Pell Philip J, Richards Anne
Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet St., London WC1E 7HX, UK.
Vision Res. 2011 Sep 1;51(17):1889-96. doi: 10.1016/j.visres.2011.06.017. Epub 2011 Jul 8.
Increasing evidence suggests that the visual representations of different emotional facial expressions overlap. Here we used an adaptation paradigm to investigate overlap of anger, disgust and fear expressions. In Experiment 1, participants categorized faces morphed from neutral to anger or neutral to disgust after adaptation to expressions of anger, disgust, and fear. Adaptation to expressions of both anger and disgust was found to bias perception of anger expressions away from anger. For disgust expressions, adaptation to disgust biased perception away from disgust, whereas fear adaptation biased perception towards disgust. Adaptation to anger had no measurable effect. In Experiment 2, covering the mouth-region of the disgust adaptation face was found to severely diminish the effect of disgust adaptation on perception of anger targets whereas covering the nose- or eye-region had no effect. In Experiment 3, adaptation to anger had a substantial effect on perception of anger targets when the mouth-region of the anger face was covered; indicating that the results of Experiment 2 are not an artefact of the stimuli and procedures used. These results indicate that the visual representations of anger, disgust and fear expressions overlap to a considerable degree. Furthermore, the nature of this overlap appears related to the communicative functions of these expressions.
越来越多的证据表明，不同情绪面部表情的视觉表征存在重叠。在此，我们使用一种适应范式来研究愤怒、厌恶和恐惧表情的重叠情况。在实验1中，参与者在适应愤怒、厌恶和恐惧表情后，对从中性变形为愤怒或从中性变形为厌恶的面部进行分类。结果发现，适应愤怒和厌恶表情都会使对愤怒表情的感知偏离愤怒。对于厌恶表情，适应厌恶会使感知偏离厌恶，而适应恐惧则会使感知偏向厌恶。适应愤怒没有可测量的影响。在实验2中，发现遮住厌恶适应面孔的嘴部区域会严重削弱厌恶适应对愤怒目标感知的影响，而遮住鼻子或眼睛区域则没有影响。在实验3中，当愤怒面孔的嘴部区域被遮住时，适应愤怒对愤怒目标的感知有显著影响；这表明实验2的结果不是所用刺激和程序造成的假象。这些结果表明，愤怒、厌恶和恐惧表情的视觉表征在很大程度上存在重叠。此外，这种重叠的性质似乎与这些表情的交际功能有关。
