Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA.
Department of Psychology, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Cogn Emot. 2020 Sep;34(6):1171-1182. doi: 10.1080/02699931.2020.1733933. Epub 2020 Feb 27.
Previous studies have shown that the perception of neutral emotion stimuli can be negative rather than absolutely neutral. In the current study, we examined the negative bias of both neutral faces and scenes, cross-culturally between East Asians (e.g. Koreans) and Caucasian Americans. In all experiments, participants performed a Go/No-go task, by either executing or withholding a response toward neutral stimuli presented in the context of positive or negative stimuli. Differentiating neutral stimuli from negative stimuli was less accurate, measured in , than doing so from positive stimuli. This negative bias was evident with both faces (Experiments 1 and 2) and scenes (Experiment 3). In all experiments, while both ethnic groups demonstrated significant negative biases, there was a subtle modulation of the bias by cultural background. For example, for Korean faces and IAPS scenes, Koreans showed a mitigated negative bias and Caucasian Americans demonstrated a greater negative bias. However, for Caucasian faces, bias was comparable between the two groups. With the possibility of cultural modulation, the prevalent negative bias of neutral emotion questions the validity of the neutrality assumption of the neutral emotion. The study discusses the necessity of methodological and theoretical reconsiderations for the utilisation of neutral emotion stimuli.
先前的研究表明，对中性情绪刺激的感知可能是负面的，而不是绝对中性的。在当前的研究中，我们跨文化地检验了东亚人（例如韩国人）和白种美国人对中性面孔和场景的负面偏见。在所有实验中，参与者通过对呈现于正性或负性刺激背景中的中性刺激执行或抑制反应来执行 Go/No-go 任务。与将中性刺激与正性刺激区分开来相比，将其与负性刺激区分开来的准确性较差，用 d' 表示。这种负面偏见在面孔（实验 1 和 2）和场景（实验 3）中均很明显。在所有实验中，虽然两个种族群体都表现出明显的负面偏见，但文化背景对偏见有微妙的调节。例如，对于韩国面孔和 IAPS 场景，韩国人表现出较弱的负面偏见，而白种美国人表现出较强的负面偏见。然而，对于白种人面孔，两组之间的偏见相当。由于存在文化调节的可能性，中性情绪的普遍负面偏见质疑了中性情绪的中立性假设的有效性。该研究讨论了对于使用中性情绪刺激，方法学和理论上重新考虑的必要性。
