Naming emotions in motion: Alexithymic traits impact the perception of implied motion in facial displays of affect.

Abstract

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.

Alexithymia and the Evaluation of Emotionally Valenced Scenes

“…In other work, Borhani et al (2016) showed atypical fear-related modulation of early perceptual processing of IM in those scoring high on alexithymia. Finally, high Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) Total and EOT scores have also been shown to predict reduced incorporation of IM into memory representations for facial expressions (Senior et al, 2020). To our knowledge, relationships between alexithymia and the processing of IM in emotional scenes have not been reported, but it would be of interest to explore this given that the neural substrates of scene processing differ from those underlying face and body processing (e.g., Pitcher et al, 2019), and that (as discussed above) IM is known to impact scene processing.…”

Emotional anticipation for dynamic emotional faces is not modulated by schizotypal traits: A Representational Momentum study

“…In addition, they only used non-emotional stimuli (e.g., a man jumping), thus remining unclear if schizotypy modulates RM in response to changes in emotional stimuli. Indeed, RM also occurs for socially relevant events, such as facial expressions of pain (Dozolme et al, 2018;Prigent et al, 2018), social threat (Greenstein et al, 2016), gaze (Hudson et al, 2009;Hudson & Jellema, 2011), and emotional faces (e.g., Courgeon et al, 2010;Senior et al, 2020;Uono et al, 2014;Yoshikawa & Sato, 2008, but see also Thornton, 2014). For instance, Greenstein et al (2016) found that the final location of a ring moving in the direction of a stationary dot was strongly displaced forward when stimuli were preceded by a threatening vignette (e.g., the ring was an assailant holding a weapon and approaching the victim) than a neutral vignette (e.g., the ring was a person holding a sandwich).…”

Alexithymia and Facial Mimicry in Response to Infant and Adult Affect-Expressive Faces

“…An individual’s facial mimicry facilitates affect recognition of other faces ( Hess and Fischer, 2014 ). It is already known that verbal and non-verbal emotion recognition are impaired in alexithymia ( Lane et al, 1996 ; Senior et al, 2020 ). Furthermore, in studies with autistic participants, impairments in facial emotion recognition can be better explained by the construct of alexithymia than by autism ( Ola and Gullon-Scott, 2020 ; Cook et al, 2013 ).…”