Mauersberger Heidi, Kastendieck Till, Hess Ursula
Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2022 Sep 29;13:970954. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.970954. eCollection 2022.
Eye contact is an essential element of human interaction and direct eye gaze has been shown to have effects on a range of attentional and cognitive processes. Specifically, direct eye contact evokes a positive affective reaction. As such, it has been proposed that obstructed eye contact reduces emotional mimicry (i.e., the imitation of our counterpart's emotions). So far, emotional mimicry research has used averted-gaze faces or unnaturally covered eyes (with black censor bars) to analyze the effect of eye contact on emotional mimicry. However, averted gaze can also signal disinterest/ disengagement and censor bars obscure eye-adjacent areas as well and hence impede emotion recognition. In the present study ( = 44), we used a more ecological valid approach by showing photos of actors who expressed either happiness, sadness, anger, or disgust while either wearing mirroring sunglasses that obstruct eye contact or clear glasses. The glasses covered only the direct eye region but not the brows, nose ridge, and cheeks. Our results confirm that participants were equally accurate in recognizing the emotions of their counterparts in both conditions (sunglasses vs. glasses). Further, in line with our hypotheses, participants felt closer to the targets and mimicked affiliative emotions more intensely when their counterparts wore glasses instead of sunglasses. For antagonistic emotions, we found the opposite pattern: Disgust mimicry, which was interpreted as an affective reaction rather than genuine mimicry, could be only found in the sunglasses condition. It may be that obstructed eye contact increased the negative impression of disgusted facial expressions and hence the negative feelings disgust faces evoked. The present study provides further evidence for the notion that eye contact is an important prerequisite for emotional mimicry and hence for smooth and satisfying social interactions.
眼神交流是人际互动的一个重要元素，直接的目光注视已被证明会对一系列注意力和认知过程产生影响。具体而言，直接的眼神交流会引发积极的情感反应。因此，有人提出，受阻的眼神交流会减少情感模仿（即对对方情绪的模仿）。到目前为止，情感模仿研究使用了回避目光的面部或不自然地遮住眼睛（用黑色遮挡条）来分析眼神交流对情感模仿的影响。然而，回避目光也可能表示不感兴趣/脱离接触，而且遮挡条也会遮挡眼睛附近区域，从而妨碍情绪识别。在本研究（N = 44）中，我们采用了一种更具生态效度的方法，展示了演员表达快乐、悲伤、愤怒或厌恶情绪的照片，这些演员要么戴着阻碍眼神交流的反光太阳镜，要么戴着透明眼镜。眼镜只覆盖了直接的眼部区域，而没有覆盖眉毛、鼻梁和脸颊。我们的结果证实，在两种情况下（太阳镜与眼镜），参与者识别对方情绪的准确率是一样的。此外，与我们的假设一致，当对方戴眼镜而不是太阳镜时，参与者感觉与目标更亲近，并且更强烈地模仿亲和情绪。对于敌对情绪，我们发现了相反的模式：厌恶模仿，被解释为一种情感反应而非真正的模仿，只在戴太阳镜的情况下被发现。可能是受阻的眼神交流增加了厌恶面部表情的负面印象，从而增强了厌恶表情所引发的负面情绪。本研究为眼神交流是情感模仿的重要前提这一观点提供了进一步的证据，因此也是顺畅和令人满意的社会互动的重要前提。
