces were recognized more quickly than disgusted and sad faces. Moreover, Study I showed that the happy face advantage was not simply due to low-level physical differences between positive and negative faces or to rapid recognition of happy faces based on a single salient facial feature (i.e., a smiling mouth). Study II confirmed that the happy face advantage occurs exclusively at premotoric (cognitive) stages in the stimulus-response processing chain. There were no expression-category effects on response-execution processes. Study III showed that the happy face advantage can be modulated by emotional context: Happy faces were recognized more quickly than disgusted faces in a pleasant odor context, but this happy face advantage disappeared completely in an unpleasant odor context. Clinical depression did not, however, remove the happy face advantage (Study IV). It is suggested that the happy face advantage reflects an effect of both cognitive and emotional factors on facial expression recognition. On the one hand, happy faces are recognized efficiently because they are familiar and unequivocal in meaning (i.e., they share few perceptual and conceptual characteristics with other expressions). On the other hand, subjective positive emotions originating from a positive baseline for affect and/or from positive emotional reactions evoked by observing a happy face may enhance the perception and recognition of happy faces. As a whole, the responsiveness to happy faces may reflect the importance of the communication of positive emotions in human social interaction.
- Published
- 2004
5. Early Development of Fear Processing.
- Author
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Leppänen, Jukka M. and Nelson, Charles A.
- Subjects
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FEAR , *EMOTIONS , *ADAPTABILITY (Personality) , *FACIAL expression , *BRAIN function localization - Abstract
Considerable advances have been made in understanding how emotional information is coded in the brain and used in the service of adaptive behavior, yet the developmental origins of these processes remain relatively unexamined. In this article, we review recent studies in human infants and experimental animals that have highlighted the importance of the first years of life in the development of emotion-processing capacities, particularly the ability to respond preferentially to threat-alerting stimuli. We discuss mechanisms that might govern the development of these capacities and suggest directions for further research into the nature and functional significance of infants’ early-emerging biases in the perception of emotional information. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2012
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
6. Serotonin and early cognitive development: variation in the tryptophan hydroxylase 2 gene is associated with visual attention in 7-month-old infants.
- Author
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Leppänen, Jukka M., Peltola, Mikko J., Puura, Kaija, Mäntymaa, Mirjami, Mononen, Nina, and Lehtimäki, Terho
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ANALYSIS of variance , *ATTENTION in children , *CHI-squared test , *CHILD development , *COGNITION in children , *CONFIDENCE intervals , *GENES , *INFANT psychology , *POISSON distribution , *RESEARCH funding , *SEROTONIN , *TRYPTOPHAN , *VISION , *PHENOTYPES - Abstract
Background: Allelic variation in the promoter region of a gene that encodes tryptophan hydroxylase isoform 2 (TPH2), a rate-limiting enzyme of serotonin synthesis in the central nervous system, has been associated with variations in cognitive function and vulnerability to affective spectrum disorders. Little is known about the effects of this gene variant on cognition during development and about possible intermediate developmental steps that lead to the adult phenotype. Here, we examined the hypothesis that the TPH2 -703 may act during early stages of development and bias the acquisition of elementary cognitive processes involved in attention and emotion regulation. Methods: Seven-month-old infants ( n = 66) were genotyped for the TPH2 -703 G/T polymorphism ( rs4570625) and tested for the efficiency of attention shifts from a stimulus at fixation to a new stimulus in the visual periphery. Results: Compared to TPH2 G/G homozygotes, infants with the T-carrier genotype exhibited a significantly higher number of missing attention shifts. This genotype effect tended to be particularly pronounced when infants had to disengage from an affectively salient stimulus before shifting attention to the peripheral stimulus. The results also showed that TPH2 genotype was indirectly associated, via its effect on attention disengagement, with temperamental emotion regulation (soothability). Conclusions: Together, these results implicate serotonin system genes in early cognitive development and suggest variations in the early-emerging cognitive capacities as a potential developmental precursor of individual differences in emotion regulation and vulnerability to affective disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
7. Enhanced cardiac and attentional responding to fearful faces in 7-month-old infants.
- Author
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Peltola, Mikko J., Leppänen, Jukka M., and Hietanen, Jari K.
- Subjects
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VISUAL evoked response , *INFANT psychology , *HEART beat , *EMOTIONS in infants , *ATTENTION , *EYE movements - Abstract
Orienting of attention to emotionally negative stimuli is accompanied by rapid heart rate (HR) deceleration, reflecting enhanced attentional and sensory processing. We studied whether similar emotional modulation of cardiac responding is observed in infants. HR and eye movements were recorded from 7-month-old infants while they observed a fearful or happy face that was flanked after 700 ms by a peripheral distractor for 2000 ms. An attentional bias for fearful faces was indicated by less frequent and longer latency saccades toward the distractors during fearful than happy trials. HR deceleration was significantly larger during fearful than happy trials on which infants did not make a distractor-directed saccade. For trials with a distractor-directed saccade, no difference between fearful and happy faces emerged. Thus, the bias to attend preferentially to fearful faces is accompanied by a concomitant increase in the cardiac orienting response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
8. Neural and Developmental Bases of the Ability to Recognize Social Signals of Emotions.
- Author
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Leppänen, Jukka M.
- Abstract
Humans in diverse cultures develop a capacity to recognize and share others’ emotional states. In this article, studies in adult and developmental populations are reviewed and synthesized to build a framework for understanding the neural bases and development of emotion recognition. It is proposed that foundations for the development of emotion recognition are provided by an experience-expectant neural circuitry that emerges early in life, biases infants to attend to biologically salient information, and is refined and specialized through experience for processing species-typical signals of emotions. It is also discussed how genetic variations and experiences during sensitive periods of development can affect the developmental process and give rise to subtle individual differences in emotion recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]
- Published
- 2011
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
9. Judgment of other people's facial expressions of emotions is influenced by their concurrent affective hand movements.
- Author
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HIETANEN, JARI K. and LEPPÄNEN, JUKKA M.
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FACIAL expression , *EJECTION (Psychology) , *EMOTIONS , *PSYCHOLOGY , *AFFECT (Psychology) , *EXPRESSIVE behavior , *BODY language , *PHYSIOGNOMY , *NONVERBAL cues - Abstract
We investigated whether emotional information from facial expression and hand movement quality was integrated when identifying the expression of a compound stimulus showing a static facial expression combined with emotionally expressive dynamic manual actions. The emotions (happiness, neutrality, and anger) expressed by the face and hands were either congruent or incongruent. In Experiment 1, the participants judged whether the stimulus person was happy, neutral, or angry. Judgments were mainly based on the facial expressions, but were affected by manual expressions to some extent. In Experiment 2, the participants were instructed to base their judgment on the facial expression only. An effect of hand movement expressive quality was observed for happy facial expressions. The results conform with the proposal that perception of facial expressions of emotions can be affected by the expressive qualities of hand movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
10. Differential early ERPs to fearful versus neutral facial expressions: A response to the salience of the eyes?
- Author
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Leppänen, Jukka M., Hietanen, Jari K., and Koskinen, Krista
- Subjects
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EVOKED potentials (Electrophysiology) , *FEAR , *FACIAL expression , *BIOLOGICAL neural networks - Abstract
Abstract: Several event-related potential (ERP) studies have demonstrated a negative shift in ERPs for fearful relative to neutral facial expressions ∼170–300ms post-stimulus over occipital-temporal scalp. In the present study, three experiments were conducted to examine the importance of the eye region for this ERP differentiation. ERPs and behavioral discrimination responses were measured to fearful and neutral expressions when only the eye region of the expression was visible (the eyes and eyebrows or the eyes alone) and when the eye region (the eyes and eyebrows or the eyes alone) was covered by dark glasses. The results showed a negative shift in ERPs for fearful relative to neutral expressions over lateral temporal sites, starting ∼160–210ms post-stimulus. The visibility of the eye region but not the eyes per se was critical for these ERP differences to occur. There were, however, indications that information in the eyes is also coded and used in the categorization of facial expressions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]
- Published
- 2008
- Full Text
- View/download PDF
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