Children can be trained to recognise emotions

Children can using training to spot crucial cues on someone's emotional state, new research from the University of Lincoln, UK, has show.

Children can learn to better recognise other people's emotions through games which emphasise the significance of the eyes and the mouth in conveying feelings, new research has shown.

The study by cognitive neuroscientists at the University of Lincoln, UK, suggests that simple training programmes could help children better understand which expressive facial features offer the most important cues to other people's emotional state.

It is hoped the findings, published in the peer reviewed science journal PLOS ONE, could lead to new or improved interventions for children and adults who have difficulty recognising emotional states in others.

Dr Petra Pollux, a cognitive neuroscientist from the University of Lincoln's School of Psychology, said: "How we recognise and process facial expressions plays a big part in our social interaction skills."

"We've all experienced walking into a room, looking around and immediately understanding that something has happened, and that's because we're reading the expressions on people's faces."

"This ability to understand and read facial expressions is a crucial skill in development and begins at quite an early age."

"Generally, when we look at faces, we look at the eyes and the mouth, but with a definite bias towards the eyes."

"We wanted to investigate if there was a correlation between which parts of the face the children looked at and their ability to correctly pick up on the emotional state of the person in the image."

During the study nine-year-old children were shown images which conveyed varying levels of intensity of emotional expressions, from a small smile to a big grin, and asked to match it with the correct emotion. If they answered incorrectly, they were alerted by a tone.

Children and adults were not given any instructions about eye-movements, but over the four sessions learned that focusing more on the eyes offered the crucial clues they needed.

The images used in the study were digitally manipulated and showed happy, sad or fearful expressions.

An adult's ability to recognise emotions was also assessed and compared with children's, and in both cases, special eye tracking equipment was used to monitor their gaze pattern and determine which features of the face, such as the eyes, nose or mouth, they focused on most.

Children looked less often and for a shorter duration at the eyes, and more often and for longer at the mouth compared with adults.

Training for both adults and children increased the amount of time spent looking at the eyes, although for adults this was only for faces which showed a sad expression.

Children, however, showed a significant increase in the amount of time spent focused on the eyes of all three expressions after training, leading to more correct answers.

The images used in the final session were also replaced by new faces, meaning their abilities translated to different people, researchers said.

Dr Pollux added: "It's really useful to know that the way a child scans a face plays an important role in recognising emotions. This research could be used to develop mobile phone apps which turn this kind of training into a game."

Researches now hope that the findings will inform training programmes for people in need of a better understanding of recognising facial expressions, such as those with autism or other cognitive development problems.

More information: Pollux PML, Hall S, Guo K (2014) "Facial Expression Training Optimised Viewing Strategy in Children and Adults." PLOS ONE 9(8): e105418. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105418

Researchers identify emotions based on brain activity (fMRI Scans)

For the first time, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have identified which emotion a person is experiencing based on brain activation. 

This image shows the average positions of brain regions used to identify emotional states. 

Credit: Carnegie Mellon University

For the first time, scientists at Carnegie Mellon University have identified which emotion a person is experiencing based on brain activity.

The study, which will be published in the June 19 issue of PLOS ONE, combines functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and machine learning to measure brain signals to accurately read emotions in individuals.

Led by researchers in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the findings illustrate how the brain categorizes feelings, giving researchers the first reliable process to analyze emotions.

Until now, research on emotions has been long stymied by the lack of reliable methods to evaluate them, mostly because people are often reluctant to honestly report their feelings.

Further complicating matters is that many emotional responses may not be consciously experienced.

Identifying emotions based on neural activity builds on previous discoveries by CMU's Marcel Just and Tom M. Mitchell, which used similar techniques to create a computational model that identifies individuals' thoughts of concrete objects, often dubbed "mind reading."

"This research introduces a new method with potential to identify emotions without relying on people's ability to self-report," said Karim Kassam, assistant professor of social and decision sciences and lead author of the study.

"It could be used to assess an individual's emotional response to almost any kind of stimulus, for example, a flag, a brand name or a political candidate."

One challenge for the research team was find a way to repeatedly and reliably evoke different emotional states from the participants.

Traditional approaches, such as showing subjects emotion-inducing film clips, would likely have been unsuccessful because the impact of film clips diminishes with repeated display.

The researchers solved the problem by recruiting actors from CMU's School of Drama.

Read the full article here

Dyslexia: Be positive

The Bluebird of Happiness and Positivity
It is often difficult but very important that you try to stay positive about dyslexia. The more positive you are the easier it will be to address and possibly overcome, the drawbacks and difficulties that you, or your children, may be experiencing.

A positive mindset always helps when tackling any ‘difficulty’ in life. It assists in keeping things in perspective and stops a ‘challenge’ that you are trying to overcome becoming a 'problem.'

Challenges can be FUN!
Challenges are achieveable goals and can often be seen as fun to tackle. Whereas ‘problems’ are generally perceived to be enduring, stubborn and near impossible to solve.

If you consider reading ‘difficulties’ as a ‘challenge’ to overcome, you will most probably do more reading each day in an attempt to improve your reading skills. Whereas, by seeing reading ‘difficulties’ as a ‘problem,’ you will most likely reduce the amount of reading that you do or avoid reading all together.

Easy to say
It may be easier to say that, having a positive mind set towards dyslexia helps, but it is easier said than done. Some children who suffer from dyslexia go through a predictable stage of being quite negative about their condition.

This is particularly the case for many children who discover later in life that they suffer from dyslexia. They have spent a long time trying to deal with it on their own terms and have built up a number of 'unofficial' coping strategies.

Having gone through this pain, they are now trying to make sense, not only of their new found ‘problem’ but also of all the past ‘failures’ in their lives, even if they now realise that they were connected to their dyslexia.

Late arrivals
Some ‘late arrivals’ look back over there school years and feel resentment for being let down by the educational system. They feel angry that their dyslexia was not spotted and that their needs have not only, not been addressed but have also certainly not been met.

Most, will feel the anguish of having been wrongly categorised and judged ‘stupid’ by teachers, friends and family. Many people become insular and depressed, feeling that they could have made more out of their lives if they had known earlier about dyslexia.

Acceptance and the Future
In such cases, it is neither easy nor realistic to expect that children will suddenly dismiss their feelings, switch off their negativity and start thinking positively towards dyslexia, even if it is the best path to take.

There is no future in living in the past. Let it go! It is necessary that they work through their feelings and emotions, to the point where they can accept and forgive the past for what it is, and position themselves to look to the future.

They will have self-esteem issues and these can be deeply rooted. They will need strong, reliable support to help them work their way through this. They will need positive re-enforcement to ensure they emerge outwards and upwards.

Maintain a Positive Attitude
If you are going to assist and support someone who suffers from dyslexia, always create a strong feeling of security, well-being and encouragement. Focus on, and maintain a positive attitude and outlook that lead to positive activities.

Think positively of the destination and take progressive steps to get there, the path and speed of travel are yours to select. Enjoy the journey!