ARE EMOTIONS PERCEPTUAL EXPERIENCES OF VALUE?

A number of emotion theorists hold that emotions are perceptions of value. In this paper I say why they are wrong. I claim that in the case of emotion there is nothing that can provide the perceptual modality that is needed if the perceptual theory is to succeed (where by ‘perceptual modality’ I mean the particular manner in which something is perceived). I argue that the five sensory modalities are not possible candidates for providing us with ‘emotional perception’. But I also say why the usual candidate offered – namely feeling or affectivity – does not give us the sought‐after perceptual modality. I conclude that as there seems to be nothing else that can provide the needed perceptual modality, we should reject the perceptual theory of emotion. 1     

VIRTUE, EMOTION, AND ATTENTION

Abstract: The perceptual model of emotions maintains that emotions involve, or are at least analogous to, perceptions of value. On this account, emotions purport to tell us about the evaluative realm, in much the same way that sensory perceptions inform us about the sensible world. An important development of this position, prominent in recent work by Peter Goldie amongst others, concerns the essential role that virtuous habits of attention play in enabling us to gain perceptual and evaluative knowledge. I think that there are good reasons to be sceptical about this picture of virtue. In this essay I set out these reasons, and explain the consequences this scepticism has for our understanding of the relation between virtue, emotion, and attention. In particular, I argue that our primary capacity for recognizing value is in fact a non-emotional capacity.     

Does emotion influence visual perception? Depends on how you look at it

ABSTRACT

One of the biggest challenges in the study of emotion–cognition interaction is addressing the question of whether and how emotions influence processes of perception as distinct from other higher-level cognitive processes. Most theories of emotion agree that an emotion episode begins with a sensory experience – such as a visual percept – that elicits a cascade of affective, cognitive, physiological, and/or behavioural responses (the ordering and inclusion of those latter components being forever debated). However, for decades, a subset of philosophers and scientists have suggested that the presumed perception → emotion relationship is in fact bidirectional, with emotion also altering the perceptual process. In the present review we reflect on the history and empirical support (or, some might argue, lack thereof) for the notion that emotion influences visual perception. We examine ways in which researchers have attempted to test the question, and the ways in which this pursuit is so difficult. As is the case with the ongoing debate about the cognitive penetrability of perception, we conclude that nothing is conclusive in the debate about the emotional penetrability of perception. We nonetheless don rose-coloured glasses as we look forward to the future of this research topic.     

他人面孔情绪知觉中自我参照与母亲参照的一致性：来自ERP的证据

本研究采用不同参照语境下的面孔情绪评定任务, 使用事件相关电位技术, 考察了自我参照、母亲参照及他人参照对面孔情绪知觉加工的影响。行为结果显示, 与他人参照相比, 在自我参照与母亲参照的消极语境中的面孔被认为更消极, 积极语境中的面孔被认为更积极。ERP的结果显示, 相比他人参照, 自我参照与母亲参照都能诱发更大的EPN波幅; 自我参照与母亲参照对EPN和LPP波幅的影响差异并不显著。这些研究结果表明, 自我参照和母亲参照在面孔情绪知觉上具有一致性, 本研究从他人面孔情绪加工的角度为中国人的自我结构中包含“母亲”成分提供了进一步的证据。     

焦虑对重量感知判断的影响

行动经济理论认为个体对物理环境的感知与其具备的资源有关,而焦虑与资源不足有关。基于此,本研究通过3个实验来探讨3种不同性质的焦虑对重量感知判断的影响。实验1通过身体姿势诱发焦虑,结果发现同放松的身体姿势相比,焦虑的身体姿势能诱发出焦虑且此姿势下个体会认为背包的重量更重。实验2通过具有压力性的外部任务诱发焦虑,结果显示同奇偶判断任务相比,心算任务能诱发出明显的焦虑且此任务下个体将背包的重量判断为更重。实验3探讨特质焦虑的影响,结果发现高特质焦虑个体同低特质焦虑者相比会认为背包的重量更重。本研究表明焦虑会影响个体对物体物理属性的感知。     

情境对面孔表情识别的影响

长期以来,关于面孔表情识别的研究主要是围绕着面孔本身的结构特征来进行的,但是近年来的研究发现,面孔表情的识别也会受到其所在的情境背景（如语言文字、身体背景、自然与社会场景等）的影响,特别是在识别表情相似的面孔时,情境对面孔表情识别的影响更大。本文首先介绍和分析了近几年关于语言文字、身体动作、自然场景和社会场景等情境影响个体对面孔表情的识别的有关研究;其次,又分析了文化背景、年龄以及焦虑程度等因素对面孔表情识别情境效应的影响;最后,强调了未来的研究应重视研究儿童被试群体、拓展情绪的类别、关注真实生活中的面孔情绪感知等。     

The perception of changing emotion expressions

The utility of recognising emotion expressions for coordinating social interactions is well documented, but less is known about how continuously changing emotion displays are perceived. The nonlinear dynamic systems view of emotions suggests that mixed emotion expressions in the middle of displays of changing expressions may be decoded differently depending on the expression origin. Hysteresis is when an impression (e.g., disgust) persists well after changes in facial expressions that favour an alternative impression (e.g., anger). In expression changes based on photographs (Study 1) and avatar images (Studies 2a-c, 3), we found hystereses particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually similar (e.g., anger-disgust). We also consistently found uncertainty (neither emotion contributing to the mixed expression was perceived), which was more prevalent in expression sequences than in static images. Uncertainty occurred particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually dissimilar, such as changes between happiness and negative emotions. This suggests that the perceptual similarity of emotion expressions may determine the extent to which hysteresis and uncertainty occur. Both hysteresis and uncertainty effects support our premise that emotion decoding is state dependent, a characteristic of dynamic systems. We propose avenues to test possible underlying mechanisms.     

Emotional influences on perception and working memory

Although there has been steady progress elucidating the influence of emotion on cognition, it remains unclear precisely when and why emotion impairs or facilitates cognition. The present study investigated the mechanisms involved in the influence of emotion on perception and working memory (WM), using modified 0-back and 2-back tasks, respectively. First, results showed that attentional focus modulated the impact of emotion on perception. Specifically, emotion facilitated perceptual task performance when it was relevant to the task, but it impaired performance when it was irrelevant to the task. The differential behavioural effect of emotion on perception as a function of attentional focus diminished under high WM load. Second, attentional focus did not directly modulate the impact of emotion on WM, but rather its influence depended on the dynamic relationship between internal representations. Specifically, WM performance was worse when the material already being held online and the new input were of matching emotions (e.g. both were negative), compared to when they were not. We propose that the competition between “bottom-up” and “top-down” processing for limited cognitive resources explains the nature of the influence of emotion on both perception and WM.     

Fear-Related Chemosignals Modulate Recognition of Fear in Ambiguous Facial Expressions

ABSTRACT— Integrating emotional cues from different senses is critical for adaptive behavior. Much of the evidence on cross-modal perception of emotions has come from studies of vision and audition. This research has shown that an emotion signaled by one sense modulates how the same emotion is perceived in another sense, especially when the input to the latter sense is ambiguous. We tested whether olfaction causes similar sensory modulation of emotion perception. In two experiments, the chemosignal of fearful sweat biased women toward interpreting ambiguous expressions as more fearful, but had no effect when the facial emotion was more discernible. Our findings provide direct behavioral evidence that social chemosignals can communicate emotions and demonstrate that fear-related chemosignals modulate humans' visual emotion perception in an emotion-specific way—an effect that has been hitherto unsuspected.     

Valence specific laterality effects in prosody: expectancy account and the effects of morphed prosody and stimulus lead

The majority of studies have demonstrated a right hemisphere (RH) advantage for the perception of emotions. Other studies have found that the involvement of each hemisphere is valence specific, with the RH better at perceiving negative emotions and the LH better at perceiving positive emotions [Reuter-Lorenz, P., & Davidson, R.J. (1981) Differential contributions of the 2 cerebral hemispheres to the perception of happy and sad faces. Neuropsychologia, 19, 609-613]. To account for valence laterality effects in emotion perception we propose an 'expectancy' hypothesis which suggests that valence effects are obtained when the top-down expectancy to perceive an emotion outweighs the strength of bottom-up perceptual information enabling the discrimination of an emotion. A dichotic listening task was used to examine alternative explanations of valence effects in emotion perception. Emotional sentences (spoken in a happy or sad tone of voice), and morphed-happy and morphed-sad sentences (which blended a neutral version of the sentence with the pitch of the emotion sentence) were paired with neutral versions of each sentence and presented dichotically. A control condition was also used, consisting of two identical neutral sentences presented dichotically, with one channel arriving before the other by 7 ms. In support of the RH hypothesis there was a left ear advantage for the perception of sad and happy emotional sentences. However, morphed sentences showed no ear advantage, suggesting that the RH is specialised for the perception of genuine emotions and that a laterality effect may be a useful tool for the detection of fake emotion. Finally, for the control condition we obtained an interaction between the expected emotion and the effect of ear lead. Participants tended to select the ear that received the sentence first, when they expected a 'sad' sentence, but not when they expected a 'happy' sentence. The results are discussed in relation to the different theoretical explanations of valence laterality effects in emotion perception.     

Going with your gut: How William James' theory of emotions brings insights to risk perception and decision making research

The basic premise of William James' theory of emotions – that bodily changes lead to emotional feelings – ignited debate about the relative importance of bodily processes and cognitive appraisals in determining emotions. Similarly, theories of risk perception have been expanding to include emotional and physiological processes along with cognitive processes. Taking a closer look at The Principles of Psychology, this article examines how James' propositions support and extend current research on risk perception and decision making. Specifically, James (1) described emotional feelings and their related cognitions in ways similar to current dual processing models; (2) defended the proposition that emotions and their expressions serve useful and adaptive functions; (3) suggested that anticipating an emotion can trigger that emotion due to associations learned from past experiences; and (4) highlighted individual differences in emotional experiences that map on well with individual differences in risk-related decision making.     

Locating the neutral expression in the facial-emotion space

Woodworth and Schlosberg (1954) introduced a two-dimensional model of emotional expression perception. Since then, many refinements have been made based on a variety of different methodologies. These show robust findings as to the structure of facial-emotion space. One disputed finding, however, is the location of the neutral face within this space. Some evidence suggests it should be located at the centre of the space, whereas other evidence places it at the periphery as an emotion in its own right. The current experiment used objective similarity judgements on 25 emotions posed by the same individual. Multidimensional scaling was employed to find a perceptual facial-emotion space. This space confirmed the general arrangement of emotions in such a space and locates neutral faces at the periphery. It appears, therefore, that the neutral face is an emotion in itself and cannot be seen as an absence of emotion.     

Person perception from changing emotional expressions: primacy,recency, or averaging effect?

ABSTRACT

Dynamic changes in emotional expressions are a valuable source of information in social interactions. As the expressive behaviour of a person changes, the inferences drawn from the behaviour may also change. Here, we test the possibility that dynamic changes in emotional expressions affect person perception in terms of stable trait attributions. Across three experiments, we examined perceivers’ inferences about others’ personality traits from changing emotional expressions. Expressions changed from one emotion (“start emotion”) to another emotion (“end emotion”), allowing us to disentangle potential primacy, recency, and averaging effects. Drawing on three influential models of person perception, we examined perceptions of dominance and affiliation (Experiment 1a), competence and warmth (Experiment 1b), and dominance and trustworthiness (Experiment 2). A strong recency effect was consistently found across all trait judgments, that is, the end emotion of dynamic expressions had a strong impact on trait ratings. Evidence for a primacy effect was also observed (i.e. the information of start emotions was integrated), but less pronounced, and only for trait ratings relating to affiliation, warmth, and trustworthiness. Taken together, these findings suggest that, when making trait judgements about others, observers weigh the most recently displayed emotion in dynamic expressions more heavily than the preceding emotion.     

Rose-colored glasses gone too far? Mania symptoms predict biased emotion experience and perception in couples

The present study investigated how symptoms of mania—associated with heightened and persistent positive emotion—influence emotion experience and perception during distressing social interactions, whereby the experience of heightened positive emotion may not be socially adaptive. Specifically, mania symptoms were assessed via a validated self-report measure, and used to predict emotion experience and perception during a naturalistic conversation between romantic couples about a time of distress and suffering (N = 68 dyads). Results indicated that mania symptoms were associated with increased positive and decreased negative emotion experience and perception between couples, as well as decreased empathic accuracy for partners’ negative but not positive emotions. These findings suggest that mania symptoms may be associated with “rose-colored” glasses characterized by a positively biased emotional experience and outward perception even during perhaps the most intimate and distressing social situations.     

Dynamic facial expressions of emotion induce representational momentum

Two experiments were conducted to explore whether representational momentum (RM) emerges in the perception of dynamic facial expression and whether the velocity of change affects the size of the effect. Participants observed short morphing animations of facial expressions from neutral to one of the six basic emotions. Immediately afterward, they were asked to select the last images perceived. The results of the experiments revealed that the RM effect emerged for dynamic facial expressions of emotion: The last images of dynamic stimuli that an observer perceived were of a facial configuration showing stronger emotional intensity than the image actually presented. The more the velocity increased, the more the perceptual image of facial expression intensified. This perceptual enhancement suggests that dynamic information facilitates shape processing in facial expression, which leads to the efficient detection of other people's emotional changes from their faces.     

The Contents of Perception and the Contents of Emotion

Several philosophers think there are important analogies between emotions and perceptual states. Furthermore, considerations about the rational assessibility of emotions have led philosophers—in some cases, the very same philosophers—to think that the content of emotions must be propositional content. If one finds it plausible that perceptual states have propositional contents, then there is no obvious tension between these views. However, this view of perception has recently been attacked by philosophers who hold that the content of perception is object‐like. I shall argue for a view about the content of emotions and perceptual states which will enable us to hold both that emotional content is analogous to perceptual content and that both emotions and perceptual states can have propositional contents. This will involve arguing for a pluralist view of perceptual content, on which perceptual states can have both contents which are proposition‐like and contents which are object‐like. I shall also address two significant objections to the claim that emotions can have proposition‐like contents. Meeting one of these objections will involve taking on a further commitment: the pluralist account of perceptual content will have to be one on which the contents of perception can be non‐conceptual.     

Social Psychological Face Perception: Why Appearance Matters

We form first impressions from faces despite warnings not to do so. Moreover, there is considerable agreement in our impressions, which carry significant social outcomes. Appearance matters because some facial qualities are so useful in guiding adaptive behavior that even a trace of those qualities can create an impression. Specifically, the qualities revealed by facial cues that characterize low fitness, babies, emotion, and identity are overgeneralized to people whose facial appearance resembles the unfit (anomalous face overgeneralization), babies (babyface overgeneralization), a particular emotion (emotion face overgeneralization), or a particular identity (familiar face overgeneralization). We review studies that support the overgeneralization hypotheses and recommend research that incorporates additional tenets of the ecological theory from which these hypotheses are derived: the contribution of dynamic and multi‐modal stimulus information to face perception; bidirectional relationships between behavior and face perception; perceptual learning mechanisms and social goals that sensitize perceivers to particular information in faces.     

Perceiving expressions of emotion: What evidence could bear on questions about perceptual experience of mental states?

What evidence could bear on questions about whether humans ever perceptually experience any of another’s mental states, and how might those questions be made precise enough to test experimentally? This paper focusses on emotions and their expression. It is proposed that research on perceptual experiences of physical properties provides one model for thinking about what evidence concerning expressions of emotion might reveal about perceptual experiences of others’ mental states. This proposal motivates consideration of the hypothesis that categorical perception of expressions of emotion occurs, can be facilitated by information about agents’ emotions, and gives rise to phenomenal expectations. It is argued that the truth of this hypothesis would support a modest version of the claim that humans sometimes perceptually experience some of another’s mental states. Much available evidence is consistent with, but insufficient to establish, the truth of the hypothesis. We are probably not yet in a position to know whether humans ever perceptually experience others’ mental states.     

Identifying facial emotions: valence specific effects and an exploration of the effects of viewer gender

The valence hypothesis suggests that the right hemisphere is specialised for negative emotions and the left hemisphere is specialised for positive emotions (Silberman & Weingartner, 1986). It is unclear to what extent valence-specific effects in facial emotion perception depend upon the gender of the perceiver. To explore this question 46 participants completed a free view lateralised emotion perception task which involved judging which of two faces expressed a particular emotion. Eye fixations of 24 of the participants were recorded using an eye tracker. A significant valence-specific laterality effect was obtained, with positive emotions more accurately identified when presented to the right of centre, and negative emotions more accurately identified when presented to the left of centre. The valence-specific laterality effect did not depend on the gender of the perceiver. Analysis of the eye tracking data showed that males made more fixations while recognising the emotions and that the left-eye was fixated substantially more than the right-eye during emotion perception. Finally, in a control condition where both faces were identical, but expressed a faint emotion, the participants were significantly more likely to select the right side when the emotion label was positive. This finding adds to evidence suggesting that valence effects in facial emotion perception are not only caused by the perception of the emotion but by other processes.     

Fears as Conscious Perceivings

Peter Goldie has argued for the view that the intentionality of emotions is inseparable from their phenomenology (IPE), but certain criticisms have revealed his argument as problematic. I will argue that it is possible to address these problems, at least in the case of the emotion of fear, thereby vindicating IPE, by appeal to a Husserlian version of the perceptual account of emotions, centered on the idea that the contents of perceptual experiences are fulfillment conditions. Fulfillment means the achievement of a kind of immediate, or “full”, experience of an object or some of its aspects. In the case of visual perception, suppose you are looking at an apple. If you turn it around, you will find yourself in full view of its back side, which was previously anticipated “emptily”, fulfilling or disappointing (confirming or disconfirming) some of your anticipations in regard to it. On the Husserlian view, the success or failure of a visual perceptual experience consists in such fulfillments and disappointments. If we can provide an account of the intentionality of emotions along similar lines, it will necessarily involve the phenomenal contrast between fullness and emptiness, enabling us to support IPE.