Recognition and Interpretation of Facial Expressions in Dysphoric Women

Two studies are presented that evaluate emotion recognition accuracy and interpretative processing of facial expressions in relation to depressive symptoms in women. Dysphoric women more often attributed themselves as the cause of negative expressions, more often made negative interpretations of others’ thoughts, and had more negative thoughts about themselves when viewing facial expressions. However, dysphoric women were not less accurate or rapid in recognizing facial expressions. An integrative model, the “levels of self-processing view,” is discussed as a synthesis of the results across studies. Limitations of the current studies and future research directions are discussed.     

Perception and Emotion: How We Recognize Facial Expressions

ABSTRACT— Perception and emotion interact, as is borne out by studies of how people recognize emotion from facial expressions. Psychological and neurological research has elucidated the processes, and the brain structures, that participate in facial emotion recognition. Studies have shown that emotional reactions to viewing faces can be very rapid and that these reactions may, in turn, be used to judge the emotion shown in the face. Recent experiments have argued that people actively explore facial expressions in order to recognize the emotion, a mechanism that emphasizes the instrumental nature of social cognition.     

面部表情识别与面孔身份识别的独立加工与交互作用机制

面孔识别功能模型认为,面部表情识别与面孔身份识别是两条独立的并行路径。以往诸多研究者都认可并遵循二者分离的原则。但近期研究表明,面部表情识别与面孔身份识别存在交互作用。首先总结和分析已有的面部表情识别的研究成果,评述神经心理学与认知神经科学研究中的论争,然后介绍人脸知觉的分布式神经机制以及相关的实验证据,最后提出面部表情识别与面孔身份识别的多级整合模型,并展望研究前景。     

情绪加工老龄化机制：表情的自动加工和控制加工视角

情绪加工老龄化已经成为老龄化研究的新热点, 但其内在机制仍然缺乏统一的解释。本研究以自动加工和控制加工为切入点, 综合行为实验、ERP和fMRI实验技术, 开展表情加工的老龄化研究, 从情绪与认知交互的角度进一步揭示情绪加工老龄化的内在机制。具体内容包括表情自动加工和控制加工的年龄差异及其神经机制, 表情自动加工与认知控制的相互作用, 以及个体差异在情绪加工老龄化中的作用等。本研究将加深对情绪加工老龄化的理解, 为相关理论模型的验证、修正和完善提供实证依据。     

情绪面孔搜索不对称性：情绪观与知觉观的争议

情绪面孔搜索不对称性是指当负性情绪面孔作为目标, 正性情绪面孔作为分心物时, 其搜索速度比正性情绪面孔作为目标时(负性情绪面孔作为分心物)更快。对于这一现象的解释存在争议, 研究者主要从不同情绪面孔在情绪因素和知觉因素两个方面的差异进行解释。来自行为研究和认知神经科学的证据对情绪面孔搜索不对称性效应的解释主要有威胁性刺激捕获假设和情绪摆脱假设的情绪观, 以及嘴部差异说、闭合结构说、知觉组群说以及其他面部特征假设的知觉观。经过对比评价两类观点的理论异同和实验证据认为未来的研究可以整合情绪因素和知觉因素来解释该效应。     

背景颜色对中性面孔情绪识别的影响:隐喻的视角

为考察背景颜色对中性面孔情绪识别的影响及时间特征,采用混合实验设计,背景颜色为组内变量,呈现时间为组间变量,要求被试报告对中性面孔的愉快体验及其程度。结果发现:(1)背景颜色主效应显著,相较于冷色调,暖色调背景下,中性面孔愉快感知百分比更高,愉快程度评定分数也更高。(2)颜色和时间的交互作用不存在显著差异。这表明,背景颜色影响个体对中性面孔图片的情绪识别,且该效应在不同时间进程下均存在。     

时间任务需求对无关情绪面孔注意捕获的影响

注意捕获是指与任务无关的刺激能够不自觉地吸引注意的现象。实验一采用视觉搜索任务,考察与主任务无关的情绪面孔的注意捕获水平及其机制,实验二进一步探究时间任务需求对无关情绪面孔注意捕获的影响。结果发现:与其他情绪面孔相比,愤怒的情绪面孔捕获了更多的注意,且受到整体情绪加工的影响;时间任务需求影响了目标刺激的注意选择,但愤怒优势效应不受到时间任务需求的影响,因此可能是一种较为自动化的加工过程。     

Recognition of Facial Expressions of Emotion by Children with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

Interpreting and responding appropriately to facial expressions of emotion are important aspects of social skills. Some children, adolescents, and adults with various psychological and psychiatric disorders recognize facial expressions less proficiently than their peers in the general population. We wished to determine if such deficits existed in a group of 133 children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). The subjects were receiving in-patient psychiatric services for at least one of substance-related disorders, adjustment disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders or disruptive behavior disorders. After being read stories describing various emotional reactions, all subjects were tested for their ability to recognize the 6 basic facial expressions of emotion depicted in Ekman and Friesen's (1976) normed photographs. Overall, they performed well on this task at levels comparable to those occurring in the general population. Accuracy increased with age, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, or clinical diagnosis. After adjusting for age effects, the subjects diagnosed with either adjustment disorders, mood disorders, or disruptive behavior disorders were significantly more accurate at identifying anger than those without those diagnoses. In addition, subjects with mood disorders identified sadness significantly more accurately than those without this diagnosis, although the effect was greatest with younger children.     

动态面孔表情优势效应的心理机制及神经基础

动态面孔表情优势效应是指较静态面孔表情而言, 个体在识别动态的面孔表情时表现出较好的识别能力。动态面孔表情优势效应的心理机制主要涉及增强的构形加工、补偿角色和面孔模仿能力。此外, 该优势效应的神经网络则由核心的神经网络和扩展的神经网络组成, 前者主要负责早期的知觉编码和刺激的运动加工, 而后者与个体的面孔模仿能力、刺激的动态表征等有关。今后的研究应集中在完善延伸的神经网络、拓展其心理机制; 开展动态面孔表情优势效应的发展性研究; 考察面孔表情的刚性运动特征; 注重在虚拟现实环境下研究动态面孔表情的优势效应。     

Children's Ability to Recognize Emotions From Partial and Complete Facial Expressions

The authors investigated children's ability to recognize emotions from the information available in the lower, middle, or upper face. School-age children were shown partial or complete facial expressions and asked to say whether they corresponded to a given emotion (anger, fear, surprise, or disgust). The results indicate that 5-year-olds were able to recognize fear, anger, and surprise from partial facial expressions. Fear was better recognized from the information located in the upper face than those located in the lower face. A similar pattern of results was found for anger, but only in girls. Recognition improved between 5 and 10 years old for surprise and anger, but not for fear and disgust.     

Facial expressions as performances in mime

That facial expressions are universal emotion signals has been supported by observers agreeing on the emotion mimed by actors. We show that actors can mime a diverse range of states: emotions, cognitions, physical states, and actions. English, Hindi, and Malayalam speakers (N?=?1200) viewed 25 video clips and indicated the state conveyed. Within each language, at least 23 of the 25 clips were recognised above chance and base rate. Facial expressions of emotions are not special in their recognisability, and it is miming that may be the universal human ability.     

Facial Expressions and the Ability to Recognize Emotions from the Eyes or Mouth: A Comparison Between Children and Adults

The authors sought to contribute to the literature on the ability to recognize anger, happiness, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, and neutral emotions from facial information. They aimed to investigate if—regardless of age—this pattern changes. More specifically, the present study aimed to compare the difference between the performance of adults and 6- to 7-year-old children in detecting emotions from the whole face and a specific face region, namely the eyes and mouth. The findings seem to indicate that, for both groups, recognizing disgust, happiness, and surprise is facilitated when pictures represent the whole face. However, with regard to a specific region, a prevalence for children was not found between the eyes and mouth. Meanwhile, for adults, would seem to detect a greater role of the eye region. Finally, regarding the differences in the performance of emotions recognition, adults are better only in a few cases, whereas children are better in recognizing anger from the mouth.     

Children's Recognition of Emotional Facial Expressions Through Photographs and Drawings

The author's purpose was to examine children's recognition of emotional facial expressions, by comparing two types of stimulus: photographs and drawings. The author aimed to investigate whether drawings could be considered as a more evocative material than photographs, as a function of age and emotion. Five- and 7-year-old children were presented with photographs and drawings displaying facial expressions of 4 basic emotions (i.e., happiness, sadness, anger, and fear) and were asked to perform a matching task by pointing to the face corresponding to the target emotion labeled by the experimenter. The photographs we used were selected from the Radboud Faces Database and the drawings were designed on the basis of both the facial components involved in the expression of these emotions and the graphic cues children tend to use when asked to depict these emotions in their own drawings. Our results show that drawings are better recognized than photographs, for sadness, anger, and fear (with no difference for happiness, due to a ceiling effect). And that the difference between the 2 types of stimuli tends to be more important for 5-year-olds compared to 7-year-olds. These results are discussed in view of their implications, both for future research and for practical application.     

Positive and Negative: Infant Facial Expressions and Emotions

One path to understanding emotional processes and their development is the investigation of early facial expressions. Converging evidence suggests that although all infant smiles index positive emotion, some smiles are more positive than others. The evidence stems both from the situations in which infants produce different facial expressions and from naive observers' ratings of the emotional intensity of the expressions. The observers' ratings also suggest that similar facial actions—such as cheek raising—lead smiles to be perceived as more positive and lead negative expressions (cry-faces) to be perceived as more negative. One explanation for this parsimony is that certain facial actions are associated with the intensification of both positive and negative emotions.     

Attention to Emotion and Non-Western Faces: Revisiting the Facial Feedback Hypothesis

In a modified replication of Strack, Martin, and Stepper's demonstration of the Facial Feedback Hypothesis (1988), we investigated the effect of attention to emotion on the facial feedback process in a non-western cultural setting. Participants, recruited from two universities in Ghana, West Africa, gave self-reports of their perceived levels of attention to emotion, and then completed cartoon-rating tasks while randomly assigned to smiling, frowning, or neutral conditions. While participants with low Attention to Emotion scores displayed the usual facial feedback effect (rating cartoons as funnier when in the smiling compared to the frowning condition), the effect was not present in individuals with high Attention to Emotion. The findings indicate that (1) the facial feedback process can occur in contexts beyond those in which the phenomenon has previously been studied, and (2) aspects of emotion regulation, such as Attention to Emotion can interfere with the facial feedback process.     

The Perception of Four Basic Emotions in Human and Nonhuman Faces by Children With Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities

Children who experienced autism, mental retardation, and language disorders; and, children in a clinical control group were shown photographs of human female, orangutan, and canine (boxer) faces expressing happiness, sadness, anger, surprise and a neutral expression. For each species of faces, children were asked to identify the happy, sad, angry, or surprised expressions. In Experiment 1, error patterns suggested that children who experienced autism were attending to features of the lower face when making judgements about emotional expressions. Experiment 2 supported this impression. When recognizing facial emotion, children without autism performed better when viewing the full face, compared to the upper and lower face alone. Children with autism performed no better when viewing the full face than they did when viewing partial faces; and, performed no better than chance when viewing the upper face alone. The results are discussed with respect to differences in the manner that children with and without autism process social information communicated by the face.     

语境信息对面部表情加工的影响

为检验语境信息在面部表情加工和识别中的作用,通过两个实验考察语境信息的情绪性和自我相关性对中性以及不同强度恐惧面孔情绪加工的影响。结果发现,积极语境下中性情绪面孔效价的评分更高,自我相关语境下中性面孔唤醒度的评分更高;消极语境下面孔的恐惧情绪更容易被察觉。因此,面部表情加工中的语境效应表现为对中性情绪面孔的情绪诱发和增强作用,以及在情绪一致情况下对不同情绪强度面孔判断的促进作用。     

Your Face Says It All: Closeness and Perception of Emotional Expressions Among Females

The purpose of the present investigation was to assess whether interpersonal closeness facilitates earlier emotion detection as the emotional expression unfolds. Female undergraduate participants were either paired with a close friend or an acquaintance (n = 92 pairs). Participants viewed morphed movies of their partner and a stranger gradually shifting from a neutral to either a sad, angry, or happy expression. As predicted, findings indicate a closeness advantage. Close friends detected the onset of their partners’ angry and sad expressions earlier than acquaintances. Additionally, close friends were more accurate than acquaintances in identifying angry and sad expressions at the onset, particularly in non-vignette conditions when these expressions were void of context. These findings suggest that closeness does indeed facilitate emotional perception, particularly in ambiguous situations for negative emotions.     

本族和异族面孔表情注视的差异性：来自眼动的证据

采用无任务浏览范式,选取积极、中性和消极的情绪面孔作为材料,将面孔划分为3个兴趣区（眼睛、鼻子和嘴）,考察中国个体在加工本族与高加索情绪面孔的眼动注视特点。研究结果显示,在浏览本族的（积极、中性和消极）情绪面孔时,中国被试对眼睛和鼻子的注视次数和时长显著多于对嘴部的注视次数和时长。在浏览高加索的（积极、中性和消极）情绪面孔时,中国被试对眼睛和鼻子的注视次数和时长显著多于其对嘴部的注视次数和时长,并且对鼻子的注视次数和时长也显著多于眼睛的注视次数和时长。结果表明,在加工本族面孔表情,中国被试将鼻子和眼睛作为主要注视区域,而加工高加索面孔表情时则是将鼻子作为最主要注视区域,即中国被试加工本族和异族面孔表情的注视特点存在差异。     

面孔识别动态增益效应研究综述

近年来,研究者围绕动态面孔识别中的动态增益效应开展了一系列的研究。本文围绕面孔熟悉程度和面孔的活动类型两个方面对与动态增益效应有关的一系列动态面孔认知研究进行了总结,并对不同研究的差异进行了比较和分析。最后,对动态面孔认知规律、眼动模式和脑机制等研究方向上的发展进行了展望。