Attention Towards Emotions is Modulated by Familiarity with the Expressor. A Comparison Between Bonobos and Humans

Berlo, Evy van; Bionda, Thomas; Kret, Mariska E.

doi:10.1101/2020.05.11.089813

Cited by 7 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 43 publications

(61 reference statements)

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“…Indeed, vocalizations can be produced in a presumably arousing state both with and without intentional control, constituting promising evidence for contextually-variable degrees of emotion control. Such findings provide promising new insights into the emotion capacities of primates (Berlo, Bionda, & Kret, 2020), and give rise to exciting, novel future avenues for comparative affective and cognitive science to unravel the puzzle of the evolution of human language and cognition. Future research should seek to more closely integrate the role that different signaling channels play in the expression of emotion in primates, by viewing primate communication as a holistic multimodal system that comprises multiple related but distinct components that dynamically interact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Primate communication: Affective, intentional, or both?

Heesen¹,

Sievers²,

Gruber³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The intentional communication of affective states is a central part of human sociality and cognition. Although nonhuman primates (henceforth primates) also signal intentionally, there is a perceived chasm between their intentional versus affective forms of communication. Whereas primate vocalizations and facial expressions are traditionally viewed as involuntary 'read-outs' of affective states, gestures are considered as products of intentional control. However, this traditional view is increasingly contentious, given recent evidence of intentional signal production of primate vocalizations and facial expressions, as well as the general void of arousal-based explanations in gesture research. In this chapter, we challenge the perceived dichotomy between affective and intentional communication in primates and propose a dimensional approach, whereby primate signals can be both affective and intentional, regardless of signal modality (tactile, audible, visible) or component (gesture, facial expression, vocalization). We argue that a dimensional approach, which incorporates both affective and intentional components, would improve our knowledge on how affective and cognitive processes have jointly shaped the evolution of primate communication.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Primate communication: Affective, intentional, or both?

Heesen¹,

Sievers²,

Gruber³

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We chose surprise because it is a visibly salient emotion that the apes likely observe less frequently, but that nonetheless clearly alters the appearance of multiple facial features and is one that, in humans at least, is typically correctly recognized [47]. Given the limited and mixed data for Pan [39,41,48,49], we did not have a directional prediction for how the apes would respond to these images. Lastly, (3) we paired photographs of familiar and unfamiliar individuals wearing a blue surgical face mask (with a neutral expression).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a separate study examining the interplay between familiarity and emotional valence, van Berlo et al . [ 39 ] found that bonobos did not show a significant attentional bias toward familiar compared with unfamiliar human faces, regardless of whether the faces were neutral or expressed emotion. These bonobos did, however, show a significant attentional bias toward emotional scenes of unfamiliar, but not familiar, conspecifics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Building on the study of van Berlo et al . [ 39 ], we sought to assess whether chimpanzees and gorillas would spontaneously recognize photographs of multiple familiar people and differentiate them from photographs of multiple unfamiliar people. To do so, we used a dot-probe task [ 40 , 41 ] to explore zoo-housed apes' potential attentional biases toward different people based on familiarity (see the electronic supplementary material for additional information on the dot-probe paradigm).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Moreover, following Hosey [ 5 ], and in line with research showing that humans demonstrate a familiarity preference for faces [ 45 , 46 ], we predicted that the apes would show an attentional bias toward familiar people's faces. As previous research with bonobos has found that attention to emotional conspecific faces, but not necessarily emotional human faces, is influenced by familiarity [ 39 ], in our second experiment, (2) we paired familiar and unfamiliar human faces that showed a surprised expression. We chose surprise because it is a visibly salient emotion that the apes likely observe less frequently, but that nonetheless clearly alters the appearance of multiple facial features and is one that, in humans at least, is typically correctly recognized [ 47 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Familiarity mediates apes' attentional biases toward human faces

et al. 2022

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In zoos, primates experience markedly different interactions with familiar humans, such as the zookeepers who care for them, compared with those with unfamiliar humans, such as the large volume of zoo visitors to whom they are regularly exposed. While the behaviour of zoo-housed primates in the presence of unfamiliar, and to a lesser extent familiar, humans has received considerable attention, if and how they spontaneously distinguish familiar from unfamiliar people, and the cognitive mechanisms underlying the relationships they form with familiar and unfamiliar humans, remain poorly understood. Using a dot-probe paradigm, we assessed whether primates (chimpanzees and gorillas) show an attentional bias toward the faces of familiar humans, with whom the apes presumably had a positive relationship. Contrary to our predictions, all subjects showed a significant attentional bias toward unfamiliar people's faces compared with familiar people's faces when the faces showed a neutral expression, both with and without a surgical face mask on, but no significant attentional bias when the faces showed a surprised expression. These results demonstrate that apes can spontaneously categorize humans based on familiarity and we argue that the attentional biases the apes showed for unfamiliar human faces reflect a novelty effect.

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Who gets caught by the emotion? Attentional biases toward emotional facial expressions and their link to social anxiety and autistic traits

et al. 2023

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The emotional facial expressions of other individuals are a valuable information source in adapting behaviour to situational demands, and have been found to receive prioritized attention. Yet, enhanced attentional biases, such as a bias to social threat in Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD), or blunted attention to emotional information, as assumed in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), can easily become maladaptive in daily life. In order to investigate individual differences in attentional biases toward different emotional expressions (angry, happy, sad, and fearful versus neutral) and their links to social anxiety and autistic traits, we tested 104 healthy participants with an emotional dot-probe paradigm on a touch screen, and measured clinical trait levels associated with ASD and SAD. While confirming the presence of attentional biases toward all emotional expressions, we did not find robust evidence for systematic links between these biases and either clinical trait dimension. Only an exploratory Bayesian analysis pointed to a less pronounced bias towards happy facial expressions with higher autistic trait levels. Moreover, a closer examination of the attentional bias towards angry facial expressions suggested that alterations in this bias might depend on a complex interplay between both trait dimensions. Novel approaches in the assessment of attentional biases might yield the potential to describe disorder-specific biases in attention to emotions more validly.

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Attention Towards Emotions is Modulated by Familiarity with the Expressor. A Comparison Between Bonobos and Humans

Cited by 7 publications

References 43 publications

Primate communication: Affective, intentional, or both?

Primate communication: Affective, intentional, or both?

Familiarity mediates apes' attentional biases toward human faces

Who gets caught by the emotion? Attentional biases toward emotional facial expressions and their link to social anxiety and autistic traits

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