Leung Tiffany S, Maylott Sarah E, Zeng Guangyu, Nascimben Diana N, Jakobsen Krisztina V, Simpson Elizabeth A
Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA.
Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
Brain Behav Immun. 2023 May;110:195-211. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2023.03.007. Epub 2023 Mar 7.
The capacity to rapidly detect and avoid sick people may be adaptive. Given that faces are reliably available, as well as rapidly detected and processed, they may provide health information that influences social interaction. Prior studies used faces that were manipulated to appear sick (e.g., editing photos, inducing inflammatory response); however, responses to naturally sick faces remain largely unexplored. We tested whether adults detected subtle cues of genuine, acute, potentially contagious illness in face photos compared to the same individuals when healthy. We tracked illness symptoms and severity with the Sickness Questionnaire and Common Cold Questionnaire. We also checked that sick and healthy photos were matched on low-level features. We found that participants (N = 109) rated sick faces, compared to healthy faces, as sicker, more dangerous, and eliciting more unpleasant feelings. Participants (N = 90) rated sick faces as more likely to be avoided, more tired, and more negative in expression than healthy faces. In a passive-viewing eye-tracking task, participants (N = 50) looked longer at healthy than sick faces, especially the eye region, suggesting people may be more drawn to healthy conspecifics. When making approach-avoidance decisions, participants (N = 112) had greater pupil dilation to sick than healthy faces, and more pupil dilation was associated with greater avoidance, suggesting elevated arousal to threat. Across all experiments, participants' behaviors correlated with the degree of sickness, as reported by the face donors, suggesting a nuanced, fine-tuned sensitivity. Together, these findings suggest that humans may detect subtle threats of contagion from sick faces, which may facilitate illness avoidance. By better understanding how humans naturally avoid illness in conspecifics, we may identify what information is used and ultimately improve public health.
快速检测并避开生病的人这种能力可能具有适应性。鉴于面部信息易于获取，且能被快速检测和处理，它们可能会提供影响社交互动的健康信息。先前的研究使用的是经过处理显得生病的面部（例如，编辑照片、引发炎症反应）；然而，对自然生病面部的反应在很大程度上仍未得到探索。我们测试了成年人是否能在面部照片中检测到与健康时的同一个人相比真正的、急性的、可能具有传染性疾病的细微线索。我们用疾病问卷和普通感冒问卷追踪疾病症状和严重程度。我们还检查了生病和健康照片在低层次特征上是否匹配。我们发现，参与者（N = 109）将生病的面部与健康的面部相比，认为前者更病态、更危险，且会引发更多不愉快的感觉。参与者（N = 90）认为生病的面部比健康的面部更有可能被避开、更疲惫，且表情更消极。在一项被动观看的眼动追踪任务中，参与者（N = 50）注视健康面部的时间比生病面部更长，尤其是眼部区域，这表明人们可能更被健康的同种个体所吸引。在做出接近 - 回避决策时，参与者（N = 112）对生病面部的瞳孔扩张程度大于健康面部，且更多的瞳孔扩张与更大的回避相关，这表明对威胁的唤醒增强。在所有实验中，参与者的行为与面部提供者报告的疾病程度相关，这表明存在细微的、经过微调的敏感性。总之，这些发现表明人类可能会从生病的面部检测到细微的传染威胁，这可能有助于避免疾病。通过更好地理解人类如何自然地避免同种个体患病，我们或许可以确定所使用的信息，并最终改善公共卫生。
