Neural responses to peers' emotional faces and voices in adolescence

Our research suggests that there are age-related changes in neural response to emotional faces and voices, in regions and networks involved in the processing of social information. We also investigate how the neural representation of these socio-emotional cues may differ in youth with chronic health conditions that are associated with social cognitive deficits, such as epilepsy.

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  • Morningstar, M., Mattson, W.I., Singer, Jr., S., Venticinque, J., & Nelson, E.E. (In press). Children and adolescents’ neural response to emotional faces and voices: Age-related changes in common regions of activation. Social Neuroscience. doi: 10.1080/17470919.2020.1832572

  • Morningstar, M., Grannis, C., Mattson, W.I., & Nelson, E.E. (2019). Associations between adolescents’ social re-orientation towards peers over caregivers and neural response to teenage faces. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 13(108). doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2019.00108

  • Morningstar, M., Mattson, W.I., Venticinque, J., Singer, Jr., S., Selvaraj, B., Hu, H.H., & Nelson, E.E. (2019). Age-related differences in neural activation and functional connectivity during the processing of vocal prosody in adolescence. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience. doi: 10.3758/s13415-019-00742-y

  • Morningstar, M., Hung, A., Grannis, C., French, R.C., Mattson, W.I., Ostendorf, A.P., Gedela, S., Englot, D.J., & Nelson, E.E. (2020). Blunted neural response to emotional faces in the fusiform and superior temporal gyrus may be marker of emotion recognition deficits in youth with epilepsy. Epilepsy & Behavior, 112, 107432. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2020.107432

  • Morningstar, M., Hung, A., Mattson, W.I., Gedela, S., Ostendorf, A.P., & Nelson, E.E. (2020). Internalizing symptoms in intractable pediatric epilepsy: Structural and functional brain correlates. Epilepsy & Behavior, 103, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.yebeh.2019.106845

Factors influencing the production of vocal emotional expressions

We are currently working on a project examining the vocal cues associated with happiness and anger in individuals with and without depression. We have also found age-related differences in the production of vocal emotions, such that adolescents’ portrayals of different emotional expressions were less acoustically distinct than those produced by adults.

  • Morningstar, M., Dirks, M.A., & Huang, S. (2017). Vocal Cues Underlying Youth and Adult Portrayals of Socio-Emotional Expressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 41(2), 155-183. doi: 10.1007/s10919-017-0250-7

  • Morningstar, M., Garcia, D., Dirks, M.A., & Bagner, D.M. (2019). Changes in parental prosody mediate effect of parent-training intervention on child language outcomes. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 87(3), 313-318. doi: 10.1037/ccp0000375

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Associations between emotion recognition and psychosocial outcomes in youth

Our work has highlighted the association between the capacity to decode others’ nonverbal emotional cues and indices of psychosocial functioning in adolescents.

  • Davis, S.K., Morningstar, M., & Qualter, P. (2020). Ability EI predicts recognition of dynamic facial emotions, but not beyond the effects of crystallized IQ. Personality and Individual Differences. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109968

  • Davis, S.K., Morningstar, M., Dirks, M.A., & Qualter, P. (2020). Ability emotional intelligence: What about recognition of emotion in voices? Personality and Individual Differences, 160, 109938. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109938

  • Morningstar, M., Dirks, M.A., Rappaport, B.I., Pine, D.S., & Nelson, E.E. (2019; ePub 2017). Associations between anxious and depressive symptoms and the recognition of vocal socio-emotional expressions in youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 48(3), 491-500. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2017.1350963

  • Morningstar, M., Nowland, R., Dirks, M.A., & Qualter, P. (2019). Loneliness and the recognition of vocal socio-emotional expressions in adolescence. Cognition & Emotion. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2019.1682971

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Development of vocal emotion recognition in adolescence

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How does our interpretation of emotional information in voices change with age? Our research has shown that the capacity to interpret vocal expressions of emotion continues to develop throughout adolescence.

  • Morningstar, M., Nelson, E.E., & Dirks, M.A. (2018). Maturation of vocal emotion recognition: Insights from the developmental and neuroimaging literature. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 90, 221-230. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.04.019

  • Morningstar, M., Ly, V.Y., Feldman, L., & Dirks, M.A. (2018). Mid-Adolescents’ and Adults’ Recognition of Vocal Cues of Emotion and Social Intent: Differences by Expression and Speaker Age. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 42(2), 237-251. doi: 10.1007/s10919-018-0274-7

  • Morningstar, M., Venticinque, J., & Nelson, E.E. (2018). Differences in adult and adolescent listeners’ ratings of valence and arousal in emotional prosody. Cognition & Emotion. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2018.1561422