面孔可信度评价调节：经验迁移假说的提出与验证

面孔可信度评价对人际信任和合作行为有重要影响。以往研究发现面部特征、背景环境等附加信息能通过自下而上、自上而下两种方式调节人们对他人面孔可信度的评价, 但具体的起效和失效机制尚不清晰。针对这一问题, 本文提出了“经验迁移假说”, 并对两类调节方式的认知机制、经验迁移的边界条件和调节过程进行探究。本研究为深化理解人际信任的调控机制提供理论和实证依据。

Regulation of facial trustworthiness evaluation: The proposal and empirical verification of the experience transfer hypothesis

The impression of trustworthiness based on facial appearance plays an important role in interpersonal trust and cooperative behavior. Previous research results have indicated that a variety of additional information (e.g., facial features, context) could affect facial judgments by both bottom-up and top-down processes. However, the mechanism of the two adjustment factors is still unclear. Focusing on this issue, our previous research has found that the top-down process is dominant when both approaches work together. Based on previous findings, the current research proposes the “experience transfer hypothesis”, that is, whether additional information could adjust the trustworthy evaluation of the current face is depended on the evaluator’s previous experience and its generalization results. Experience generalization determines the success of experience transfer. When new cues are lack of similarity to the cues from previous experiences or when previous cues are not strongly associated with the propensity to trust, the experience of trust will not be transferred to the new condition and thus the adjustment factors will fail. When people face two conflicting adjustment cues, the cue which is more similar to the previous cues that are closely related to trust tendencies will dominate the adjustment effect. Under the experience transfer hypothesis framework, this research will design and conduct behavioral experiments to verify the critical role of previous experience in adjusting facial trustworthiness. At the same time, we will use neuroimaging techniques to explore the cognitive neural mechanism of facial trustworthiness adjustment. For this purpose, three studies have been designed in the present research. Study 1 is designed to investigate the cognitive mechanism of the bottom-up and top-down adjustment factors and verify the moderating effect of experience transfer on the evaluation of facial trustworthiness. Regarding the adjustment effect, Study 2 will explore the boundary conditions of experience transfer from three different aspects: the similarity of visual cues, the correlation between visual cues and the tendency to trust, and the contrast effect of different visual cues. Referring to the adjustment process, by using neuroimaging techniques, Study 3 will explore the influence of adjustment direction, and clarify the neural mechanism of facial trustworthiness evaluation.