Neuroticism Delays Detection of Facial Expressions.

Reiko Sawada,Sayaka Yoshimura,Shota Uono,Wataru Sato,Yasutaka Kubota,Motomi Toichi,Takanori Kochiyama,Marina A Pavlova

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153400

Abstract

The rapid detection of emotional signals from facial expressions is fundamental for human social interaction. The personality factor of neuroticism modulates the processing of various types of emotional facial expressions; however, its effect on the detection of emotional facial expressions remains unclear. In this study, participants with high- and low-neuroticism scores performed a visual search task to detect normal expressions of anger and happiness, and their anti-expressions within a crowd of neutral expressions. Anti-expressions contained an amount of visual changes equivalent to those found in normal expressions compared to neutral expressions, but they were usually recognized as neutral expressions. Subjective emotional ratings in response to each facial expression stimulus were also obtained. Participants with high-neuroticism showed an overall delay in the detection of target facial expressions compared to participants with low-neuroticism. Additionally, the high-neuroticism group showed higher levels of arousal to facial expressions compared to the low-neuroticism group. These data suggest that neuroticism modulates the detection of emotional facial expressions in healthy participants; high levels of neuroticism delay overall detection of facial expressions and enhance emotional arousal in response to facial expressions.

Highlights

Communication via facial expressions is a fundamental component of human social interaction
The results showed a significant main effect of neuroticism, F(1, 36) = 6.43, p = .02, ηp2 = .15, indicating that the high-neuroticism group was slower to detect facial expression targets than the low-neuroticism group
The general patterns of reaction time (RT) across the high- and low-neuroticism groups indicated that normal expressions of anger were detected more rapidly than the corresponding anti-expressions

Summary

Introduction

Communication via facial expressions is a fundamental component of human social interaction. The ability to immediately detect emotional signals from facial expressions enables the receiver to interpret emotional states, anticipate the subsequent actions of the sender, and choose the appropriate response[1]. The processing of emotional facial expressions is modulated by personality; for example, neuroticism, a dimension of the five-factor model of personality [2, 3] has been found to play a role in this regard. Neuroticism is characterized by the tendency to be anxious, nervous, and PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0153400. Neuroticism Modulates Emotional Face Detection hostile [3, 4]. It has been suggested that neuroticism consists of two critical sub-factors [6]: (i) “withdrawal” which is a tendency characterized by general avoidance, irrespective of emotional valence; and (ii) “volatility,” which is a high sensitivity to negative signals from the environment

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Conclusion