付記する学位プログラム名: 霊長類学・ワイルドライフサイエンス・リーディング大学院 / 京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第22034号 / 理博第4538号 / 新制||理||1652(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科生物科学専攻 / (主査)教授 友永 雅己, 准教授 宮地 重弘, 教授 濱田 穣 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

This study investigated the effect of children's prosocial behavior and gender on their abilities to decode and encode facial expressions. Four hypotheses were addressed in this study. The first hypothesis predicted a positive correlation between decoding abilities and pro social behavior of preschool-level children. The second hypothesis made a similar prediction, but between encoding abilities and prosocial behavior. Hypothesis three predicted that female preschoolers would be more accurate in decoding facial affect than would male preschoolers. Finally, hypothesis four predicted that females would have greater success with encoding emotions than would their male counterparts. A total of 132 children from a local private preschool participated in this study. Results showed a non-significant correlation between the decoding abilities of preschoolers and their prosocial behavior. Further analysis of the data revealed a significant negative correlation between the encoding abilities and pro social behavior of preschool children. Support was found for hypothesis three, revealing that females were better decoders of facial affect than were males. Finally, statistical tests indicated that there were no significant differences between females and males and the ability to successfully encode facial expressions. The implications and limitations of the study are discussed and suggestions for future research are offered.

No description available.

La rumination est un style de pensées persistantes, répétitives et négatives, caractérisé par de la passivité et un sentiment d’impuissance, centré sur les émotions ressenties en réponse à un événement négatif passé. Des études suggèrent qu’elle est associée à des altérations du fonctionnement cognitif, mais certains de ses mécanismes cognitifs sont encore peu compris. Effectivement, des preuves d’une association entre la rumination et une altération de la capacité à inhiber la distraction (IID) en provenance d’informations négatives existent, mais les études sur le sujet sont contradictoires. L’objectif de ce mémoire était de clarifier la nature de cette relation. Dans deux expériences, la performance à des tâches d’IID de participants chez qui la rumination était induite (groupe expérimental) était comparée à celle de participants ne ruminant pas (groupe contrôle). Dans la première, la tâche consistait à identifier la direction d’une flèche cible en ignorant d’autres flèches présentées aux flancs de la cible. Les résultats n’ont pu montrer aucune différence de performance attribuable à la rumination. Dans la deuxième, plutôt que des flèches, les participants devaient identifier si l’expression faciale émotionnelle d’un visage cible était neutre, positive ou négative. Les résultats ont montré que les participants du groupe expérimental étaient plus facilement distraits lors de l’identification d’une cible positive et l’étaient moins pour une cible négative. La persistance de la rumination sur des informations négatives pourrait s’expliquer, entre autres, par un renforcement de l’IID spécifiquement pour des pensées négatives et par un affaiblissement de cette capacité pour des pensées positives. / Rumination is a style of persistent, repetitive, and negative thinking, characterized by passivity and by a feeling of helplessness, that is centered around the emotions experienced following a past negative event. There exists evidence of a link between rumination and impairments of cognitive functioning, but some of its cognitive mechanisms are not well understood. Indeed, there is evidence of a link between rumination and impairments of the ability to inhibit interferences from distracting negative stimulus (IIS), but the studies investigating these links have contradictory results. The goal of this thesis was to clarify the nature of this relation. In two experiments, the performance to IIS tasks was compared between an experimental group of participants in which rumination was induced and a control group of participants in which it was not. In the first experiment, the task consisted of identifying the pointing direction of a target arrow while ignoring flanking distracting arrows. There were no differences in results explainable by rumination. In the second, instead of arrows, the participants had to identify whether the facial expression of a target face was neutral, positive, or negative. The participants in the experimental group were more easily distracted when they had to identify a positive target while the were less easily distracted when it was negative. The persistence of rumination on negative information may in part be explained by a reinforcement of the ability to IIS for negative thoughts and by a weakening of this ability for positive thoughts.

No description available.

Recent research has shown that children with language impairment (LI) have increased social difficulties. This study examined the relationship between language skills and emotion understanding through recognition of facial expressions of emotion in children with LI and their typically developing peers. It is a replication of the research of Spackman, Fujiki, Brinton, Nelson, and Allen (2005) and Atwood (2006). Participants consisted of 22 children with LI and 22 age- and gender-matched peers with typically developing language, from the age range of 7:0 to 10:11 years. They were shown photographs of faces conveying one of the following emotions: happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust; they were then asked to indicate which emotion was being expressed. Group performance was then compared for each of the emotions in question. This study found significant differences between the groups (LI vs. Typical), with the children without LI recognizing each emotion more accurately than those with LI. There was also a significant main effect found for gender and emotion. These differences were qualified by a significant interaction between gender and emotion, which indicated that some emotions were identified by females more correctly than males. Specifically, females identified the emotion disgust more accurately than males. This may provide support for the idea that children with LI may have difficulties with emotion understanding, of which facial expression recognition is a specific and basic aspect; this deficit could negatively impact their social interactions.

The purpose of this research was to enhance the methods towards the development of an efficient three dimensional face recognition system. More specifically, one of our aims was to investigate how the use of curvature of the diagonal profiles, extracted from 3D facial geometry models can help the neutral face recognition processes. Another aim was to use a gender classifier employed on 3D facial geometry in order to reduce the search space of the database on which facial recognition is performed. 3D facial geometry with facial expression possesses considerable challenges when it comes face recognition as identified by the communities involved in face recognition research. Thus, one aim of this study was to investigate the effects of the curvature-based method in face recognition under expression variations. Another aim was to develop techniques that can discriminate both expression-sensitive and expression-insensitive regions for ii face recognition based on non-neutral face geometry models. In the case of neutral face recognition, we developed a gender classification method using support vector machines based on the measurements of area and volume of selected regions of the face. This method reduced the search range of a database initially for a given image and hence reduces the computational time. Subsequently, in the characterisation of the face images, a minimum feature set of diagonal profiles, which we call T shape profiles, containing diacritic information were determined and extracted to characterise face models. We then used a method based on computing curvatures of selected facial regions to describe this feature set. In addition to the neutral face recognition, to solve the problem arising from data with facial expressions, initially, the curvature-based T shape profiles were employed and investigated for this purpose. For this purpose, the feature sets of the expression-invariant and expression-variant regions were determined respectively and described by geodesic distances and Euclidean distances. By using regression models the correlations between expressions and neutral feature sets were identified. This enabled us to discriminate expression-variant features and there was a gain in face recognition rate. The results of the study have indicated that our proposed curvature-based recognition, 3D gender classification of facial geometry and analysis of facial expressions, was capable of undertaking face recognition using a minimum set of features improving efficiency and computation.

This thesis discusses a novel method for modelling facial action units. It presents facial action units model based on boundary value problems for accurate representation of human facial expression in three-dimensions. In particular, a solution to a fourth order elliptic Partial Differential Equation (PDE) subject to suitable boundary conditions is utilized, where the chosen boundary curves are based on muscles movement defined by Facial Action Coding System (FACS). This study involved three stages: modelling faces, manipulating faces and application to simple facial animation. In the first stage, PDE method is used in modelling and generating a smooth 3D face. The PDE formulation using small sets of parameters contributes to the efficiency of human face representation. In the manipulation stage, a generic PDE face of neutral expression is manipulated to a face with expression using PDE descriptors that uniquely represents an action unit. A combination of the PDE descriptor results in a generic PDE face having an expression, which successfully modelled four basic expressions: happy, sad, fear and disgust. An example of application is given using simple animation technique called blendshapes. This technique uses generic PDE face in animating basic expressions. / Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu

No / In this paper we discuss a novel method of mathematically modelling facial action units for accurate representation of human facial expressions in 3- dimensions. Our method utilizes the approach of Facial Action Coding System (FACS). It is based on a boundary-value approach, which utilizes a solution to a fourth order elliptic Partial Differential Equation (PDE) subject to a suitable set of boundary conditions. Here the PDE surface generation method for human facial expressions is utilized in order to generate a wide variety of facial expressions in an efficient and realistic way. For this purpose, we identify a set of boundary curves corresponding to the key features of the face which in turn define a given facial expression in 3-dimensions. The action units (AUs) relating to the FACS are then efficiently represented in terms of Fourier coefficients relating to the boundary curves which enables us to store both the face and the facial expressions in an efficient way.

Yes / Posed facial expressions of actors have often been used as stimuli to induce mental state inferences, in order to investigate 'Theory of Mind' processes. However, such stimuli make it difficult to determine whether perceivers are using a basic or more elaborated mentalizing strategy. The current study used as stimuli covert recordings of target individuals who viewed various emotional expressions, which caused them to spontaneously mimic these expressions. Perceivers subsequently judged these subtle emotional expressions of the targets: in one condition ('classification') participants were instructed to classify the target's expression (i.e. match it to a sample) and in another condition ('retrodicting') participants were instructed to retrodict (i.e. infer which emotional expression the target was viewing). When instructed to classify, participants showed more prevalent activations in event-related brain potentials (ERPs) at earlier and mid-latency ERP components N170, P200 and P300-600. By contrast, when instructed to retrodict participants showed enhanced late frontal and fronto-temporal ERPs (N800-1000), with more sustained activity over the right than the left hemisphere. These findings reveal different cortical processes involved when retrodicting about a facial expression compared to merely classifying it, despite comparable performance on the behavioral task. / Experimental Psychology Society (EPS) Study Visit Grant; Young Researcher Support Grant DRM/2014-02; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SCHN 1481/2-1); Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (FOR 1097)