Discrimination of face gender and expression under dual-task conditions

Abstract

In order to test whether expression and gender can be attended to simultaneously without a cost in accuracy four experiments were carried out using a dual gender-expression task with male and female faces showing different emotional expressions that were backward masked by emotionally neutral faces. In the dual-facial condition the participants had to report both the gender and the expression of the targets. In two control conditions the participant reported either the gender or the expression of the face and indicated whether a surrounding frame was continuous or discontinuous. In Experiments 1-3, with angry and happy targets, asymmetric interference was observed. Gender discrimination, but no expression discrimination, was impaired in the dual-facial condition compared to the corresponding control. This effect was obtained with a between-subjects design in Experiment 1, with a within-subjects design in Experiment 2, and with androgynous face masks in Experiment 3. In Experiments 4a and 4b different target combinations were tested. No decrement of performance in the dual-facial task was observed for either gender or expression discrimination with fearful-disgusted (Experiment 4a) or fearful-happy faces (Experiment 4b). We conclude that the ability to attend simultaneously to gender and expression cues without a decrement in performance depends on the specific combination of expressions to be differentiated between. Happy and angry expressions are usually directed at the perceiver and command preferential attention. Under conditions of restricted viewing such as those of the present study, discrimination of these expressions is prioritized leading to impaired discrimination of other facial properties such as gender.

Stereotypes and Structure in the Interaction between Facial Emotional Expression and Sex Characteristics

“…However, subsequent empirical work has demonstrated that facial sex and emotion cues do interact to influence interpretation of the other. For example, work investigating cue interference (using Garner and dual task paradigms) provides a mix of evidence to suggest that the sex of a face is processed obligatorily and influences recognition of facial emotional expression (Atkinson, Tipples, Burt, & Young, 2005;García-Gutiérrez, Aguado, Romero-Ferreiro, Pérez-Moreno, 2017;Karnadewi & Lipp, 2012), and that facial emotional expressions may be processed obligatorily to influence processing of the sex of the face (Becker, 2017). Studies investigating visual after-effects have provided further evidence for the interaction between sex and emotion when processing faces (Bestelmeyer, Jones, DeBruine, Little, & Welling, 2010;Pallett & Meng, 2013).…”