Culture and facial expressions of emotion

With over a century of theoretical developments and empirical investigation in broad fields (e.g., anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology), the universality of facial expressions of emotion remains a central debate in psychology. How near or far, then, is this debate from being resolved? Here, I will address this question by highlighting and synthesizing the significant advances in the field that have elevated knowledge of facial expression recognition across cultures. Specifically, I will discuss the impact of early major theoretical and empirical contributions in parallel fields and their later integration in modern research. With illustrative examples, I will show that the debate on the universality of facial expressions has arrived at a new juncture and faces a new generation of exciting questions.     

The speed of visual recognition memory

Two processes are thought to support visual recognition memory (VRM): Familiarity and recollection. The former is generally considered to be faster. However, the relationship between the precise onset of the two processes is unclear. Here, we use a novel paradigm, the SAB (Speed and Accuracy Boosting procedure) that constrains participants to use their fastest strategy and provides a continuous distribution of their reaction times. We show that fast recognition occurs as early as ~370 ms, a limit that appears incompressible whatever types of stimuli were used. In a second experiment, running the SAB in conjunction with a modified version of the remember/know paradigm, we show that responses up to ~420 ms are based solely on familiarity. These time limits of 370 ms and 420 ms provide strong constraints on the neural mechanisms underlying VRM and suggest that the fastest, familiarity-based, responses could rely on the visual ventral stream only.     

Constraint on the semantic flexibility in visual statistical learning

We examined whether the expression of visual statistical learning (VSL) is flexible at the superordinate-categorical level. In the familiarization phase, participants viewed a sequence of line drawings. In the test phase, participants observed two test sequences (statistically related triplets versus unrelated foils) that consisted of the same objects as those presented during the familiarization phase (the same condition) or different objects that shared the same categorical information with drawings during the familiarization (the different condition). They then decided whether the first or the second sequence was more familiar. The results of Experiment 1 showed greater familiarity above chance levels for statistically related triplets only in the same condition. In Experiment 2, even where the word stimuli representing each superordinate-level category were included in the test phase (the categorical condition), the results showed VSL only in the same condition. Our findings suggest that the semantic flexibility of VSL is limited to the basic-level category.     

Content,not context,facilitates memory for real-world scenes

ABSTRACT

Can eye movements tell us whether people will remember a scene? In order to investigate the link between eye movements and memory encoding and retrieval, we asked participants to study photographs of real-world scenes while their eye movements were being tracked. We found eye gaze patterns during study to be predictive of subsequent memory for scenes. Moreover, gaze patterns during study were more similar to gaze patterns during test for remembered than for forgotten scenes. Thus, eye movements are indeed indicative of scene memory. In an explicit test for context effects of eye movements on memory, we found recognition rate to be unaffected by the disruption of spatial and/or temporal context of repeated eye movements. Therefore, we conclude that eye movements cue memory by selecting and accessing the most relevant scene content, regardless of its spatial location within the scene or the order in which it was selected.     

Quantifying the role of context in visual object recognition

An object's context may serve as a source of information for recognition when the object's image is degraded. The current study aimed to quantify this source of information. Stimuli were photographs of objects divided into quantized blocks. Participants decreased block size (increasing resolution) until identification. Critical resolution was compared across three conditions: (1) when the picture of the target object was shown in isolation, (2) in the object's contextual setting where that context was unfamiliar to the participant, and (3) where that context was familiar to the participant. A second experiment assessed the role of object familiarity without context. Results showed a profound effect of context: Participants identified objects in familiar contexts with minimal resolution. Unfamiliar contexts required higher-resolution images, but much less so than those without context. Experiment 2 found a much smaller effect of familiarity without context, suggesting that recognition in familiar contexts is primarily based on object-location memory.     

Recognising relations: What can be learned from considering complexity

Analogy is an important cognitive process that has been researched extensively. Functional accounts of it typically involve at least four stages of processing (access, mapping, transfer, and evaluation); however, these accounts take the way in which the base analogue is understood, along with its relational structure, for granted. The goal of this paper is to open up a discussion about how this process (which we will call “relational recognition”) may occur. To this end, this paper describes two experiments that vary the level of relational complexity across exemplars. It was found that relational recognition tasks benefit from increased complexity, while mapping tasks suffer from it.     

Standing up for an affective account of emotion

This paper constitutes a defence of an affective account of emotion. I begin by outlining the case for thinking that emotions are just feelings. I also suggest that emotional feelings are not reducible to other kinds of feelings, but rather form a distinct class of feeling state. I then consider a number of common objections that have been raised against affective accounts of emotion, including: (1) the objection that emotion cannot always consist only of feeling because some emotions—for example, indignation and regret—necessarily have a cognitive component (say, the perception of a lost opportunity in the case of regret); (2) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because in order to explain how emotions have intentional objects we will have to recognise that emotion consists of cognition; and (3) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because emotion, but not feeling, can be variously assessed or evaluated. However, I demonstrate how an affective account of emotion might be successfully defended against all of the objections that are cited.     

母亲元情绪理念与儿童情绪调节能力发展的关系：母亲情绪调节的中介作用

以540名小学一、三、五年级儿童的母亲为对象,采用回归分析和路径分析技术,考察了母亲元情绪理念及其情绪调节对儿童情绪调节能力发展的预测作用及其机制。结果表明：（1）母亲情绪教导和情绪紊乱理念对儿童情绪稳定性的发展具有直接预测作用,且以其高冲动性为中介对儿童情绪稳定性的发展具有间接预测作用;（2）母亲情绪教导理念对儿童情绪调节性的发展具有直接预测作用,且以其情绪调节策略缺乏为中介对儿童情绪调节性的发展具有间接预测作用。因此,母亲情绪教导理念有助于其不良情绪的控制和更加灵活多样的情绪调节策略,而对自身不良情绪的有效控制和更灵活的情绪应对策略,将有助于促进其孩子情绪调节能力的发展。     

The nuclear plant accident in chernobyl experienced by men and women of different ages: Empirical study in the years 1986–1991

Abstract

Psychological responses to the nuclear accident in Chernobyl were assessed in several self-report inventories once a year from May 1986 until May 1991. Independent groups of subjects, divided according to sex and age (18–39 versus 40–59 years) were examined at six points in time for the subjective effects of the nuclear accident. The inventories included items related to attitudes, behavior, emotional states and coping styles. The results showed a generally greater emotional concern for women and for younger people. The findings also suggest that the psychological effects of the nuclear accident are long lasting.