Bi Taiyong, Luo Wei, Wu Jia, Shao Boyao, Tan Qingli, Kou Hui
Research Center of Humanities and Medicine, Zunyi Medical University, Zunyi, China.
The Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2024 Jan 19;15:1310101. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1310101. eCollection 2024.
Perceptual learning of facial expression is shown specific to the train expression, indicating separate encoding of the emotional contents in different expressions. However, little is known about the specificity of emotional recognition training with the visual search paradigm and the sensitivity of learning to near-threshold stimuli.
In the present study, we adopted a visual search paradigm to measure the recognition of facial expressions. In Experiment 1 (Exp1), Experiment 2 (Exp2), and Experiment 3 (Exp3), subjects were trained for 8 days to search for a target expression in an array of faces presented for 950 ms, 350 ms, and 50 ms, respectively. In Experiment 4 (Exp4), we trained subjects to search for a target of a triangle, and tested them with the task of facial expression search. Before and after the training, subjects were tested on the trained and untrained facial expressions which were presented for 950 ms, 650 ms, 350 ms, or 50 ms.
The results showed that training led to large improvements in the recognition of facial emotions only if the faces were presented long enough (Exp1: 85.89%; Exp2: 46.05%). Furthermore, the training effect could transfer to the untrained expression. However, when the faces were presented briefly (Exp3), the training effect was small (6.38%). In Exp4, the results indicated that the training effect could not transfer across categories.
Our findings revealed cross-emotion transfer for facial expression recognition training in a visual search task. In addition, learning hardly affects the recognition of near-threshold expressions.
面部表情的知觉学习表现出对训练表情的特异性，这表明不同表情中情绪内容的编码是分开的。然而，关于视觉搜索范式下情绪识别训练的特异性以及学习对接近阈值刺激的敏感性，我们知之甚少。
在本研究中，我们采用视觉搜索范式来测量面部表情的识别。在实验1（Exp1）、实验2（Exp2）和实验3（Exp3）中，分别训练受试者8天，让他们在呈现950毫秒、350毫秒和50毫秒的一系列面孔中搜索目标表情。在实验4（Exp4）中，我们训练受试者搜索三角形目标，并使用面部表情搜索任务对他们进行测试。在训练前后，对呈现950毫秒、650毫秒、350毫秒或50毫秒的经过训练和未经过训练的面部表情对受试者进行测试。
结果表明，只有当面孔呈现足够长的时间时（Exp1：85.89%；Exp2：46.05%），训练才会导致面部情绪识别有显著改善。此外，训练效果可以转移到未训练的表情上。然而，当面孔短暂呈现时（Exp3），训练效果很小（6.38%）。在Exp4中，结果表明训练效果不能跨类别转移。
我们的研究结果揭示了视觉搜索任务中面部表情识别训练的跨情绪转移。此外，学习几乎不影响对接近阈值表情的识别。
