title: A multimodal examination of emotional responding to a trauma-relevant film among traumatic motor vehicle accident survivors.
abstract: The Facial Action Coding System (Ekman & Friesen) has shown promise as a behavioral measure of emotional experience. The current study examined the degree of (de)synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of fear, disgust, and sadness in response to a traumatic event-relevant film among individuals who had experienced a traumatic motor vehicle accident. Given high rates of comorbidity between posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and depressive symptoms, the potential impacts of both PTSS and depressive symptoms on emotional responding were examined. Results demonstrated synchrony between self-reported and facial expressions of disgust and sadness; however, no association between measures of fear was observed. Furthermore, depressive symptoms were associated with greater fear responding and PTSS were associated only with self-reported fear. Together, results support the importance of examining discrete negative emotions, rather than broad valence categories, when examining fear-based responding in traumatic event-exposed populations. Additional research examining the psychometric properties of the Facial Action Coding System as a measure of discrete emotional experiences among traumatic event-exposed individuals is needed to advance multimodal assessment approaches that yield incremental information for understanding emotional responding in this population.
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA sbujarsk@uark.edu.
authors.forename: Sarah J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Bujarski
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
authors.forename: James T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Craig
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA.
authors.forename: Melissa J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Zielinski
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC, USA.
authors.forename: Christal L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Badour
authors.affiliation: University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Fayetteville, AR, USA Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, OK, USA.
authors.forename: Matthew T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Feldner
mesh_terms: D000063:Accidents, Traffic; D001131:Arkansas; D003863:Depression / Q000523:psychology*; D004644:Emotions; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009040:Motion Pictures; D011594:Psychometrics; D057566:Self Report; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013313:Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic / Q000523:psychology*; D014947:Wounds and Injuries / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: facial coding; multimodal; posttraumatic stress; stressful film; trauma