Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e56003. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056003. Epub 2013 Feb 11.
Emotional facial expressions are immediate indicators of the affective dispositions of others. Recently it has been shown that early stages of social perception can already be influenced by (implicit) attributions made by the observer about the agent's mental state and intentions. In the current study possible mechanisms underpinning distortions in the perception of dynamic, ecologically-valid, facial expressions were explored. In four experiments we examined to what extent basic perceptual processes such as contrast/context effects, adaptation and representational momentum underpinned the perceptual distortions, and to what extent 'emotional anticipation', i.e. the involuntary anticipation of the other's emotional state of mind on the basis of the immediate perceptual history, might have played a role. Neutral facial expressions displayed at the end of short video-clips, in which an initial facial expression of joy or anger gradually morphed into a neutral expression, were misjudged as being slightly angry or slightly happy, respectively (Experiment 1). This response bias disappeared when the actor's identity changed in the final neutral expression (Experiment 2). Videos depicting neutral-to-joy-to-neutral and neutral-to-anger-to-neutral sequences again produced biases but in opposite direction (Experiment 3). The bias survived insertion of a 400 ms blank (Experiment 4). These results suggested that the perceptual distortions were not caused by any of the low-level perceptual mechanisms (adaptation, representational momentum and contrast effects). We speculate that especially when presented with dynamic, facial expressions, perceptual distortions occur that reflect 'emotional anticipation' (a low-level mindreading mechanism), which overrules low-level visual mechanisms. Underpinning neural mechanisms are discussed in relation to the current debate on action and emotion understanding.
情绪面部表情是他人情感倾向的直接指标。最近的研究表明，社会感知的早期阶段已经可以受到观察者对主体心理状态和意图的（内隐）归因的影响。在当前的研究中，探索了可能影响对动态、生态有效面部表情感知扭曲的机制。在四个实验中，我们研究了基本感知过程（如对比/上下文效应、适应和代表性动量）在多大程度上支持感知扭曲，以及“情绪预期”（即基于即时感知历史对他人心理情绪状态的无意识预期）在多大程度上可能起作用。在短视频片段结束时显示的中性面部表情，其中喜悦或愤怒的初始面部表情逐渐变成中性表情，分别被错误判断为略微生气或略微高兴（实验 1）。当演员的身份在最后一个中性表情中改变时，这种反应偏差消失了（实验 2）。描绘中性到喜悦到中性和中性到愤怒到中性序列的视频再次产生了偏差，但方向相反（实验 3）。在插入 400 毫秒的空白后，偏差仍然存在（实验 4）。这些结果表明，感知扭曲不是由任何低级别的感知机制（适应、代表性动量和对比效应）引起的。我们推测，特别是当呈现动态面部表情时，会发生反映“情绪预期”（一种低级别的心理阅读机制）的感知扭曲，这种机制会压倒低级别的视觉机制。与当前关于动作和情感理解的争论有关的潜在神经机制进行了讨论。
