Balsters Martijn J H, Krahmer Emiel J, Swerts Marc G J, Vingerhoets Ad J J M
Tilburg Center for Cognition and Communication, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Evol Psychol. 2013 Feb 12;11(1):148-58. doi: 10.1177/147470491301100114.
The tearing effect refers to the relevance of tears as an important visual cue adding meaning to human facial expression. However, little is known about how people process these visual cues and their mediating role in terms of emotion perception and person judgment. We therefore conducted two experiments in which we measured the influence of tears on the identification of sadness and the perceived need for social support at an early perceptional level. In two experiments (1 and 2), participants were exposed to sad and neutral faces. In both experiments, the face stimuli were presented for 50 milliseconds. In experiment 1, tears were digitally added to sad faces in one condition. Participants demonstrated a significant faster recognition of sad faces with tears compared to those without tears. In experiment 2, tears were added to neutral faces as well. Participants had to indicate to what extent the displayed individuals were in need of social support. Study participants reported a greater perceived need for social support to both sad and neutral faces with tears than to those without tears. This study thus demonstrated that emotional tears serve as important visual cues at an early (pre-attentive) level.
流泪效应指的是眼泪作为一种重要的视觉线索，为人类面部表情增添意义的相关性。然而，人们如何处理这些视觉线索以及它们在情绪感知和人物判断方面的中介作用却鲜为人知。因此，我们进行了两项实验，在早期感知层面测量眼泪对悲伤识别以及感知到的社会支持需求的影响。在两项实验（实验1和实验2）中，参与者观看悲伤和中性的面孔。在两个实验中，面部刺激呈现50毫秒。在实验1中，在一种条件下将眼泪数字添加到悲伤的面孔上。与没有眼泪的悲伤面孔相比，参与者对有眼泪的悲伤面孔的识别明显更快。在实验2中，眼泪也被添加到中性面孔上。参与者必须指出所展示的个体在多大程度上需要社会支持。研究参与者报告说，与没有眼泪的面孔相比，他们对有眼泪的悲伤和中性面孔都感觉到更大的社会支持需求。因此，这项研究表明，情绪化的眼泪在早期（预注意）层面充当重要的视觉线索。
