Facial expressions and emotional anticipation

Palumbo, L; Jellema, Tjeerd

Abstract

Emotional facial expressions are immediate indicators of a ective dispositions. We investigated towhat extent judgments of others' dynamic emotional facial expressions are influenced by (1) emotionalanticipation, ie the involuntary anticipation of the other's emotional state of mind, and by (2) low-levelperceptual mechanisms such as extrapolation of curves. We presented 770 ms long video-clips of eightdi erent agents showing a 100% happy (or 100% angry) expression that gradually decreased in intensity.We used a 3×2 within-subjects design with as factors the final expression (10% happy vs neutral vs 10%angry) and the perceptual history (happy vs angry). Thirty-two participants rated the final expression ona 5-point scale. The final expression of the happy sequence was consistently judged as slightly angryand the final expression of the angry sequence as slightly happy. This ‘overshoot' phenomenon survivedthe insertion of a 400 ms long mask directly before the final target expression, but was absent when thefinal expression was depicted by a di erent identity. We argue that the bias in perceptual report relieson emotional anticipation, possibly generated by an internal simulation of the observed dynamic facialexpression within mirror neuron systems and we speculate that ‘embodied simulation' plays a crucialrole.

Citation

Palumbo, L., & Jellema, T. Facial expressions and emotional anticipation

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Abstract
• Acceptance Date: Dec 31, 2010
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2010
• Journal: PERCEPTION
• Print ISSN: 0301-0066
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 39
• Issue: ECVP Abstract Supplement
• Pages: 94 - 94
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/400064