The perception of changing emotion expressions

Abstract

The utility of recognising emotion expressions for coordinating social interactions is well documented, but less is known about how continuously changing emotion displays are perceived. The nonlinear dynamic systems view of emotions suggests that mixed emotion expressions in the middle of displays of changing expressions may be decoded differently depending on the expression origin. Hysteresis is when an impression (e.g., disgust) persists well after changes in facial expressions that favour an alternative impression (e.g., anger). In expression changes based on photographs (Study 1) and avatar images (Studies 2a-c, 3), we found hystereses particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually similar (e.g., anger-disgust). We also consistently found uncertainty (neither emotion contributing to the mixed expression was perceived), which was more prevalent in expression sequences than in static images. Uncertainty occurred particularly in changes between emotions that are perceptually dissimilar, such as changes between happiness and negative emotions. This suggests that the perceptual similarity of emotion expressions may determine the extent to which hysteresis and uncertainty occur. Both hysteresis and uncertainty effects support our premise that emotion decoding is state dependent, a characteristic of dynamic systems. We propose avenues to test possible underlying mechanisms.

Hysteresis as an Implicit Prior in Tactile Spatial Decision Making

“…Contrarily, the amount of variance explained by hysteresis at threshold did not significantly differ compared to each of the other current distances (see Table 3), but when pin distances were at threshold, we found a trend for hysteresis to explain more variance than the pin distances (Figure 5). This agrees with recent studies showing that the effect of hysteresis is especially pronounced when sensory information is weak [20] or ambiguous [22].…”

“…Thus, staying with the same decision should be most evident for threshold stimuli, which we revealed in the present study. This process is obviously more efficient than evaluating each pin distance independently from any prior information, especially when sensory information is weak [20] or ambiguous [22]. It is rather surprising that hysteresis in the present study only accounted for up to 5.8 to 6.9% of the decision variance (see Table 2; ‘threshold−1’, ‘threshold’, ‘threshold+1’).…”

“…In these studies, stimuli were presented in ascending and descending orders (i.e., staircase procedure). Thus, an impact of hysteresis was demonstrated for motion perception [17], [18], object recognition [14], [19], spatial frequency integration [20], number discrimination [21], as well as perception of emotional expressions [22] and categorisation of ambiguous sentences [23]. Additionally, for the motor system, it has been shown that hysteresis affects grasping behavior [24] and motor planning [25].…”

Body Actions Change the Appearance of Facial Expressions

“…In Experiment 1 participants performed 50 comfortable reaches (followed by the emotion identification block) and then 50 uncomfortable reaches (followed by another emotion identification block). The ordering of action type was reversed in Experiment 2, given that mood induction might have a long duration and the perception of changing facial expressions is affected by hysteresis [43].…”

Emotions, Psychological Structure of

“…Researchers have found that throughout ontology, emotional components are increasingly differentiated and integrated to attractor states in relation to particular contexts (e.g., Camras, 2011;Fogel et al, 1992). Studies have been conducted to identify the temporal dynamic of the attractor state for specific emotions (e.g., Hoeksma et al, 2007), and researchers have examined phase shifts between attractor states (e.g., in emotion perception; Sacharin et al, 2012).…”