Della-Torre Maria Elisa, Zavagno Daniele, Actis-Grosso Rossana
Department of Psychology, Università di Milano-Bicocca, 20126 Milano, Italy.
Vision (Basel). 2021 Mar 25;5(2):17. doi: 10.3390/vision5020017.
E-motions are defined as those affective states the expressions of which-conveyed either by static faces or body posture-embody a dynamic component and, consequently, convey a higher sense of dynamicity than other emotional expressions. An experiment is presented, aimed at testing whether e-motions are perceived as such also by individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), which have been associated with impairments in emotion recognition and in motion perception. To this aim we replicate with ASD individuals a study, originally conducted with typically developed individuals (TDs), in which we showed to both ASD and TD participants 14 bodiless heads and 14 headless bodies taken from eleven static artworks and four drawings. The Experiment was divided into two sessions. In Session 1 participants were asked to freely associate each stimulus to an emotion or an affective state (Task 1, option A); if they were unable to find a specific emotion, the experimenter showed them a list of eight possible emotions (words) and asked them to choose one from such list, that best described the affective state portrayed in the image (Task 1, option B). After their choice, they were asked to rate the intensity of the perceived emotion on a seven point Likert scale (Task 2). In Session 2 participants were requested to evaluate the degree of dynamicity conveyed by each stimulus on a 7 point Likert scale. Results showed that ASDs and TDs shared a similar range of verbal expressions defining emotions; however, ASDs (i) showed an impairment in the ability to spontaneously assign an emotion to a headless body, and (ii) they more frequently used terms denoting negative emotions (for both faces and bodies) as compared to neutral emotions, which in turn were more frequently used by TDs. No difference emerged between the two groups for positive emotions, with happiness being the emotion better recognized in both faces and in bodies. Although overall there are no significant differences between the two groups with respect to the emotions assigned to the images and the degree of perceived dynamicity, the interaction Artwork x Group showed that for some images ASDs assigned a different value than TDs to perceived dynamicity. Moreover, two images were interpreted by ASDs as conveying completely different emotions than those perceived by TDs. Results are discussed in light of the ability of ASDs to resolve ambiguity, and of possible different cognitive styles characterizing the aesthetical/emotional experience.
E-情绪被定义为那些情感状态，其表达（通过静态面部或身体姿势传达）体现了一个动态成分，因此，与其他情感表达相比，传达出更高的动态感。本文呈现了一项实验，旨在测试患有自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的个体是否也能如此感知E-情绪，自闭症谱系障碍与情绪识别和运动感知方面的损伤有关。为此，我们对患有自闭症谱系障碍的个体重复了一项最初针对发育正常个体（TD）进行的研究，在该研究中，我们向自闭症谱系障碍和发育正常的参与者展示了从11幅静态艺术品和4幅图画中选取的14个无头身体和14个无身体的头部。该实验分为两个阶段。在第一阶段，要求参与者将每个刺激自由地与一种情绪或情感状态联系起来（任务1，选项A）；如果他们无法找到特定的情绪，实验者会向他们展示一份包含八种可能情绪（词语）的列表，并要求他们从该列表中选择最能描述图像中所描绘情感状态的一种（任务1，选项B）。在他们做出选择后，要求他们在七点李克特量表上对所感知情绪的强度进行评分（任务2）。在第二阶段，要求参与者在七点李克特量表上评估每个刺激所传达的动态程度。结果表明，自闭症谱系障碍患者和发育正常的个体在定义情绪的语言表达范围上相似；然而，自闭症谱系障碍患者（i）在将情绪自发地赋予无身体头部的能力上存在损伤，并且（ii）与发育正常的个体相比，他们更频繁地使用表示负面情绪（针对面部和身体）的术语，而发育正常的个体则更频繁地使用中性情绪术语。两组在积极情绪方面没有差异，幸福是在面部和身体中都能被更好识别的情绪。尽管总体而言，两组在赋予图像的情绪和感知到的动态程度方面没有显著差异，但艺术品×组的交互作用表明，对于某些图像，自闭症谱系障碍患者赋予感知到的动态性的值与发育正常的个体不同。此外，有两幅图像被自闭症谱系障碍患者解读为传达了与发育正常的个体所感知到的完全不同的情绪。我们根据自闭症谱系障碍患者解决模糊性的能力以及表征审美/情感体验可能存在的不同认知风格对结果进行了讨论。
