Sender repertoires of pure and blended facial expressions of emotion

Six actors attempted to communicate by facial expression seven assumedly basic emotions (pleasure, surprise, fear, hate, sorrow, disgust and interest), and all pairwise blends, e.g., fear+sorrow. One hundred and eighty-two subjects (divided into groups as to the six actors) judged pictures of these emotions by three methods: (1) mapping, placing the pictures on coordinate systems with denotated axes, (2) identification and (3) sorting similar emotions into the same pile, followed by multidimensional scaling and cluster analyses. Recognition of the emotions was fairly good, though not equally good for all emotions and their blends; also the actors' ability to express emotions varied. Emotions of opposite hedonic tone did not blend well. Interest seemed to lend poignancy to the basic emotion with which it was blended rather than to constitute an emotion in itself. Expressions seemed to be more easily identified if the actor did not try to feel the emotion too deeply.     

Happy to See Me,Aren’t You,Sally? Signal Detection Analysis of Emotion Detection in Briefly Presented Male and Female Faces

Using signal detection methods, possible effects of emotion type (happy, angry), gender of the stimulus face, and gender of the participant on the detection and response bias of emotion in briefly presented faces were investigated. Fifty-seven participants (28 men, 29 women) viewed 90 briefly presented faces (30 happy, 30 angry, and 30 neutral, each with 15 male and 15 female faces) answering yes if the face was perceived as emotional and no if it was not perceived as emotional. Sensitivity [d', z(hit rate) minus z(false alarm rate)] and response bias (β, likelihood ratio of "signal plus noise" vs. "noise") were measured for each face combination for each presentation time (6.25, 12.50, 18.75, 25.00, 31.25 ms). The d' values were higher for happy than for angry faces and higher for angry-male than for angry-female faces, and there were no effects of gender-of-participant. Results also suggest a greater tendency for participants to judge happy-female faces as emotional, as shown by lower β values for these faces as compared to the other emotion-gender combinations. This happy-female response bias suggests, at least, a partial explanation to happy-superiority effects in studies where performance is only measured as percent correct responses, and, in general, that women are expected to be happy.     

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.     

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。     

Ratings of emotion in laterally presented faces: sex and handedness effects

Sixteen right-handed participants (8 male and 8 female students) and 16 left-handed participants (8 male and 8 female students) were presented with cartoon faces expressing emotions ranging from extremely positive to extremely negative. A forced-choice paradigm was used in which the participants were asked to rate the faces as either positive or negative. Compared to men, women rated faces more positively, especially in response to right visual field presentations. Women rated neutral and mildly positive faces more positively in the right than in the left visual field, whereas men rated these faces consistently across visual fields. Handedness did not affect the ratings of emotion. The data suggest a positive emotional bias of the left hemisphere in women.     

表情判别能力的发展特点与影响因素

本实验通过不同年龄学生对各类表情的判别之研究,探讨了表情判别能力的发展特点及其与个体情绪发展间的关系。结果表明：①身段表情判别能力是导致表情判别年龄差异的核心因素;②面部表情判别能力发展较早,在小学阶段已相当完善,身段表情判别能力发展较晚,到大学阶段才达到与前者相同的水平;③身段表情判别能力的发展与个体情绪发展的阶段性特点及其主要社会适应问题相关联。     

面孔社会知觉中的表情效应

面孔社会知觉指知觉者基于面孔所有者的面孔信息对面孔所有者的人格特质等进行知觉推断的过程。表情是人们进行面孔社会知觉的关键线索之一。表情可以单独通过本身的局部特征和结构信息影响面孔社会知觉, 还可以通过对知觉者的情绪诱发或表情传达的行为倾向性来影响面孔社会知觉的结果。考虑到现实生活中多种表情类型的组合及特定表情(伪装表情)高频出现以及知觉者判断人格特质存在主观性, 未来研究要加强多种表情类型对面孔社会知觉的影响研究, 还要进一步将知觉者因素作为未来研究的变量。     

Emotion recognition of facial expressions in adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder / Reconocimiento de emociones de expresiones faciales en adultos con trastorno de hiperactividad con déficit de atención

Various studies have indicated that children with ADHD have difficulties with the facial interpretation of affect. Research in the adult ADHD population overall is scarce. The present study explores how adults with ADHD react to a simple attention task and an emotion-containing task. Thirty adults clinically diagnosed with ADHD and 30 non-ADHD controls completed a computer-based task through a set of facial expressions standardized for Chile. The task was composed of two parts: first, a simple attention task with facial expressions; and second, a facial expression-labelling task. Reaction Time (RT) and Accuracy (Acc) of responses were evaluated. Participants with ADHD responded significantly faster and were significantly less accurate in both tasks compared to controls. Across both groups, emotion-specific errors increased in the facial expression of anger. Additionally, the ADHD group was significantly faster in responding for anger, but not for happiness or neutral expressions. Impulsivity commonly associated with ADHD may account for faster RT and lower Acc. Moreover, happiness may be more pleasant to identify than anger. These results are consistent with studies that have recorded greater Acc for positive emotions in comparison with negative emotions.