The Impact of Mindfulness Training on the Attention to Facial Expressions

The improvements of attention by mindfulness training had been proved. But the effects of mindfulness training on attention to emotional stimuli were mixed. We employed a randomized, controlled design to investigate the effects of mindfulness training on the attention to emotional expressions, and investigated whether baseline levels of dispositional mindfulness and emotional intelligence would moderate the intervention effects. Forty participants received 8-week mindfulness training and another forty participants attended two lectures about mindfulness. All participants completed the visual search task, the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, and the Emotional Intelligence Scale at both pre-training and post-training. The improvements of search efficiencies were larger in the mindfulness group than those in the control group for sad and angry faces, but not for happy faces (F(2, 156)=4.04, p=0.019, η2=0.05). In addition, baseline emotional intelligence (βsadness=-4.49, t=-2.08, p=0.041, 95%CI [-8.78, -0.19]; βanger=-7.39, t=-4.08, p<0.001, 95%CI [-10.99, -3.78]) but not dispositional mindfulness (βsadness=3.17, t=1.56, p=0.124, 95%CI [-0.89, 7.22]; βanger=-1.89, t=-1.02, p=0.313, 95%CI [-5.61, 1.82]) played a significantly moderating role in the relationship between mindfulness training and emotional attention to sadness and anger. The search efficiencies of negative emotions (i.e., anger and sadness) but not positive emotions (i.e., happiness) were significantly improved by mindfulness training. Individuals with high level of baseline emotional intelligence showed significant improvement on the search efficiencies relative to those with low level of emotional intelligence.

Ameliorating Emotional Attention through Modulation of Neural Oscillations with Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation

BackgroundNumerous clinical reports suggest that psychopathy like schizophrenia, anxiety and depressive disorder is accompanied by early attentional abnormalities in emotional information processing. In the past decade, the efficacy of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) in changing emotional functioning has been repeatedly observed and has demonstrated a causal relationship between endogenous oscillations and emotional processing. However, tACS effects on emotional attention have not yet been tested.MethodsA total of 53 healthy participants were randomized to 2 groups, and they were subjected to active or sham tACS at individual alpha frequency (IAF) in the bilaterally dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC). Participants and received this treatment for 20 min durations daily for 7 consecutive days. On days 1 and 7, electroencephalogram (EEG) recording of 8 minute resting with eyes open and closed. Responses to a facial emotion identification task were also recorded to measure alpha changes and event-related potential (ERP) alterations.ResultsOn day 7 after tACS, the active group showed a more clear elevation in alpha power at rest, especially in open state around stimulation area, compared to the sham group. ERPs revealed a significant larger P200 amplitude after active stimulation (p < 0.05), indicating attentional improvement in facial emotion processing. Additionally, a notable positive correlation (p < 0.05) between alpha power and P200 amplitude was found, providing an electrophysiological interpretation regarding the role of tACS in emotional attention modulation. In addition, the IAF-tACS showed an obvious advantage in alpha entrainment compared to an additional 10 Hz-tACS.ConclusionsThese results support a seminal outcome for the effect of IAF-tACS on emotional attention modulation, demonstrating a feasible and individual-specific therapy for neuropsychiatric disorders related to emotion processing, especially regarding oscillatory disturbances.

Emotional Intelligence of Undergraduate Athletes: The Role of Sports Experience

Sport is an emotional experience. Studies have shown that high emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with better sports performance, though different aspects of sports experience and their relationship with EI are still unclear. This study examined the possible relationships between sports experience and EI dimensions of undergraduate athletes. Likewise, according to the differences described in the literature between men and women, the secondary aim was to identify the possible relationship between EI and sports experience in both subgroups. A total of 1784 [712 men (39.9%), 1072 women (60.1%); mean age = 21.3 years, SD = 4.2)] undergraduate athletes completed the Trait Meta Mood Scale and a sports experience questionnaire. Comparisons between groups were performed using Mann–Whitney-U and H-Kruskal–Wallis tests and correlations between variables were analyzed using Spearman correlation. We found that the number of different sports practiced and the number of years practicing sports were positively associated with emotional repair (ER). However, the number of years practicing sports was negatively associated with emotional attention (EA). Male athletes who trained more and had a higher competitive level were more likely to show higher ER. In any case, it is necessary to take into account that all the associations were weak. Our study suggested that athletes tend to attend to and value their feelings and use positive thinking to repair their negative moods.

Lights and Shadows of Trait Emotional Intelligence: Its Mediating Role in the Relationship Between Negative Affect and State Anxiety in University Students

Nowadays, students are experiencing difficult and stressful situations due to the Global Pandemic Alert. This changing world can evoke negative emotions that have been traditionally linked to higher anxiety. Researches have been focused on the positive outcomes of trait emotional intelligence (TEI) preventing psychological disorders. However, the possibility that TEI might have a dark side has been neglected. Hence, this study aimed to explore the mediating effect of the three dimensions of TEI in the relationship between negative affect and anxiety symptoms among college students. Participants of this research were 467 undergraduates who completed an online self-reported questionnaire including the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988), the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger et al., 1970), and Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS-24, Salovey et al., 1995). The global serial mediation model showed that the total amount of variance explained by the global model was 30.8% (R2 = 0.31). Negative affectivity and age accounted for the 15.1% of state anxiety variance (R2 = 0.15; c: B = 0.63, p &lt; 0.001) while 15.7% of the variance of state anxiety was attributed to the direct or indirect effect of the three dimensions of TEI (R2 = 0.16). Five indirect effects presented statistical significance (95% BootCI). The contrast analyses between mediators showed that three indirect effects had higher statistical weigh; the ability of negative affect to increase state anxiety through (i) emotional attention; (ii) emotional clarity, and (iii) serially through emotional clarity and mood repair. Our results indicated that students’ negative emotions lead to higher emotional attention which in turn may enhance state anxiety in two ways: by a direct effect of emotional attention on state anxiety and by a serial effect through emotional clarity. Moreover, when negative affect is associated with lower emotional clarity, anxiety symptoms may also arise. However, when attention and clarity are connected, the negative effect is reversed into a positive one, decreasing state anxiety.

How Does Fearful Emotion Affect Visual Attention?

It has long been suggested that emotion, especially threatening emotion, facilitates early visual perception to promote adaptive responses to potential threats in the environment. Here, we tested whether and how fearful emotion affects the basic visual ability of visual acuity. An adapted Posner’s spatial cueing task was employed, with fearful and neutral faces as cues and a Vernier discrimination task as the probe. The time course of the emotional attention effect was examined by varying the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of the cue and probe. Two independent experiments (Experiments 1 and 3) consistently demonstrated that the brief presentation of a fearful face increased visual acuity at its location. The facilitation of perceptual sensitivity was detected at an SOA around 300 ms when the face cues were presented for both 250 ms (Experiment 1) and 150 ms (Experiment 3). This effect cannot be explained by physical differences between the fearful and neutral faces because no improvement was found when the faces were presented inverted (Experiment 2). In the last experiment (Experiment 4), the face cues were flashed very briefly (17 ms), and we did not find any improvement induced by the fearful face. Overall, we provide evidence that emotion interacts with attention to affect basic visual functions.

The Correlation between Oral Self-Harm and Ethnicity in Institutionalized Children

Oral self-harm was described in institutionalized children who share a lack of emotional attention; frequently these children experience feelings such as neglect, loneliness, isolation or lack of connection with the world. The aim of our paper was to conduct a cross-sectional study in order to assess the prevalence of this behavior and its correlation with ethnicity among children from three institutions located in the central part of Romania. We examined 116 children from three ethnic groups, Romanians, Hungarians and local Roma population aged between 10–14 years old. The oral soft tissues were evaluated by one dentist who recorded the lesions of lips, buccal mucosa, commissures and tongue; data were statistically analyzed at a level of significance of p < 0.05. We found oral self-harm lesions in 18.1% participants, with statistically significant higher odds in girls (p = 0.03). The results showed an association between ethnicity and the development of these lesions (Chi-square p = 0.04). The most frequent lesions were located at oral commissures (35.48%), buccal mucosa (29.03%) and upper lip (19.36%). Oral self-harm lesions have a high incidence among institutionalized children in Romania. Identification of these cases in early stages is important, as these conditions are known to be aggravated during adolescence and adulthood.

Emotional Intelligence as a Protective Factor against Victimization in School Bullying

Previous research has identified the main predictors of being a victim of school bullying. This study focused on the phenomenon of school bullying and its relationship with self-perceived emotional intelligence. The main aim was to analyze the mediating effect of emotional attention, clarity, and repair in relation to school victimization. The sample was made up of 822 primary school pupils from 10 public schools. Data were collected through self-reports, exploring the profile of victims of school bullying, and the dimensions of self-perceived emotional intelligence (PEI). A multivariate analysis and multinomial regression showed a relationship between the two variables; the probability of being a victim of school bullying was 5.14 times higher among pupils with low clarity, 2.72 times higher among pupils with low repair, and 2.62 times higher among pupils with excessive attention. The results demonstrated that the better their emotional regulation and understanding, the less likely pupils are to be victims of school bullying. This confirmed that adequate emotional attention and excellent emotional clarity and repair are protective factors against victimization.