State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
PLoS One. 2014 Apr 15;9(4):e95018. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095018. eCollection 2014.
Micro-expressions are often embedded in a flow of expressions including both neutral and other facial expressions. However, it remains unclear whether the types of facial expressions appearing before and after the micro-expression, i.e., the emotional context, influence micro-expression recognition. To address this question, the present study used a modified METT (Micro-Expression Training Tool) paradigm that required participants to recognize the target micro-expressions presented briefly between two identical emotional faces. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed that negative context impaired the recognition of micro-expressions regardless of the duration of the target micro-expression. Stimulus-difference between the context and target micro-expression was accounted for in Experiment 3. Results showed that a context effect on micro-expression recognition persists even when the stimulus similarity between the context and target micro-expressions was controlled. Therefore, our results not only provided evidence for the context effect on micro-expression recognition but also suggested that the context effect might result from both the stimulus and valence differences.
微表情通常嵌入在包括中性和其他面部表情的表情流中。然而，目前尚不清楚微表情之前和之后出现的面部表情类型（即情绪背景）是否会影响微表情识别。为了解决这个问题，本研究使用了一种改良的 METT（微表情训练工具）范式，要求参与者识别在两个相同情绪面孔之间短暂呈现的目标微表情。实验 1 和实验 2 的结果表明，无论目标微表情的持续时间如何，负面情绪背景都会损害微表情的识别。实验 3 考虑了上下文和目标微表情之间的刺激差异。结果表明，即使控制上下文和目标微表情之间的刺激相似性，对微表情识别的上下文效应仍然存在。因此，我们的结果不仅为微表情识别的上下文效应提供了证据，还表明上下文效应可能既来自于刺激差异，也来自于效价差异。
