The present study aimed to gain a better understanding of the emotion processing abilities of children between the ages of 4 and 8 with ASD by examining their ability to correctly recognize dynamic displays of emotion. Additionally, we examined whether children with ASD showed emotion specific differences in their ability to accurately identify anger, happiness, sadness, and fear. Participants viewed a continuous display of neutral faces morphing into expressions of emotion. We aimed to measure observed power and asymmetry using EEG data in order to understand the neural activity that underlies the social aspects of ASD. Participants with ASD showed slower processing speed and decreased emotion sensitivity. On tasks that involved the recognition of expressions on the participants’ mothers’ faces, differences were less apparent. These results suggest that children with ASD are capable of recognizing facial displays of emotion after repeated exposure, this should be explored further in future research. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

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Facial expressions play an important role in such areas as human communication or medical state evaluation. For machine learning tasks in those areas, it would be beneficial to have a representation of facial expressions which corresponds to human similarity perception. In this work, the data-driven approach to representation learning of facial expressions is taken. The methodology is built upon Variational Autoencoders and eliminates the appearance-related features from the latent space by using neutral facial expressions as additional inputs. In order to improve the quality of the learned representation, we modify the prior distribution of the latent variable to impose the structure on the latent space that is consistent with human perception of facial expressions. We conduct the experiments on two datasets and the additionally collected similarity data, show that the human-like topology in the latent representation helps to improve the performance on the stereotypical emotion classification task and demonstrate the benefits of using a probabilistic generative model in exploring the roles of latent dimensions through the generative process. / Ansiktsuttryck spelar en viktig roll i områden som mänsklig kommunikation eller vid utvärdering av medicinska tillstånd. För att tillämpa maskininlärning i dessa områden skulle det vara fördelaktigt att ha en representation av ansiktsuttryck som bevarar människors uppfattning av likhet. I det här arbetet används ett data-drivet angreppssätt till representationsinlärning av ansiktsuttryck. Metodologin bygger på s. k. Variational Autoencoders och eliminerar utseende-relaterade drag från den latenta rymden genom att använda neutrala ansiktsuttryck som extra input-data. För att förbättra kvaliteten på den inlärda representationen så modifierar vi a priori-distributionen för den latenta variabeln för att ålägga den struktur på den latenta rymden som är överensstämmande med mänsklig perception av ansiktsuttryck. Vi utför experiment på två dataset och även insamlad likhets-data och visar att den människolika topologin i den latenta representationen hjälper till att förbättra prestandan på en typisk emotionsklassificeringsuppgift samt fördelarna med att använda en probabilistisk generativ modell när man undersöker latenta dimensioners roll i den generativa processen.

Individuals perceive emotional facial expressions in categories. Specifically, for basic emotional expressions, discrimination performance is better for pairs of stimuli that fall in either side of a perceptual category boundary than for those within a perceptual category. In this thesis I have examined categorical perception of emotional facial expressions from a number of different perspectives. In Chapter 2, I found in two experiments that categorical perception of emotional facial expressions of a robust phenomenon with a few consistent individual differences. There findings highlight some of the important caveats that categorical perception researchers face, not only in the area of emotional facial expressions, but across domains as well. In Chapter 3 I show that context has an effect on the visual perception of emotional facial expressions. A surprise-fear continuum was perceived categorically only in the case in which a context story was provided for the surprise face. In Chapter 4 I demonstrate categorical perception of a happy-sad continuum in 3.5-year-olds. This is an important study in development because the current literature is limited by studies that do not compare identification and discrimination performance in these age groups. The experiment in this chapter uses both identification and discrimination tasks and compares the results of 3.5-year-olds to adults who do the exact same task. The results suggest that 3.5-year-olds perceive happy and sad expressions as adults do, categorically. In Chapter 5 I develop a powerful new methodology for the study of the category boundary using non-verbal methods. This investigation with emotional facial expressions shows it can be reliably used to identify category boundary information in adults. Perception of emotional facial expressions is an essential part of successful social cognition, and the phenomenon of categorical perception specifically allows individuals to quickly and accurately respond to expressions. The research in this thesis is a further step in understanding the processes that allows individuals to be successful in a social environment. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> The ability to recognize facial expressions facilitates social interactions. In my Ph.D. thesis, I took three approaches to compare the sensitivity of adults and children aged 5 to 14 years to the six basic facial expressions: 1) the influence of intensity on the recognition of facial expressions; 2) the perceived similarities among facial expressions; and 3) the selective use of spatial frequency information in recognizing facial expressions. Collectively, these studies reveal different developmental trajectories for different expressions, with sensitivity to happy expressions already adult-like at age 5, but changes for some negative expressions continuing even past age 10. The slow development of adult-like proficiency with negative expressions may lead children to make errors in judging the intentions of others. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The use of simulation in curriculum affords students with the opportunity to enhance clinical skills in a safe environment. However, certain aspects of patient assessment are difficult to reproduce in current simulators, such as changes in facial expressions. Facial expressions are of particular importance when assessing for the presence and severity of pain in the pediatric population. Inconsistencies found in accurate identification of pain suggest the necessity of improved pain assessment training. This study evaluated nursing student’s perceptions of a virtual patient designed to realistically display varying levels of pain in the pediatric patient. Additional purposes of this study were to evaluate the student’s ability to accurately rate pediatric pain using a virtual patient with and without other indicators of pain, explore the students experience learning pediatric pain in nursing school, and explore the use of simulation in curriculum to teach pain. A total of N=11 nursing students participated in this study. Students were presented with a series of virtual patient faces and asked to provide a pain rating from 0-10 utilizing a pediatric pain assessment tool, and to numerically list the facial features used to identify the pain rating they chose. A questionnaire was then completed which included questions regarding the realism of the virtual patient, pain and curriculum, and simulation. Results of the study showed students rated pain lower than the expected rating when presented with virtual patient faces only, and rated pain closer to the expected rating when presented with virtual patient faces and other indicators of pain such as vital signs and verbal cues. A noticeable range of reported pain rating levels existed for all virtual faces in which students rated the pain lower or higher than the true pain rating. The majority of students reported the virtual patient was moderately to extremely realistic, and 90.9% (n=10) reported they would like to have the technology implemented into a simulation scenario.

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Previous research has found that the structural makeup of the face influences the manner by which individuals perceive others and attribute characteristics to them. In addition, support has been provided for the hypothesis that nonverbal cues significantly influence an interviewer's perception of a job candidate and the pending hiring decision. Taken together, this study hypothesized that the nonverbal cues emitted from the structural makeup of the face would impact the decision to hire and the perceptions of the job applicant's personality. It was also expected that variations in facial structure would influence an employer's decision in hiring the applicant for a high visibility position versus a low visibility position. The analysis failed to provide support for the hypothesis. Specifically, manipulated changes in eye shape, lip shape and job type failed to significantly effect hiring decisions. The personality ratings, as measured by the four 7-point behaviorally anchored ratings scales, additionally failed to significantly correlate with eye shape and lip shape. The personality ratings, however, were significantly correlated with the decision to hire. Regression analyses performed for each of the job type groups indicated that interviewers have preconceived notions as to the personality of the applicant.

The experiment was designed to investigate group differences by examining the effects of hostility on bilateral measures of skin conductance while making affective facial configurations. Males reporting high and low hostility were instructed in making facial configurations that were identified by raters as happy, angry, or neutral in affective valence. All subjects were asked to make the set of facial configurations twice with unstructured baselines taken prior to each face. The initial hypotheses included: (1) there would be higher skin conductance levels for the facial configuration trials than the baseline trials; (2) there would be more reactivity for the angry facial configuration followed by the happy facial configuration and then by the neutral facial configuration; (3) the left extremity would show higher conductance levels than the right; (4) the high hostile group would show higher conductance levels across the emotional faces as compared to the neutral facial configuration than the low hostile group; (5) the high hostile group would show higher conductance levels across both extremities than the low hostile group; and (6) a three-way interaction of group, extremity, and affective facial configuration would be noted. The experimental hypotheses were partially supported. As expected, the facial configuration produced significant increases in skin conductance from baseline across all three facial configurations. Differential effects of facial configuration were found. Skin conductance varied among the groups as a function of the three facial configurations. A three-way Group x Extremity x Block interaction was found. An interaction between group, extremity, and affective facial configuration was not found. Neuropsychological models of emotion are discussed as well as the possibility of altered right cerebral systems in high hostile individuals. / Master of Science