Smiling and sad wrinkles: Age-related changes in the face and the perception of emotions and intentions

There is a common belief that wrinkles in the aging face reflect frequently experienced emotions and hence resemble these affective displays. This implies that the wrinkles and folds in elderly faces interfere with the perception of other emotions currently experienced by the elderly as well as with the inferences perceivers draw from these expressions. Whereas there is ample research on the impact of aging on emotion recognition, almost no research has focused on how emotions expressed by the elderly are perceived by others. The present research addresses this latter question. Young participants rated the emotion expressions and behavioral intentions of old and young faces displaying identical expressions. The findings suggest that emotions shown on older faces have reduced signal clarity and may consequently have less impact on inferences regarding behavioral intentions. Both effects can be expected to have negative consequences for rapport achieved in everyday interactions involving the elderly.     

Treating stimuli as a random factor in social psychology: a new and comprehensive solution to a pervasive but largely ignored problem

Throughout social and cognitive psychology, participants are routinely asked to respond in some way to experimental stimuli that are thought to represent categories of theoretical interest. For instance, in measures of implicit attitudes, participants are primed with pictures of specific African American and White stimulus persons sampled in some way from possible stimuli that might have been used. Yet seldom is the sampling of stimuli taken into account in the analysis of the resulting data, in spite of numerous warnings about the perils of ignoring stimulus variation (Clark, 1973; Kenny, 1985; Wells & Windschitl, 1999). Part of this failure to attend to stimulus variation is due to the demands imposed by traditional analysis of variance procedures for the analysis of data when both participants and stimuli are treated as random factors. In this article, we present a comprehensive solution using mixed models for the analysis of data with crossed random factors (e.g., participants and stimuli). We show the substantial biases inherent in analyses that ignore one or the other of the random factors, and we illustrate the substantial advantages of the mixed models approach with both hypothetical and actual, well-known data sets in social psychology (Bem, 2011; Blair, Chapleau, & Judd, 2005; Correll, Park, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2002).     

Force control under auditory feedback: effector differences and audiomotor memory

Audiomotor integration is a basic form of sensorimotor control for regulating vocal pitch and vocal loudness, but its contribution to general motor control has only been studied minimally. In this paper, auditory feedback for prolonged force control was investigated by comparing manual and oral force generation and testing short-term audiomotor memory for these effectors. Ten healthy volunteers between the ages of 20 and 30 years old were recruited. The participants produced continuous force for 30 sec. with the lip or finger to match auditory targets. In the feedback condition, when auditory feedback was provided for 30 sec., lip force was more variable than finger force. In the memory condition, the force output of both effectors remained stable for approximately 4 sec. after feedback removal, followed by significant decay. A longer short-term memory capacity could facilitate encoding of motor memories for tasks having acoustic goals. The results demonstrate that "audiomotor" integration was effective for sustaining forces, and that audiomotor force memory is comparable to reports of visuomotor force memory.     

Intensity of smiling and attractiveness as facial signals of trustworthiness in women

Facial attractiveness is associated with a variety of positive social characteristics including trustworthiness. Variations in smiling, such as the appearance of the Duchenne marker and increased intensity of expression, have likewise been linked with positive judgments of trustworthiness. The study investigated the interaction of the effects of models' attractiveness and their smiling intensity on impressions of perceived trustworthiness. Participants rated the attractiveness and expressivity of neutral, low intensity, and high intensity smiling images of 45 women models. These images were also presented to a second group of participants who rated trustworthiness. Repeated measures analysis of covariance of the effects of attractiveness and manipulated smile intensity on trustworthiness indicated a main effect for smile intensity: increased smile intensity was associated with greater trustworthiness. Attractiveness also contributed to rated trustworthiness independently of smiling intensity. Results suggested there is an additional contribution of facial expression in creating social impressions of trustworthiness.     

Toward effective forecast of professionally important sensorimotor cognitive abilities of young soccer players

Development of skill in young soccer players relies on progressive improvement in different professionally important sensorimotor cognitive abilities. Development of seven leading abilities was based on the results of 23 tests provided for experimental and control groups. 600 elite young soccer players of both sexes, ages 11 to 19 years, were assessed over a period of 4 years. Experimental groups were given different exercises to aid development of selected abilities. At the end of the monitoring period, the experimental groups demonstrated a significant improvement in contrast to the control groups, and the greatest improvements in different test performances were observed in the 11- to 13-year-olds. The test-retest ata show the testing process to be reliable. The study provides standard pedagogical models and data for trainers, coaches, and researchers working with young soccer players. Future research on talent identification and selection should adopt amultidimensional approach.     

Multi-wave Prospective Examination of the Stress-Reactivity Extension of Response Styles Theory of Depression in High-Risk Children and Early Adolescents

The current study tested the stress-reactivity extension of response styles theory of depression (Nolen-Hoeksema Journal of Abnormal Psychology 100:569–582, 1991) in a sample of high-risk children and early adolescents from a vulnerability-stress perspective using a multi-wave longitudinal design. In addition, we examined whether obtained results varied as a function of either age or sex. During an initial assessment, 56 high-risk children (offspring of depressed parents; ages 7–14) completed measures assessing rumination and depressive symptoms. Children were subsequently given a handheld personal computer which signalled them to complete measures assessing depressive symptoms and negative events at six randomly selected times over an 8-week follow-up interval. In line with hypotheses, higher levels of rumination were associated with prospective elevations in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of negative events. Sex, but not age, moderated this association. Rumination was more strongly associated with elevations in depressive symptoms following the occurrence of negative events in girls than in boys.     

Neuronal deactivation is equally important for understanding emotional processing

In their analyses of the neural correlates of discrete emotionality, Lindquist et al. do not consider the numerous drawbacks to inferring psychological processes based on currently available cognitive neurometric technology. The authors also disproportionately emphasize the relevance of neuronal activation over deactivation, which, in our opinion, limits the scope and utility of their conclusions.     

Emotion in the neutral face: a mechanism for impression formation?

The current work examined contributions of emotion-resembling facial cues to impression formation. There exist common facial cues that make people look emotional, male or female, and from which we derive personality inferences. We first conducted a Pilot Study to assess these effects. We found that neutral female versus neutral male faces were rated as more submissive, affiliative, na?ve, honest, cooperative, babyish, fearful, happy, and less angry than neutral male faces. In our Primary Study, we then "warped" these same neutral faces over their corresponding anger and fear displays so the resultant facial appearance cues now structurally resembled emotion while retaining a neutral visage (e.g., no wrinkles, furrows, creases, etc.). The gender effects found in the Pilot Study were replicated in the Primary Study, suggesting clear stereotype-driven impressions. Critically, ratings of the neutral-over-fear warps versus neutral-over-anger warps also revealed a profile similar to the gender-based ratings, revealing perceptually driven impressions directly attributable to emotion overgeneralisation.     

Sex differences in latent cognitive abilities ages 5 to 17: Evidence from the Differential Ability Scales—Second Edition

Sex differences in the latent general and broad cognitive abilities underlying the Differential Ability Scales, Second Edition were investigated for children and youth ages 5 through 17. Multi-group mean and covariance structural equation modeling was used to investigate sex differences in latent cognitive abilities as well as changes in these differences across age. Most broad abilities showed mean differences across the sexes, and all such differences varied across ages. Girls showed an advantage on the processing speed (Gs) first-order residual factor. Girls also showed advantages at some ages on free-recall memory, a narrow ability of long term retrieval (Glr). Boys showed a developmentally-related advantage on a visual-spatial ability (Gv) first-order residual factor, depending on age. Younger girls showed an advantage on short-term memory (Gsm). No statistically significant sex differences were shown on the latent comprehension-knowledge (Gc) factor, or on a second-order, latent g factor. Boys showed larger variances for several broad abilities, some substantial, but those differences were not statistically significant.