Earlier research has indicated that some characteristics of facial expressions may be automatically processed. This study investigated automaticity as evidenced by involuntary interference in a word evaluation task. Compound stimuli, consisting of words superimposed on pictures of affective faces, were presented to subjects who were given the task of evaluating the affective valence of the words while disregarding the faces. Results of three experiments showed that word evaluation was in¯uenced by the concurrently shown affective faces. Overall, negative words were found to require longer latencies, indicating that more processing resources are invested in negative than in positive stimuli. This speed advantage for positive words was modi® ed by the faces. Negative words were facilitated, relative to po sitive ones, when shown with a negative expression (e.g. a sad face). Correspondingly, negative words were inhibited, relative to po sitive on es, when shown w ith a positive expression (e.g. a happy face). The results are consistent with automatic, involuntary sem antic processing of affective facial expressions. INTRODUCTIONThe face is an extraordinary visual stim ulus, paramount in its social im portance. Psychological theories from Darwin onwa rd have given the processing of facial expressions a special place, supported by a genetically prepared capacity. Recent research has shown unusually rapid and ef® cient detection of som e expressions, such as an gry faces, with obvious releva nce for fear and threat (Hansen & Han sen, 1988. O È hman (1986) has CO G N IT IO N AN D EMO TION, 1998, 12 (6), 755± 782 Request s for reprints should be sent to D r Georg Stenberg, Department of Psychology, Paradis gatan 5 P, S± 223 50 Lund , Sweden ; e-m ail: G eorg.Stenberg@ psykol.lu.se.This stud y was ® nanced by a grant to G eorg Stenberg from the Swedish Council for Research in the Hum anities and the Social Sciences (H SFR). We are grateful for helpfu l com ments from Craig A. Sm ith, Arne O È hman , and two anonymo us reviewers on an earlier version . Peter M eyerho È ffer helped run Experim ent 1.q 1998 Psychology Press Ltd suggested that the processing of affective expressions, especially threatening ones, is preattentive, an d in support of this idea facial expressions have been shown to have effects even in the ab sence of the subject's awareness of the eliciting stimulus (Esteves, D imberg, & O È hman, 1994a; Esteves, Parra, D imberg, & O È hman, 1994 b;M urphy, M onahan, & Zajonc, 1995;M urphy & Zajonc, 1993). F indings such as these strongly suggest that affective facial expressions enjoy an unusual adva ntage, compared to other visual stimuli of similar com plexity, in gaining access to automatic processing. The present study aim s to examine further the extent to which affective facial expressions are autom atically processed. It does so by examining involuntary interference effects of face processing on other ongoing cogn itive activity, such as sem antic processing of wo rds. Face ProcessingThe case for a...
The picture superiority effect, i.e., better memory for pictures than for corresponding words, has been variously ascribed to a conceptual or a perceptual processing advantage. The present study aimed to disentangle perceptual and conceptual contributions. Pictures and words were tested for recognition in both their original formats and translated into participants' second language. Multinomial Processing Tree (Batchelder & Riefer, 1999) and MINERVA (Hintzman, 1984) models were fitted to the data, and parameters corresponding to perceptual and conceptual recognition were estimated. Over three experiments, orienting tasks were varied, with neutral (Exp. 1), semantic (Exp. 2), and perceptual (Exp. 3) instructions, and the encoding manipulations were used to validate the parameters. Results indicate that there is picture superiority in both conceptual and perceptual memory, but conceptual processing makes a stronger contribution to the advantage of pictures over words in recognition.
Hypoglycaemia (median venous blood glucose 1.8 mmol/l; range 1.6-2.3) was induced by an intravenous infusion of regular insulin in eight patients with Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus (age 28.0 +/- 7.4 years; mean +/- SD, duration 15.5 +/- 5.1 years) and in 12 age-matched healthy male control subjects. Multi-channel frequency analysis of electroencephalogram (electrophysiologic brain mapping) and recording of P300 and somatosensory evoked potentials were performed before, during and immediately after the hypoglycaemic period. The hypoglycaemia produced a significant increase in low frequency electroencephalographic activity in both groups, most pronounced over anterior regions of the brain. The electroencephalographic activity was normalised immediately after the hypoglycaemic period. The patients with diabetes showed somewhat longer P300 latencies during the initial normoglycaemic examination. Hypoglycaemia caused a marked reduction of the P300 amplitude in both groups of subjects and the amplitude was not restored immediately after normalisation of blood glucose levels. The somatosensory cortical responses were not affected by hypoglycaemia. We conclude that hypoglycaemia results in impairment in cerebral function, as measured by neurophysiological techniques, which is not immediately normalised when blood glucose is restored to normal.
Words and pictures were studied, and recognition tests were given in which each studied object was to be recognized in both word and picture format. The main dependent variable was the latency of the recognition decision. The purpose was to investigate the effects of study modality (word or picture), of congruence between study and test modalities, and of priming resulting from repeated testing. Experiments 1 and 2 used the same basic design, but the latter also varied retention interval. Experiment 3 added a manipulation of instructions to name studied objects, and Experiment 4 deviated from the others by presenting both picture and word referring to the same object together for study. The results showed that congruence between study and test modalities consistently facilitated recognition. Furthermore, items studied as pictures were more rapidly recognized than were items studied as words. With repeated testing, the second instance was affected by its predecessor, but the facilitating effect of picture-to-word priming exceeded that of word-to-picture priming. The findings suggest a two-stage recognition process, in which the first is based on perceptual familiarity and the second uses semantic links for a retrieval search. Common-code theories that grant privileged access to the semantic code for pictures or, alternatively, dual-code theories that assume mnemonic superiority for the image code are supported by the findings. Explanations of the picture superiority effect as resulting from dual encoding of pictures are not supported by the data.
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