title: More emotional facial expressions during episodic than during semantic autobiographical retrieval.
abstract: There is a substantial body of research on the relationship between emotion and autobiographical memory. Using facial analysis software, our study addressed this relationship by investigating basic emotional facial expressions that may be detected during autobiographical recall. Participants were asked to retrieve 3 autobiographical memories, each of which was triggered by one of the following cue words: happy, sad, and city. The autobiographical recall was analyzed by a software for facial analysis that detects and classifies basic emotional expressions. Analyses showed that emotional cues triggered the corresponding basic facial expressions (i.e., happy facial expression for memories cued by happy). Furthermore, we dissociated episodic and semantic retrieval, observing more emotional facial expressions during episodic than during semantic retrieval, regardless of the emotional valence of cues. Our study provides insight into facial expressions that are associated with emotional autobiographical memory. It also highlights an ecological tool to reveal physiological changes that are associated with emotion and memory.
authors.affiliation: Univ. Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, F-59000, Lille, France. el.haj@hotmail.fr.|Laboratoire SCALab UMR CNRS 9193- University of Lille, Domaine du Pont de Bois, 59653, Villeneuve d'Ascq, France. el.haj@hotmail.fr.
authors.forename: Mohamad
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: El Haj
authors.affiliation: Univ. Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, F-59000, Lille, France.
authors.forename: Pascal
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Antoine
authors.affiliation: Univ. Lille, CNRS, CHU Lille, UMR 9193 - SCALab - Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives, F-59000, Lille, France.
authors.forename: Jean Louis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Nandrino
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D061212:Memory, Episodic; D011939:Mental Recall / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Autobiographical memory; Emotion; FaceReader; Facial analyses