Emotional Facial Expressions Research Articles

Perceptual, Not Attentional, Guidance Drives Happy Superiority in Complex Visual Search

Emotional facial expressions are thought to attract attention differentially based on their emotional content. While anger is thought to attract the most attention during visual search, happy superiority effects are reported as well. As multiple studies point out confounds associated with such emotional superiority, further investigation into the underlying mechanisms is required. Here, we tested visual search behaviors when searching for angry faces, happy faces, or either happy or angry faces simultaneously using diverse distractors displaying many other expressions. We teased apart visual search behaviors into attentional and perceptual components using eye-tracking data and subsequently predicted these behaviors using low-level visual features of the distractors. The results show an overall happy superiority effect that can be traced back to the time required to identify distractors and targets. Search behavior is guided by task-based, emotion-specific search templates that are reliably predictable based on the spatial frequency content. Thus, when searching, we employ specific templates that drive attentional as well as perceptual elements of visual search. Only the perceptual elements contribute to happy superiority. In conclusion, we show that template-guided search underlies perceptual, but not attentional, happy superiority in visual search.

Categorization processes in emotion expression recognition: The roles of language and essentialism.

We examined categorical processing biases in the perception and recognition of facial expressions of emotion across two studies. In both studies, participants first learned to discriminate between two ambiguous facial expressions of emotion selected from the middle of a continuous array of blended expressions (i.e., an array created from morphing images of two facial expressions together, with still images selected in equidistant increments). Participants were then asked to recognize the specific expressions they were trained to discriminate. In Study 1, target expressions labeled with emotion words (e.g., more angry face) during discrimination and recognition tasks were misremembered as more perceptually distinct from one another and therefore more perceptually similar to the stereotypical expression for their labeled emotion category than they were in reality. Critically, in Study 2, these recognition biases were significantly reduced or absent in conditions where the target expressions were not labeled with emotion words (e.g., Face A), demonstrating the role of emotion words in promoting categorical processing biases in emotion recognition. Moreover, in the absence of emotion labels, peoples' beliefs about the nature of emotion categories were related to the extent to which they employed categorical processing during emotion perception and recognition. Specifically, people with more essentialist beliefs about emotion categories-believing emotion categories are more innate, biologically-based, and immutable-exhibited more pronounced categorical processing biases during emotion recognition. Findings shed light on the critical role of language and cognition in constructing emotion and add to empirical findings on categorical processing in emotion perception. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

An android can show the facial expressions of complex emotions

Trust and rapport are essential abilities for human–robot interaction. Producing emotional expressions in the robots’ faces is an effective way for that purpose. Androids can show human-like facial expressions of basic emotions. However, whether androids can show the facial expression of complex emotions remains unknown. In this experiment, we investigated the android Nikola’s ability to produce 22 dynamic facial expressions of complex emotions. For each video, 240 international participants (120 Japanese, 120 German) rated the emotions expressed by Nikola. For 13 complex emotions (i.e., amusement, appal, awe, boredom, contentment, coyness, hatred, hesitation, moral disgust, not face, pain, sleepiness, suspicion), participants of both samples rated the target emotion above the mean of other non-target emotions. Four emotions (bitterness, confusion, pride, relief) were rated above mean by one sample. For twelve of these emotions, target emotions were among the highest ranked. The results suggest that androids can produce the facial expressions of a wide range of complex emotions, which can facilitate human–robot interactions.

Neural mechanisms underlying the interactive exchange of facial emotional expressions.

Facial emotional expressions are crucial in face-to-face social interactions, and recent findings have highlighted their interactive nature. However, the underlying neural mechanisms remain unclear. This EEG study investigated whether the interactive exchange of facial expressions modulates socio-emotional processing. Participants (N = 41) displayed a facial emotional expression (angry, neutral, or happy) towards a virtual agent, and the agent then responded with a further emotional expression (angry or happy) or remained neutral (control condition). We assessed subjective experience (valence, arousal), facial EMG (Zygomaticus, Corrugator), and ERPs (EPN, LPP) elicited by the agent's response. Replicating previous findings, we found that an agent's happy facial expression was experienced as more pleasant and elicited increased Zygomaticus activity when participants had initiated the interaction with a happy compared to an angry expression. At the neural level, angry expressions resulted in a greater LPP than happy expressions, but only when participants directed an angry or happy, but not a neutral, expression at the agent. These findings suggest that sending an emotional expression increases salience and enhances the processing of received emotional expressions, indicating that an interactive setting alters brain responses to social stimuli.

The Moderating Role of Context Processing in the Intergenerational Transmission of Posttraumatic Stress

ABSTRACT This pilot study aimed to understand the moderating role of context processing (i.e. encoding and memorizing) when mothers are confronted with threatening stimuli and undergo physiologic monitoring in order to understand a possible mechanism favoring intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress. Thirty-one mothers (M age = 33.87 years, SD = 4.14) and their toddlers (M age = 22.66 months, SD = 7.01) participated in the study. Mothers reported adverse life events (ALE), their current posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), as well as regulatory problems of their toddler. Mothers performed a context-encoding and –memory (CEM) task including emotional facial expressions (especially angry faces considered as threatening stimuli) embedded into photo-backgrounds, after which they were asked to recognize both the faces and contexts. Maternal heart rate variability (HRV) was measured during resting state. Maternal current PTSS, but not ALE, had impact on child dysregulation only for mothers with poor context processing (β = 0.014, p = .017). Baseline HRV was negatively correlated with the recognition of contexts previously associated with angry faces (ρ = -.53, p = .006), and marginally with the recognition of angry faces (ρ = -.37, p = .059). This pilot study identifies psychophysiological markers (i.e. CEM, HRV) that may influence the intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress. This may open new avenues in early identification and intervention with traumatized mothers and their toddlers.

COMPARATIVE EFFECT OF MIME THERAPY WITH SENSORY EXERCISES VERSUS CONVENTIONAL THERAPY AMONG BELLS PALSY PATIENTS

Background: Bell’s palsy is an acute peripheral facial paralysis involving the seventh cranial nerve, often presenting with facial asymmetry and loss of motor function. Rehabilitation is essential for restoring function, with interventions ranging from conventional physiotherapy to advanced therapies like mime therapy combined with sensory exercises. These approaches aim to improve facial symmetry, emotional expression, and motor control, offering holistic management for patients with mild to moderate facial nerve dysfunction. Objective: To evaluate the effects of mime therapy combined with sensory exercises versus conventional physiotherapy in patients with Bell’s palsy. Methods: This randomized clinical trial included 40 patients aged 18 to 65 years, recruited from Jinnah Hospital and Mayo Hospital, Lahore, using purposive sampling. Participants had unilateral facial nerve dysfunction classified as Grades II-IV on the House-Brackmann scale, with symptoms lasting less than six months. Patients with severe dysfunction (Grades V-VI) or comorbid neurological disorders were excluded. Group A received mime therapy combined with sensory exercises, while Group B underwent conventional physiotherapy. Both groups received therapy for ten weeks, with four sessions per week. Facial function was assessed pre- and post-treatment using the Sunnybrook Score and the House-Brackmann grading system. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 22. Results: Group A demonstrated a significant improvement in Sunnybrook scores, increasing from 46.0 ± 5.0 to 70.2 ± 6.5 (p = 0.015), with a paired difference of 24.2 ± 3.0 (p < 0.001). Group B showed moderate improvement in House-Brackmann grades, increasing from 45.0 ± 4.8 to 60.1 ± 6.2 (p = 0.028), with a paired difference of 15.1 ± 2.1 (p < 0.001). Between-group analysis highlighted superior outcomes in Group A compared to Group B. Conclusion: Mime therapy combined with sensory exercises demonstrated significantly better outcomes in facial symmetry, motor function, and functional recovery compared to conventional therapy, making it a more effective rehabilitation approach for Bell’s palsy.

Does the Positivity Effect Apply to Emotion Recognition? Examining Emotion Recognition across Adulthood

Research indicates older adults can experience a decline in the ability to identify negative facial emotional expressions while having less difficulty with positive emotions, a finding termed the ‘positivity effect’. We investigated whether the positivity effect is related to the traditional method for studying emotion recognition and the finding that older adults have less negative affect in general. Participants, ranging in age from 19 to 80 years old, viewed videos and pictures of emotional expressions balanced in valence, arousal, and complexity. Though older adults rated the positive stimuli as more positive and intense than younger adults, we did not find a decline in emotion identification accuracy with age. Mood was, for the most part, unrelated to emotion recognition. The findings highlight the need for a more nuanced approach to understanding emotion recognition.

Effective Facial Expression Recognition System Using Artificial Intelligence Technique

Facial expressions are the most basic non-verbal method people use to communicate feelings, intentions and reactions without words. Recognizing these facial expressions accurately is essential for a variety of applications — such as tools that use our faces to interact with computers (human-computer interaction, or HCI), security systems and emotionally intelligent artificial intelligence technologies. As the complexities surrounding these relationships have become better understood, it has allowed us to develop increasingly more complex systems for identifying and detecting facial expressions of different emotions. This paper presents an improved performance of the Facial Expression Recognition (FER) systems via augmentation in Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms, two renowned artificial intelligence techniques possessing disparate strengths. ANNS are inspired by the neural architecture of human brain capable of learning and recognizing patterns in unchartered data after trained examples, on the other hand GAs come from fundamental principles underlying natural selection perform optimization process based-on evolutionary methods which includes fitness evaluation, comparison, selection, crossover, and mutation. The research is an effort to mitigate the problems pertaining with conventional methods, like overfitting and generalization fault in order design FER model which has potential for performing much more accurately. A hybrid ANN-GA model that uses Petri Nets and production systems is proposed for the real-time video sequence analysis with high precision in predicting different dynamic facial activities of anger, surprise, disgust, joy, sadness and fear from emotion faces. Importantly, results on the study show that this integrated model has a large-scale promoting effect in emotion detection upon varied scenes and is therefore generalizable to many domains from security and surveillance over biomedicine up to interactive AI-driven systems. Implications for implementing real-time and context-aware recognition of human emotions based on AI technologies are far-reaching as they demonstrate the potential that hybrid AI systems offer at enhancing emotion deciphering.

Intermodulation frequencies reveal common neural assemblies integrating facial and vocal fearful expressions.

Effective social communication depends on the integration of emotional expressions coming from the face and the voice. Although there are consistent reports on how seeing and hearing emotion expressions can be automatically integrated, direct signatures of multisensory integration in the human brain remain elusive. Here we implemented a multi-input electroencephalographic (EEG) frequency tagging paradigm to investigate neural populations integrating facial and vocal fearful expressions. High-density EEG was acquired in participants attending to dynamic fearful facial and vocal expressions tagged at different frequencies (fvis, faud). Beyond EEG activity at the specific unimodal facial and vocal emotion presentation frequencies, activity at intermodulation frequencies (IM) arising at the sums and differences of the harmonics of the stimulation frequencies (mfvis±nfaud) were observed, suggesting non-linear integration of the visual and auditory emotion information into a unified representation. These IM provide evidence that common neural populations integrate signal from the two sensory streams. Importantly, IMs were absent in a control condition with mismatched facial and vocal emotion expressions. Our results provide direct evidence from non-invasive recordings in humans for common neural populations that integrate fearful facial and vocal emotional expressions.

The differential outcomes procedure for improving the recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotion in people with autism spectrum disorders and first-degree relatives.

Previous research highlights impairments in the recognition of facial expression of emotion in individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Relatives of people with ASD may exhibit similar, albeit subtler, impairments, referred to as the Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP). Recently, the Differential outcomes procedure (DOP) has been shown to enhance this ability in young adults using dynamic stimuli, with fewer intensity levels required to identify fear and surprise. The present study aimed to extend these findings to adults diagnosed with ASD (ASD group), and relatives of people diagnosed with ASD (BAP group). A Bayesian Generalized Linear Model was employed for statistical inference. The results indicated that the ASD DOP group performed worse than the BAP DOP group in fear trials. The social dimension of autism negatively impacted performance in some conditions, while positive relationships were found between the repetitive behavior dimension and performance for the ASD group. The opposite pattern was observed in the BAP group. These results suggest the importance of considering different dimensions of autism when conducting research on its relationship with other variables. Finally, participants in both ASD and BAP groups required less intensity to identify certain emotions when the DOP was applied, highlighting its potential utility for improving dynamic facial emotion recognition.

Dynamic Emotion Recognition and Expression Imitation in Neurotypical Adults and Their Associations with Autistic Traits.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by deficits in social interaction and communication. While many studies suggest that individuals with ASD struggle with emotion processing, the association between emotion processing and autistic traits in non-clinical populations is still unclear. We examine whether neurotypical adults' facial emotion recognition and expression imitation are associated with autistic traits. We recruited 32 neurotypical adults; each received two computerized tasks, the Dynamic Emotion Recognition and Expression Imitation, and two standardized measures: the Chinese version AQ and the Twenty-Item Prosopagnosia Index (PI-20). Results for the dynamic emotion recognition showed that happiness has the highest mean accuracy, followed by surprise, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust. For expression imitation, it was easiest to imitate surprise and happiness, followed by disgust, while the accuracy of imitating sadness, anger, and fear was much lower. Importantly, individual AQ scores negatively correlated with emotion recognition accuracy and positively correlated with PI-20. The AQ imagination, communication sub-scores, and PI-20 positively correlated with the expression imitation of surprise. In summary, we found a significant link between recognizing emotional expressions and the level of autistic traits in non-clinical populations, supporting the concept of broader autism phenotype.

Studying Pupil-Size Changes as a Function of Task Demands and Emotional Content in a Clinical Interview Situation

The human pupil changes size in response to processing demands or cognitive (work)load and emotional processing. Therefore, it is important to test if automatic tracking of cognitive load by pupil-size measurement is possible under conditions of varying levels of emotion-related processing. Here, we investigated this question in an experiment simulating a highly relevant applied context in which cognitive load and emotional processing can vary independently: a clinical interview. Our participants conducted a live clinical interview via computer monitor with a confederate as an interviewee. We used eye-tracking and automatic extraction of participants’ pupil size to monitor cognitive load (single vs. dual tasks, between participants), while orthogonally varying the emotional content of the interviewee’s answers (neutral vs. negative, between participants). We ensured participants’ processing of the verbal content of the interview by asking all participants to report on the content of the interview in a subsequent memory test and by asking them to discriminate if the answers of the interviewee referred to only herself or to somebody else (too). In the dual-task condition, participants had to monitor additionally if the facial emotional expressions of the interviewee matched the content of her verbal responses. Results showed that pupil-size extraction reliably discriminated between high and low cognitive load, albeit to a lower degree under negative emotional content conditions. This was possible with an algorithmic online measure of cognitive load as well as with a conventional pupil-size measure, providing proof of the external validity of the algorithm/online measure.

Recognition of static and dynamic emotional facial expressions in mild cognitive impairment, healthy elderly and young people

Introduction The ability to recognize emotions is essential for social cognition, and its impairment can affect social interactions, contributing to loneliness and the worsening of issues in individuals with mild cognitive impairment (MCI). This study aims to investigate the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions in MCI individuals compared to healthy elderly and young individuals. Method We evaluated 27 MCI individuals, 31 healthy elderly, and 29 healthy young participants using two tasks: one with static facial expressions (photographs) and another with dynamic ones (video clips). Results The younger group recognized all negative emotional expressions better than the other two groups and also performed better on neutral expressions compared to MCI patients. The healthy elderly group outperformed MCI patients in recognizing most expressions, except for happiness and neutral. Additionally, the ability to recognize dynamic expressions was superior to static ones across all groups for several emotions. Discussion These results emphasize the importance of assessing the ability to recognize emotional facial expressions within neuropsychological protocols, to help detect this condition early on. Given the pivotal role that emotional facial expressions play in social interactions, these difficulties can contribute to a decline in such interactions and an increase in social isolation.

Emotion perception and online awareness following alcohol-intoxication: investigating possible deficits using the complex audio visual emotion assessment task.

Alcohol-intoxication is implicated in negative social behaviours, however the mechanisms underlying this relationship are poorly understood. Impaired emotion perception following alcohol consumption may partially account for this link, however limited methodology in prior studies undermines the efficacy of this explanation. The current study investigated the effect of acute moderate-dose alcohol-intoxication on basic and compound emotion perception abilities using contextualised video vignettes. Self-appraisals of performance accuracy were also investigated. Sixty-eight participants consumed a beverage containing either (a) an alcohol dose calculated to achieve a BrAC of 0.08%, or (b) a placebo. The Complex Audio-Visual Emotion Assessment Task (CAVEAT) was used to assess emotion perception ability. Anticipatory performance accuracy and emergent confidence judgements were made on the CAVEAT. There were no significant between-group differences on emotion perception ability and emergent confidence judgements. However, anticipatory performance accuracy was more aligned to actual performance in the alcohol intoxication group compared to the placebo group. Overall, these results suggest that (1) deficits in perception of facial emotional expressions following alcohol intoxication may not be as pronounced as originally suspected; and (2) the questioning of performance accuracy may prompt intoxicated individuals to anticipate poorer emotion perception performance, which may lead to better monitoring of-and improvements in-task performance.

Development and validation of a face database for the recognition of facial expressions of basic emotions in the Brazilian population

BackgroundThe recognition of facial expressions of emotions is an essential skill for social functioning, as it enables recognizing the possible intentions of others.Main body.Cultural context is an important aspect to consider in this skill, as it tends to modulate the recognition of facial expressions.ObjectiveTo develop and validate a set of facial expressions of basic emotions of Brazilian individuals considering the population distribution of the country according to age group, sex, and race.MethodsA procedure with three phases was created to generate basic emotions and photograph facial expressions. A total of 459 Brazilians were then asked to identify the emotions of these facial expressions. Content validity was investigated based on the analysis of specialists and the recognition of emotions by Brazilian individuals.ResultsThe final database consists of 56 high-quality color images. A good level of agreement was found for the expressions perceived by the assessors (81.6%).ConclusionThe percentage of correct recognition of each emotion and the characteristics of the models are presented so that future studies can choose the most adequate images to meet their specific needs.

Task-irrelevant inputs alter ensemble representations of faces within the spatial focus of attention.

Spatial attention enhances processing of information, but how does unattended and task-irrelevant information influence visual processing within the spatial focus of attention? We tested this by asking participants to extract the average emotional expression of a set of sequentially presented faces while simultaneously presenting task-irrelevant faces at a spatially unattended and task-irrelevant location. Across several experiments, we found that participants' reports of the emotional expression of faces at the attended location were biased toward the task-irrelevant faces. For example, when happier faces were presented at the unattended location, participants were biased to perceive the attended faces as happier. A control experiment in which participants were asked to also detect probes at cued and uncued locations showed that spatial attention was directed towards the cued location as instructed. Together, these results reveal that unattended and task-irrelevant inputs do not only affect the efficiency of target processing, for example by slowing responses or lowering accuracies, but that they can systematically bias ensemble representations within the spatial focus of attention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Emotion specificity, coherence, and cultural variation in conceptualizations of positive emotions: a study of body sensations and emotion recognition

ABSTRACT The present study examines the association between people’s interoceptive representation of physical sensations and the recognition of vocal and facial expressions of emotion. We used body maps to study the granularity of the interoceptive conceptualisation of 11 positive emotions (amusement, awe, compassion, contentment, desire, love, joy, interest, pride, relief, and triumph) and a new emotion recognition test (Emotion Expression Understanding Test) to assess the ability to recognise emotions from vocal and facial behaviour. Overall, we found evidence for distinct interoceptive conceptualizations of 11 positive emotions across Asian American, European American, and Latino/a American cultures, as well as the reliable identification of emotion in facial and vocal expressions. Central to new theorising about emotion-related representation, the granularity of physical sensations did not covary with emotion recognition accuracy, suggesting that two kinds of emotion conceptualisation processes might be distinct.

Neurobiology and Anatomy of Facial Expressions in Great Apes: Application of the AnimalFACS and Its Possible Association with the Animal's Affective State.

The Facial Action Coding System (FACS) is an anatomically based system to study facial expression in humans. Currently, it is recognized that nonhuman animals, particularly nonhuman primates, have an extensive facial ethogram that changes according to the context and affective state. The facial expression of great apes, the closest species to humans, has been studied using the ChimpFACS and OrangFACS as reliable tools to code facial expressions. However, although the FACS does not infer animal emotions, making additional evaluations and associating the facial changes with other parameters could contribute to understanding the facial expressions of nonhuman primates during positive or negative emotions. The present review aims to discuss the neural correlates and anatomical components of emotional facial expression in great apes. It will focus on the use of Facial Action Coding Systems (FACSs) and the movements of the facial muscles (AUs) of chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas and their possible association with the affective state of great apes.

Initial expressed emotion during neuropsychological assessment: investigating motivational dimensions of approach and avoidance

ABSTRACT Objective Prior work indicates that discrete emotions are linked to performance across multiple domains of cognitive function and thus have the potential to impact cognitive profiles in neuropsychological assessment. However, reported presence and magnitude of the relationships between emotion and cognitive test performance are inconsistent. Variable findings in this regard could be due to failure to consider motivations associated with expressed emotion. To better understand the potential impact of expressed emotion on neuropsychological test performance, it may be beneficial to consider approach and avoidance motivation during assessment. Method The current cross-sectional study examined associations between cognitive performance and digitally phenotyped facial expressions of discrete emotions on dimensions of approach (i.e. joy, sadness, anger) and avoidance (i.e. fear, disgust) in the context of virtual neuropsychological assessment in 104 adults (ages 55–90). Results Initial facial expressions categorized as anger and joy predicted later reduced cognitive performance in aspects of memory and executive function within the virtual session, respectively. Test performance was associated neither with sadness nor with avoidance emotions (i.e. disgust or fear). Conclusions Results of the current study did not strongly align with approach/avoidance explanations for links between emotion and cognitive performance; however, results might support an arousal-based explanation, as joy and anger are both high arousal emotions. Additional investigation is needed to understand the intersection of emotion motivation and physiological arousal in the context of neuropsychological assessment.

Parenthood status and plasma oxytocin levels predict specific emotion perception abilities.

Superior recognition of positive emotional facial expressions compared to negative expressions is well established. However, it is unclear whether this superiority effect differs between non-parents and parents, for whom emotion perception (EP) is an indispensable skill. Although EP has been shown to be modulated by the neuropeptide oxytocin, a central factor in the development of parental care, very little research has addressed the relationship between EP skills, the transition to parenthood, and plasma oxytocin levels. In the present study, we assessed EP abilities with a test battery and measured plasma oxytocin in 77 non-parent and 79 parent couples and applied structural equation modelling to the data. The results showed increased happiness perception abilities in both parents and individuals with elevated oxytocin levels. Furthermore, non-parents showed superior abilities to recognise anger expressions. No significant associations were found regarding the perception of other basic emotion categories or with a general EP factor. The findings are consistent with previous research indicating that elevated oxytocin levels are associated with enhanced EP abilities. They also extend the existing literature by demonstrating that mothers and fathers, regardless of their oxytocin levels, exhibit increased EP superiority.