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.     

内隐人格观对他人知觉的影响

以大学生为被试,采用投射测验法分离出两类不同性质的内隐人格观,然后通过效价匹配实验和错觉关联实验,初步探讨了内隐人格观对他人知觉的信息加工模式的影响。研究结果表明:(1)跨性格、能力等不同人格属性有共通一致的内隐观;(2)固存观的反面就是渐变观,它们是同一维度的两极;(3)与渐变观者相比,固存观者更易以一种评价性方式知觉他人信息;同时,渐变观者不像固存观者那样对他人特质作出静态判断,而是集中注意力于理解他人行为发生的动态过程。     

裸露尤“物”:性客体化影响社会认知的眼动证据

客体化理论认为,对女性身体的关注会导致对其能力、热情和道德等社会属性评价的降低,然而以往研究缺乏直接证据。本研究以50名大学生为被试,采用眼动仪考察了对泳装图片和非泳装图片人物聪明程度评价过程中的眼动特征,结果发现:相比非泳装图片,被试对泳装图片人物的聪明程度评分更低;相比非泳装图片,被试对泳装图片人物胸部的注视点更多,注视时间和首次注视时间更长,对面孔的注视时间和首次注视时间更短。眼动特征表明,对泳装图片社会感知过程中存在客体化注视,直接且直观地支持了客体化理论。     

THE CRAZINESS FOR EXTRA‐SENSORY PERCEPTION: QIGONG FEVER AND THE SCIENCE–PSEUDOSCIENCE DEBATE IN CHINA

From 1979 to 1999, a heated dispute over the science or pseudoscience of extraordinary power or extrasensory perception (ESP) took place in China. During these two decades, many so‐called “grandmasters” of ESP and Qigong emerged, and millions of people across the country studied with them; this was known as “Qigong Fever” or “ESP Fever.” The supporters of ESP argued that ESP existed, people could cultivate ESP through specific Qigong training, and ESP was a science; whereas the opponents of ESP denied all of these. Both sides of the dispute had many supporters. With the onset of Qigong Fever in China, some Qigong and ESP masters developed their Qigong organizations into Chinese‐style religions. Qigong Fever ended when the religions were banned by the Chinese government. The rise of Qigong Fever demonstrated that basic questions about the boundaries between science and pseudoscience were not easy to answer. Different theoretical and practical consequences resulted from different answers to these questions.     

LANGUAGE AS A VALUES‐REALIZING ACTIVITY: CARING,ACTING, AND PERCEIVING

A problem for natural scientific accounts, psychology in particular, is the existence of value. An ecological account of values is reviewed and illustrated in three domains of research: carrying differing loads; negotiating social dilemmas involving agreement and disagreement; and timing the exposure of various visual presentations. Then it is applied in greater depth to the nature of language. As described and illustrated, values are ontological relationships that are neither subjective nor objective, but which constrain and obligate all significant animate activity physically, socially, and morally. As an embodied social activity, conversational dialogue is characterized in terms of values, pragmatics, and presence rather than in terms of syntactic and semantic rules. In particular the nature of dialogical arrays is explored, and the hypothesis that language is an action system, a perceptual system, and a caring system is explored. Language expands horizons and makes it possible for humans to realize their calling as culture makers and caretakers.     

Facial asymmetry is negatively related to assertive personality but unrelated to dominant personality in men

Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is a putative indicator of development instability in humans and other species, and some literature supports a women’s preference for low degree of FA in opposite sex (e.g., symmetrical face). Also some personality traits associated to social status (e.g., dominance and assertiveness) are attractive to women due to direct and indirect benefits associated to high status. The aim of this work was to study the relationship between facial FA and dominant and assertive personalities. We found a negative correlation between facial FA and assertive personality but not between facial FA and dominant personality. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between assertive and dominant personality. Our results suggest that a low facial FA and assertive personality can be related to be advertising desirable traits and high status in men in order to be more attractive to women. This study supports the evidence shown by previous works which shows that a low facial FA is related with socially desirable and attractive aspects of personality.     

On Direct Social Perception

Direct Social Perception (DSP) is the idea that we can non-inferentially perceive others’ mental states. In this paper, I argue that the standard way of framing DSP leaves the debate at an impasse. I suggest two alternative interpretations of the idea that we see others’ mental states: others’ mental states are represented in the content of our perception, and we have basic perceptual beliefs about others’ mental states. I argue that the latter interpretation of DSP is more promising and examine the kinds of mental states that plausibly could satisfy this version of DSP.     

Understanding intentions from actions: Direct perception,inference, and the roles of mirror and mentalizing systems

This review asks whether observers can obtain information about others’ intentions from observation of their actions; and if so, whether this process is performed using direct perceptual or inferential processes (prominent examples of each being the intention understanding theory of mirror neuron function, and mentalizing accounts of intention understanding, respectively). I propose four conditions that should be fulfilled in order to support a direct perception account, and suggest that only two of these conditions are supported by the existing data. I then propose and review three further sources of evidence which have the potential to inform this debate, concluding that the data do not support the direct perception account. In particular, mirror neurons may be involved in lower-level processes of action perception, but there is no evidence to support their involvement in the type of higher-level intention understanding that is proposed by the direct perception account.     

Stroke me for longer this touch feels too short: The effect of pleasant touch on temporal perception

Negative, painful, somatosensory stimulation lengthens the perceived duration of time. However, to date, no research has explored the influence of positive, pleasant, somatosensory stimulation on temporal perception. Here we asked whether gentle stroking touch influences perceptions of duration. Pleasant (gentle) and mildly unpleasant (rough) tactile stimulation was delivered whilst participants estimated the duration of a neutral visual stimulus. Pleasant touch resulted in shorter estimates of duration than unpleasant touch. There was no difference in duration perception in the unpleasant and control conditions. Taken together with the results of previous research (Ogden, Moore, Redfern, & McGlone, 2015), the results of this study suggest that pleasant and painful somatosensory stimulation have opposing effects on temporal perception, and additionally that pleasant touch can alter aspects of perceptual and attentional processing outside the purely affective domain.