Modelling perceptions of criminality and remorse from faces using a data-driven computational approach

Perceptions of criminality and remorse are critical for legal decision-making. While faces perceived as criminal are more likely to be selected in police lineups and to receive guilty verdicts, faces perceived as remorseful are more likely to receive less severe punishment recommendations. To identify the information that makes a face appear criminal and/or remorseful, we successfully used two different data-driven computational approaches that led to convergent findings: one relying on the use of computer-generated faces, and the other on photographs of people. In addition to visualising and validating the perceived looks of criminality and remorse, we report correlations with earlier face models of dominance, threat, trustworthiness, masculinity/femininity, and sadness. The new face models of criminal and remorseful appearance contribute to our understanding of perceived criminality and remorse. They can be used to study the effects of perceived criminality and remorse on decision-making; research that can ultimately inform legal policies.     

虚拟化身对攻击性的启动效应:游戏暴力性、玩家性别的影响

虚拟化身是个体在虚拟环境中的自我呈现,化身形象是与特定刻板印象相联系的虚拟化身的外在表象。虚拟化身与攻击性的关系已得到证实,但还有一些问题尚需探讨。本研究通过2个实验,采用线索启动的方法,考察了化身形象、游戏暴力性和玩家性别对化身认同和攻击性的影响,以及化身认同和攻击性之间的关系。实验1结果表明:化身形象与游戏暴力性交互影响化身认同和攻击性。在暴力游戏中,化身形象对化身认同和攻击性有显著影响;在非暴力游戏中,化身形象对化身认同的影响边缘显著,但对攻击性无显著影响。对不同化身形象的认同会诱发不同的攻击性,但受游戏暴力性的影响。实验2结果表明:在暴力游戏中,化身形象与玩家性别交互影响化身认同和攻击性。女性在化身认同方面比男性更易受化身形象影响;男性在攻击性方面比女性更易受化身形象影响。对不同化身形象的认同会导致不同的攻击性,但受性别的影响。     

Psychological adjustment to craniofacial conditions (excluding oral clefts): A review of the literature

Objective: A congenital craniofacial anomaly (CFA) is expected to impact upon several domains of psychological, emotional and social functioning, yet no recent reviews have comprehensively summarised the available literature. Further, existing reviews tend to draw upon literature in the field of cleft lip and palate, and do not give substantive attention to other types of CFAs.

Design: A review of 41 papers published between January 2000 and March 2016 pertaining to psychological adjustment to CFAs.

Main outcome measures: Findings are presented according to key psychological domains: General Psychological Well-being, Quality of Life, Behaviour, Emotional Well-being, Social Experiences, Appearance, and Treatment-Related Experiences.

Results: Current literature offers a contradictory picture of adjustment to CFAs. Psychological adjustment appeared to be comparable to norms and reference groups in approximately half of the papers related to non-syndromic CFAs, while more variation was found across domains among samples with syndromic CFAs. Associations were found between adjustment, physical health and cognitive function in several papers. The review identified a number of gaps in the literature, such as the inclusion of a wide range of diagnoses within research samples.

Conclusions: This review demonstrates the complexity of findings, both within and across domains, and highlights a number of methodological challenges.     

感知到亲子间面孔相似性对亲子虐待的影响：一个双重调节模型

由于体内受精,父亲面临着父亲身份不确定性的风险,亲子间面孔相似性是辨别父亲身份的一个常用的有效线索,因此,父亲往往依据亲子间面孔相似性程度调整着亲子投资。而中国传统文化强调重男轻女,因此,父子间面孔相似性比父女间面孔相似性对父亲的亲子投资的预测效应更强。本研究采用自我报告的方法测量了212名中学生感知到亲子间面孔相似性、亲子虐待以及人口学变量。结果表明:（1）感知到的亲子间面孔相似性与亲子虐待中的精神虐待存在显著的相关,与身体虐待的相关没有达到显著水平;（2）父母的性别显著地调节着感知到亲子间面孔相似性对精神虐待的预测,具体而言, 父子（女）间面孔相似性显著地预测父亲的精神虐待,而母子（女）间面孔相似性对母亲精神虐待的预测没有达到显著水平;（3）进一步的分析表明,子女的性别显著地调节着感知到父子（女）间面孔相似性对父亲精神虐待的影响,具体而言,父子间面孔相似性显著地预测父亲对儿子的精神虐待,但父女间面孔相似性对父亲对女儿的精神虐待的预测没有达到显著水平。研究结果支持并拓展了父亲身份不确定性假设。     

The effect of laughter expression modulation on emotional experience in 4 to 10 year-old children

According to the literature, in adulthood, facial expression control unconsciously generates a congruent change in emotional experience (facial feedback). Although only a few studies have been conducted on this phenomenon with children, it is to be expected that the strength of the link between facial expression and emotional experience will diminish with age, and consequently, that the facial feedback effect will decrease with age. In order to test this hypothesis, we used an emotional induction paradigm (based on funny video-clips) with an expressive change paradigm (i.e., free expression vs. laughter restriction vs. laughter exaggeration). The emotional experience of 4–10-year-old children was assessed a posteriori based on analyses of their narratives about the video-clips. Results indicated that the children benefited from a facial feedback effect on their emotional experiences without an age effect. They are discussed in the light of the literature on emotional regulation and emotional development.     

The contribution of facial regions to judgements of happiness and trustworthiness from dynamic expressions

What expressive facial features and processing mechanisms make a person look trustworthy, relative to happy? Participants judged the un/happiness or un/trustworthiness of people with dynamic expressions in which the eyes and/or the mouth unfolded from neutral to happy or vice versa. Faces with an unfolding smile looked more trustworthy and happier than faces with a neutral mouth, regardless of the eye expression. Unfolding happy eyes increased both trustworthiness and happiness only in the presence of a congruent unfolding smiling mouth. Nevertheless, the contribution of the mouth was greater for happiness than for trustworthiness; and the mouth was especially visually salient for expressions favouring happiness more than trustworthiness. We conclude that the categorisation of facial happiness is more automatically driven by the visual saliency of a single feature, that is, the smiling mouth, while perception of trustworthiness is more strategic, with the eyes being necessarily incorporated into a configural face representation.     

The sibling uncertainty hypothesis: Facial resemblance as a sibling recognition cue

For the same reason that fathers could not have been certain their mates’ offspring were their genetic progeny during human evolutionary history, full siblings could not have been certain that they shared paternal genes. Previous kin recognition research suggests facial resemblance is a cue men use to help solve the adaptive problem of paternity uncertainty and identify their biological offspring. Facial resemblance may also be a cue individuals use to identify siblings who share paternal genes. In the current study, facial resemblance between siblings was hypothesized to be positively associated with their emotional closeness and altruism, and inversely related with their frequency of conflict. Within families, individuals reported greater closeness and altruism toward siblings who more closely resembled them. In contrast with previous offspring recognition research, the effects of resemblance were not sex-differentiated, suggesting that facial resemblance is a cue both sexes use in sibling recognition.     

Increased visual interest and affective responses to impossible figures in early infancy

This research evaluated infants’ facial expressions as they viewed pictures of possible and impossible objects on a TV screen. Previous studies in our lab demonstrated that four-month-old infants looked longer at the impossible figures and fixated to a greater extent within the problematic region of the impossible shape, suggesting they were sensitive to novel or unusual object geometry. Our work takes studies of looking time data a step further, determining if increased looking co-occurs with facial expressions associated with increased visual interest and curiosity, or even puzzlement and surprise. We predicted that infants would display more facial expressions consistent with either “interest” or “surprise” when viewing the impossible objects relative to possible ones, which would provide further evidence of increased perceptual processing due to incompatible spatial information. Our results showed that the impossible cubes evoked both longer looking times and more reactive expressions in the majority of infants. Specifically, the data revealed significantly greater frequency of raised eyebrows, widened eyes and returns to looking when viewing impossible figures with the most robust effects occurring after a period of habituation. The pattern of facial expressions were consistent with the “interest” family of facial expressions and appears to reflect infants’ ability to perceive systematic differences between matched pairs of possible and impossible objects as well as recognize novel geometry found in impossible objects. Therefore, as young infants are beginning to register perceptual discrepancies in visual displays, their facial expressions may reflect heightened attention and increased information processing associated with identifying irreconcilable contours in line drawings of objects. This work further clarifies the ongoing formation and development of early mental representations of coherent 3D objects.     

Many moral buttons or just one? Evidence from emotional facial expressions

We investigated whether moral violations involving harm selectively elicit anger, whereas purity violations selectively elicit disgust, as predicted by the Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). We analysed participants’ spontaneous facial expressions as they listened to scenarios depicting moral violations of harm and purity. As predicted by MFT, anger reactions were elicited more frequently by harmful than by impure actions. However, violations of purity elicited more smiling reactions and expressions of anger than of disgust. This effect was found both in a classic set of scenarios and in a new set in which the different kinds of violations were matched on weirdness. Overall, these findings are at odds with predictions derived from MFT and provide support for “monist” accounts that posit harm at the basis of all moral violations. However, we found that smiles were differentially linked to purity violations, which leaves open the possibility of distinct moral modules.     

Effects of induced sad mood on facial emotion perception in young and older adults

Older adults perceive less intense negative emotion in facial expressions compared to younger counterparts. Prior research has also demonstrated that mood alters facial emotion perception. Nevertheless, there is little evidence which evaluates the interactive effects of age and mood on emotion perception. This study investigated the effects of sad mood on younger and older adults’ perception of emotional and neutral faces. Participants rated the intensity of stimuli while listening to sad music and in silence. Measures of mood were administered. Younger and older participants’ rated sad faces as displaying stronger sadness when they experienced sad mood. While younger participants showed no influence of sad mood on happiness ratings of happy faces, older adults rated happy faces as conveying less happiness when they experienced sad mood. This study demonstrates how emotion perception can change when a controlled mood induction procedure is applied to alter mood in young and older participants.