School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University, UK.
Department of Psychology, University of Chester, Chester, UK.
Chem Senses. 2018 Feb 26;43(3):139-150. doi: 10.1093/chemse/bjx081.
The current study investigated the extent to which the concurrent presentation of pleasant and unpleasant odors could modulate the perceptual saliency of happy facial expressions in an emotional visual search task. Whilst a search advantage for happy faces was found in the no odor and unpleasant odor conditions, it was abolished under the pleasant odor condition. Furthermore, phasic properties of visual search performance revealed the malleable nature of this happiness advantage. Specifically, attention towards happy faces was optimized at the start of the visual search task for participants presented with pleasant odors, but diminished towards the end. This pattern was reversed for participants in the unpleasant odor condition. These patterns occur through the emotion-inducing capacities of odors and highlight the circumstances in which top-down factors can override perceptually salient facial features in emotional visual search.
本研究调查了在情绪视觉搜索任务中，同时呈现愉快和不愉快气味的程度会如何调节快乐面部表情的感知显著性。虽然在没有气味和不愉快气味的条件下发现了对快乐面孔的搜索优势，但在愉快气味条件下这种优势被消除了。此外，视觉搜索表现的相位特性揭示了这种幸福感优势的可塑性质。具体来说，对于呈现愉快气味的参与者，注意力在视觉搜索任务开始时优化在快乐面孔上，但在任务结束时减弱。对于处于不愉快气味条件下的参与者，这种模式则相反。这些模式是通过气味的情绪诱导能力产生的，强调了在何种情况下，自上而下的因素可以覆盖情绪视觉搜索中感知显著的面部特征。
