Remembering faces with emotional expressions

Liu, Chang Hong; Chen, Wenfeng; Ward, James

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01439

Remembering faces with emotional expressions

Liu, Chang Hong; Chen, Wenfeng; Ward, James

Authors

Chang Hong Liu

Wenfeng Chen

James Ward

Abstract

It is known that happy faces create more robust identity recognition memory than faces with some other expressions. However, this advantage was not verified against all basic expressions. Moreover, no research has assessed whether similar differences also exist among other expressions. To tackle these questions, we compared the effects of six basic emotional expressions on recognition memory using a standard old/new recognition task. The experiment also examined whether exposure to different emotional expressions at training creates variable effects on transfer of the trained faces to a new/neutral expression. Our results suggest that happy faces produced better identity recognition relative to disgusted faces, regardless of whether they were tested in the same image or a new image displaying a neutral expression. None of the other emotional expressions created measurable advantage for recognition memory. Overall, our data lend further support for the happy face advantage for long-term recognition memory. However, our detailed analyses also show that the advantage of happy expression on identity recognition may not be equally discernible from all other emotional expressions.

Citation

Liu, C. H., Chen, W., & Ward, J. (2014). Remembering faces with emotional expressions. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(DEC), Article ARTN 1439. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01439

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 25, 2014
Online Publication Date	Dec 10, 2014
Publication Date	Dec 10, 2014
Deposit Date	May 5, 2016
Publicly Available Date	May 5, 2016
Journal	Frontiers in psychology
Electronic ISSN	1664-1078
Publisher	Frontiers Media
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	5
Issue	DEC
Article Number	ARTN 1439
DOI	https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01439
Keywords	Facial expression; Transfer of expression training; Identity recognition; Emotion; Memory
Public URL	https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/437723
Publisher URL	http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01439/full
Additional Information	This is a copy of an open access article published in Frontiers in psychology, 2014, v.5.
Contract Date	May 5, 2016

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Copyright Statement
Copyright © 2014 Liu, Chen and Ward. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.