Institute of Psychology, School of Public Affairs, Xiamen University, No. 422, Siming South Road, Xiamen, Fujian, China.
Department of Applied Social Sciences, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11 Yuk Choi Rd, Hung Hom, Kowloon, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of China; School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, 3663 N. Zhongshan Road, Shanghai, China.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2023 May;151:106055. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2023.106055. Epub 2023 Feb 13.
Androsta-4,16,-dien-3-one (androstadienone), a steroids implicated as a human social chemosignal, has been reported to impact one's emotional perception along the valence axis. The current study takes a step further to examine whether it modulates the perception of angry and fearful faces, two negative emotions that are similar with respect to valence and arousal, but signal different social values. Systematic comparisons of psychophysical data collected from 40 heterosexual men and 45 heterosexual women revealed that androstadienone subconsciously biased heterosexual men toward perceiving the male faces as less angry, while it biased the heterosexual women toward perceiving the female faces as angrier. Meanwhile, androstadienone did not affect the perception of fearful faces in either men or women. These findings indicate that the modulation of androstadienone on negative emotional perceptions is not uniform, suggesting that it alters the perception of specific rather than general negative emotions. In particular, it impacts one's perception of anger, which signals impending aggression, and hence could further impact an individual's social interaction in a sex-specific manner.
雄甾-4,16,-二烯-3-酮（雄甾烯酮）作为一种人类社交化学信号物质，被报道可以影响一个人在效价轴上的情绪感知。本研究更进一步，以检验它是否调节了对愤怒和恐惧面孔的感知，这两种负面情绪在效价和唤醒度上相似，但信号代表不同的社会价值。从 40 名异性恋男性和 45 名异性恋女性中收集的心理物理学数据的系统比较显示，雄甾烯酮潜意识地使异性恋男性对男性面孔的愤怒感知程度降低，而使异性恋女性对女性面孔的愤怒感知程度增加。同时，雄甾烯酮对男性和女性对恐惧面孔的感知没有影响。这些发现表明，雄甾烯酮对负面情绪感知的调节不是统一的，这表明它改变了对特定而非一般负面情绪的感知。特别是，它影响了一个人对愤怒的感知，而愤怒则预示着即将发生的攻击，因此可能以性别特异性的方式进一步影响个体的社会互动。
