Mixed matters: fluency impacts trust ratings when faces range on valence but not on motivational implications

Facial features that resemble emotional expressions influence key social evaluations, including trust. Here, we present four experiments testing how the impact of such expressive features is qualified by their processing difficulty. We show that faces with mixed expressive features are relatively devalued, and faces with pure expressive features are relatively valued. This is especially true when participants first engage in a categorisation task that makes processing of mixed expressions difficult and pure expressions easy. Critically, we also demonstrate that the impact of categorisation fluency depends on the specific nature of the expressive features. When faces vary on valence (i.e. sad to happy), trust judgments increase with their positivity, but also depend on fluency. When faces vary on social motivation (i.e. angry to sad), trust judgments increase with their approachability, but remain impervious to disfluency. This suggests that people intelligently use fluency to make judgments on valence-relevant judgment dimensions – but not when faces can be judged using other relevant criteria, such as motivation. Overall, the findings highlight that key social impressions (like trust) are flexibly constructed from inputs related to stimulus features and processing experience.     

Retention interval modulates the effect of negative arousing pictures on recognition memory

This study examined the modulation of retention interval in the effect of emotion as elicited from negative and positive arousing pictures on recognition memory. Participants underwent seven encoding sessions and one testing session. The encoding sessions were separated by certain lengths of intervals such that there were seven levels of time gaps between encoding and testing. In each encoding session, participants learned a list of 30 pictures (including 10 neutral, 10 positive and 10 negative pictures). In the testing session, they were presented with a list of 210 old and 210 new pictures and made “old/new” and “remember/know” judgements. The results showed that negative arousing pictures enhanced overall recognition in the 2-week interval and enhanced recollection in both the 2-week and 3-week intervals. However, neither negative nor positive arousing pictures had any effect on familiarity regardless of retention interval. The current study contributes to the literature by suggesting that longer retention intervals do not necessarily lead to more pronounced effects of negative arousing pictures and that the modulation of retention interval depends on the specific components of recognition memory.     

Letter‐case information and the identification of brand names

A central tenet of most current models of visual‐word recognition is that lexical units are activated on the basis of case‐invariant abstract letter representations. Here, we examined this assumption by using a unique type of words: brand names. The rationale of the experiments is that brand names are archetypically printed either in lowercase (e.g., adidas ) or uppercase (e.g., IKEA ). This allows us to present the brand names in their standard or non‐standard case configuration (e.g., adidas , IKEA vs. ADIDAS , ikea , respectively). We conducted two experiments with a brand‐decision task (‘is it a brand name?’): a single‐presentation experiment and a masked priming experiment. Results in the single‐presentation experiment revealed faster identification times of brand names in their standard case configuration than in their non‐standard case configuration (i.e., adidas faster than ADIDAS ; IKEA faster than ikea ). In the masked priming experiment, we found faster identification times of brand names when they were preceded by an identity prime that matched its standard case configuration than when it did not (i.e., faster response times to adidas ‐adidas than to ADIDAS ‐adidas ). Taken together, the present findings strongly suggest that letter‐case information forms part of a brand name's graphemic information, thus posing some limits to current models of visual‐word recognition.     

Effect of racial bias on composite construction

We investigated how prior bias about a face's racial characteristics can affect its encoding and resultant facial composite construction. In total, 61 participants (24 Europeans, 18 Indians living in India and 19 Indians living in Europe) saw a racially ambiguous unfamiliar face and were led to believe it was either European or Indian. They created a composite of this face, using EFIT6. Two groups of independent raters (one Indian, the other European) then assessed the apparent race of each composite. A different two groups (one Indian, one European) assessed each composite's degree of resemblance to the target face, to determine whether this was influenced by the constructors' initial categorisation of the target face as “own-race” or “other-race.” Composites appeared significantly more “Asian” or “European” according to the bias induced in their creators, but there was no evidence of any own-race bias in the resemblance ratings for the composites.     

A qualitative analysis of attitudes to face transplants: Contrasting views of the general public and medical professionals

While there has been a considerable criticism and debate about face transplantation from ethicists, surgeons and psychologists, little is known about the attitudes of medical professionals and the general public whose support will be necessary if face transplants are to be accepted. This study therefore conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with medical professionals (8) and the general public (8) to explore their understanding of and attitudes to face transplants. A thematic analysis was used to analyse these data. Five overarching themes were identified including agreement in principal, caveats and conditions, medical and technical difficulties, function and appearance, and the significance of the human face. The analysis revealed overwhelming support in principle for face transplants, but with important caveats and conditions. Both groups shared clear representations of deserving and undeserving candidates, and concerns about psychological adjustment. The general public sample demonstrated little understanding of medical implications or the consequences of a failed graft, which did concern the medical professionals. Neither group showed a clear understanding of the psychological or social factors required to predict best outcomes and identify suitable candidates. Analyses revealed a stereotypical belief from both groups that the life of a severely disfigured recipient is intolerable without this operation.     

Vulnerability to disease is associated with a domain‐specific preference for symmetrical faces relative to symmetrical non‐face stimuli

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that the accessibility of disease concerns would be associated with a preference for faces high in symmetry, a cue to good health and pathogen resistance. Disease concerns (perceived vulnerability to disease) were measured as an individual difference in Experiment 1 and were situationally primed in Experiment 2. Across both studies, heightened disease sensitivity predicted a preference for symmetrical faces. Importantly, this increased preference for symmetrical faces when disease threats were salient did not generalize to non‐face stimuli. These results suggest a domain‐specific preference for symmetry in human faces, an adaptive response due to the ability of faces to signal resistance to infectious diseases in individuals and situations where disease is a salient threat. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Familiarity with and social distance from people with mental illness: Testing the mediating effects of prejudiced attitudes

The purpose of this study was to examine prejudiced attitudes as a factor associated with social distance from people with mental illness. A total of 289 university students from Greece completed written measures assessing social distance from, prejudiced attitudes about, and familiarity with mental illness. A structural equation model with manifest variables was tested. Participants who reported to be more familiar with mental illness held stronger social care and weaker prejudiced beliefs, and consequently expressed a less strong desire for social distance. Implications of the results and suggestions for future research are outlined. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Yang's iris illusion: External contour causes length‐assimilation illusions1

The Delboeuf illusion and the Ebbinghaus illusion (also known as the Titchener illusion) demonstrate that an external contour can lead to size‐assimilation and size‐contrast perception. This paper explores a novel illusion, revealing that neighboring external contours can also lead to a distortion in length perception. The illusion was originally discovered from a face stimulus (Experiment 1) in which a face was depicted alongside its mirror image so as to make the four irises absolutely equidistant. The distance between the middle two irises was underestimated in Asian faces, but overestimated in Caucasian faces. The illusion was also maintained when the facial stimuli were replaced by line drawings of eyes (Experiment 2). However, the illusion vanished when the irises were presented alone. Further scrutiny of the differences in facial characteristics between Asian and Caucasian faces reveals that the illusion might be elicited by the relative position of the eye shapes. This hypothesis was confirmed in Experiment 3, in which the distances between the eye shapes and the irises were manipulated.     

What the face and body reveal: in-group emotion effects and stereotyping of emotion in African American and European American children

This study examined whether 3- to 7-year-old African American and European American children’s assessment of emotion in face-only, face + body, and body-only photographic stimuli was affected by in-group emotion recognition effects and racial or gender stereotyping of emotion. Evidence for racial in-group effects was found, with European American children being more accurate when assessing emotion in European American photographs than African American photographs for some emotions. African American children were either equally proficient in recognizing emotion in African American and European American photographs or were more accurate with European American photographs for some emotions. Stereotyping of emotion was also found, with boys being more often labeled with “masculine” emotions (e.g., mad) and at least some girls being more often labeled with “feminine” emotions (e.g., happy). However, stereotyping effects were found only when the face was present in the stimuli and were not found with body-only stimuli. In-group effects, however, were not affected by type of photograph (face-only, body-only, or face + body), with children being unable to recognize at least some emotions from just the body postures alone (mad). These results have important implications for how future studies assess emotion recognition in children, particularly in terms of how emotion stimuli are constructed, the diversity of the stimuli, and who judges the stimuli.