Close relational partners play a critical role in shaping each other's emotions during social interactions, a process known as interpersonal emotion regulation. We examined how different forms of dementia (i.e., Alzheimer's disease, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, primary progressive aphasia) affect interpersonal emotion regulation. We assessed how caregivers perceived their partners' prosocial regulatory efforts and tracked real-time changes in caregivers' affect during a dyadic interaction. We also investigated how these processes relate to caregivers' mental health. Informal caregivers (N = 62) reported on their own mental health symptoms (depression, anxiety) and how their care recipients, who had different forms of dementia, use prosocial interpersonal emotion regulation (i.e., efforts to make their partner feel better). Dyads then engaged in a 10-min unrehearsed discussion about a conflict in their relationship. Following this, caregivers viewed a video recording of the interaction and used a rating dial to provide continuous ratings of their own affective valence (negative-neutral-positive) during the conversation. Results revealed that among care recipients with Alzheimer's disease, primary progressive aphasia, and behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, those with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia showed the lowest use of prosocial interpersonal emotion regulation, and their caregivers experienced the greatest increases in negative affect during the interaction. Across diagnoses, greater increases in caregiver negativity during the interaction were associated with greater caregiver depression (but not anxiety). These findings provide new information about interpersonal emotion regulation in dementia and highlight how the emotional changes that occur during dyadic interactions are tied to caregiver depressive symptoms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

What is neutral affect? And how can we elicit it? Based on a targeted review of the literature, the present study provides a large-scale, pre-registered investigation of affective responses to 39 neutral film clips. Participants (N = 996) watched random subsets of eight neutral and (for manipulation checks) one amusement- and one sadness-eliciting film clip and reported on their affective experiences (i.e., 16 discrete emotions, valence, arousal) at baseline and after each film clip. To probe neutral affect, we examined discrete affect intensity, variability, and peakedness (following discrete emotion models) and valence and arousal (following dimensional emotion models). Results showed that participants experienced relatively high levels of positive affect at baseline. We conducted eight analyses (six using affective response indices derived from discrete and dimensional models and two assessing peakedness) to identify the most neutral films (i.e., those eliciting the lowest levels of affective responses, or for peakedness analyses, the least differentiation among discrete emotions). Five neutral film clips elicited the lowest levels of affective responses across all eight analyses, with one clip eliciting the lowest levels of affect across four indices and an overall affect composite. Four to 32 other neutral film clips elicited significantly greater affective responses than the film that elicited the lowest level of each of the affective response indices. Follow-up analyses probed generalizability across age and gender. Findings from this first large-scale investigation of neutral film clips provide a robust foundation for future studies with neutral film clips and suggest directions for future research.

OBJECTIVES:There are striking differences among caregivers of people with dementia in their health and well-being during active caregiving and after caregiving has ended. A key factor influencing caregiver health is the emotional quality of the caregiver-care recipient relationship, which may be reflected in the emotional language caregivers use when describing this relationship. The present study assessed whether caregivers' positive and negative language is associated with their current and future depression trajectories. METHODS:Active caregivers responded to an open-ended question about a recent time they felt connected to the care recipient. We summed the number of positive and negative emotion words and divided them by the total words in the response. We evaluated whether caregivers' emotional language (a proxy for the emotional quality of the caregiver-care recipient relationship) was associated with their depression assessed both concurrently (N = 347 active caregivers) and longitudinally (N = 224 former caregivers). RESULTS:Neither positive nor negative emotional language significantly correlated with caregiver depression during active caregiving. Structural equation modeling revealed caregivers' greater positive emotional language (accounting for baseline depression) was associated with less steep increases in depression after the care recipient's death. Results were robust when accounting for negative emotional language and covariates. Negative emotional language was not significantly associated with changes in caregiver depression. DISCUSSION:Caregivers who use more positive words when describing their connection with the care recipient may be more resilient, underscoring the potential role of positive emotional qualities of the caregiving relationship in preserving caregivers' mental health after caregiving ends.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) can cause cognitive impairments and disrupt the ability to perceive others' emotions. We examined whether cognitive impairments in semantic knowledge and executive function are related to two aspects of emotion perception. Individuals with FTD and healthy controls (N = 110; 33 behavioral variant FTD, 23 non-fluent variant FTD, 30 semantic variant FTD, and 24 controls) completed neuropsychological tests of semantic word knowledge (Peabody Picture Vocabulary, Boston Naming Tests) and executive function (Digit Span Backwards, Trail-Making, Stroop, Design Fluency). They also completed two behavioral tests of emotion perception (1) an emotion labeling task that measured the ability to identify specific emotions (e.g. sad, happy) of characters in films and (2) an emotion tracking task that measures the ability to continuously track the emotional valence (i.e. negative, neutral, positive) of a character in a film. Lower semantic word knowledge was associated with less accurate emotion labeling (but was not associated with emotion tracking). In contrast, lower executive function was associated with lower accuracy in both labeling and tracking. Effects were robust even after accounting for diagnosis, age, sex, global cognition, and dementia severity. Findings reveal how distinct cognitive processes are linked with different aspects of emotion perception in FTD.

Physiological linkage, which refers to the degree that people's peripheral physiological responses change in coordinated ways, has been linked to a variety of psychiatric and developmental conditions. In contrast, physiological linkage in neurological conditions has been understudied. Behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is characterized by debilitating impairments in socioemotional functioning, including connections with others. We hypothesized that physiological linkage during interactions with loved ones would be reduced in bvFTD. During unrehearsed 10-min discussions of an area of disagreement in 86 dyads (n = 40 bvFTD; n = 35 Alzheimer's disease [AD]; n = 11 healthy controls), we computed dyadic physiological linkage using a composite of six peripheral physiological measures (i.e., heart rate, skin conductance, finger pulse amplitude, finger pulse transmission time, ear pulse transmission time, somatic activity). Specifically, we computed in-phase, anti-phase, and combined physiological linkage to examine each dyad's coordinated physiological changes that occur exclusively in the same direction (i.e., positively correlated), opposite direction (i.e., negatively correlated), or in either direction (i.e., correlated regardless of whether the correlation is positive or negative). Results indicate that bvFTD dyads had significantly lower combined (but not in-phase or anti-phase) physiological linkage compared to AD and healthy control dyads. To the extent that physiological linkage reflects social connection, these findings are consistent with the deficits in socio-emotional functioning that characterize bvFTD. We offer several possible explanations for this finding and consider implications for future research and clinical assessment of dyadic interpersonal processes in dementia and related disorders.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Care recipients with neurodegenerative disease can have socioemotional impairments that are challenging for their caregivers. We examine the concurrent and incremental validity of a novel informant-rated measure of care recipient functioning, the Caregiver Assessment of Socioemotional Functioning (CASEF), by examining links with clinician-rated behavioral problems, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and disease severity, as well as caregivers' reported burden and relationship quality. We also examine test-retest reliability of the CASEF. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:Informal caregivers (N = 177) of individuals with neurodegenerative disease reported on their care recipients' socioemotional functioning and completed structured interviews with clinicians to assess care recipients' disease severity and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Care recipients' behavioral symptoms were evaluated with clinician rating scales. Another sample of caregivers (N = 61) repeated the CASEF 4-6 months following an initial administration. RESULTS:CASEF subscales evidenced concurrent validity with other measures of care recipients' socioemotional functioning, disease severity, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and behavioral symptoms. CASEF subscales also evidenced incremental validity by accounting for significant additional variance in caregiver burden and relationship quality after accounting for care recipients' neuropsychiatric and behavioral symptoms. Finally, CASEF subscales demonstrated adequate to excellent test-retest reliability. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS:Findings highlight the validity and reliability of the CASEF. Coupled with findings from Part 1 of this series (which established CASEF's construct validity), these findings support using the CASEF in clinical and research settings to assess changes in care recipient socioemotional functioning over time and to examine links between care recipient socioemotional changes and caregiver burden, health, and well-being.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES:Neurodegenerative diseases cause socioemotional changes that are commonly measured using laboratory-based assessments. However, these assessments can be labor-, cost-, and time-intensive. We aim to establish the psychometric properties of a novel informant-rated measure, the Caregiver Assessment of Socioemotional Functioning (CASEF). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS:Using 3 independent samples including 366 informal caregivers and their 366 care recipients with a variety of neurodegenerative diseases and 240 neurotypical individuals, we conducted exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to establish the structural validity of the CASEF. Additionally, to establish convergent validity, we compared caregiver reports of socioemotional functioning to care recipients' objective performance on a variety of laboratory measures of socioemotional functioning. RESULTS:The CASEF captured multiple aspects of care recipients' socioemotional functioning, including the ability to (a) generate negative emotional responses (negative emotional reactivity), (b) generate positive emotional responses (positive emotional reactivity), (c) recognize others' emotions (emotion recognition), and (d) control emotional responses (emotion regulation). Each factor was associated with a corresponding laboratory-based measure, except for emotion regulation, which instead corresponded to a clinician-rated measure of care recipient disinhibition. DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS:Findings suggest the CASEF is a psychometrically sound informant-report measure of socioemotional functioning in people living with neurodegenerative diseases and may be a valuable tool for identifying specific socioemotional impairments in the context of neurodegenerative disease.

The intrinsically disordered reflectin proteins drive tunable reflectivity for dynamic camouflage and communication in the recently evolved Loliginidae family of squid. Previous work revealed that reflectin A1 forms discrete assemblies whose size is precisely predicted by protein net charge density and charge screening by the local anion concentration. Using dynamic light scattering, FRET, and confocal microscopy, we show that these assemblies, of which 95 to 99% of bulk protein in solution is partitioned into, are dynamic intermediates to liquid protein-dense condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS). Increasing salt concentration drives this progression by anionic screening of the cationic protein's Coulombic repulsion, and by increasing the contribution of the hydrophobic effect which tips the balance between short-range attraction and long-range repulsion to drive protein assembly and ultimately LLPS. Measuring fluorescence recovery after photobleaching and droplet fusion dynamics, we demonstrate that reflectin diffusivity in condensates is tuned by protein net charge density. These results illuminate the physical processes governing reflectin A1 assembly and LLPS and demonstrate the potential for reflectin A1 condensate-based tunable biomaterials. They also compliment previous observations of liquid phase separation in the Bragg lamellae of activated iridocytes and suggest that LLPS behavior may serve a critical role in governing the tunable and reversible dehydration of the membrane-bounded Bragg lamellae and vesicles containing reflectin in biophotonically active cells.

Caregiving for a person with dementia is a highly emotional experience and can evoke numerous negative and positive affects. Not surprisingly, dementia caregivers are vulnerable to mood and anxiety disorders. In this study, 95 caregiver-person with dementia dyads had a 10-min, unrehearsed conversation about a relationship conflict in the laboratory between 2013 and 2019. After the conversation, caregivers reported the extent to which they experienced six negative and five positive affects during the conversation. Caregivers also completed self-report measures of their depression and anxiety symptoms. Analyses of caregivers' affect during the conversation revealed that greater sadness was correlated with higher depression, greater fear was correlated with higher anxiety, and greater anger and lower calm were each correlated with both higher depression and anxiety. In two multiple regressions that included the specific affect variables that were significantly correlated with caregiver depression or anxiety, respectively, we found that greater sadness and lower calm (but not anger) remained significantly associated with higher depression and lower calm (but not anger or fear) remained significantly associated with higher anxiety. Finally, when accounting for relevant caregiver demographic factors and person with dementia clinical characteristics, greater sadness and lower calm remained significantly associated with higher depression and lower calm remained significantly associated with higher anxiety. None of the associations between specific affects and depression or anxiety were moderated by caregiver sex or age. The specific affects found to be associated with psychopathology may help identify caregivers at heightened risk for mental health problems and inform selection of potential intervention targets. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

OBJECTIVES:Emotional impairments in people with dementia can be taxing for family caregivers. However, caregivers differ in their resilience to these challenges. We previously found that, compared to healthy controls and people with Alzheimer's disease, people with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) have smaller physiological responses when anticipating upcoming emotional stimuli. This impairment may leave these people with FTLD unprepared for upcoming emotional stimuli because they cannot mount responses needed for appropriate behaviors, which may create stress and difficulties for caregivers. We examined (a) whether smaller preparatory physiological responses in people with dementia are associated with lower emotional well-being and physical functioning in caregivers; and (b) whether these associations are moderated by the dyads' relationship quality. METHODS:A total of 158 individuals with FTLD or Alzheimer's disease and their family caregivers participated. Preparatory physiological responses in people with dementia were quantified as decreases in cardiac interbeat intervals from baseline to an instruction period, during which they were told they would be watching an upcoming emotional film. Caregivers self-reported their emotional well-being, physical functioning, and relationship quality with the people with dementia. RESULTS:Smaller preparatory physiological responses in people with dementia were associated with lower emotional well-being (but not physical functioning) in caregivers. This association was moderated by relationship quality (i.e., weakened for caregivers in higher-quality relationships). DISCUSSION:Findings advance understanding of risk and resilience factors for negative caregiver outcomes. Positive interpersonal processes in high-quality relationships (e.g., positive appraisal of aberrant behaviors) may buffer caregivers from the impact of emotional impairments in people with dementia.

Prosodic deficits in neurodegenerative diseases are often studied through a left-right hemispheric framework, particularly focusing on pitch control. Emerging evidence, however, suggests prosodic processing may also follow dorsal-ventral organizational principles tied to different time windows of signal variation. For example, most studies of pitch consider variation overall, and have tied this to frontal pathways. However, speakers can also change median pitch, or key, between intervals of speech to signify a change of context or emphasis, which requires semantic knowledge usually mediated by ventral pathways. This study explored pitch variation across conversational speech intervals in individuals with behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) and semantic variant primary progressive aphasia and semantic behavioral variant FTD (svPPA/sbvFTD), conditions primarily affecting dorsal and ventral pathways, respectively. We recorded ten-minute semi-structured conversations between 76 participants (31 bvFTD, 16 svPPA, 11 sbvFTD, 18 healthy controls) and study partners using lavalier microphones in the Berkeley Psychophysiology Laboratory. Uninterrupted speech intervals were manually labeled and analyzed in Praat. Python, assisted by Claude (AI), was used for statistical analyses. Pitch variability was quantified as the standard deviation of median interval pitch, reflecting slower-scale prosodic modulation tied to conversational context shifts. A between-group ANOVA revealed marginal statistical insignificance (F=2.181, p  = 0.098). However, pre-specified analyses by pathway involvement showed that dorsal pathway disruption (FTD) was associated with significantly greater pitch variation compared to ventral pathway disruption (svPPA/rsvPPA) (t=2.351, p  = 0.022, Cohen's d=0.629). These results suggest that prosodic key across conversational intervals is differentially impacted by dorsal versus ventral pathway degeneration. This supports theories of dorsal-ventral distinctions in the temporal processing of speech and enhances our understanding of how distinct neural pathways regulate prosodic control within different time windows.

OBJECTIVES:Caregivers for people with neurogenerative diseases (PWNDs) often experience health declines during active caregiving. However, evidence is mixed as to whether caregivers' health recovers after caregiving ends. Financial hardships can create health issues for caregivers during active caregiving and may influence their health changes after caregiving is over. We examined changes in caregivers' health after PWNDs had passed away, and determined whether these changes were associated with household income level. METHOD:Thirty-seven caregivers of PWNDs who had reported their health using the Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) during active caregiving (T1) were recontacted and completed the same health measure and a measure of household income after caregiving had ended (T2) due to the death of the PWND. RESULTS:For the entire sample, caregivers' emotional well-being and energy improved but physical functioning trended downward after caregiving had ended. Univariate latent change score models revealed that lower income level was associated with less favorable trajectories of change, with lower income level associated with less improvement in emotional well-being and energy and greater declines in physical functioning. CONCLUSION:Caregivers with lower income may be vulnerable to persistent negative health outcomes after active caregiving has ended. Finding ways to support lower-income caregivers is crucial for maintaining their health after caregiving has ended.

Background Dementia is a significant public health issue globally. People with dementia (PWD) exhibit symptoms in multiple domains (e.g., cognition, emotion, motor, speech/language) that can vary in their impact on the caregiver and the PWD-caregiver relationship. Objective We assessed the relative impact of various dementia symptoms on caregiver health and well-being and on the PWD-caregiver relationship using a broad sampling of PWD symptoms and caregiver/relationship outcome measures. Methods Data were analyzed from 54 primary caregivers of PWDs who completed seven questionnaires assessing caregiver health and well-being and PWD-caregiver relationship quality. An exploratory factor analysis of these questionnaires revealed two primary factors: (a) General Distress (anxiety, burden, depression, general health, loneliness), and (b) Relationship Quality (interpersonal closeness, relationship satisfaction). Caregivers also rated nine categories of PWD symptoms (memory, executive functions, speech/language, visual/spatial, motor, changes in behavior, sleep, medical/sensory, activities of daily living). Results Greater caregiver General Distress was associated with greater PWD speech/language and sleep symptoms. Lower caregiver Relationship Quality was associated (at trend, p < 0.10, levels) with greater PWD speech/language and activities of daily living symptoms. Correlations with the seven individual caregiver outcome measures revealed that speech/language symptoms were the most robust predictors (correlated with five measures), followed by sleep and activities of daily living symptoms (correlated with two measures), and memory, visual/spatial, and motor symptoms (correlated with one measure). Conclusions Findings highlight the profound adverse effects that PWD speech and language deficits may have on caregivers and underscore the importance of addressing these deficits in dementia care.

Positivity resonance is a collective emotion experienced by two or more individuals during moments of shared positive affect; it is theorized to constitute the experience of love, yet this claim has not been empirically tested. Using archival data from 148 long-term married couples, we examined whether dyad-level indicators of positivity resonance are linked to dyad-level indicators of trait and state love. Trait love was assessed as a latent variable using partners' ratings of their spouse on validated adjectives prototypic of love (e.g., affectionate, warm) and previously validated nonverbal cues of love displayed in synchrony (i.e., head tilts, body leans, Duchenne smiles, and nodding) during a recorded spousal interaction. State love was assessed as synchronous nonverbal cues of love during successive 30-s segments of this interaction. A global measure of positivity resonance, as well as measures of its constituent components of co-expressed and co-experienced positive affect (but not physiological linkage), were positively associated with the latent index of trait love. Within-couple variation over time in the global measure of positivity resonance was associated with within-couple variation over time in state love. These findings provide initial support for convergent validity between the measures of positivity resonance and love at trait and state levels.

The development of paradigms for studying dyadic interaction in the laboratory and methods and analytics for dealing with dyadic data is described. These are illustrated with research findings from the author and others with particular focus on dyadic measures of linkage or synchrony in physiology, expressive behavior, and subjective affective experience.

Abstract Understanding other people’s emotions accurately (i.e., empathic accuracy) is thought to be critical for building and maintaining social connections. Past research suggests empathic skills change with age, but few studies examine age differences in empathic accuracy within the context of close relationships. We examined whether empathic accuracy is higher among middle-aged couples (ages 40-50) compared to older couples (ages 60-70) using a sample of 154 heterosexual long-term marriages. Husbands and wives visited the laboratory and engaged in a 15-minute conversation on a topic of disagreement in their marriage. Conversations were video-recorded. Husbands and wives watched a video playback of their conversation twice, each time continuously rating either their own or their spouse’s emotional valence during the conversation using a rating dial that ranged from “very negative” to “very positive”. These continuous valence ratings were used to compute each spouse’s empathic accuracy as the strength of the correlation between their ratings of their spouse’s emotions and their spouse’s own self- ratings. Results revealed that age was not associated with husbands’ empathic accuracy. In contrast, older wives had greater empathic accuracy compared to middle-aged wives (Mdiff =.19, p =.028). However, older adults had been married longer, and length of marriage also predicted women’s empathic accuracy. Findings suggest that older women are better able to track the changing valence of their husbands’ emotions, perhaps because they have more practice.