Mimicking emotions: how 3–12-month-old infants use the facial expressions and eyes of a model

While there is an extensive literature on the tendency to mimic emotional expressions in adults, it is unclear how this skill emerges and develops over time. Specifically, it is unclear whether infants mimic discrete emotion-related facial actions, whether their facial displays are moderated by contextual cues and whether infants’ emotional mimicry is constrained by developmental changes in the ability to discriminate emotions. We therefore investigate these questions using Baby-FACS to code infants’ facial displays and eye-movement tracking to examine infants’ looking times at facial expressions. Three-, 7-, and 12-month-old participants were exposed to dynamic facial expressions (joy, anger, fear, disgust, sadness) of a virtual model which either looked at the infant or had an averted gaze. Infants did not match emotion-specific facial actions shown by the model, but they produced valence-congruent facial responses to the distinct expressions. Furthermore, only the 7- and 12-month-olds displayed negative responses to the model’s negative expressions and they looked more at areas of the face recruiting facial actions involved in specific expressions. Our results suggest that valence-congruent expressions emerge in infancy during a period where the decoding of facial expressions becomes increasingly sensitive to the social signal value of emotions.     

Sex differences in the perception of affective facial expressions: Do men really lack emotional sensitivity?

There is evidence that men and women display differences in both cognitive and affective functions. Recent studies have examined the processing of emotions in males and females. However, the findings are inconclusive, possibly the result of methodological differences. The aim of this study was to investigate the perception of emotional facial expressions in men and women. Video clips of neutral faces, gradually morphing into full-blown expressions were used. By doing this, we were able to examine both the accuracy and the sensitivity in labelling emotional facial expressions. Furthermore, all participants completed an anxiety and a depression rating scale. Research participants were 40 female students and 28 male students. Results revealed that men were less accurate, as well as less sensitive in labelling facial expressions. Thus, men show an overall worse performance compared to women on a task measuring the processing of emotional faces. This result is discussed in relation to recent findings.     

Development of comprehension of “or”: Evidence for a sequence of competencies

Comprehension of various usages of “or” was investigated in children 5–6, 7–8, and 9–10 years old, and in college students. One task used imperatives containing “or.” and investigated the set union interpretation. In a second task, one puppet asserted a statement and another puppet contradicted it: subjects were asked whether both could be right, and whether one had to be right. A third task investigated the truth conditions for disjunctions. The fourth task presented reasoning problems that tested principles of inference involving “or.” It was found that all age groups, even the youngest, could make the logical inferences involving “or.” All age groups could also perceive contradictions, but subjects were less than unanimous that one of the puppets contradicting each other had to be right. Sensible truth judgments for disjunctions began to develop around 7–8 years. Set union was elicited in only a few adults. In general, except when it indicates set union, “or” is understood substantially earlier than the current literature suggests. Logical inference is one of the first uses in which children become competent, suggesting that the basic meaning of “or” is given by inference forms for reasoning with alternatives, not by truth conditions.     

Facial EMG reactions to facial expressions: A case of facial emotional contagion?

The purpose of this study is to explore whether subjects exposed to stimuli of facial expressions respond with facial electromyographic (EMG) reactions consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. This study further examines whether males and females differ in facial EMG intensity. Two experiments demonstrated that subjects responded with facial EMG activity over the corrugator supercilii, the zygomatic major , the lateral frontalis , the depressor supercilii , and the levator labii muscle regions to stimuli of sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disgusted and happy faces, that, to large extent, were consistent with the hypothesis that facial expressions are contagious. Aspects of gender differences reported in earlier studies were found, indicating a tendency for females to respond with more pronounced facial EMG intensity.     

Categorical perception of tonal intervais: Musicians can’t tellsharp fromflat

Six musicians with relative pitch judged 13 tonal intervals in a magnitude estimation task. Stimuli were spaced in .2-semitone increments over a range of three standard musical categories (fourth, tritone, fifth,). The judged magnitude of the intervals did not increase regularly with stimulus magnitude. Rather, the psychophysical functions showed three discrete steps cor-responding to the musically defined intervals. Although all six subjects had identified in-tune intervals with >95% accuracy, all were very poor at differentiating within a musical category— they could not reliably tell “sharp” from “flat.” After the experiment, they judged 63% of the stimuli to be “in tune,” but in fact only 23% were musically accurate. In a subsequent labeling task, subjects produced identification functions with sharply defined boundaries between each of the three musical categories. Our results parallel those associated with the identification and scaling of speech sounds, and we interpret them as evidence for categorical perception of music.     

Attentional processing of “unattended” flankers: Evidence for a failure of selective attention

Results from research with the flanker task have been used to argue both that flankers are identified without attention and that flanker identificatin requires attention. In three experiments, we addressed this issue by examining flanker recall. In Experiment 1, we manipulated flanker redundancy, a variable that could influence attention to the flankers, in order to determine whether it affected the magnitude of the flanker effect, the magnitude of flanker recall, or both. Redundancy did not influence the flanker effect, and recall was high in both conditions, suggesting that the flankers were attended. The recall results contradicted those of Miller (1987), the only other study that we could find in which flanker recall was used. In Experiments 2 and 3, we examined differences between Miller’s procedure and ours. Although flanker recall was lower when open-ended rather than forced recall was used and when the flanker task was made more complicated, flanker recall remained well above chance in all conditions. The data strongly suggest that in the typical correlated flanker task there is a failure of selective attention at some point during processing such that flankers receive attentional processing.     

The “Longing for Interpersonal Touch Picture Questionnaire”: Development of a new measurement for touch perception

Touch is a crucial factor of physiological and psychological health in humans. A lack of touch in contrast is associated with adverse implications on mental health. A new “Longing for Interpersonal Touch Picture Questionnaire (LITPQ)” was developed and tested for its concurrent, predictive, discriminant and face validity as well as its relation to psychological distress. Six different types of touch were depicted and touch frequency and touch wish concerning different interaction partners assessed. A sample of 110 participants aged 18–56 years completed the LITPQ as well as an existing touch deprivation questionnaire and a questionnaire on mental health. Frequency and wish for touch were higher for close interaction partners than for strangers. For 72.7% of the participants, their touch wish exceeded the reported touch frequency. The LITPQ correlated moderately with the existing questionnaire for touch deprivation and was independent of relationship status or gender but positively correlated with depressiveness, anxiety and somatization. Measuring longing for touch is a very complex task considering the many aspects of subjective touch perception and confounds in the method of self-report of touch. In our view, the LITPQ provides promising insights into this matter.     

Anger as “seeing red”: Evidence for a perceptual association

Metaphor representation theory contends that people conceptualise their non-perceptual states (e.g., emotion concepts) in perceptual terms. The present research extends this theory to colour manipulations and discrete emotional representations. Two experiments (N=265) examined whether a red font colour would facilitate anger conceptions, consistent with metaphors referring to anger to “seeing red”. Evidence for an implicit anger-red association was robust and emotionally discrete in nature. Further, Experiment 2 examined the directionality of such associations and found that they were asymmetrical: Anger categorisations were faster when a red font colour was involved, but redness categorisations were not faster when an anger-related word was involved. Implications for multiple literatures are discussed.     

The fear-avoidance model of exaggerated pain perception—II: Preliminary studies of coping strategies for pain

The personal history of pain and personal coping strategies for pain are two of the contributory factors in the Fear-Avoidance Model of exaggerated pain perception proposed by Lethem, Slade, Troup and Bentley (1983, this issue, pp. 401–408). In order to test this aspect of the hypothesis, a questionnaire was designed and has been completed by 165 students (93 female, 72 male) at the University of Liverpool.They were asked about the severity of externally-produced pain (e.g. fracture), of internally-produced pain (e.g. headache) and of back pain; about the strategies they adopted for coping with internallyproduced pain (e.g. did they ignore the pain and carry on—an active strategy—or did they go and rest—a passive strategy); and about the effects of back pain on each of 10 activities or postures (from ‘no effect’ to ‘had to stop completely’) in order to obtain an index of back-pain avoidance.Out of 165, 91 reported previous back pain (Back Pain group) and their average rating for the severity of externally-produced pain was significantly higher than for the No Back Pain group; but there were no differences between these two groups for their coping strategies for internally-produced pain. However, of the Back Pain group with two or more previous attacks, 35 gave a history indicating decreasingly severe attacks and 28, increasingly severe: the coping strategies of the latter group for internally-produced pain were significantly more passive. The ratings for severity of back pain correlated significantly with the indices for back-pain avoidance and with the ratings for severity of internally-produced pain.These findings are in line with the prediction that personal pain history and personal coping strategies are relevant to the Fear-Avoidance Model of exaggerated pain perception and may therefore influence the adoption of an avoidance or a confrontation response by the patient with chronic back pain.     

How are overlapping time intervals perceived? Evidence for a weighted sum of segments model

This study investigated the way in which people time two overlapping intervals. Timing models already proposed in the literature predict different effects of the degree of overlap on each estimate, and empirical findings were compared to these predictions. Two unimodal experiments (in which each to-be-timed interval was a visual stimulus) and one bimodal experiment (in which one to-be-timed interval was auditory and the other visual) were conducted. The estimate of the first interval was either unaffected or decreased, and the estimate of the second interval consistently increased as the intervals were more temporally separated. The only model in the literature that could account for such result patterns is a single pacemaker single accumulator structure with an additional recency weighting (see the weighted sum of segments model). That is, participants appear to segment the two overlapping intervals into three non-overlapping and overlapping segments, time these segments separately, and then combine them to estimate each interval. Importantly, a recency weighting, determined by the time that has passed since the end of that segment, is also applied to each segment in the summation process. Further, in the bimodal experiment the order in which the stimuli of different modalities were presented affected the way in which they were timed, a finding that none of the current models can explain. This highlights that a comprehensive model of interval timing must consider not only the modalities of to-be-timed intervals but also the order in which different modalities must be timed.     

Spatial cuing in a stereoscopic display: Evidence for a “depth-blind” attentional spotlight

This experiment explored whether attentional selection observed in a spatial cuing task is based on a representation that includes depth information or not. Targets were presented inside placeholders appearing at the samex,y location on a stereoscopic display, but on different depth planes, or at differentx,y locations on the same depth plane. A peripheral precue produced significant cuing effects in the latter but not in the former condition. In a control experiment, significant cuing effects were found for targets appearing at differentx,y coordinates within the fovea, confirming that the lack of cuing effects in the depth condition was not due to foveal presentation. Together, the results suggest that spatial selection in spatial cuing tasks operates on a representation that does not include depth information.     

Spatial cuing in a stereoscopic display: Evidence for a “depth-aware” attentional focus

Two experiments were conducted to explore whether attentional selection occurs in depth, or whether attentional focus is “depth blind,” as suggested by Ghiradelli and Folk (1996). In Experiment 1, observers viewed stereoscopic displays in which one of four spatial locations was cued. Two of the locations were at a near-depth location and two were at a far-depth location, and a single target was presented along with three distractors. The results indicated a larger cost in reaction time for switching attention inx,y and depth than inx,y alone, supporting a “depth-aware” attentional spotlight. In Experiment 2, no distractors were present, similar to the displays used by Ghiradelli and Folk. In this experiment, no effect for switching attention in depth was found, indicating that the selectivity of attention in depth depends on the perceptual load imposed on observers by the tasks and displays.     

Who do you look like? Evidence of facial stereotypes for male names

The present research provides evidence that people use facial prototypes when they encounter different names. In Experiment 1, participants created face exemplars for fifteen common male names, subsets of which were endorsed as good examples by a second set of participants. These most typical faces were morphed to create face-name prototypes. In Experiment 2, participants matched one of the names to each of the prototype faces from Experiment 1. Participants’ matching choices showed convergence in naming the prototypes for many of the names. Experiment 3 utilized these same prototypes in a learning task designed to investigate if the face-name associations revealed in Experiment 2 impacted the learnability of the names. Participants learned face-name pairings that had a higher association (based on frequencies from Experiment 2) faster than pairings with a low association. Results suggest a more direct relationship between faces and names than has been previously proposed.     

Abusive relationships: Is a new category for traumatization needed?

The concept of a spectrum of posttraumatic disorders has been postulated by a variety of major contributors to the field of psychotraumatology. Although Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one trauma-based mental health disorder, there are other posttraumatic illnesses that do not qualify for PTSD, nor are they accurately described by other diagnostic categories in the DSM-IV. The present paper proposes and delineates a new syndrome, entitled Posttraumatic Relationship Syndrome (PTRS), which is a function of the experience of trauma in the context of an emotionally intimate relationship. It differs from PTSD in four fundamental ways: (1) the nature of the Stressor criterion; (2) the response to the Stressor; (3) the inclusion of a category of relational symptoms; and (4) the way of coping with the trauma (i.e., it lacks the emotional numbing and avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma). The latter is the most salient difference as it involves a qualitatively different experience of the “world of trauma”-a primarily conscious experience in PTRS and an often unconscious experience in PTSD.     

Abusive relationships: Is a new category for traumatization needed?

The concept of a spectrum of posttraumatic disorders has been postulated by a variety of major contributors to the field of psychotraumatology. Although Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is one trauma-based mental health disorder, there are other posttraumatic illnesses that do not qualify for PTSD, nor are they accurately described by other diagnostic categories in the DSM-IV. The present paper proposes and delineates a new syndrome, entitled Posttraumatic Relationship Syndrome (PTRS), which is a function of the experience of trauma in the context of an emotionally intimate relationship. It differs from PTSD in four fundamental ways: (1) the nature of the Stressor criterion; (2) the response to the Stressor; (3) the inclusion of a category of relational symptoms; and (4) the way of coping with the trauma (i.e., it lacks the emotional numbing and avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma). The latter is the most salient difference as it involves a qualitatively different experience of the “world of trauma”-a primarily conscious experience in PTRS and an often unconscious experience in PTSD.     

Ramifications of a population model forκ as a coefficient of reliability

Coefficient is generally defined in terms of procedures of computation rather than in terms of a population. Here a population definition is proposed. On this basis, the interpretation of as a measure of diagnostic reliability in characterizing an individual, and the effect of reliability, as measured by, on estimation bias, precision, and test power are examined. Factors influencing the magnitude of are identified. Strategies to improve reliability are proposed, including that of combining multiple unreliable diagnoses.This investigation was supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health Specialized Research Center Grant # MH-30854.     

Towards a “virtual pigeon”: A new technique for investigating avian social perception

The purpose of the present study is to examine the applicability of a computer-generated, virtual animal to study animal cognition. Pigeons were trained to discriminate between movies of a real pigeon and a rat. Then, they were tested with movies of the computer-generated (CG) pigeon. Subjects showed generalization to the CG pigeon, however, they also responded to modified versions in which the CG pigeon was showing impossible movement, namely hopping and walking without its head bobbing. Hence, the pigeons did not attend to these particular details of the display. When they were trained to discriminate between the normal and the modified version of the CG pigeon, they were able to learn the discrimination. The results of an additional partial occlusion test suggest that the subjects used head movement as a cue for the usual vs. unusual CG pigeon discrimination.This contribution is part of the special issue ‘Animal Logics’ (Watanabe and Huber 2006)     

Searching-waiting strategy: a candidate for an evolutionary model of depression?

The model proposed here assumes that depressive disorders could reflect an extreme state of a current behavioral strategy. According to this model, a subject facing a problem of survival without apparent solution may choose between two behavioral patterns: searching for a solution or waiting for that solution to occur. This choice can be made after one or several estimations of the cost and benefit attached to each of these alternatives. Two of the main behavioral models of depression are interpreted according to this model: namely, infant response to maternal separation in monkeys and "behavioral despair" in rodents. Practical and theoretical consequences of this model are discussed.     

Regional accent variation in the shadowing task: Evidence for a loose perception–action coupling in speech

We investigated the relation between action and perception in speech processing, using the shadowing task, in which participants repeat words they hear. In support of a tight perception–action link, previous work has shown that phonetic details in the stimulus influence the shadowing response. On the other hand, latencies do not seem to suffer if stimulus and response differ in their articulatory properties. The present investigation tested how perception influences production when participants are confronted with regional variation. Results showed that participants often imitate a regional variation if it occurs in the stimulus set but tend to stick to their variant if the stimuli are consistent. Participants were forced or induced to correct by the experimental instructions. Articulatory stimulus–response differences do not lead to latency costs. These data indicate that speech perception does not necessarily recruit the production system.     

Through the eyes of a child: preschoolers’ identification of emotional expressions from the child affective facial expression (CAFE) set

Researchers have been interested in the perception of human emotional expressions for decades. Importantly, most empirical work in this domain has relied on controlled stimulus sets of adults posing for various emotional expressions. Recently, the Child Affective Facial Expression (CAFE) set was introduced to the scientific community, featuring a large validated set of photographs of preschool aged children posing for seven different emotional expressions. Although the CAFE set was extensively validated using adult participants, the set was designed for use with children. It is therefore necessary to verify that adult validation applies to child performance. In the current study, we examined 3- to 4-year-olds’ identification of a subset of children’s faces in the CAFE set, and compared it to adult ratings cited in previous research. Our results demonstrate an exceptionally strong relationship between adult ratings of the CAFE photos and children’s ratings, suggesting that the adult validation of the set can be applied to preschool-aged participants. The results are discussed in terms of methodological implications for the use of the CAFE set with children, and theoretical implications for using the set to study the development of emotion perception in early childhood.