Lu Jiahao, Wang Jun
School of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321001, China.
Zhejiang Philosophy and Social Science Laboratory for the Mental Health and Crisis intervention of Children and Adolescents, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321001, China.
Sci Rep. 2025 Feb 1;15(1):3957. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-87936-2.
By observing dynamically changing facial expressions, humans can use a specialized capacity known as ensemble coding to effortlessly obtain a summary representation of an individual's emotional state. However, few studies have examined whether the missing expression informed by the statistical regularity in the changing facial expressions can be sampled and then influence the perceptual averaging process. In Experiment 1a and 1b, we manipulated the amount of prior information from local regularity by varying the position of the missing expression in the temporal sequence (1a: Neutral to Disgust and/or Disgust to Neutral,1b: Neutral to Happy and/or Happy to Neutral) within a trial. Results showed that ensemble estimates were towards the mean of expressions including both the presented and the missing faces, only when sufficient predictability (e.g. a missing expression in the late position) informed by local regularity. In Experiment 2, we added prior information from global regularities to help boost the predictability of an early missing expression by keeping the emotional direction consistent in a block. However, estimates were not towards the mean of expressions including both the presented and the missing expressions as expected. Although the generalizability may be limited, these findings suggest that prior information at different levels of hierarchical predictive coding may exert qualitatively different influences on the perceptual averaging of temporally ordered facial expressions with missing items.
通过观察动态变化的面部表情，人类能够运用一种被称为整体编码的特殊能力，毫不费力地获取个体情绪状态的概要表征。然而，很少有研究探讨基于面部表情变化中的统计规律所缺失的表情是否能够被采样，进而影响知觉平均过程。在实验1a和1b中，我们通过在一次试验中改变缺失表情在时间序列中的位置（1a：从无表情到厌恶和/或从厌恶到无表情，1b：从无表情到高兴和/或从高兴到无表情）来操纵来自局部规律的先验信息量。结果表明，只有当局部规律提供了足够的可预测性（例如，缺失表情处于较晚位置）时，整体估计才会趋向于包括呈现的和缺失的面部表情的均值。在实验2中，我们添加了来自全局规律的先验信息，通过在一个组块中保持情绪方向一致来帮助提高早期缺失表情的可预测性。然而，估计结果并未如预期那样趋向于包括呈现的和缺失的表情的均值。尽管普遍性可能有限，但这些发现表明，不同层次预测编码水平的先验信息可能会对带有缺失项的时间顺序面部表情的知觉平均产生质的不同影响。
