(Press-News.org) Frontiers in Psychology
Cross-cultural communication of emotional non-speech sounds
Try to remember the last time that you inferred that another person was in an emotional state of mind – chances are that it was the sounds that he or she made that provided the clues. Emotional non-speech sounds (such as crying, hums, laughter, and sighs) are often considered an especially primitive form of emotional communication that in many ways resembles animal expressions more than human speech. But, this intriguing form of emotional signaling has received little attention from researchers.
Now an international research team directed by Petri Laukka from Stockholm University investigated how well emotional non-speech vocalizations could be recognized by listeners across cultures. Results showed that Swedish individuals could recognize a wide range of emotions with accuracy well above chance even when the sounds were produced by individuals from different continents (India, Kenya, Singapore, and USA). For positive emotions, the highest recognition rates were observed for relief, sexual lust, interest, serenity and positive surprise – whereas anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and negative surprise received the highest recognition rates for negative emotions.
These results show that the voice provides a rich and nuanced source of emotional information that can be universally recognized across cultures. In addition, the range of positive emotions conveyed by the voice seems to be particularly wide in comparison to what has previously been shown for other non-verbal communication channels such as facial expressions, the authors say.
Researcher contact:
Dr Petri Laukka
Department of Psychology
Stockholm University, Sweden
E-mail: petri.laukka@psychology.su.se
Article title: Cross-cultural decoding of positive and negative nonlinguistic emotion vocalizations
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00353
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Emotion_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00353/abstract
Frontiers in Physiology
Molecular tools may help solve the riddle of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome
The term Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) is used when healthy people with a structurally normal heart die without warning, without any identifiable natural or toxicological cause. In the United Kingdom alone, SADS causes the death of over 400 young people each year. SADS is thought to result from electrical disturbances in the heart, mediated by mutations in genes that control its rhythm. When people die from SADS, it is important to clinically test their family members for known inherited disorders in heart rhythm, but this can be difficult because some of these disorders cause few clear-cut symptoms.
In a review article, Vishal Vyas and Pier Lambiase discuss two recent, powerful methods that can be used to predict which family members of SADS victims might likewise be at risk. The first is "molecular autopsy", that is, sequencing the protein-coding part of the deceased person's DNA, to search for mutations (e.g. in ion channel and heart muscle genes) that could have caused the heart to develop lethal rhythm disturbances. The second is induced pluripotent stem cell technology, that is, culturing heart muscle cells of SADS victims or skin cells from relatives, to investigate how mutations in these cells might cause electrical disturbances. These two methods will also facilitate the development of new drug therapies to stabilize the heart rhythm and prevent cardiac arrests, say the authors.
Researcher contact:
Dr Pier Lambiase
The Heart Hospital, University College Hospital & Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences, UK
E-mail: pier.lambiase@uclh.nhs.uk
Article title: The Investigation of Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS) – the current approach to family screening and the future role of genomics & stem cell technology
DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2013.00199
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Cardiac_Electrophysiology/10.3389/fphys.2013.00199/abstract
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience
Two types of anomalies in the brains of people with autism
Autism is a common neurodevelopmental disorder and has long been known that autism tends to runs in families, and recent genetic studies have explained why: mutations in genes that normally regulate connections between brain cells increase the risk of autism. In parallel with genetic research, brain imaging studies have shown that brain connections are atypical in people with autism in that both functional connectivity (the co-ordination of processing between brain regions) and structural connectivity (changes in the structure of nerves) is compromised in the condition.
Jane McGrath from Trinity College Dublin, together with colleagues from Ireland, Australia, the USA, and the Netherlands, for the first time bring together these two strands of brain imaging research, in a study where they looked at brain connectivity from the two different perspectives of functional and structural connectivity. They found that changes in the structure of nerves were associated with changes in the overall co-ordination of processing between brain regions. McGrath and colleagues conclude that a disrupted organization of brain nerve cells can contribute to abnormal brain activity in people with autism, which can lead to profound changes in behavior.
Researcher contact:
Dr Jane McGrath
Trinity College, Ireland
E-mail: jane.mcgrath@tcd.ie
Article title: Atypical functional connectivity in autism spectrum disorder is associated with disrupted white matter microstructural organisation
DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2013.00434
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/Human_Neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00434/abstract
Frontiers in Genetics
Transcription and replication result in distinct epigenetic marks following repression of early gene expression
DNA in higher organisms is packaged by proteins known as histones. In response to external factors, the histones can be tagged at precise locations by addition of methyl groups that are read to regulate the expression of genes associated with the DNA. It has been thought that when a cell divides, the location of the methyl groups in these histones is duplicated along with the DNA.
Recent work from Barry Milavetz's laboratory group at the University of North Dakota now suggests that this may not always be the case. In the histones of simian virus 40, which are very similar to cellular histones, when the DNA is duplicated methyl groups may be introduced at new sites in response to external factors. In other words, an external factor can dictate the precise location of the tags based on whether the gene is being expressed or duplicated. Therefore, the duplication of DNA may serve to allow switching of the location of methyl groups with a subsequent change in the potential expression of the genes in the DNA associated with the newly modified histones. This result may help to explain why there are so many forms of histone methylation. The introduction of methyl groups when DNA is duplicated may play an important role during development, say the authors.
Researcher contact:
Prof Barry Milavetz
University of North Dakota
School of Medicine and Health Sciences, USA
E-mail: barry.milavetz@med.und.edu
Article title: Transcription and Replication Result in Distinct Epigenetic Marks Following Repression of Early Gene Expression
DOI: 10.3389/fgene.2013.00140
URL: http://www.frontiersin.org/epigenomics_and_epigenetics/10.3389/fgene.2013.00140/abstract
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Frontiers news briefs: July 30
2013-07-31
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