Tears and crying over the lifespan

Emotional tears are uniquely human and play an important role in the
communication of distress in adults. Several studies have shown that
individuals are more willing to give emotional support and help a crying
person when tears are present (Hendriks et al., 2008, Zeifman and Brown, 2011).
Although tears are crucial for signalling distress and eliciting help, little
research has been conducted on the function of emotional tears and the role of
tears in the perception of facial expressions. Moreover, even less is known
about the influence of tears on responses to crying infants and children. In
the proposed study we aim at gaining insight into the role of tears in the
perception of crying over the lifespan.


The infant cry is a signal of distress evolved to elicit parental proximity and
caregiving (Bowlby, 1969/1982, Zeifman, 2001). It alerts the parent when the
infant is in danger and gives information on the health condition of the child
(Soltis, 2004). Although infants are able to produce emotional tears from the
second or third month of life on (Haeringen, 2001), the effectiveness of an
infant*s crying might be more dependent on the sound of the crying than on
tears or facial cues of distress. This suggestion is supported by studies
indicating that the acoustics of crying reflect the level of distress of the
infant ( for a review see Soltis, 2004) and by a study that showed that deaf
parents do not respond appropriately to their infants' crying despite facial
expressions of distress (Lenneberg, Rebelsky, & Nichols, 1965).
In contrast to infant crying, adults cry softly or without sound and
the crying episodes are merely comprised of eyes welling up with tears
(Vingerhoets et al., 2000). Tears might therefore play a more important role in
the perception of adult distress. Indeed, several studies have shown that
facial expression of crying adults are more effective in communicating distress
when there are tears present. For example, Balsters et al (2013) examined the
influence of tears on the identification of sadness and the need for social
support. They found that sadness was faster identified when tears were added to
sad adult faces. Moreover, the perceived need for social support was greater
when faces contained tears. Another study showed that individuals are more
willing to give emotional support to and express less negative affect toward a
crying person than a noncrying person (Hendriks, Croon, Vingerhoets, 2008).
Thus, emotional tears serve as an important visual cue to communicate distress
in adults, possibly in order to elicit empathy in others and to facilitate
prosocial behaviour (Vingerhoets & Rottenberg, 2012).
To our knowledge, only one previous study examined the role of tears in
the perception of both infant and adult crying. Zeifman and Brown (2011)
explored whether the effect of emotional tears is similar in magnitude across
the life span. In this study, photos of crying infants, young children, and
adults, with tears digitally removed or added were rated by participants. The
effect of tears on neural responses to crying was however not examined. Tears
had a more profound effect on the interpretation of facial expression of
distress in older criers compared with younger criers. The authors reasoned
that infant crying is a predominantly acoustic signal that progresses to a more
subtle visual signal over the course of development. Adults try to conceal
their emotions, but subtle visual cues of distress such as tears are difficult
to inhibit. The signal value of tears may therefore increase with age, since
tears reveal honest information that is otherwise suppressed (Zeifman and
Brown, 2011).
Although crying is woven through the life course, there is no
developmental approach in the study of crying (Rottenberg & Vingerhoets, 2012).
One of the reasons for the absence of a lifespan tradition is that research on
crying is divided into a subfield that covers crying in infants and toddlers
and another subfield that concerns crying in adults. Because these two
subfields are disconnected and there is a lack of knowledge on crying behaviour
throughout the life course, Rottenberg and Vingerhoets (2012) call for a
developmental approach to crying. They stress the need for insight into the
developmental aspects of crying behavior. In the proposed study, we aim at
gaining more insight into the differences between crying of infants, children,
and adults with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We hope to fill
the gap in knowledge of crying behaviour at different stages of human
development.

Primary Objective:
-to examine the role of tears in the perception of crying over the lifespan

Secondary Objective(s):
-to examine the influence of viewing cute infant pictures on visual attention
-to examine differences in the perception of adult, child, and infant crying
-to examine whether the presence emotional tears has more profound effect on
neural activation in individuals with negative childhood experiences or with
poor socio-emotional abilities.
- to examine whether the presence of tears on crying faces results in more
approach behavior

Procedure
Questionnaires on childrearing experiences (CTQ: Dutch Childhood Trauma
Questionnaire-Short Form), temperament, and socio emotional abilities will be
administered to all volunteering students attending an introductory course in
educational and child studies. A selection of 50 participants with
well-distributed scores scores (ranging from low to high) on the CTQ will be
invited for 1 laboratory session. Before scanning, the participants will
complete some practice trials outside the scanner in order to become familiar
with the task. Afterwards, they will be scanned while they are exposed to
photos of crying adult faces, crying child faces, and crying infant faces with
and without tears. Tears are digitally removed or added to the photographs. The
photographs that will be presented to participants have been used in previous
research (Zeifmand and Brown, 2011). The subjects will be asked to attend to
the photos. A one-back memory test will be included to maintain participants*
attention during the task (similar to Montoya et al., 2012). Participants will
be presented with a question mark and a photo on a small proportion of the
trials. The participant will be instructed to indicate whether the current
photo is identical to the photo of the preceding trial. In a second task,
participants will be presented pictures of cute infants and neutral pictures.
After the presentation of ethe pictures, participants will be instructed to
perform a visual search task in the scanner (participants will search a matrix
for a designated digit). The experiment will be carried out using the 3T fMRI
scanner at the LUMC. In total, the subject will be in the scanner for 50
minutes. A third task will be administered outside the scanner. Participants
will be presented pictures of crying adults with and without tears. They are
instructed to either approach the adult or to withdraw by using a joystick.


At the end of the experiment, subjects will receive a monetary reward for their
participation in the experiment.

There are no known risks associated with participating in an fMRI study. This
is a noninvasive technique involving no catheterizations or introduction of
exogenous tracers. Numerous human subjects have undergone magnetic resonance
studies without apparent harmful consequences. Some people become
claustrophobic while inside the magnet and in these cases the study will be
terminated immediately at the subject's request. The only absolute
contraindications to MRI studies are the presence of intracranial or
intraocular metal, or a pacemaker. Relative contraindications include pregnancy
and claustrophobia. Subjects who may be pregnant, who may have metallic foreign
bodies in the eyes or head, or who have cardiac pacemakers will be excluded
because of potential contraindications of MRI in such subjects.