Liang Jing, Zou Yu-Qing, Liang Si-Yi, Wu Yu-Wei, Yan Wen-Jing
School of Educational Science, Ludong University, Yantai, China.
Faculty of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing, China.
Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 2;12:684357. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.684357. eCollection 2021.
Previous research has found that when gaze direction matches the underlying behavioral intent communicated by the expression of a specific emotion, it enhances or facilitates the perception of that emotion; this is called the shared signal hypothesis (SSH). Specifically, a direct gaze shares an approach-orientated signal with the emotions of anger and joy, whereas an averted gaze shares an avoidance-orientated signal with fear and sadness. In this research, we attempted to verify the SSH by using different materials on Asian participants. In Experiment 1 we employed photos of models exhibiting direct and averted gazes for rating tasks, in order to study the effects of gaze direction on participants' perception of emotion. In Experiment 2 we utilized smiling faces in a similar investigation. The results show that for neutral and smiling faces, a direct gaze (relative to a gaze of avoidance) increased the likelihood of a subject perceiving a happy mood; a gaze of avoidance increased the likelihood that anger and fear would be perceived. The effect of gaze direction on emotional expression perception was verified, but a "facilitating-impairing" pattern was not. The difference between our work and previous research may be attributable to the materials employed (which were more ecological), as well as the participants, who were from a different culture.
先前的研究发现，当注视方向与特定情绪表达所传达的潜在行为意图相匹配时，会增强或促进对该情绪的感知；这被称为共享信号假说（SSH）。具体而言，直接注视与愤怒和喜悦的情绪共享一种趋近导向的信号，而回避注视与恐惧和悲伤的情绪共享一种回避导向的信号。在本研究中，我们试图通过对亚洲参与者使用不同材料来验证SSH。在实验1中，我们使用展示直接注视和回避注视的模特照片进行评级任务，以研究注视方向对参与者情绪感知的影响。在实验2中，我们在类似的调查中使用了笑脸。结果表明，对于中性脸和笑脸，直接注视（相对于回避注视）增加了受试者感知到愉快情绪的可能性；回避注视增加了感知到愤怒和恐惧的可能性。验证了注视方向对情绪表达感知的影响，但未发现“促进-损害”模式。我们的研究与先前研究的差异可能归因于所使用的材料（更具生态性）以及来自不同文化的参与者。
