Perception Of Emotional Facial Expressions Research Articles

Influence of stimulus manipulation on conscious awareness of emotional facial expressions in the match-to-sample paradigm

The conscious perception of emotional facial expressions plays an indispensable role in social interaction. However, previous psychological studies have reported inconsistent findings regarding whether conscious awareness is greater for emotional expressions than for neutral expressions. Furthermore, whether this phenomenon is attributable to emotional or visual factors remains unknown. To investigate these issues, we conducted five psychological experiments to test the conscious perception of emotional and neutral facial expressions using the match-to-sample paradigm. Facial stimuli were momentarily presented in the peripheral visual fields while participants read simultaneously presented letters in the central visual fields. The participants selected a perceived face from nine samples. The results of all experiments demonstrated that emotional expressions were more accurately identified than neutral expressions. Furthermore, Experiment 4 showed that angry expressions were identified more accurately than anti-angry expressions, which expressed neutral emotions with comparable physical changes to angry expressions. Experiment 5, testing the interaction between emotional expression and face direction, showed that angry expressions looking toward participants were more accurately identified than those looking away from participants, even though they were physically identical. These results suggest that the conscious awareness of emotional facial expressions is enhanced by their emotional significance.

Deconstructing Mechanisms of Abnormal Categorical Perception of Emotional Facial Expressions in Schizophrenia Patients.

The current study aims to find out the potential reasons why most schizophrenia patients have a relatively low sensitivity to the classification of emotional facial expressions. By using an emotional categorical perception task, eighty-three schizophrenia patients and seventy-one healthy adults are provided with morphed emotional continuums with two emotional facial expressions (a positive emotional valence: happy; a negative emotional valence: sad). Through comparing the difference between schizophrenia patients and healthy adults in the processes of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, we find that the pattern of emotional categorical perception for schizophrenia patients is significantly different from that of healthy controls when they process signals on the local facial areas. Compared to healthy people, schizophrenia patients have a significantly separate classification pattern in processing emotional signals between the eyes and mouth regions. It indicates that compared to healthy adults, schizophrenia patients have larger conflicts in integrating emotional signals from different facial areas. To overcome conflicts, more cognitive resources are required. Unfortunately, the lack of cognitive resources leads to the failure of integration, which further increases the difficulty of estimating facial expressions with ambiguous emotions, and finally leads to the relatively low sensitivity of emotional facial expressions classification. To sum up, the deficit of abnormal perceptions of emotional facial expressions in schizophrenia patients results from an integrated deficit of signals on facial areas.

Influence of affective verbal context on emotional facial expression perception of social anxiety

Previous studies have shown that the perception of ambiguous facial expressions for individuals with social anxiety was influenced by the affective verbal context. However, it is still unknown how emotional facial expressions are perceived by individuals with social anxiety in the context of the verbal context. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) technology to examine how individuals with social anxiety perceive emotional facial expressions in positive and negative contexts. The results showed that: (1) Within the negative verbal contexts, the amplitude of P1 induced by facial expressions in the social anxiety group was significantly higher than that induced by the healthy control group; The N170 amplitude induced by facial expressions in social anxiety group was less negative than that in the healthy control group, and was not affected by the context. (2) The social anxiety group had significantly higher LPP in negative contexts elicited by angry expressions than by happy expressions. This study proved that the perception of emotional facial expressions was influenced by top-down information in the early and late stages of visual perception for individuals with social anxiety.

Caricatured facial movements enhance perception of emotional facial expressions.

Although faces “in the wild” constantly undergo complicated movements, humans adeptly perceive facial identity and expression. Previous studies, focusing mainly on identity, used photographic caricature to show that distinctive form increases perceived dissimilarity. We tested whether distinctive facial movements showed similar effects, and we focussed on both perception of expression and identity. We caricatured the movements of an animated computer head, using physical motion metrics extracted from videos. We verified that these “ground truth” metrics showed the expected effects: Caricature increased physical dissimilarity between faces differing in expression and those differing in identity. Like the ground truth dissimilarity, participants’ dissimilarity perception was increased by caricature when faces differed in expression. We found these perceived dissimilarities to reflect the “representational geometry” of the ground truth. However, neither of these findings held for faces differing in identity. These findings replicated across two paradigms: pairwise ratings and multiarrangement. In a final study, motion caricature did not improve recognition memory for identity, whether manipulated at study or test. We report several forms of converging evidence for spatiotemporal caricature effects on dissimilarity perception of different expressions. However, more work needs to be done to discover what identity-specific movements can enhance face identification.

The Influence of Facial Asymmetry on Genuineness Judgment.

This study investigates how asymmetry, expressed emotion, and sex of the expresser impact the perception of emotional facial expressions (EFEs) in terms of perceived genuineness. Thirty-five undergraduate women completed a task using chimeric stimuli with artificial human faces. They were required to judge whether the expressed emotion was genuinely felt. The results revealed that (a) symmetrical faces are judged as more genuine than asymmetrical faces and (b) EFEs’ decoding is modulated by complex interplays between emotion and sex of the expresser.

Olfaction in the Multisensory Processing of Faces: A Narrative Review of the Influence of Human Body Odors.

A recent body of research has emerged regarding the interactions between olfaction and other sensory channels to process social information. The current review examines the influence of body odors on face perception, a core component of human social cognition. First, we review studies reporting how body odors interact with the perception of invariant facial information (i.e., identity, sex, attractiveness, trustworthiness, and dominance). Although we mainly focus on the influence of body odors based on axillary odor, we also review findings about specific steroids present in axillary sweat (i.e., androstenone, androstenol, androstadienone, and estratetraenol). We next survey the literature showing body odor influences on the perception of transient face properties, notably in discussing the role of body odors in facilitating or hindering the perception of emotional facial expression, in relation to competing frameworks of emotions. Finally, we discuss the developmental origins of these olfaction-to-vision influences, as an emerging literature indicates that odor cues strongly influence face perception in infants. Body odors with a high social relevance such as the odor emanating from the mother have a widespread influence on various aspects of face perception in infancy, including categorization of faces among other objects, face scanning behavior, or facial expression perception. We conclude by suggesting that the weight of olfaction might be especially strong in infancy, shaping social perception, especially in slow-maturing senses such as vision, and that this early tutoring function of olfaction spans all developmental stages to disambiguate a complex social environment by conveying key information for social interactions until adulthood.

Effects of posed smiling on memory for happy and sad facial expressions

The perception and storage of facial emotional expressions constitutes an important human skill that is essential for our daily social interactions. While previous research revealed that facial feedback can influence the perception of facial emotional expressions, it is unclear whether facial feedback also plays a role in memory processes of facial emotional expressions. In the present study we investigated the impact of facial feedback on the performance in emotional visual working memory (WM). For this purpose, 37 participants underwent a classical facial feedback manipulation (FFM) (holding a pen with the teeth—inducing a smiling expression vs. holding a pen with the non-dominant hand—as a control condition) while they performed a WM task on varying intensities of happy or sad facial expressions. Results show that the smiling manipulation improved memory performance selectively for happy faces, especially for highly ambiguous facial expressions. Furthermore, we found that in addition to an overall negative bias specifically for happy faces (i.e. happy faces are remembered as more negative than they initially were), FFM induced a positivity bias when memorizing emotional facial information (i.e. faces were remembered as being more positive than they actually were). Finally, our data demonstrate that men were affected more by FFM: during induced smiling men showed a larger positive bias than women did. These data demonstrate that facial feedback not only influences our perception but also systematically alters our memory of facial emotional expressions.

Blocking facial mimicry during binocular rivalry modulates visual awareness of faces with a neutral expression

Several previous studies have interfered with the observer’s facial mimicry during a variety of facial expression recognition tasks providing evidence in favor of the role of facial mimicry and sensorimotor activity in emotion processing. In this theoretical context, a particularly intriguing facet has been neglected, namely whether blocking facial mimicry modulates conscious perception of facial expressions of emotions. To address this issue, we used a binocular rivalry paradigm, in which two dissimilar stimuli presented to the two eyes alternatingly dominate conscious perception. On each trial, female participants (N = 32) were exposed to a rivalrous pair of a neutral and a happy expression of the same individual through anaglyph glasses in two conditions: in one, they could freely use their facial mimicry, in the other they had to keep a chopstick between their lips, constraining the mobility of the zygomatic muscle and producing ‘noise’ for sensorimotor simulation. We found that blocking facial mimicry affected the perceptual dominance in terms of cumulative time favoring neutral faces, but it did not change the time before the first dominance was established. Taken together, our results open a door to future investigation of the intersection between sensorimotor simulation models and conscious perception of emotional facial expressions.

Does body context affect facial emotion perception and eliminate emotional ambiguity without visual awareness?

ABSTRACT In this study, we hypothesized that the emotional cues of conveyer’s body posture play a role in eliminating ambiguity of facial expressions. The participants were presented with faces with emotionally congruent and incongruent body posture or without a posture (no-context) for a brief time (33 ms) in Experiment 1. The results showed that congruent pairs led to higher accuracy of facial emotion perception compared with incongruent pairs and no-context condition. On the other hand, angry, sad and disgusted emotional facial expressions were blended to create emotional ambiguity in Experiment 2, and the results partially supported the hypotheses where the context effect emerged in ambiguous anger–disgust morphs but not in unambiguous facial expressions. Thus, incongruent emotional cues in body posture have an interfering effect on the perception of emotional facial expression without awareness.

Oxytocin alters the effect of payoff but not base rate in emotion perception

Emotion perception, inferring the emotional state of another person, can be formalized as decision under uncertainty: another person’s scowling face may indicate anger or concentration and the optimal inference is contingent on the decision consequences (payoff) and how likely real anger is encountered (base rate). Although emerging evidence suggests that the neuropeptide oxytocin influences human perception of emotional facial expressions, whether such effect relates to the alternated process of payoff or base rate still remains unclear. In addition, little is known about oxytocin’s effect on metacognitive process involved in emotion perception. One hundred and twenty-two healthy male adults (sixty-two in Experiment 1 and sixty in Experiment 2, respectively) received 24 international units (IU) of intranasal oxytocin or placebo (between-subjects) in a randomized and double-blind study. We independently and systematically manipulated the payoff and base rate levels in an emotion categorization task and measured participants’ response bias via categorization choice and metacognitive sensitivity via confidence report. Compared to the placebo group, oxytocin specifically induced a categorization bias under the payoff, but not base rate manipulation. In contrast, oxytocin had no effect on subjects’ confidence rating, indicating that the metacognitive sensitivity can be dissociated from emotion perception. Our results pinpoint the specific role of oxytocin in payoff evaluation, but not target likelihood estimation and provide a potential theoretical framework to bridge oxytocin research in emotion perception, social cognition and value-based decisions.

The Influence of Maternal Schizotypy on the perception of Facial Emotional Expressions during Infancy: an Event-Related Potential Study

Parenting directly affects the developmental and clinical outcomes of children. How parental personality relates to perceptual and cognitive mechanisms during early development is not clear. For parents with traits of the personality dimension schizotypy, would their infant display brain responses similar to those on the schizophrenia-spectrum? This study investigates whether maternal personality influences early social-cognitive awareness during the first 6 postnatal months.Schizotypy is a dimension of personality within the general population. If deficits contribute to the development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders by influencing the development of symptom-like characteristics, they may be observable in neurotypical individuals with schizotypal characteristics. Parents and their infants were shown standardised positive and negative faces and event-related potential responses were assessed. It was hypothesised that the infants of schizotypic mothers would display differential Negative-central event-related potentials for the happy and fearful expressions when compared to infants of non-schizotypic mothers.Results support prior literature; indicating 6-month-old infants allocate more attentional resources to fearful when contrasted to happy faces. The adult cohort displays this same ability. In addition, schizotypic mothers displayed comparable amplitudes for both expressions in comparison to the control mothers who exhibited larger amplitudes towards the fearful compared to the happy expression. Infants of schizotypic mothers did not show a greater sensitivity to facial expressions at 6-months, but schizotypic mothers showed a generalised response towards facial expressions compared to the typical P600 response illustrated by the control mothers. The present study suggests that development in the higher cognitive domains, such as the allocation of attention to novel stimuli, are not affected at 6 months of age by maternal personality related to schizotypy when examined at the group level. Implications for personality development, maternal-infant interactions and cognitive neuroscience methodologies are discussed.

The effects of sleep deprivation and chronotype on the perception of emotional facial expressions - an experimental study

The effects of sleep deprivation and chronotype on the perception of emotional facial expressions - an experimental study

Visual Perception of Facial Emotional Expressions during Saccades.

The regularities of visual perception of both complex and ecologically valid objects during extremely short photo expositions are studied. Images of a person experiencing basic emotions were displayed for as low as 14 ms amidst a saccade spanning 10 degrees of visual angle. The observers had a main task to recognize the emotion depicted, and a secondary task to point at the perceived location of the photo on the screen. It is shown that probability of correct recognition of emotion is above chance (0.62), and that it depends on its type. False localizations of stimuli and their compression in the direction of the saccade were also observed. According to the acquired data, complex environmentally valid objects are perceived differently during saccades in comparison to isolated dots, lines or gratings. The rhythmic structure of oculomotor activity (fixation–saccade–fixation) does not violate the continuity of the visual processing. The perceptual genesis of facial expressions does not take place only during gaze fixation, but also during peak speed of rapid eye movements both at the center and in closest proximity of the visual acuity area.

Dual-task interference on left eye utilization during facial emotion perception.

There is an ongoing debate in the literature about whether facial emotion perception is carried automatically-that is, without effort or attentional resources. While it is generally accepted that spatial attention is necessary for the perception of emotional facial expressions, the picture is less clear for central attention. Using the bubbles method, we provide results that were obtained by measuring the effect of the psychological refractory period on diagnostic information for the basic facial expressions. Based on previous findings that linked spatial attention with processing of the eyes and of high spatial frequencies in the visual periphery, we hypothesized that reliance on the eyes might decrease when central resources were monopolized by a difficult prioritized auditory task. Central load led to a marked decrease in left eye utilization that was generalized across emotions; on the contrary, utilization of the mouth was unaffected by central load. Thus, processing of the left eye might be nonautomatic, and processing of the mouth might be automatic. Interestingly, we also observed a reduction in reliance on the left side of the face under central load that was accompanied by a commensurate increase in reliance on the right side of the face. We end with a discussion of how hemispheric asymmetries might account for these peculiar findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Out of Focus: Facial Feedback Manipulation Modulates Automatic Processing of Unattended Emotional Faces.

Facial expressions provide information about an individual's intentions and emotions and are thus an important medium for nonverbal communication. Theories of embodied cognition assume that facial mimicry and resulting facial feedback plays an important role in the perception of facial emotional expressions. Although behavioral and electrophysiological studies have confirmed the influence of facial feedback on the perception of facial emotional expressions, the influence of facial feedback on the automatic processing of such stimuli is largely unexplored. The automatic processing of unattended facial expressions can be investigated by visual expression-related MMN. The expression-related MMN reflects a differential ERP of automatic detection of emotional changes elicited by rarely presented facial expressions (deviants) among frequently presented facial expressions (standards). In this study, we investigated the impact of facial feedback on the automatic processing of facial expressions. For this purpose, participants (n = 19) performed a centrally presented visual detection task while neutral (standard), happy, and sad faces (deviants) were presented peripherally. During the task, facial feedback was manipulated by different pen holding conditions (holding the pen with teeth, lips, or nondominant hand). Our results indicate that automatic processing of facial expressions is influenced and thus dependent on the own facial feedback.

Intergroup empathy: Enhanced neural resonance for ingroup facial emotion in a shared neural production-perception network

IntroductionEmpathic behavior and related neural processing are strongly modified by group membership. Shared neural circuits for the production and perception of facial emotional expressions represent mirror neuron mechanisms which play a pivotal role for empathy. In this study, we investigate the influence of group membership on mirror neuron mechanisms for emotional facial expressions. MethodsIn a functional magnetic resonance imaging task, 178 healthy subjects perceived emotional and neutral facial expressions of artificial ingroup and outgroup members, displayed as 5 s video clips, and produced these facial expressions themselves. Before scanning, artificial group membership was manipulated ad-hoc through a minimal group paradigm. ResultsShared neural activity for emotional facial expression production and perception was revealed in a large network with right-hemispheric preponderance encompassing motor mirror neuron regions, i.e., inferior frontal gyrus, supplementary motor area and middle temporal gyrus, in addition to limbic regions, i.e., amygdala, hippocampus, para-hippocampus, and insula. Within this network there was greater neural activation for ingroup compared to outgroup members in temporal poles, amygdalae, the left insula, the left inferior frontal gyrus, and the inferior and middle temporal gyrus, the right hippocampus and parahippocampus. DiscussionWe validate and extend knowledge on brain regions with mirror neuron properties. Most crucially, we provide evidence for the influence of group membership on regions within the mirror neuron system, indicating more neural resonance (mirroring) for ingroup facial emotional expressions.

Ruminative response style is associated with a negative bias in the perception of emotional facial expressions in healthy women without a history of clinical depression

Background and objectivesRumination has been shown to be an important cognitive vulnerability factor affecting development and maintenance of depression. Ruminative thinking can be divided into a self-focused component referring to persistent reflection about causes and consequences of depressed mood and a symptom-focused component characterized by repetitive thinking about depressive symptoms. Previous research on clinical depression has shown that rumination is associated with the perception of negative emotions in others’ facial expressions. The present study was conducted to investigate the relation between habitual rumination and negative bias in face perception in healthy individuals. Methods100 healthy young women without a history of clinical depression completed the Response Styles Questionnaire along with measures of depressive symptoms, dysfunctional attitudes, and anxiety. A computer-based version of the perception of facial expressions questionnaire using line drawings (schematic faces) was administered to assess perceived emotions in faces with ambiguous and unambiguous emotional expressions. ResultsAccording to hierarchical regression analyses, symptom-based (but not self-focused) rumination predicted perceived negative emotions in ambiguous as well as in unambiguous negative faces after controlling for current depressive symptoms, state and trait anxiety, intelligence, and dysfunctional attitudes. LimitationsGeneralization of the present findings is limited by the fact that only women were included as study participants. ConclusionsHabitual ruminating about depressive symptoms in healthy, never clinically depressed individuals goes along with a negative bias in the perception of others’ facial expressions. Negatively biasing social perception might be one mechanism by which symptom-focused rumination might increase vulnerability for depression.

The perception of emotional facial expressions by children with autism using hybrid multiple factorial design and eye-tracking

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have the deficits in emotional facial expression recognition and understanding, which is considered as the core source of their social communication disorder and stereotype behaviour. Previous studies have suggested that individuals with ASD have the deficits in the perception of static emotional facial expressions, but results are inconclusive. The use of 3D or dynamic facial stimuli that express emotions at different levels of intensities may produce more robust results, since these resemble the expression of emotions in daily life to a greater extent. In this study, 30 children (aged 2–7 years) with ASD and 51 age-matched children with typical development (TD) performed an emotion recognition (ER) task, in which morphs, presented on a computer screen, depicted facial expressions associated with two basic emotions (happiness and fear) at four levels of emotional intensity(25%–100%). Using a hybrid-design experiment and eye-tracking technology, we explored the influencing factors of ER in children with ASD and their interaction. In addition, we analyzed the gaze characteristics and processing patterns of children with ASD during the ER, and their impact on ER. The results showed that the type of subject, expression category, and intensity of expression had the main effect on recognition accuracy, and there was interaction among the factors that affected the emotional face recognition ability of the children with ASD. Moreover, children with ASD and TD both had an advantage when recognizing dynamic expressions rather than static expressions in 2D or 3D. The recognition accuracy of 3D expressions of children with TD was higher than that of 2D expressions, but children with ASD had the opposite result. The recognition accuracy of fearful expression for both ASD and TD groups was significantly better than that of happy expression. There was an interaction effect between gender and expression category, but age was not significant. In particular, girls’ facial expression recognition ability was superior to that of boys. The eye-tracking results showed that children with ASD have face-specific processing mechanisms: avoidance of eye contact, increased focus on the mouth and background information, and a preference for local feature processing. In conclusion, this study suggests that the material, category, and intensity of facial expression combines with the age and gender of subjects to affect the emotional expression recognition ability of children with ASD. Children with autism have the advantage of dynamic processing and mouth-directed gaze. In addition, dynamic facial expressions may be used as effective training and intervention materials for ER. Abnormal face processing and eye-tracking characteristics can help to understand the social disorders of ASD and provide behavioral characteristic indicators for early identification of ASD.

Perception of facial expressions of emotion in migraine

Both lower-level perceptual changes and especially higher-level cognitive alterations in individuals with migraine are poorly understood. Here, we behaviorally and electrophysiologically investigated the perception of emotional facial expressions in migraine. Young female individuals with migraine and healthy controls watching neutral faces gradually shifting to either happy, fearful, or angry expressions were asked to classify the facial expressions as quickly and accurately as possible by pressing a corresponding button, and to keep looking at the face until the last frame disappeared. Migraine individuals, compared to healthy controls, had a reduced habituation in the N170 time interval towards a gradually emerging emotional expression. The early P1, the early posterior negativity (EPN), and the late positive potential (LPP) amplitudes were not statistically different between groups and among expressions. The mean reaction time for recognizing an expression did not differ between groups and it was not at a cost of more incorrect responses. Interestingly, the amplitude of the early posterior negativity correlated negatively with the time interval since the last attack. It is concluded that young female individuals with migraine, compared to healthy controls, do not show a biased emotional facial processing toward positive or negative expressions.

The Differential Effects of Attachment Orientations on the Perception of Facial Emotional Expressions

The present study investigated the differences of perception of facial expressions among different attachment orientations. The study was conducted with 356 university students (202 female and 154 male). The participants were given Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) scale to assess their adult attachment style and Morph Movie Task to assess their sensitivity to emotion information. The research has demonstrated that attachment security of childhood influences on cognitive and emotion development, providing a framework for the later relationships. Given the importance of social functioning on wellbeing, it is crucial to understand the possible underlying mechanism of impairments. For that purpose, this study focused on the perception of facial expressions which serves as the general emotional cue in social interactions. In order to examine the perceptual differences, morph video tasks have been used. It has been hypothesized that attachment anxiety is related to increased sensitivity to the changes in emotional information, whereas avoidant individuals are expected to disregard the incoming information. The results for categorical analysis revealed that dismissing individuals detected both the offset and onset of the emotion later compared to secure and preoccupied participants and preoccupied individuals detected the offset earlier than fearful individuals. On the other hand, the hierarchical regression analysis of attachment dimensions showed that only attachment avoidance predicted the late detection of both onset and offset scores. The possible mechanisms underlying the differential effects are discussed.