Thesis advisor: James Russell / Adults' gender stereotypes of emotion have been investigated with a variety of methods, but those methods do not provide a strong test of the stereotype: The participants were presented only with cues to the gender or to the emotion; or when both cues were available, gender was confounded with poser. This study examined the effects of attributed gender on adults' perception of emotion in facial expressions and stories when presented with clear versus ambiguous cues to both emotion and gender. College students (n = 90) were first asked to label the emotion of either a man (Timothy) or a woman (Sophia) with identical prototypical and “mixed” facial expressions and, separately, to Free Label stories about emotions. The same students were then to choose from a list of ten emotion labels the one that best described the protagonist's emotion for the same stimuli. Results showed that, for ambiguous cues to emotion, participants labeled facial expressions according to gender stereotypes. However, for the stimuli with clear cues to both emotion and gender of the poser, a reverse effect of gender stereotypes was observed for anger, fear, shame, and compassion due to an expectancy violation. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2004. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: James A. Russell / Prior research showing that children recognize emotional expressions has used a choice-from-array style task; for example, children are asked to find the fear face in an array of several expressions. However, these choice-from-array tasks allow for the use of a process of elimination strategy in which children could select an expression they are unfamiliar with when presented a label that does not apply to other expressions in the array. Across six studies (N = 144), 80% of 2- to 4-year-olds selected a novel expression when presented a target label and performed similarly when the label was novel (such as <italic>pax</italic>) or familiar (such as <italic>fear</italic>). In addition, 46% of children went on to freely label the expression with the target label in a subsequent task. These data are the first to show that children extend the process of elimination strategy to facial expressions and also call into question the findings of prior choice-from-array studies. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Psychology.

Tem sido freqüentemente discutido na literatura científica o papel que desempenha cada hemisfério cerebral no processamento da informação emocional. O estudo realizado teve por objetivo investigar o padrão de dominância hemisférica para a percepção das expressões faciais de alegria, tristeza, raiva e medo. Em dois experimentos realizados foi utilizada a técnica de estudo campo visual dividido com a apresentação taquitoscópica de estímulos por 150 ms na tela de um monitor. Os estímulos foram compostos com fotografias de faces de quatro indivíduos (2H, 2M) retiradas da série Pictures of Facial Affect. Vinte e um observadores destros (9H, 12M) participaram do experimento 1. Em cada tentativa eram apresentadas duas fotografias de faces, uma à esquerda e outra à direita do ponto de fixação na tela do computador, em quatro diferentes condições: 1) face com emoção à esquerda e face neutra à direita, 2) face neutra à esquerda e face com emoção à direita, 3) face com emoção à direita e à esquerda, 4) face neutra à direita e à esquerda. Em cada tentativa, os observadores determinaram o lado em que havia sido apresentada a face que aparentava expressar mais emoção. Dezessete observadores destros (8H, 9M) participaram do experimento 2. Em cada apresentação de estímulo, uma foto de face era apresentada à direita ou à esquerda do ponto de fixação, localizado no centro da tela, e do lado oposto era apresentado um retângulo cinza. Foram elaboradas as seguintes condições de estímulo: 1) face com emoção à esquerda e retângulo cinza à direita, 2)retângulo cinza à esquerda e face com emoção à direita, 3) face neutra à esquerda e retângulo cinza à direita, 4) retângulo cinza à esquerda e face neutra à direita. Em cada tentativa, os observadores determinaram se a face apresentada aparentava ou não possuir emoção. Os tempos de reação e os erros de julgamento foram submetidos a ANOVAs para medidas repetidas. No primeiro experimento, a emoção foi em geral detectada mais rapidamente em faces apresentadas no campo visual esquerdo (p<0,01). As expressões de tristeza e raiva também foram percebidas mais rapidamente quando apresentadas no campo visual esquerdo (p<0,05). Em ambos os experimentos, as expressões de alegria e medo foram percebidas mais rapidamente e mais acuradamente que as expressões de tristeza e raiva (p<0,001). A expressão de tristeza foi detectada mais facilmente em faces femininas e a expressão de raiva em faces masculinas (p<0,05). De maneira geral, entretanto, a emoção foi detectada mais facilmente em faces femininas. Em ambos os experimentos houve diferenças entre as faces dos quatro indivíduos que representavam as expressões faciais. O hemisfério direito mostrou-se superior ao esquerdo na percepção das expressões faciais, especialmente na percepção das expressões de tristeza e raiva. A vantagem perceptiva do hemisfério direito é mais evidente para as expressões que são detectadas com maior dificuldade. A percepção de expressões faciais pode ser afetada pelo gênero da face e pelas singularidades da expressão facial individual. / The role that each brain hemisphere plays in the processing of emotional information has been frequently discussed in the scientific literature. The aim of this study was to investigate the pattern of hemispheric dominance for the perception of the facial expressions of happiness, sadness, anger and fear. In two experiments the divided-visualfield technique was used with the taquitoscopic presentation of stimuli on a computer screen for 150 ms. The stimuli were composed with pictures of faces of four people (2M,2F) taken from the series Pictures of Facial Affect. Twenty one right-handed observers (9M,12F) took part in the experiment I. In each trial two pictures of faces were presented on the computer screen, one of them placed on the left side and the other one on the right side of the fixation point, in four different conditions: 1) face with emotion on the left and neutral face on the right, 2) neutral face on the left and face with emotion on the right, 3)face with emotion on the right and on the left, 4) neutral face on the right and on the left. In each trial the observers determined the side on which the face seemed to show greater emotional intensity. Seventeen right-handed observers (8M, 9F) took part in the experiment II. In each stimulus presentation, a picture of a face was presented either on the right or left side of the fixation point, placed on the center of the screen and, on the opposite side, a gray rectangle was presented. The following stimuli conditions were elaborated: 1) face with emotion on the left and gray rectangle on the right, 2) gray rectangle on the left and face with emotion on the right, 3) neutral face on the left and gray rectangle on the right, 4) gray rectangle on the left and neutral face on the right. In each trial the observers determined if the face presented had emotion or not. Time reactions and judgement errors were submitted to ANOVAs for repeated measures. In the first experiment, emotion was generally detected more quickly in faces presented on the left 10 visual field (p<0,01). The expressions of sadness and anger were also perceived more quickly when presented on the left visual field (p<0,05). In both experiments, expressions of happiness and fear were perceived more quickly and more accurately than expressions of sadness and anger (p<0,001). The expression of sadness was detected more easily in feminine faces and the expression of anger in masculine faces (p<0,05). In general, however, the emotion was detected more easily in feminine faces. In both experiments there were differences in the perception between the faces of the four individuals that represented the facial expressions. The right hemisphere showed superior to the left hemisphere in the perception of facial expressions, especially for the perception of expressions of sadness and anger. The perceptive advantage of the right hemisphere is more evident for the expressions that are detected with more difficulty. The perception of facial expressions can be affected by the gender of the face and the singularities of the individual facial expression.

Previous research demonstrates that the age of an observer, the peripheral location of a face stimulus on a display, and the intensity of the emotion expressed by the face all play a role in emotion perception. Older individuals have more difficulty identifying emotion in faces, especially at lower expressive intensities. The purpose of the current study was to understand how younger and older adults’ abilities to detect emotion in facial stimuli presented in the periphery would be affected by the intensity of the emotional expressions and the distance that the expressions are presented away from the center of the display. The current study presented facial stimuli for a short duration to bypass reactionary attentional influences. More intense fearful and angry expressions were expected to be easier to classify for both younger and older adults than lower intensity expressions, but all expressions were expected to become more difficult to classify when presented further in the periphery. Older adults and younger adults displayed similar emotion detection for typical and extreme intensity angry expressions and for high intensity fearful expressions. However, older adults struggled to detect typical intensity fear, and this deficit grew with the angle of eccentricity from which the stimuli were presented from the center of the display. Possible explanations for these age differences are discussed.

Real-world perception of emotion results from the integration of multiple cues, most notably facial expression and affective prosody. The use of incongruent emotional stimuli presents an opportunity to study the interaction between sensory modalities. Thirty-seven participants were exposed to audio-visual stimuli (Robins & Schultz, 2004) including angry, fearful, happy, and neutral presentations. Eighty stimuli contain matching emotions and 240 contain incongruent emotional cues. Matching emotions elicited a significant number of correct responses for all four emotions. Sign tests indicated that for most incongruent conditions, participants demonstrated a bias towards the visual modality. Despite these findings, specific incongruent conditions did show evidence of blending. Future research should explore an evolutionary model of facial expression as a means for behavioral adaptation and the possibility of an “emotional McGurk effect” in particular combinations of emotions.

This study examines the valence and motivational direction components of affect using facial expressions of determination, anger and joy. Determination is a positive, approach-related emotion; anger is a negative, approach-related emotion; and joy is a positive, low-approach emotion. Thus, determination and anger share a motivational direction, but determination and joy share a valence. Participants created facial expressions intended to express joy, anger, fear, sadness, disgust and determination. Naive judges attempted to identify these expressions. Correct identifications of intended determination expressions were positively correlated with misidentifications of the expressions as anger, suggesting that determination is perceived as more similar to anger than to joy. This emphasizes the importance of the motivational component of emotion, as distinct from the valence of emotion.

Στόχος αυτής της εργασίας είναι η κατασκευή ενός αξιόπιστου εργαλείου για την μελέτη των συναισθημάτων. Η δημιουργία μιας βάσης δεδομένων που θα δώσει τη δυνατότητα σε νευροεπιστήμονες να διενεργήσουν πειράματα με υποκείμενα Ελληνες, στα οποία θα διερευνούν τους εγκεφαλικούς μηχανισμούς που εκλύονται στη θέα συγκεκριμένων συναισθηματικών εκφράσεων. Αρχικά αναλύεται ο τρόπος κατασκευής μιας Βάσης δεδομένων με φωτογραφίες εκφράσεων συναισθηματικών καταστάσεων και ελέγχεται η αξιοπιστία αυτών των φωτογραφιών ως προς την εγκυρότητα των συναισθηματικών καταστάσεων που εκφράζονται. Οι συναισθηματικές καταστάσεις που επιδιώχθηκε να απεικονισθούν είναι: Ευτυχίας, Αηδίας, Λύπης, Οργής, Φόβου, Έκπληξης και Ουδέτερης. Στην συνέχεια αναλύονται οι επιμέρους παράγοντες και οι επιλογές που υπάρχουν ως προς την κατασκευή του υλικού για την Βάση δεδομένων, π.χ. στοιχεία των φωτογραφιών (ιδιαίτερη κόμμωση κ.α.) τα οποία δυνατόν να αποσπούν την προσοχή από τα χαρακτηριστικά της συναισθηματικής έκφρασης απαλείφθηκαν ψηφιακά. Κατόπιν αναλύονται οι επιλογές που υπάρχουν και τα μέτρα που πάρθηκαν για την αρτιότερη αξιολόγηση του υλικού π.χ. για την ακριβή αξιολόγηση χρησιμοποιήθηκε το director και εκτιθόταν οι φωτογραφίες κατά την αξιολόγηση για χρόνους της τάξης των μερικών ms. Χρησιμοποιήθηκαν οι φωτογραφίες απεικόνισης συναισθημάτων 17 υποκειμένων ελληνικής καταγωγής, οι οποίες αξιολογήθηκαν από 82 έλληνες εθελοντές. Έπειτα παρουσιάζονται τα αποτελέσματα των αξιολογήσεων και τέλος αναλύονται στατιστικά τα αποτελέσματα και συγκρίνονται τα αποτελέσματα με παραπλήσια εργασία από την Τσεχία και τη Φιλαδέλφεια (Gur et al. 2002). Στα αποτελέσματα αναζητήθηκαν σετ φωτογραφιών του ιδίου υποκειμένου που να απεικονίζουν όλα τα ανωτέρω συναισθήματα με ικανοποιητικά ποσοστά αναγνώρισης από τους αξιολογητές των φωτογραφιών για όλους τους χρόνους έκθεσης των φωτογραφιών. Επιπλέον έγινε διαχωρισμός των αποτελεσμάτων και ανάλογα με το φύλο του αξιολογητή. Τα αποτελέσματα είναι ικανοποιητικά καθώς βρέθηκαν σετ με ποσοστά μεγαλύτερα του 80% ακόμα και για 5 από τις 7 συναισθηματικές καταστάσεις. Το υλικό που συγκεντρώθηκε κρίνεται κατάλληλο για την αναγνώριση των συγκεκριμένων συναισθηματικών καταστάσεων σε ελληνικά πρόσωπα. Έγινε στατιστική ανάλυση για την διαφορά των αποτελεσμάτων αξιολόγησης που εξήχθησαν ανάμεσα στους άνδρες και τις γυναίκες αξιολογητές και διαπιστώθηκε ότι προέρχονται από φυσική διακύμανση του δείγματος (μη στατιστικά σημαντική). Επίσης έγινε έλεγχος για την αναγνώριση του φύλου των υποκειμένων από τους αξιολογητές και διαχωρίστηκαν τα υποκείμενα που δεν αναγνωρίσθηκαν απόλυτα ως προς το φύλο τους. Καταγράφηκε η ιεράρχηση ως προς την ευκολία αναγνώρισης των υπό εξέταση συναισθημάτων. Τέλος παρατηρήθηκε ότι σε αρκετές περιπτώσεις, τα ποσοστά αναγνώρισης των υποκειμένων για χρόνο έκθεσης των φωτογραφιών 500ms είναι υψηλότερα από τα ποσοστά για χρόνο έκθεσης 2000ms, και αναλύονται οι λόγοι. / -

The aim of the study is to investigate how pedagogues working with gesticulation and facial expressions to communicate with children aged 3-5 years. The methods used are observations as well as interviews of educators. My empricial evidence was collected on two different preschools in Värmland County. The pedagogues are dealing with body language in a conscious way by collections as they sing and they reinforce feelings of characters support. In my conclusion I have come come to the conclusion that there is no difference on how male and female educators use gesticulation and facial expressions without its personality traits and body language often are unconsciously in conversations with children.

This study analyzed racial differences in the way African Americans and Caucasians perceive emotion from facial expressions and tone of voice. Participants were African American (n=25) and Caucasian (n=26) college students. The study utilizes 56 images of African American and Caucasian faces balanced for race and sex from the NimStim stimulus set (Tottenham, 2006). The study also utilized visual and auditory stimuli form the DANVA2. Participants were asked to judged emotion for each stimulus in the tasks. The BFRT, the WASI, and the Seashore Rhythm test were used as exclusionary criteria. In general the study found few differences in the way African Americans and Caucasians perceived emotion, though racial differences emerged as an interaction with other factors. The results of the study supported the theory of universality of emotion perception and expression though social influences, which may affect emotion perception, is also a possibility. Areas of future research were discussed.

This study aimed to clarify information processing conditions in which negatively-biased interpretations of faces manifest among individuals varying in self-reported, sub-clinical social anxiety. Existing findings are mixed, with conflicting research variously suggesting the presence (e.g., Bell et al., 2011; Yoon & Zinbarg, 2008) or the absence (e.g., Philippot & Douilliez, 2005; Schofield, Coles, and Gibb, 2011) of a negative interpretation bias for faces. Likely contributing to these equivocal findings is considerable methodological variability across studies that appear to tap two different levels of information processing (automatic and controlled). In this study, experimental conditions designed to elicit automatic versus controlled processing were compared in a single adapted learning paradigm (Yoon & Zinbarg, 2008). Hierarchical regression results did not support hypotheses that social anxiety would predict a negative interpretation bias in either condition. Further analysis of the learning paradigm revealed unexpected patterns of learning that varied according to face emotion.