Processing Faces and Facial Expressions

This paper reviews processing of facial identity and expressions. The issue of independence of these two systems for these tasks has been addressed from different approaches over the past 25 years. More recently, neuroimaging techniques have provided researchers with new tools to investigate how facial information is processed in the brain. First, findings from traditional approaches to identity and expression processing are summarized. The review then covers findings from neuroimaging studies on face perception, recognition, and encoding. Processing of the basic facial expressions is detailed in light of behavioral and neuroimaging data. Whereas data from experimental and neuropsychological studies support the existence of two systems, the neuroimaging literature yields a less clear picture because it shows considerable overlap in activation patterns in response to the different face-processing tasks. Further, activation patterns in response to facial expressions support the notion of involved neural substrates for processing different facial expressions.     

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.     

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。     

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.     

Biased Facial Expression Interpretation in Shy Children

The relationship between shyness and the interpretations of the facial expressions of others was examined in a sample of 123 children aged 12 to 14 years. Participants viewed faces displaying happiness, fear, anger, disgust, sadness, surprise, as well as a neutral expression, presented on a computer screen. The children identified each expression by pressing a button on an external keyboard. For each expression, children also rated (a) the degree to which they felt the child displaying the expression would like them, (b) the probability that someone at school would look at them with that expression, and (c) their own emotional reaction to interacting with a child displaying the expression. Participants also completed the Children's Shyness Questionnaire and the Children's Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire. We hypothesized that shyness in children would be related to negatively biased interpretations of facial expressions. Although the accuracy with which the children could identify the facial expressions was not related to their degree of shyness, negative biases were found in their interpretations of the meanings of the expressions. Furthermore, rejection sensitivity significantly mediated many of these biased interpretations. These findings may have implications for interventions for children experiencing shyness and social anxiety, especially social‐skills training approaches. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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。     

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.     

区分度在面部表情与面孔身份识别交互中的作用

已有研究表明,身份对面部表情识别的影响较常见,但表情对面孔身份识别的影响却很罕见。只有个别研究发现了表情对熟悉面孔身份识别的影响。最近有研究使用非常相似的模特面孔图片为实验材料,也发现了表情对身份识别的影响,并提出在以往研究中表情不影响身份识别是因为身份的区分度高于表情的区分度。本研究置疑表情区分度低于身份区分度的必然性,认为过去的研究使用静态表情图片,使得表情自然具有的强度变化线索缺失,才导致表情的区分度相对较低。本研究假设,当表情的强度变化线索得以体现时,表情的区分度就会提高,此时表情识别可能就不会受身份的影响。实验结果支持该假设,证明表情与身份的区分度水平是决定二者识别交互模式的重要因素。表情身份识别之间的相互影响并不能完全证明这两者之间的独立加工关系。此外,研究结果也提示在一定条件下可以部分分离表情与身份信息     

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 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.     

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.     

面孔识别的眼动研究

采用眼动记录法探讨面孔识别的加工过程。在实验一中,通过记录被试识别面孔图片和非面孔图片时的即时加工过程,考查被试在知觉面孔与一般物体时的眼动差异。在实验二中,考察被试在知觉熟悉面孔与陌生面孔时的眼动差异与时间进程的差异。结果表明:(1)个体在加工面孔时倾向于首先在双眼间平移而后向嘴巴运动,完成面孔识别,而在识别物体图片时则没有固定的运动轨迹。(2)在知觉熟悉面孔时被试倾向于只注视眼睛,而在知觉陌生面孔图片时则与实验一的面孔图片眼动轨迹相似。     

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.     

精神分裂症对情绪的面部表情加工及其神经机制

综述了近年来关于精神分裂症对情绪面部表情加工损伤的研究,讨论了这种损伤的性质,以及对这种损伤性质的解释,比如它属于一般性还是特异性的损伤,与临床症状以及认知特征之间的关系等。比较分析表明,精神分裂症情绪面部表情知觉损伤,可能兼有面部信息加工障碍和情绪信息知觉困难的特性。另外,介绍了国外关于针对精神分裂症面部表情再认和识别的康复训练研究以及近年来利用事件相关电位（ERPs）和功能磁共振成像（fMRI）等认知神经科学技术进行的神经生理机制研究     

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。     

Varieties of Anger: The Relation Between Emotion Terms and Components of Anger Expressions

Component theory (C. Smith & H. Scott, 1997) predicts that presence of component movements (action units) alters the decoded meaning of a basic emotional expression. We tested whether the meaning of the basic expression of anger varied when different components were present in the expression. Participants were asked to label variants of anger from Ekman and Friesen's Pictures of Facial Affect using 15 anger terms, and invariance of labeling was tested by manipulating the judgment task. Data were analyzed using consensus analysis, multidimensional scaling, and numerical scaling. Components did not result in consensus about fine distinctions in the meanings of the anger expressions. Varying the type of task strongly affected results. We believe this occurred because language elicits different categorization processes than evaluation of facial expressions nonverbally.     

面部表情识别的即时加工过程

采用眼动记录技术探讨面部表情识别的即时加工过程。基本的面部表情可以分为三种性质：正性、中性和负性,实验一探讨大学生对这三种面部表情识别即时加工过程的基本模式;实验二采用遮蔽技术探讨面部不同部位信息对面部表情识别的影响程度。结果发现：（1）被试对不同性质面部表情识别的即时加工过程存在共性,其眼动轨迹呈“逆V型”;（2）被试对不同性质面部表情的识别存在显著差异,在行为指标和眼动指标上都有体现;（3）对不同部位进行遮蔽,眼动模式发生了根本性改变,遮蔽影响面部表情识别的反应时和正确率;（4）面部表情识别对面部不同部位信息依赖程度不同,眼部信息作用更大。上述结果提示,个体对不同性质面部表情识别的即时加工过程具有共性,但在不同性质面部表情识别上的心理能量消耗不同;并且表情识别对面部不同部位信息依赖程度不同,对眼部信息依赖程度更大     

空间频率信息对面孔身份与表情识别的影响

已有面孔身份与表情识别研究提示, 高频空间信息可能选择性地与表情识别有关, 而低频空间信息则选择性地与身份识别有关。为验证这一假设, 操纵空间频率设计三个Garner效应测量实验。实验1测量全频条件下身份表情识别之间的Garner效应, 结果显示, 相互间的干扰均显著。实验2测量高频条件下的干扰效应, 发现表情识别的Garner效应不再显著而身份识别的Garner效应无明显变化, 出现分离。实验3测量低频条件下的Garner效应, 结果表明, 表情与身份识别的Garner效应仍显著, 未受高频过滤影响。基于Garner范式, 提出面孔识别的可分离度与难度双指标同时考察的方法, 对实验结果进行了分析, 并由此得出结论, 高频空间信息是面孔身份与表情信息分离的有效尺度。     

Knowing me,knowing you: emotion differentiation in oneself is associated with recognition of others’ emotions

ABSTRACT

Previous research has found that individuals vary greatly in emotion differentiation, that is, the extent to which they distinguish between different emotions when reporting on their own feelings. Building on previous work that has shown that emotion differentiation is associated with individual differences in intrapersonal functions, the current study asks whether emotion differentiation is also related to interpersonal skills. Specifically, we examined whether individuals who are high in emotion differentiation would be more accurate in recognising others’ emotional expressions. We report two studies in which we used an established paradigm tapping negative emotion differentiation and several emotion recognition tasks. In Study 1 (N?=?363), we found that individuals high in emotion differentiation were more accurate in recognising others’ emotional facial expressions. Study 2 (N?=?217), replicated this finding using emotion recognition tasks with varying amounts of emotional information. These findings suggest that the knowledge we use to understand our own emotional experience also helps us understand the emotions of others.     

Recognition of Emotion in Facial Expressions and Vocal Tones in Children With Psychopathic Tendencies

The authors investigated the ability of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties, divided according to their Psychopathy Screening Device scores (P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press), to recognize emotional facial expressions and vocal tones. The Psychopathy Screening Device indexes a behavioral syndrome with two dimensions: affective disturbance and impulsive and conduct problems. Nine children with psychopathic tendencies and 9 comparison children were presented with 2 facial expression and 2 vocal tone subtests from the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy (S. Nowicki & M. P. Duke, 1994). These subtests measure the ability to name sad, fearful, happy, and angry facial expressions and vocal affects. The children with psychopathic tendencies showed selective impairments in the recognition of both sad and fearful facial expressions and sad vocal tone. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in their recognition of happy or angry facial expressions or fearful, happy, and angry vocal tones. The results are interpreted with reference to the suggestion that the development of psychopathic tendencies may reflect early amygdala dysfunction (R. J. R. Blair, J. S. Morris, C. D. Frith, D. I. Perrett, & R. Dolan, 1999).