Using automated, integrated technology to study emotion and development via the Facility for Affective Neuroscience

人类在任何一天都会反复面对情绪唤起的情况，因此，检测和处理情绪信息是人类适应的关键部分。因此，最近关于大脑功能的观点强调了情感过程和几乎所有认知领域共享的内在的、相互关联的网络，这并不奇怪。然而，在理解情感的发展及其与其他人类行为和心理生理的关系方面的科学进步一直受到与评估整个生命周期的情感结构相关的测量挑战的阻碍。可观察到的情绪表达（如面部情绪）的客观编码指数有许多好处；它们通常是跨年龄（甚至物种）同构的，促进了随着时间的推移对情绪的研究，并且在研究自我报告的情绪体验可能有限（例如，儿童）或不可用（例如，无意识的情绪体验）的情绪时特别有用。然而，人类编码的面部情感，标准的历史方法，执行起来非常耗时，并且不能轻易地与其他内部过程（例如，心理生理变化）同步。幸运的是，相对较新的技术进步使面部表情的自动编码成为可能。除了效率之外，这种方法还可以与眼动追踪和其他心理生理数据相结合，提供高效、多层次的人类情感分析。作为国际公认的认知神经科学组织“大脑与心灵”的成员，我们拥有最好的工具来研究情绪的神经关联。不幸的是，我们目前缺乏有效测量相关心理生理过程中情绪的面部表情所需的设备。这种方法上的差距使我们的团队处于明显的劣势，相对于拥有这种尖端、高效收集情感数据手段的情感科学家，限制了我们的研究效率。我们寻求通过建立情感神经科学设施（即FAN）来解决这个问题，该设施将配备来自诺达斯的最先进的设备，诺达斯是人类行为编码创新的领先公司。这种设备具有独特的能力，可以无缝地将面部情绪表达与其他行为和相关的心理生理过程结合起来。多名研究者和受训者将访问FAN，加速正在进行的情感研究，促进全新的研究线，并加强加拿大的HQP培训。FAN将通过使用最好的可用技术促进情感及其心理生理相关的客观测量，从而补充西方重要的现有神经科学资源，允许对大脑，情感和其他行为领域之间的内在相互作用进行丰富的表征。

Humans confront emotionally evocative circumstances repeatedly on any given day, such that detecting and processing emotional information is a key part of human adaptation. It is therefore unsurprising that recent views on brain function highlight the intrinsic, interrelated networks shared by emotion processes and virtually all cognitive domains. However, scientific progress in understanding the development of emotion and its relations to other human behaviors and psychophysiology has been stymied by the measurement challenges associated with assessing emotion constructs across the lifespan. Objectively coded indices of observable emotion expressions (e.g., facial affect) have many benefits; they are generally isomorphic across age (and even species), facilitating studies of emotion over time, and are especially useful in the study of emotion in which self-reported emotion experience may be limited (e.g., children) or unavailable (e.g., unconscious emotion experience). However, human-coded facial affect, the standard historical approach, is tremendously time-consuming to implement and cannot be readily synced with other within-person processes (e.g., psychophysiological changes). Fortunately, relatively recent advances in technology have enabled the automated coding of facial affect. In addition to efficiency, this approach can be integrated with eye-tracking and other psychophysiological data to provide efficient, multi-level analysis of human emotion. As members of the Brain and Mind, an internationally recognized group for cognitive neuroscience, we have the very best tools at our disposal to study the neural correlates of emotion. Unfortunately, we currently lack the equipment needed to efficiently measure facial expressions of emotion contextualized within relevant psychophysiological processes. This methodological gap puts our group at a distinct disadvantage, constraining our research productivity relative to affective scientists who have this cutting-edge, highly efficient means of collecting emotion data. We seek to address this problem by establishing the Facility for Affective Neuroscience (i.e., the FAN), to be equipped with state-of-the-art equipment from Noldus, the leading company in innovation in coding human behavior. This equipment is uniquely capable of seamlessly integrating facial emotion expressions with other behavior and relevant psychophysiological processes.  Multiple investigators and trainees will access the FAN, accelerating ongoing emotion research, facilitating brand-new lines of research, and enhancing HQP training in Canada. The FAN will complement Western's significant extant neuroscience resources by facilitating the objective measurement of emotion and its psychophysiological correlates using the best available technology, permitting a rich characterization of the intrinsic interplay between the brain, emotion, and other behavioral domains.