Something akin to motion perception occurs when actual motion is not present but implied. However, it is not known if the experience of implied motion occurs during the perception of static faces nor if the effect would vary for different facial expressions. To examine this, participants were presented with pairs of faces where successive expressions depicted either increasing emotional intensity or its diminution. Participants indicated if the second face in the pair was the same as, or different from, the first face shown. To measure general facial emotion recognition ability the Ekman 60 faces test was administered. As individual differences in depression, anxiety and alexithymia have been shown to influence face processing we measured these factors using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS) and the Toronto Alexithymia scale (TAS-20). As expected, participants were more likely to endorse the second face as being a match to the first when its expression implied forward motion compared to backwards motion. This effect was larger for happiness and fear and positively related to accuracy on the Ekman 60 faces task. The effect was not related to depression or anxiety but it was negatively related to scores on the difficulty identifying feelings subscale of the TAS-20, suggesting that individuals who have problems identifying their own and others' feelings experienced a reduction in implied motion. Observers process implied motion from some facial expressions of emotion but the experience is modified by the ability to recognise one's own feelings and those of others.

Something akin to motion perception occurs even when actual motion is not present but merely implied. However, it is not known if the experience of implied motion occurs during the perception of faces or even different affects. Moreover, it is not known if implied motion is moderated by individual differences in anxiety, depression or alexithymia. To examine this, participants were presented with picture pairs showing facial affect that implied either a forward or backward motion, i.e., depicting an increasing intensity in affect, or its diminution. Participants indicated whether or not the second face in the pair was the same as, or different from, the first face shown. To measure general affect recognition ability the Ekman 60 faces test was administered, as were the Toronto Alexithymia scale (TAS-20) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADS). Analysis of error rates revealed significant main effects for direction and emotion. There was no significant correlation with overall HADS score for any of the six emotions; there was also no effect of depression, anxiety or general face recognition abilities. Interestingly, the number of errors in the forward condition was negatively related to scores on the difficulty identifying feelings subscale of the TAS-20, which suggests that individuals who have problems identifying their own and others’ feelings had experienced a reduction in the experience of implied motion. Results suggest that implied motion may influence the experience of affect recognition and can be applied to clinical groups, specifically those demonstrating deficits in correctly recognising salient social cues.